The Year of Me...

First of all, Happy New Year. I hope everyone had a great time over the holidays. I was back home in the wonderful state of Michigan and then back here in the city for new years eve. It was all a blast and this is literally the first time I've had a moment to myself to sit down and write a blog since over a week before christmas. One thing I love about the holidays is spending time with people I don't get to see a whole lot. Nothing beats it actually. That said, I'm going on my annual post-new years-detox period. I drank like a fish and as a result I need to let me body recover for at least a month. Last year I did the same thing and it was awesome. I'm hoping to make it to two months with no alcohol this year but we'll see how that goes.

I don't really make resolutions, I just like to keep renewing the old ones that I never accomplish. After working out for 7 months straight last year, I slowly fell off the wagon starting at the end of July until I stopped hitting the gym completely after I got really sick for a week or so in October. It's been a couple months since I've worked out or gone for a run and it needs to change now. I lost about 10 pounds of muscle and it has subsequently turned to fat. I'm not fat fat, just that all the muscle I had turned into fat. People used to say I looked big over the summer but now that has turned into me looking skinny. Anyways, that'll change soon.

Aside from that, it seems my life has sort of been stagnant for a long time, pretty much since I finished film school, which for all intents and purposes, was two years ago. Since then I have moved around a lot. I haven't had steady work and I'm feeling the ridiculous crush of this depression America has slipped into. I'm convinced that this year something positive will happen. I always say that and always think that so I guess it's bound to happen at some point. They say the reason the Indian (native americans, not real indians) Rain Dance used to work was because they would keep dancing until it finally rained. Well I suppose it is the same with positive thinking. I'm sure that this is the year though. I can feel it.

Anyways, I have a lot to blog about including my end of the year summaries and best of 2008 lists. I'll get on those asap. I just wanted to let everyone know I'm back and you can start checking back regularly again. As always, go big or go home...

-M, p, z & shredder

ps - my favorite show, Psych, is starting again this friday at 10 on USA. They air half the season in the summer and the other half in the winter. It's really an awesome show so do yourself a favor and watch it.

Basketball Jones...

I just read this article about a 73 year old playing college ball. It's pretty amazing. He's probably in better shape than I am. I was just reviewing some old blogs from Decembers past and I usually have slumped in my workouts and have grown pudgy around the midsection. Unlike years past however, while I have slumped on the workouts, I have actually just gotten skinny. Going through pictures from over the summer I realized that I had gotten pretty big. Not huge, but I was much stronger than I am now. Usually when I stop working out I gain weight for obvious reasons but it seems that I haven't been eating as much as I used to, so I've lost muscle mass and gotten skinny. I'm in the mid 150s now which sucks because my ideal weight is around 165.

I guess my point is that I'm not going to wait until new years to make my resolution this year. I'm just going to get back to working out. I'd probably be more inclined if my gym wasn't so ghetto. I realize I've never taken pictures of it like I said I would so next time I go, I'll prove it to you.

After all if this guy can ball at 73, I could at least be ripped at 26.

-M, p, z & shredder

Ooops...

So clearly every day for the rest of the week was a bit of a reach. Actually I wasn't in town for a couple days and didn't get a chance to blog before I left. Oh well. This one's going to be short but I wanted to blog so it wouldn't turn into another 15 days between blogs. Recently I decided to try and lose some more weight and my friend Kurt also decided he was going to lose some at the same time. So what better way to lose weight than have a competition. If it works for The Biggest Loser it can work for us. We had our weigh in last Tuesday and have until this coming Wednesday (the 28th) to lose as much weight as we can. It has proven a bit difficult for me.

Usually when I need to lose weight I can just run off 15 pounds in a couple weeks and that's it. But since I have been trying to keep in shape all year thus far and have added some muscle, it's proving difficult to get rid of the fat. We had a huge dinner before our weigh in and after eating 2.5 pounds of food, my official weigh in was 172 and his was like 167.5. My original goal was to get it down to 160 but with only a few days to go and lots of drinking this weekend, I don't think I'll make it. As of this morning I was at 164 but after the keg we are about to get, I doubt that'll be the same. The only good thing about this competition is that we are always hanging out and drinking together so no one really has an advantage.

