Dr. Tyler; Captain America

that's awesome that you finally made that connection. the biggest thing for you to do now is to find out how to do something that's sustainable for the rest of your life, not just a "diet"

yeah, holmes and his gigantic hog earned the mvp. it didn't have anything to do with the harrison play. if the game ends 20-7, harrison's the mvp.

hyperbole he hit the guy to keep him down. then, he baited the guy into standing up and plastered him. again, it's friggin football. you do realize that offensive linemen don't just like, caress the defensive lineman en route to grabbing their jerseys, right? they punch inside their numbers. harrison was doing pretty much the same thing, only he did it to the guy's back. and he got flagged for it.

oh really. after the play was over, eh? considering the camera angle, how could you tell? did you see the ref blow the whistle? did you see everyone else stop? no? he was blocking the guy. bfd. it's football, not chess.

yeah, i usually eat a pretty decent sized breakfast. this morning i had a bowl of cereal with skim milk and a meal replacement protein bar (310 cals for the bar, about 200 for the cereal/milk)

turkey bacon is where it's at

he punched the guy in the shoulder pads and then blocked his ass to the ground again when he decided to try to get back up. it's football. he was the man harrison was assigned to block, and harrison blocked him.

yeah dude, i was a 38 bordering on 40, and now i'm a 28. it's sick to watch. as for the starvation mode, it's not a matter of a few hours imo. i never went into starvation mode after not eating for like, four hours or anything; that's kind of absurd. for me, my metabolism went out of control when i started running consistently and i only hit starvation mode when i had several days of 1000-1200 cals (sick days or just overdoing the diet).

just stay away from the salmonella ftw

also, at risk of looking like a douche for posting twice in a row, those of you who think harrison should've been ejected need to get ahold of yourselves. this isn't fucking chess. on punt coverage, if you stand your ass up, you have to expect to get leveled by a blocker, as well he did. oh em gee, harrison "punched" him? on what, his fucking shoulder pads? give me a break. if you think that's worthy of an ejection, go back to watching tennis. gtfo.

http://www.nfl.com/videos?videoId=09000d5d...goryId=featured Watch this angle; Warner actually fumbled the ball himself, he never had possession of the ball going forward.

to be honest, the biggest thing about the starvation effect is that it makes it tougher to lose, rather than easier to gain. i dunno if that makes sense. i never had trouble with gaining weight if i dropped under 1500 calories in a day, but i guess if i did it repeatedly day after day, it might make me hit a plateau. and yeah, basically you've got it right. you're gonna lose weight because you're cutting calories and burning more cals, but you'd be putting on muscle because you're lifting harder and gaining muscle naturally. you seem like you've got the handle on it, the general theory is pretty sound. just don't do what i did and stop lifting because you became enamored with the weight loss, because you WILL lose muscle if you do that. also, you've got to make sure you're at least getting enough food that you're able to recover from your weightlifting if you're feeling way too sore after your workouts. for that sort of thing, i'd recommend increasing protein; i drink those awful whey shakes and eat protein bars.

to be honest, there's NOTHING wrong with breads or whole wheat pasta or whatever. the only problem with it is if you eat more than a standard serving size (i.e. what i used to do, which was empty the package) or eat ONLY carbs. carbs should be eaten every day, just like proteins and yes, even fats. you just have to balance and not eat too much. a lot of dieting is common sense, it's like, hmmmmm should i eat myself a turkey ham and cheese sandwich for lunch -- following standard serving sizes, that could be around 300-400 calories, which is a reasonable amount for lunch -- or should i bring a piece of pizza? stuff like that. yeah, you can cheat every once in a while, no doubt. just account for it and realize you've just got to work that much harder the next day. also, on the fruits and veggies thing, keep in mind that most fruits and veggies have VERY little caloric content. that's a good thing, yes, but it can also be a really bad thing in terms of if you're only eating them, you're not going to hit your calorie goals. i actually turned off the SP meal plan because i didn't need it, but i used their nutrition section and added my long term goal, how many pounds i wanted to lose a week, and how active i was (which turned out to be roughly burning 3500-4500 calories a week), and they spat out a number for a calorie range i should be hitting every day, in addition to approximately how many grams of fats, carbs, etc. i needed. you'd be surprised just how much of those things you can have, but you'd also be surprised how quickly your numbers climb when you don't follow serving sizes.

