Stronger but, another weekend, movies
2 weeks ago I started a creatine supplementation program again. I took creatine 6 or 7 years ago and got some impressive results. My bench press that was stuck at 225-235 for the longest time, shot up to 275. I was able to jump higher in volleyball. Dunking a volleyball on a basketball rim became much easier. I got bigger, my weight creeped into the low 200’s. However my knee injury also occurred while I was on creatine. I equated creatine with the injury. However when my strength started to fade after being off of it for awhile I jumped back on the wagon for a bit. However shortly after starting again I got what I believe was a small kidney stone and I stopped.
Since my creatine days I went through several years of really struggling with my right knee after 2 surgeries. Anything impact related caused me pain. However eventually with the help of flaxseed oil and leg strengthening routines my knee has come around and over the last 2 years has been about as good as I could hope for. If you would have asked me 5years ago if I thought I would able to ever start up a consistent running program again I would have laughed.
Well for some reason I got the bug to try it again. My logic was nowadays I work out harder/smarter and eat better than I did 6 years ago. I was curious what sort of results I could get under these conditions. Of course I also had anxiety because of the negative things that happened last time I was on the stuff. Well 2 weeks into it I have had a mix of results. I already put on 5 lbs of mostly water weight. With creatine it makes your muscles hold more water. It is very important to drink tons of water when you are using it. My inadequate water consumption was probably what contributed to the kidney stone last time. Last Friday at the gym I put up 255, the first time I did that amount of weight in a year or more. However my bad knee has also been crankier than normal. I ran 3 miles yesterday with Ali without incident but during down time I have been having more pains than normal. Needless to say I am monitoring things closely. I am cutting back my dosage of creatine to see if it helps matters. I don’t want to sacrifice running or volleyball for getting some extra pounds on my lifts. I am striving to find the happy medium that allows me to get the best of both worlds. Right now as I am sitting here my knee feels ok. Of course Ali thinks the creatine is a bad idea but hey I want to give it a whirl. If this goes bad maybe I will try Endothil CR.
The weekend came and went. They go very quickly and they seem to run into each other. Even though we are constantly doing things for the most part, things still seem very routine, very mundane, very blah. As an effort to mix up the routine, I actually started reading a book, the DaVinci Code. So far I am enjoying it. On Sunday we actually took the time to watch 3 movies. We say Supersize Me, The Big One and the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie.
Supersize me was very entertaining. I admit that as healthy as I try to be, I still will drive through McDonald’s once or twice a month. Typically even after just having McD’s once, you have the side effects of feeling like shit shortly after eating it. This guy ate nothing but McD’s for a solid month. His transformation was staggering. He gained 25 pounds and his blood test numbers went from super healthy to dangerously bad in that same timeframe. The repeated images of all the fat asses walking this planet drove home the point of just what a mess our society is. It really is sad to see the majority of America be classified as clinically obese.
The Big One is a Michael Moore flick about corporate America and how they have no problems shafting American workers by closing down domestic plants and outsourcing operations to overseas locations with dirt cheap labor in order to pad already astronomical profits. Love him or hate him, you can’t deny that Moore has balls. It is funny as hell when he is presenting corporate stuffed shirts with Downsizer of the Year awards and then he shakes their hand and leaves. However Moore also could have been one of the extras in Supersize Me, he is a big fat f.
Charlie and the chocolate factory, the original always was a strange movie for me. I remember seeing it as a kid and being disturbed by it. Gene Wilder came off as evil to me and the things that happened to those kids was scary to me. The new version follows the same general style. Johhny Depp is equally disturbing and I felt like I was almost watching a white Michael Jackson with pale skin and a dutch boy haircut. The movie of course had modern special effects. It was watchable, but again, if I had a kid I wouldn’t feel good about him watching it. It’s just weird.