How to Ask for Christmas Abs

An idea recently settled on my mind - an idea that must've blown in on the first chill breeze of autumn. This idea jostled about my brain for a few days, and then blindsided my consciousness like a ninja saddled to a seeing-eye dog.

The idea is simple: the perfect Christmas gift is a set of abdominal muscles that you can take home with you after the holidays. The best scenario would be to have that gift on Christmas Day, there hiding under your clumpy sweater... before the presents are even opened. In this case, your New Year's resolution wouldn't be to "lose weight," it would be to "maintain the health level I accumulated through the end of last year." Goals you say? Golly!

Sure, I could give this gift to myself, but that would be about as fun as calling Santa for phone sex. Instead, I think I'll give it to a few people around me, and hope that one of them gives it back. If not, I'll give them dead puppies for Christmas to go along with that flexing armadillo under their ribcage.

I think the best way to give this gift is as a loose collection of constraints that slowly tightens around the waist as Holiday chimes draw nigh:

1. No TV during daylight hours. This is one constraint that will actually loosen. As daylight hours lessen, you'll find this rule easier to follow. Of course, by then, you might have enough of a routine established with any of the following alternative activities that you may not have time for TV.
   
   
   Alternative Activities: Walk the dog (yo-yo or bark-bark). Read a book. Write a letter to an old friend. Attend a free class online. Watch a TED talk. Bite a few bulletpoints off that bucket list. Scrabble. Scrobble. Scribble.
   
   
   
2. Make your own lunch 4 days a week. If you forget to pack, hit up Subway for $5 footlongs. Use the money you save to buy something health related (pedometer, Groupon exercise class, massage).
3. Don't sit down, sit up. Move every 30 minutes. Sitting is for babies and their sitters. If you sit at a desk all day, feast on this. Start with 20 minutes of abdominal exercises a week. Increase as it becomes easier. Exercises are included below.
4. Walk or run ~3 miles 5 days a week. On days when you end up moving a lot throughout the course of the day, a short walk should suffice. If you were more sedentary, go for a jog or a take a longer walk. 
5. Feed with intent. No one else is to blame for what you put in your body. Unless you are a 2-year-old with a craving for blended peas, you should take a few minutes everyday to tell yourself "I choose what, when, and how much I eat. No one forces food down my throat." I find it inwardly amusing and socially grating when someone who has just inhaled their food needs to seek out others to point out that they haven't cleaned their plates or that it looks like they are "struggling to finish." As I said, you choose what, when, and how much to eat; no one else.
6. Feed to your need. If your are eating for longevity, health, and maintenance, 40% protein, 30% carbs, and 30% fat should be just fine. For steady weight loss, increase the amount of protein by stealing some percentage from carbohydrates. It should be noted that consumed carbs should be free of trans fats and processed as little as possible. No sodas, juices, flavored chips, crap snacks... you know the drill. I and others have had moderate to great success using a 4-Hour Body style diet; very high in protein 6 days a week, 1 "binge day" where anything goes and you are encouraged to overeat.
7. When you do bad, do it all. Then erase. If you are going to have a binge day, try to fit all the stuff you wouldn't do outside of that day into that 24-hour time frame. If you are going to drink heavily, do it then. If you are going to snort cocoa powder, do it then. Whatever you do, don't bring it back into your living space. Externalize those actions and material needs and cravings, internalize the great stuff during the rest of the week. Do everything with intent.

Crunch Time (Ranked):

1. Myotactic crunch with the "Peanut"
2. Bicycle crunch
3. Captain's Chair
4. Vertical Leg crunch

...I was on my bike

A little illumination on alumni’s: they are intensely serious about how important it is that you recognize the superiority you share with them over all others, acknowledge that superiority publicly, and wholeheartedly accept that this alone is the only prerequisite for friendship in the adult business world. Last week, I made the mistake of walking into a restaurant with my Ross School of Business shirt on. Before I had even found my seat, an excited “agent” vaulted from his booth and shook one of my hands with both of his. “I went there ten years ago,” is how the conversation started, and “If you ever need anything, anything…” is how it ended. The man was so cleancut and obviously in charge of his faculty(ies) that I was almost tempted to say “No” when if he asked if I had a State Farm insurance agent. The truth is that, yes, I do have an agent, and I can’t believe I almost cheated on Doug Heins, CLU CEF CFA CAT (and many other three letter C-words.)

Jake and Kent left in what amounted to be the perfect storm. After stirring up controversy by convincing one of the other New Hire’s managers that they were interns (while playing volleyball), they rode a torpedo of my shame out of town. The only proof of their presence: two empty glasses in the sink and a snack pit that Jake left… I had to eat my way out.

