the Asocial Ape

ok! meatless. yes. i know now from where i know you.

I just wanted to say hi and that I recognize your name from another forum.

heya!

...work on getting more green vegetables into your diet.

the green twizzler doesn't count?!!

you're right. thanks for that. i'm not good at spontaneously choosing many vegetables except carrots. i should probably just add eating them to a schedule.

i had three beers, not two.

also, i forgot to add, i had like 3" of a green twizzler in the afternoon.

i thought i would try it as an experiment.

i know nothing is going to get me strong except intensity, eating right, and getting my sleep.

but...

my buddy travis said that while a lot of the powders, pills, and liquids are pointless, that as long as i'm doing what i should with the three main components, that

Leucine after the workout would help in recovery,

Creatine would help a little to gain mass, and

some kind of vegan weight gainer would help, well, gain weight.

I found good prices for the first two items, and have to place an order for Carnitine anyway (my dogs take it).

you think a straight protein supplement is better/more efficacious/more economical?

i know next to nothing intellectually about these things, and nothing experientially about them.

eta: i place some trust in what he's telling me, as he's among the smartest people i know, and is, hands down, the biggest and strongest person i've ever met.

tangent

i joke with him - we're programmers, and i'm trying to get all my coworkers to join the union. some people roll their eyes, and think 'yeah. how hard would it be to cross a picket line of programmers!?'. i tell him, that's why he has to join - to make our picket viable.

/tangent

...Vegan with a Vengeance...

awesome cook book.

...Siddhartha...

awesome book! it's in my top N. Hesse rocks!

ha! i was just writing about this the other day! the top ten works (i include a poem and short story) that made me me are:

The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck

Quantum Reality, Nick Herbert

'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', Coleridge

Animal Liberation, Peter Singer

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey

The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway

'The Snows of Kilimanjaro', Hemingway

The Inheritors, William Golding

The Hobbit, Tolkien

(I know that's only nine - I like to leave a slot open for the book i haven't yet read)

um YUM! i love nootch. you can get it in bulk at most hfs

i haven't looked in earnest yet, but thought it'd be worth a shot to ask the vegan bodybuilders first.

don't they cook up most amino acids from soy?

1C oatmeal, cooked in 2C soymilk, w/ raisins, brown sugar, and coconut oil

6C spaghetti w/ sauce

3 big carrots

cliff bar

2 fake chicken patties on whole wheat bread w/~1/4C veganaise

3 cups coffee

6 cups tea

64 oz water

ginger snaps

some stale corn chips i found in my desk drawer

eta:

3 cups lentils and brown rice, with ro*tel tomatoes

2 12oz light beers

here's my pc at work. by the time i'm done here, i usually don't want to look at a computer until the next day.

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/1866/dtxb3.jpg

wow. just... wow.

aiiee. nice road rash. those ones where your skin gets sanded away really hurt.

it's cool you took pictures. my brother had an awesome one of his face from when he drove his car into a concrete wall. he looked like a bloody frankenstein with all the rips and stitches. he used it for his xmas card that year.

any advice, comments, or criticism is welcome.

i guess i should state my goals as well.

i want to get stronger, and would be most pleased if i got bigger.

micro managing my diet and exercise is not an option, though.

dietary guidelines like - 'oatmeal for breakfast', or 'have some carbs before the gym, and some protein after', or 'eat as many healthy calories as you possibly can' are all reasonable for me, while 'take 7.6g of iso-levo-3-5-protolumenal fifteen minutes after your work out, and eat a 30/50/20 percent mixture of protein/carbs/fats' is not.

along the same lines, my workout needs to be pretty simple too, and more than three days a week in the gym is impossible. two days/week is do-able, and even the three will be difficult with our current situation.

the focus of our life is animals, and they take a lot of time - both the ones we live with, the ferals, and the ones we address at leafleting and demos.

if i can't get where i want healthwise with doing what i can, so be it.

bunny's a rescued painter type american bulldog. she's the most gentle sweetest dog i've ever met. she loves nothing more than snuggling up with the kitties on the couch. she's also a vegan, as is her tiny sister, visible in the first pic.

when she first came to live with us, i had a grand mal seizure in the parking lot of the vet's office, and she climbed out the window of the car and ran to the door of the building and started barking and whamming the door to get help for me. she's my best friend in the world.