Anyways, I'll keep you posted on how it turns out. Speaking of "oops," has anyone seen the Real World lately? I hate what the show has become and haven't watched a whole season since Return to New York (greatest season ever) but I saw some of an episode that had me dying the other day. It was ridiculous. I couldn't find it on youtube for some insane reason but I am sure if you look somewhere you can find it. This dude Joey is insane and pretty much has the funniest drunken tantrum rage I have ever seen in my life.

As always, go big or go home. Keep your ear to the grindstone

-M, p, z & shredder

oh ps - if you find a clip of it send me the link and I'll post it. it deserves it's own blog.

Sun and Beer...

Clearly I haven't blogged in a while. I have actually been on a bender. Or rather, the bender to end all benders. Me and a couple friends made some new friends just as the weather was starting to get nicer and the next thing we knew we were drinking every day. Waking up, taking care of business as fast as we could only so we could start drinking at the earliest possible time and not sleeping until we passed out at 3. It was nice. It reminded me of the last year(s) of undergrad. Usually I feel too old to drink more than one night in a row but for some reason I just trucked on through.












Brown Guy said it best, "Jesus Christ, Marty. I don't care what you say, that IS NOT the Fountain of Youth. (Get your old a$$ down from there!)"



Care free fun is something that everyone should get to relive before they get too old to do it. Not like I had any real hardships or anything that being carefree was an escape from but, an relief from monotony is always a good thing. My life is about to take yet another move this summer when I get back to NYC and it got me thinking that I am really excited to be settled for a bit. I have been moving around for so long that I forgot what it was to be living in one place with a single purpose. Though obviously my life is still in the air, no job, no apartment, no roommates, no idea about anything really, it will still be nice to be living in a place I can call home. At least for a while. Not sure how long I will be in NYC but definitely as long as it takes to establish myself as a person in the film industry. Not talking Oscars, just enough credits where I can get a job that is fun and doesn't include the word "assistant."

In other news, nothing is new in my life. I got some new shorts but thats about it. I have been deliberating if I should lose a little more weight for the past few weeks. On one hand I am at 165 and I really like the weight that I'm at. But on the other I have been working out for 4 months now and my abs are a lot tighter than my rice tummy would suggest. The problem with losing more weight is that I think I look too skinny. Like I did in high school. Granted I am 40 pounds heavier than when I graduated but still, it's such a fine line between being just right and being too skinny. I decided that I am going to get down to 158 and that should be good. It should take me about 2 weeks to get there but I think that's going to be my ideal compromised weight. Not too skinny, but also no pinching an inch on my stomach.

Other than that I'm out. Stay up. I'll try and get back on a roll but we'll see how that goes. As always, go big...

-M, p, z (she's growing her hair back!!!!) & shredder

oh ps - Iron Man. Go. Now.

Run Forrest, Run...

While I was in DC over new years I had a conversation with Brown Guy about running. I used to run for 1 mile and call it quits. I wasn't necessarily dead tired after a mile, but I was bored and satisfied and sufficiently out of breath that I would call it a day. I went for a short run in his gym and was back at his apartment in about 15 minutes. He asked why I only run 1 mile and I told him the above reasoning. He proceeded to tell me that I could run 10 miles. I told him he was insane and wondered who in their right mind, aside from some dude in Kenya running a marathon, would want to run 10 miles. I told him 1 was my usual and 2 was my max. I hated cross country running and never even really liked track for that matter. But recently I've realized that it may not be all that ridiculous.

This year is turning out to be the year of healthy choices for me. Aside from my diet change, I've also upped my usual runs from 1 to 2 miles and Friday I decided to push it to 3 miles. I was definitely tired. There was also no way I could have possibly made it 10 miles but I wouldn't doubt 4 or even 5. I've also realized that what I eat has a direct correlation to the amount of energy I have at the gym. Sounds obvious right, but I have never actually put it into practice before so only now can I really see the light. In the past I would eat like I used to do normally, nothing bad for you, just lots of indian food, mostly rice and chicken and vegetables, and then I would try and run on that. Bad idea. It was part of the reason I was tired. Now I have found the wonderful joy of cliff bars and yogurt and it's not hard for me to run a few miles.