also, 2 pounds per week is generally an attainable goal for weight loss. i'd say that depending on height, even with muscle mass, a good goal is to have a healthy BMI. it's a bad formula for hardcore athletes (people with 3% body fat who have a ton of muscle can be seen as overweight, obviously), but for general people -- even casual/competitive, albeit not elite athletes -- it's a good general way to judge yourself. long term, there's no reason why you couldn't be 190-200 pounds, but you've just got to stick with it.

don't cut grains and carbs, that's silly. just don't go overboard with them. i never cut those out of my diet, and i never had problems. it's really just about accountability. look at the serving sizes on the packages and follow them; i.e. if you're eating spaghetti, use only a cup of noodles instead of the whole package. do you do cf, by the way?

nah, you're probably just sick. stick with your diet and eat moderately, you'll be fine. you just have to make it a life commitment; that's why gimmick diets don't work, because if you've got the idea that you're gonna get down to x weight and then you can revert to your old ways, you're lying to yourself. you'll be able to increase your calories, but not by a ton, and you'll never be able to go back to where you were. that's sort of just the decision you've got to make when you decide you want to be skinny. i'm a member of a crossfit group here at quantico, and a lot of them are pretty hardcore (i'm rather mediocre; for example, on yesterday's workout, i got in the 12 minute range and had to scale my squat cleans to 95# because i could only get to half of the second set with the rx'd weight with good form). they're marines, and all of them are in the 150-210 range in terms of weight with varying strength. we have one guy in particular who could compete in the crossfit games. i'll tell you right now that NONE of them do selective fasting or anything remotely resembling the hardcore, strict diet that the cf main site recommends. just do your thing; eat generally healthier (sounds like you are, which is good). cut out greasy food as much as possible, eat a lot of baked/grilled proteins, supplement with veggies and fruits, reward yourself smartly (i.e. ice cream is fine, but if you've got the choice, just get the reduced fat... it doesn't taste that different). you'll be fine. the other thing is that you need to have a tangible goal, or it's never gonna happen. my goal was from 190 to 160 between July and October, and I did it because i put that down on paper, i had a plan, and i followed it. sometimes i cheated, but i made up for it by doing more cardio the next day or by eating less the next day. i'm telling you, www.sparkpeople.com is a great way to count your calories and keep yourself accountable. give it a shot.

i mean, you can cheat every once in a while, but don't fool yourself into thinking you're not working against yourself there. if you cheat, try to cheat small -- i.e. not a whole pizza, but a slice or two. people's problems come from when they "cheat", they down like 15 beers and a whole pizza. you need to be aware of just how many friggin calories that is: if you consider 200 cals for a regular bottle of beer and probably 1500-2000 cals for the pizza, congratulations, you ate TWO DAYS worth of food in that cheat. that's going to make it almost impossible to have a net calorie deficit for a week. so, yeah, cheat, that's fine. however, be smart about it. the problem with the "when i'm lean and muscular" way of thinking is that it's so abstract and in the future, and you're thinking like it's not going to take a life change to stay thin. get over it, you're never going to be able to eat like michael phelps ever again. you might be able to sneak in a slice or two here and there, but you'll never be able to call up papa johns, order a pizza, kill it and say "ha! i gained no weight!"

that's a common misconception. now, if you're feeling like you're sore a lot longer than you used to be and you're doing the same types of workout, you might need more food to handle recovery. but, in general, if you're eating a ton of food, you're eating more calories than your body needs. let me put it this way: if you're starting to experience catabolic muscle failure in the middle of workouts, or you're far too sore for too long to work out as much as you need, you might not be getting enough calories. that's a given. however, you might be surprised with how many calories you actually *need*. you don't need any particularly high number of calories to support muscle growth and development unless you're really an elite athlete.

that's good, but your focus with working out needs to be time rather than intensity. you should be working out at least 30-45 minutes at a RPE of like 75%, rather than 10 minutes with an RPE of 90%. also, it doesn't matter how good the quality of your food is if you're eating a ton of it. portion sizes matter.