The weekend snuck up like a charred turtle from a black canyon, totally not taking me by surprise. My friend Rachel got a job in Raleigh, and this so shocked me into a smile that I forgot to allude to it with an alliteration. Or did I?

On Friday night, Zhang it! and I went over to bid adieu to Luke, one of the One-years that has officially reset his job clock to zero by moving back to Wisconsin. Throw in one more since then, Andy, and that makes three gone in the last month. Zhang it! got attacked by a praying mantis, I made fast friends with another small dog. Before we headed home, we both grabbed some delicious baked goods that Luke was given by a baker that crashed into his car. Apparent reparations for damage and the tastiest from of blackmail.

Saturday, my soon-to-be housemate Chris Lethal invited me to test out my new mountain bike with him. This did not mean that I was to drag my bike up to his bed and wait for him to fetch the chain lube from the garage. The actual activities to be attempted were much more Rated X. Xtreme mountain biking, I found out, involves very tight helmets that may or may not allow you to draw breath, depending on the scale of crime you are about to commit, and serious altitude adjustments. For several hours, I watered the earth with the first derivative of my respiratory system, using my body’s largest organ as a fire hose. Chris and I talked the entire time, covering topics from the aspirations of our best friends to the apparent disconnect between the privatization of health care and the ideals of the voting (non-voting) minority (minorities). By this, I mean we shared back stories and tried, as most do, to place ourselves within that idealized version of our pasts. It always sounds much better when you are allowed to be the editor of not only your history but those of everyone who has ever been in your life.

After a late afternoon of Halo with Karrrl, Ben, and S.S. Kimu, I got ready to host some guests. Luke and Andy came up with a few of their friends to explore Chapel Hill. While everyone else ordered and consequently consumed late-night burritos, I sat in the booth and judged, quite heavily. I was not hungry, but I was tired from the bike ride, so I was not completely aware of my saying out loud “What is that girl wearing? Are those polyester pants? Uggggggly…” I was embarrassed naught, but it was the second time that night that my wide-mouth ass had spoken itself into a corner.

Michigan Mike (hence forth referred to as 6-pack), Zhang it!, And-I were seeking sustenance. While at a stop light, waiting for the Go light, I realized we were in an area of Chapel Hill where I had recently witnessed a very gross approximation of a misdemeanor. “I saw an old lady take relief by that tree yesterday,” I said with conviction, pointing left to the spot where said event took place. Zhang it!, ever the antagonist, noticed that not only had a car of girls just pulled up next to us, but they had heard what I said, or at least he assumed they had, and screamed “Wes, I can’t believe you just said that in front of those girls!”

The driver of the car turned on me – who was fidgeting in the passenger seat of Andy’s vehicle - like a hinge turns on a doorjamb, trapping me in the aforementioned corner. “What did you say?” The question was posed in such a way as to reveal her incredulousness, my disgracefulness, and our momentary sharing of a space in which an offal crime had recently taken place. This is me talking: “I said, ‘I saw a lady take a shit by that tree yesterday’.” As her jaw dropped, revealing nothing but the shadows of words I would never hear, I added, as if it would make a difference, “I was on my bike.”

Over dinner, we discussed the improbability that I will ever assimilate into the human race, and I promised that the night would turn out wonderfully. No one took my word for it. Not even me.

I convinced Wisconsin to come back to Michigan with me. While that statement may sound impossible, remember that a state is only a governmentally derived concept, and it isn’t impossible for one concept to insert itself inside another (see conception). We will be flying into Detroit on Wednesday, September 2^nd, and will be driving back with 6-pack on Labor Day. My lack of transportation and the fact that it is Welcome Week means I will probably be in Ann Arbor for that weekend. Might make it over to East Lansing. Speaking of MSU, I have convinced a family member who will be attending this fall to write a guest blogpost about the closing weeks of summer, and how the impending doom known as higher education surely taints the sunset of a season. It will be Wisconsin’s first time in Ann Arbor, so I am hoping to show him all of the nice parts, and none of what lies hidden in every city – proof of entropy: of both the universe and the human verse.

I will put off talking about the egging for one more post. Next time I will also cover Man U. and his stance on shiny cars and how this relates to my wanting badly to pay child support. I will leave you with a few awkward moments from the phone calls I have been taking.

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Myself: let me know if you have any more issues relating to this

Client: will do. thanks much for the really quick action!

Myself: umm …?

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I finished helping a lady connect to the corporate network from home. Right before she hung up, I blurted, “Good luck with all your connection today. See ya… I mean… talk to you soon?” Click.

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Client: “What keys do I put my fingers on to type?”