This is what came up when I googled running...





The reason I mention this is that no matter what I do (not including a drastic change) I am going to weigh in the mid 160s. I'm currently at 162. Still I actually dipped almost to 160 but that was sort of an anomaly. With my height 160-170 is pretty normal and my previous desired weight of 160 was erroneous because I forgot to take into account that muscle weighs more than fat and as I burn fat and gain muscle it's only natural I'm going to gain some weight back. I guess there's not really a point to this blog but I would like to know how far people have ran. I might have done more before, but currently since I can't remember ever doing so I think 3 miles is the furthest I have ever run. I know some people who read this ran cross country and I'd be interested to know not only how far but what people's times were. It took me about 27 minutes to run 3 miles. Not very good. It's averaging a 9 minute mile. Anybody gonna beat that?

Go big

-M, p, z & shredder

oh ps - State of the Union tonight. Pretty excited that this is GWs last year in office. Also, just a reminder that Super Tuesday is in 8 days so if you people are fortunate enough to live in a state that has a primary/caucus that matters (still mad at Michigan) please go vote. Spend this week figuring out who for and do it.

Slowing Down...

So further evidence that I'm getting older is the fact that everything is just that much harder on my body. About a month ago or so I noticed I was starting to pack on the pounds and while I wasn't close to hitting my fat peak when I was 182 lbs, I was at a slightly unsettling 174. I decided I needed to lose some weight immediately and figured 10 pounds this month would be enough. When I was at 182 I was 22 years old and it took me 3 weeks of running a mile every other day to lose 15 lbs. This was only about 3 years ago so I thought it should take about as long to lose 10 lbs. It hasn't. I've only lost 8 lbs and to do that I've not only been running more than a mile just about everyday, but also I changed my diet. I have 2 days left before I leave for DC for new years and hopefully I can lose those pounds.

It's strange to start thinking about my health when it seems like just yesterday when I was in high school eating 3 bags of chips, cookies and a coke for lunch. But I'm getting older and if I don't start doing it now it will only get harder the older I get. Now I have to cut back on carbs, I try and not put salt into anything I cook, I have only been drunk once in the last 2 months and I cut out fast food which turned out to be the hardest thing. I have never really been one to eat a lot of fast food, it's not that great and it extremely bad for you. But as I had pretty much been living in my car and on the road and city to city from August to November I had grown accustomed to getting a regular fix of chicken nuggets and spicy chicken sandwiches. It's been a while since I've had any fast food and while I feel great I find myself craving the aforementioned golden nuggets of pure deliciousness more often that not.













Also as a reminder of my age, I was knocked over playing basketball 2 days ago and my back and ass were sore the entire day yesterday. I had to take 2 Tylenol to not wince every time I moved. It was ridiculous. I have never been so sore from one seemingly innocuous fall. I remember recently feeling the same after a trip to Florida when I got pounded by some waves and I vowed to regain my body of my youth by falling a lot and building up tolerance for it but that's a pretty lame idea. Falling sucks and I don't really want to do it anymore.

Anyways, I'm going to try and get out the few blogs I have been to lazy to write before I take off to DC on Sunday so look for many blogs over the next few days. Go big and stuff..

-M, p, z & shredder

oh ps - Last year one of my 'resolutions' was to cut out all meat but chicken and seafood. I have done that pretty well. I had a few slip ups when I ate things that I was unaware that had pork in them and also amended the resolution for include turkey. But other than maybe 5 meals I stuck to my convictions and it's pretty awesome. Chicken, even though it's the greatest thing on the planet, is also not that great for you. So for this year I plan on slowly phasing it out. Eating more seafood and less chicken. I am going to try and cut back from eating it pretty much 7 days a week (usually twice a day) to no more than 7 meals a week. It sounds like it's still a lot but if you think about it there's 21 meals a week and I'm only having chicken in 33 percent of those meals. Hopefully I will have about 10 that include various types of seafood and turkey and then at least 4 or 5 that are vegetarian.