the idea that your body takes energy only from carbs is your problem. your body takes energy from the calories you take in. you almost always eat more calories than you expend every day. you're waaaaaaaaay overestimating your own metabolism if you think playing an hour of rugby and lifting weights at the gym for two hours makes up for eating 3000 calories. i'm not talking about anything outrageous, but if you limit your calorie intake to 1600-2000 and run 30-45 minutes a day on top of your normal stuff, you're well on your way to losing weight. as long as you're still lifting weights and as long as you're resting enough inbetween lifting days, there's no reason why you can't lose weight and gain muscle at the same time. now, is it easier to lose weight and not worry about muscle? sure. but eating carbs isn't the panacea you think it is; the advantage of carbs is that they metabolize quickly; thus, when an elite athlete -- who already burns at or above his daily caloric intake just in training -- is preparing for an event, yes, he might eat carbs to give him an additional energy boost. but, you and i don't need anything even remotely resembling that.

that's really not that true either, though, unless you're an elite athlete. don't get me wrong, because i'm as guilty as anyone in this regard, but we as a society make way too many excuses as to why we're fat. yeah, you might want to put on muscle mass, but if you're a fat turd, "muscle mass" hardly matters in the grand scheme. again, yeah, it's theoretically possible that running a lot will cut more muscle than fat, but the way you counter that is by a) keeping on a weight lifting program while you're running/expending the calories, and b) maintaining a reasonable diet that provides enough calories to support both your weight loss and your strength recovery. that's typically achieved by a high protein diet, but that's a misnomer in and of itself; eating a balanced diet, but just generally eating LESS of it, is the key to weight loss. look, i'm not some 130 pound rail thin guy preaching this shit, this is coming from a guy who used to be a 5'10" 250 pound fat turd and ran his ass off until he was at 160. clearly, you're going to lose SOME muscle mass there, and i did particularly bad by not supplementing my workouts with strength training. but realistically, the idea that you can't gain muscle mass while you're losing weight is horseshit; you're not going to be able to gain muscle weight faster than you lose fat weight. it's just a physiological impossibility for someone with high body fat. it's much easier to use up your fat stores than it is to grow your muscles enough to gain weight. stop making excuses, it just is. do you know how freaking hard it is to put on a pound of muscle weight? it's insane.

also, this is crap. maybe if you're an elite level athlete, carbs will matter. but if you're just some random doug weekend warrior, you're never going to hit the point where the number of carbs you're eating will matter. if you want to lose weight, cut your caloric intake and increase your calorie burn. it's not as simple as calories in=calories out ftw, but it's not much harder than that. if you want help, www.sparkpeople.com is a good place to go. i lost 30 pounds in 3 months using it, but it's not rocket science; it's just all about personal accountability. also, crossfit rocks faces, but you've got to run in addition to the WODs if you're trying to lose weight. keep in mind crossfit is designed for people who are already in shape, and most of the workouts -- while extremely difficult -- are short enough that your calorie burn isn't that extensive. rugby's good if you're running like, the entire time, but if you really want to lose weight, find a treadmill and pound out like 8 miles and repeat 5x a week.

it's not that hard. eat less, run more.

highly reccomend, but if you're at all active, account for the fact that excursions are going to cost extra. my wife and i went to sandals montego bay for our honeymoon and the food was amazing, the drinks were free and free flowing, and the resort was beautiful (our room had a jacuzzi and an open bar, not to mention a california king four poster and a plasma screen that we never watched). this year we went to secrets maroma beach near cancun, which was pretty much on par with sandals, although quite a bit cheaper since we went to a resort that was just opening that week. some things weren't done, but for the price, you couldn't beat it. we got our reservations through www.cheapcarribbean.com, which i also highly recommend. the thing is, though, with all those resorts, they use vendors if you want to see the area and they'll charge extra. that can run you quite a bit if you're as active as my wife and i are. we ended up spending only one or two days actually at our resort the whole day both trips because we were always out and about. so, factor that and random tips for people outside the resort into your grand total. still, the peace of mind and attention to detail makes these kind of resorts just amazing.

i'm a poker geek, so sorry for interrupting the draft, but dwan is unbelievable. for those of you that don't keep up with 2+2 and poker gossip, dwan just made one of the ballsiest (and possibly dumbest) bets of all time, that was accepted by David Benyamine, Phil Ivey, and Patrik Antonius. http://www.pokerkingblog.com/2009/01/06/da...rrrr-challenge/ so for all of you who actually follow poker, this is going to be one of the most epic freaking challenges of all time. i think he's got an edge over degenyamine in nlhe, but db probably has the edge in plo. ivey, who knows, and i think durrrrrrrrr can take God.