Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

At the limit

It seems I am stuck at around 167 pounds. Conventional wisdom is that if you want to grow muscle and get stronger, you have to eat more. I’ve been eating more for this entire year, and yet I’ve been hovering at the 167 pounds mark for the past months. Still adding weight on the barbell, though, thankfully.

I guess that’s the problem with bulking: what got you to a certain weight level, won’t take you any further. My body has reached an equilibrium with my current food intake amount. To increase weight further, I must eat even more. And honestly, I am tapped out.

Because I don’t want to become the guy who is obsessed about eating. I have to remember this whole weightlifting thing is about health and longevity. It should not dominate my life. The goal isn’t to maximize muscle mass or step on a bodybuilding competition stage. To eat any more than I already am will become a chore. And it won’t be comfortable, too (all that digestion). Hard pass.

Getting fat - dirty bulk - is easy: I’d simply eat all the ice cream I could ever want, every single day. That’s not my goal, obviously. Clean bulking is incredibly difficult. To get enough calories by eating the right foods is not only time consuming (fiber and protein is not as caloric dense as a piece of cheesecake), but also expensive (cookies are cheap). There’s a limit, and I’ve personally reached mine.

At least until they figure out muscle protein synthesis in a pill. What Ozempic is to fat loss.

Freeze that meat!

I can confirm that chicken meat absolutely keeps when frozen. No problem at all. Go to your local Costco and buy it in bulk.

Of course you probably didn't need me to confirm this. There’s nothing wrong with frozen meat! Did you know that fresh tuna comes into the docks frozen? I saw frozen blocks of bluefin tuna ready for sale at the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo.

Today I thawed chicken thighs that were bought 10 months ago out of the freezer. Eight minutes on each side in a fry pan, and the chicken did not taste any different from the day I bought it. (From a Costco, of course.) Good thing chicken is produced here in the States, because you know damn well if it were imported, our current President will find a way to put a tariff on it.

And if he were going to, I’d be first in line at Costco to buy a whole bulk for freezing. And if I were to ever afford a house with a garage, there will for sure be a chest freezer unit in there for long term meat storage. Maybe a few guns and bullet boxes too (in the garage, not the freezer), if I were to dive deep into the doomsday prepping rabbit hole.

In these inflationary times, I’m afraid it’s chicken and pork only as the source of meat protein. We are priced out of beef and fish. Bluefin tuna sushi is delicious, no doubt, but having money in the wallet is also delicious.

Pork is not a consolation! You can never go wrong with pan-fried pork belly, Korean BBQ style. My only problem is that it creates a bloody mess with all the smoke and splatter. When you live in a tiny studio apartment like I do, that stuff lingers for quite bit afterwards. A guy can only dream of a properly separated kitchen.

I like fries

I remember the first time I had French fries as kid. It was of course at a McDonald’s. I was hooked to that crunchy and salty goodness ever since . If I’m ever heinous enough to be on death row, or unlucky enough to catch a rapidly deteriorating terminal illness, my last meal would definitely be French fries, with a side of fried chicken.

For heath reasons I seldom indulge in the French delicacy. A few times per years is the maximum. Nowadays also for price reasons, I am skipping the fries when I buy burgers. $5 for a scoop of fries is downright robbery when it’s just a bunch of potatoes and saturated fat. The margins on that has got to be up there with soft drinks.

Good news is, modern technology has made making fries at home easy and almost as good as the outside stuff. An air fryer is all you need, plus the requisite multi-pound bag of frozen pre-cut fries from Costco. Entirely self-contained, no oil splatters. Admittedly this still cannot beat the absolute freshest batch right out of a proper oil vat, but it’s pretty damn close. For the price difference, it’s unbeatable.

The trick then is to buy only the burger from McDonald’s, or the chicken tenders from Wingstop, as takeout. Have the air fryer at home set on a timer, and you’ve now got fresh fries to go along with soon as you arrive. Even better: I can have fries anytime I want without leaving the house. The kid me would have fainted at the thought of such joyous reality.

Healthy can be cheap

The greatest-of-all-time (GOAT) in terms of comfort food for me has got to be fried eggs. Pair it with some rice and roaster seaweed, and you’ve got the perfect poverty peasant meal. I am lucky to have income above the poverty line, and that combination still remains a constant meal choice for me. Love it.

Whoever said it is expensive to eat healthy is a lie. Rice, beans, and lentils are exceedingly cheap per pound. And it’s got your main three macros covered: carbohydrates, protein, and fiber. Beg at a street corner for a few hours, and you might be able to add an egg or two to that mix.

