Eating and Why We Get to and Others Don't

Just a forewarning on this one I went a little more primal with the language than usual, use your discretion. So the "We" I mention in the title is those of us that do heavy resistance training, competitive athletics and lift competitively. This will just be a quick post, or as quick as I can make it, about why we get to consume all those calories and not have to worry about it after training. To the story of this past Saturday, we had roughly 10 people go to a friend's gym in Hopkinton, Mass, Crossfit Resilience  I know about every one of you is saying "holy shit I thought you hated that stuff." Trust me I'm OK with throwing this out there for 2 reasons; 1 because we rarely end up doing anything that's "CrossFit" and 2 Dan Atkinson, the man in charge of training over there, is a beast and super smart guy, smart enough to not do any of the really dumb shit that you see from some places.

Back to the story, this past Saturday 10 of us got a great lift in. Mucho PRs going down and lots of muscle being built with the smell of chalk and sweat to accompany it. Sounds pretty appetizing doesn't it? Power Snatches, Deadlifts (some with chains) and more were being smoked for 3 hrs+. Prying, Front Flips and Log Press were just of few of things that shot my CNS and destroyed me on the day, so did Sumo Deadlifts with chains but I was looking forward to that.

To the point about why we get to eat all that, because after we did get to the local deli and mow on a great quanitity of food, my own included BBQ steak sandwich, fries, home fries Catherine didn't want, toast Catherine also didn't want, and a final Buffalo Chicken tender my buddy Mike didn't want. Trust me I wasn't the only one getting after it at the table like this. All the meanwhile ALL did not give a rats ass about what would happen because we have all built up good muscle tissue and were heavily depleted from calories...that made sense right? Lean muscle tissue burns the hell out of calories, especially shortly after a big lift like we had Saturday. Now if all you do is go to the gym on the treadmill for 20 minutes, use green resistance bands and lift pink weights you don't get to do this if you don't want to worry about what your body will do in terms of weight or body fat.

Let me be clear though, because you lift heavy weight does not mean you get to eat candy every day and not worry about your body hating you. One of my first mentors in this industry up at Maine, Dan Nichol, told me if you put garbage in the tank you will get garbage out. This was said to me when I was still up in the 280 and obese part of the universe. Eat protein, especially things that once had a face (thanks for that one Mike) and plenty of fruits and veggies, get strong and then you can eat a meal like I did and....(pause for effect) and not give a FUCK! You can also eat what you want and not care if you would prefer that lifestyle that's your choice and I'm not stopping you, but just in case that's not your lifestyle then consider those things above.

That's all I got today guys, if you have yet to, get the hell out there and get after it!