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/727/dsc02743rk9.jpg

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/2136/dsc02746pb4.jpg

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/3504/dsc02745nf5.jpg

very very cool.

that's heartwrenching. we're going to be so alone on this rock one day. we'll end up like the once-ler, lonely, alone, in a room, pained by the memory of our past deeds.

hey! welcome.

my ma's family is from scotland, via nova scotia.

hey there! welcome.

well. so far, i've only been to the gym twice - friday, the third, and monday the sixth.

i quit smoking about ten days ago. cravings are all gone.

i've been eating breakfast since i started working out - 1C oatmeal, 2C soymilk, raisins, mexican brown sugar, a dash of salt, and a tsp or three of coconut oil.

i've also been eating more snacks - nuts, dried peas, carrots, etc, and been eating full lunches and dinners (main course, veggies, juice/water, and a side dish of rice (sometimes))

both of my past work outs were mediocre in that a couple sets of each exercise were jacked up b/c i was trying to find my correct weight.

friday was chest and back, and monday, legs, arms, and shoulders.

talking to my buddy at work, he told 2*/week was cool, but to consider doing a full body workout both days. i'm going to try that - going wed morning, sat morning.

my legs and arms still feel fried, so i won't be going today. sat AM, i'll start the new, full body schedule.

here's what plan to do in terms of sets, reps, and weight, based on my performance this past time. i'll be doing them in the order show. if i diverge from this, i'll post that after my workout on sat.

chores, family life, and work allowing, i skate pretty hard for 30 or 40 minutes everyday i don't work out.

even though these weights are miniscule, they are really hard for me - i'm at failure for each muscle group by the last set (it's iffy that i'll get the final rep - if i don't, i rest a sec, and try again, until i get my total reps, even if i'm doing like three one rep sets) so i'll be moving up the weights steadily in short order. god i hope so. that would be awful if i never got stronger.

eta: these are lbs, not kg

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/2145/workoutqz5.gif

...suggest to you to start and online log for training and non-smoking here on the forum...

ahh! gotcha. i'll do that. not sure they make keyboards with small enough numbers for recording the minimal weight i can lift, though. heh.

thanks again, everyone.

hey thanks y'all.

i don't know if it counts as a log, but i've got my workout for each day on spreadsheet pages, and noted my weights, sets, and reps for each exercise.

the first time in each day was sort of all over the place, as i was finding my correct weights to use.

i was planning on keeping it going to be able to refer to to prove to myself that i'm progressing (once i actually progress, of course).

the not smoking should be ok without a log, as, ideally, it would just be a bunch of calendar pages with '0' for the number of smokes i had. heh. i've been doing fine with that so far. i'm past the cravings so it should be clear sailing.

i felt more comfortable yesterday at the gym than the first time. i just look about a foot above everyone's head when i get there, and then when i'm working out, take off my specs which renders me pretty much blind, so that was cool. heh. self confidence via myopia.

Isn't nice to share your life with so many great friends?

heh. yeah. but at breakfast time they can be annoying. the dogs are content to wait until i've had some coffee and eaten to be fed and played with. the cats on the other hand, think they're each the center of the universe, and want everything right away.

also, they eat homecooked food, and a couple have allergies, and have to be fed separately, and of _course_ they don't want their food, they want what the others are having, while the others want what _they_ are having...

we love them to pieces, but wish they could go to camp for a couple weeks sometime, like human kids do.

Hope you make some more here.

thanks!

i made this last night. most of the stuff i make is for multiple meals. i do it that way so i don't have to cook every night.

any way. here it is. it's not insanely delicious or anything, but i think it tastes good, it's easy to make, it fills you up, and it's pretty cheap.

crust:

4.5 C flour (white or whole wheat is fine)

1.5 tsp salt

2 Tbsp sugar (the sugar seems to be important for some reason, but it would be better if you could get rid of it)

1.5 C oil

6 Tbsp unflavored, unsweetened soy milk

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

mix all the dry ingredients together

add the wet ingredients and mix it with a fork until it gets crumbly

crumble it up in a 10" pie pan and press it onto the bottom and sides

bake it at 450° F for 10-12 minutes.

filling:

preheat oven to 375

bag of fresh spinach

6 C crumbled firm tofu

6 tsp oil

3 lemons worth of lemon juice

6 Tbs soy sauce or braggs

6 Tbs oil

2 C unflavored, unsweetened soy milk

2 onions or leeks, chopped fine, caramelized

4 or 5 cloves garlic, crushed

1 Tbs crushed red pepper

1 tsp paparika

~1/2 tsp salt

1/2 or more nutritional yeast (i add like a cup)

carmelize the onions or leeks in the oil, and when it's almost done, toss in the garlic and red pepper

wilt the spinach in a covered sauce pan

blend the tofu and soymilk

in a bowl, mix everything together - tofu/soymilk, onions, paparika, salt, yeast, spinach, &c.

fill up the three pie crusts, spin them to level the filling and get it to the edges.

bake at 375 for 50 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.

let them sit for about twenty minutes to firm up whyen you take them out.

good cold the next day.

you can add extra stuff - fake sausage, fake ground beef, whatever. other veggie are good too.

S...wraps it in cheese cloth before simmering. This keeps it dense...

brilliant! i make seitan from scratch nearly every weekend, and i'm ALWAYS working for perfect dense hunks.

i'm always tweaking recipe stuff - adding some garbanzo flour, more water, less water, changing the kneading and resting time, or altering the pressure i cook it at.

i never even thought about doing something mechanical to control it. thanks for posting that.