What does get expensive is variety. No one wants to eat rice, beans, and lentils for three meals a day, every single day, three sixty five days a year. A variety of healthy foods can get pricey. Especially if you’re like me and prefer the nicer kinds of fish (raw salmon is the GOAT), and the most prime USDA cuts of beef. Sweet potatoes are definitely pricer than lentils.

If I were indeed poorest of poor, I’d have no issues eating the same cheap thing for all the meals. Blaming poor health outcomes on the high cost of groceries completely forsakes the agency of a person. Even peasants have choices they can make. Of course it’s tough to eat without variety. I hate it too! But that’s the sacrifice one has to make for the sake of health.

The discipline to eat monotonously also comes in handy whenever I need to enact some austerity into my spending. That’s why eggs, rice, and seaweed will never go out of style for me.

I prayed for this

For the longest time I’ve wished for Costco to offer salmon poke. They’ve only ever done tuna, but not anymore! On a recent trip to Costco I was ecstatic to find a Sriracha flavored salmon poke. Even better, it costs less per pound than the equivalent tuna. I get my preferred fish and I save money. Cannot be beat! Pairing the poke with rice is absolutely fantastic.

It seems I am stuck at 166 pounds body weight for past month. (I weight myself every morning soon as I leave the bed.) Looks like I’ve reached a wall on this slow bulking plan. The math is simple: just eat more. But in exercise it’s slightly more complicated. I’m already eating as much as I comfortably want to eat. Adding more calories would mean having the act of eating be something I actually have to stress about. And I definitely do not want that.

The amount of calories that got me to this current weight isn’t sufficient to keep the number on the scale increasing. Makes sense: I need more calories to sustain this new weight. Therefore the more I gain, the more I have to eat to simply maintain. What got me here won’t get me to the next level up.

Obviously when I say bulking, I mean gaining lean mass. It would be enjoyably easy if it were just a matter of straight poundage. All I’d have to do is mash down a few crumbl cookies every day. Before long I’d be heavier and flabbier at the same time. Conversely, gaining muscle whilst limited fat gain is way tougher to execute. I really don’t want to add another protein shake into the daily rotation.

I think a solid end goal for me, at 5 foot 10 inches tall, is about 175 pounds. That’s a sizable amount of muscle mass, but not overly high to make it difficult to maintain in terms of food intake. Nine pounds is a significant amount of weight to gain when you want it to be as much lean tissue as possible.

Bottom line: got to eat more. Pass the salmon.

Cooking for others

This era of high food prices is really causing me to rethink about outside food consumption. I don’t see a reason to pay $30 for a simple meal when I can make that same dish at home for cheaper, healthier, and with more meat. (As a consistently lifter of weights, more protein is always good.) The skills I learn cooking for myself and the recipes I keep will last an entire lifetime. The kitchen smells great, too.

The only tradeoff? Time commitment, of course.

Another joy to be found in cooking at home is in sharing the food with others. There’s a great motherly pride when someone eats the food that you’ve made and they absolutely love it. No wonder parents everywhere get their feelings hurt when their kids tell them a particular dish tastes not so great. All that love and attention in making the food, crushed in a moment of child-like honesty.

Is Thanksgiving not the epitome of sharing this kind of love? No one bakes a turkey for themselves (even a high protein eat like me have no need for a 20-pounder); it’s all about doing it for the culinary enjoyment of others. It would be entirely different - and loses its meaning - if an entire Thanksgiving feast is made to order. The time commitment is the point. Though the least the non-cookers could do is clean up afterwards.

This coming Thursday I hope you get the privilege to cook for those close to you.

Get the fat

This may be stating the obvious, but two percent Greek yogurt tastes so much better than the non-fat version. Much like how whole milk is the only true milk out there. Those of you drinking two percent milk might as well be drinking water, because that’s what you are buying.

It’s a shame the Costco Kirkland brand only sells non-fat Greek yogurt. For the tasty stuff I have to shell out more money for the Fage brand. In an era of everything-cost-way-more-than-it-use-to, I aim to save a buck here and there when I can. Buying in bulk at Costco with its house brand is a great way to execute that strategy. Alas, it can’t fulfill everything. At least I get 5% cash back at Whole Foods (where I buy Fage Greek yogurt).

It’s occurring to me more and more than when I look at (the high) menu prices of restaurants, that perhaps I should make the same food at home instead. For example: I have strong affection for Korean food. When I see my favorite dish - beef short rib soup - is encroaching into the 30 dollars territory, it’s time to learn how to cook it myself. Save a bit of cash, and it’s probably healthier, too (way less sodium).

I’m reminder of my friend who lives over in Switzerland. Eating out prices have always been expensive there, so whatever dish she desires to eat, she learns to make it. Who would have thought that I would come to face the same situation here in America. Or perhaps it’s just me? I guess a lot of people out there are making more money than me to afford restaurant food frequently.