Eat Clen, Tren Hard

Despite fifteen years in the fitness industry, I’m pretty sure I look more like a gym’s accountant than a trainer or coach at one. Even the most flattering descriptions I’ve ever gotten in the press — “a lean, athletic build developed from years of working out regularly—picture Bruce Lee, not Arnold Schwarzenegger” — make clear I’m not exactly intimidatingly large. So perhaps it goes without saying that I’ve never before taken steroids.

It was from that place of ignorance that I was so surprised by some recent anabolic steroid usage facts:

Surveys indicate that between 1-3 million Americans use steroids. For context, there are about 60 million people with gym memberships in the country, and 2/3 of those people never go to the gym, taking the number of actual gymgoers down to about 20 million. If we assume that the people using steroids are actually working out, that means that between 1 in 20 and 1 in 6 people you see in the gym are on steroids.

Especially given that survey response data tends to underestimate illegal activity —which people are understandably reluctant to report — it seems waaaaay more people are juicing than I would have assumed.

Years ago, when I lived in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, I was a member at Mid-City Gym, an institution in the bodybuilding world. (If you’ve ever watched the classic documentary Pumping Iron – and I highly recommend it, regardless of your interest in fitness — all of the New York scenes were filmed there.) Though I was mostly doing weird functional fitness stuff in the corner, rather than leg pressing and bicep curling with the gigantic regulars, I was still offered steroids by some random dude in the locker room at least once a week. Still, in my CrossFit NYC days, and now at Equinox, I tend to assume almost nobody is on drugs. Yet based on the numbers, it looks like I’ve been naive.

Fortunately, given my own fitness goals, I don’t think I’m much missing out. I’m not looking to get huge, nor do I have any pro sports pennants I’m gunning for. Though, as one colleague here pointed out, if I do decide to do a cycle one day, I’m in the clear. At my advancing age, I can just call it “testosterone replacement therapy,” and pick up prescriptions legally from any number of overpriced and slightly sketchy anti-aging medical practices here in NYC.

As I said, I don’t have any immediate plans to that end. But if, years from now, I’m the only guy in the nursing home with 18-inch biceps and a six pack: you heard it here first.

January 15, 2020

Never Be Royals

I’ll be honest: I’ve never really been that interested in the Royal Family, and I’ve only followed in passing the Megan Markle / Prince Harry departure drama. As an American, I don’t read British tabloids, so it was difficult for me to evaluate the whole situation. Was Markle really getting a raw deal in the press, or might the whole thing be overblown?

Until, that is, I came across this Buzzfeed article, comparing coverage of Megan Markle and Kate Middleton. In the same publications. For doing literally the exact same things. After which, all I can say is: boy do I fully endorse the move.

Good luck to them both, and to baby whatever-his-or-her-name-is. Now back to ignoring the Royals per usual. God knows we have plenty of disasters to keep an eye on right here at home.

Quota

Despite my consistent 2020 start, it appears I couldn’t quite wrangle posts here the last few days. The culprit: a ton of writing and editing I’ve been doing on other projects.

Apparently, I only have some fixed number of words in me each day. Once I hit that hard limit, my brain is cooked.

Sadly, I still have a bunch of other writing left to do, so I’m only popping in briefly, sparing this hundred or so words to try and keep the new/old blogging habit alive. Now back to the salt mines!

App-etizing

I remember, years ago, reading (possibly in the excellent Design of Everyday Things?) about an architect who designed a college campus without any paved paths between the buildings. Instead, he simply planted grass everywhere, then came back a year later, and paved over the grassless paths worn down where people had actually walked.

I was thinking of that story this morning, as I looked at my phone. As I wrote about recently, I tend to work best when I can sit down and focus. But, sadly, my schedule is too fractured, and (even with my best attempts at streamlining and focusing) my to-do list too long to make everything fit. So, this year, I’ve been trying to do more on my phone, wedging tasks into the interstitial chunks of my day. I journaled on the subway ride to work this morning, for example, and I’m banging out this post on the small screen while on a quick afternoon coffee break.

As a result, I’m suddenly using a bunch of apps that I hadn’t regularly before. Which meant it was probably time to rearrange my home screen.

But rather than my normal approach – trying to plan the theoretically perfect layout – I’m instead taking a page from that college architect: each time I use an app, I drag it to the top left of my home screen. I’m planning to keep it up for the balance of the week. After which, I should have my apps organized by actual priority, sorted into the paths of my real-world daily use.

Photo coming once that’s done. I’m curious to see how it ends up.

New Year, Old Diet?

M: Too many free radicals, that’s your problem.

BOND: Free radicals, sir?

M: Yes. They’re toxins that destroy the body and the brain. Caused by eating too much red meat and white bread, and too many dry martinis!

BOND: Then I shall cut out the white bread, sir.

– Never Say Never Again

January 6, 2020