One more installment before my photo shoot. Feeling pretty lean, but I gotta come clean before my muscle porn moment. Here are the ways I’ve cheated on my bodybuilder-for-a-week plan:
1) On Tuesday night, I had a nano-nip of sherry.
2) I ate one piece of forbidden fruit: a tomato I grew on my roof (without even weighing it!). (By applause, how many say tomatoes are vegetables? Thank you.)
3) I went light on hamstrings today, but that’s because I felt something go twang.
4) Though normally punctual, I have not been on time for a single workout or meal since Day 1, Meal 1.
5) Have “forgotten” occasional doses of grotty “CapTri”—medium-chain triglyceride oil, which “harnesses the energy density of fat but is not stored as body fat.” (Tip: Stir into water, add fresh lime juice, perhaps some roof mint—an MCT mojito!—and choke down.)
6) I have entirely ignored the “lights out at 10” rule. This is partly because it’s important to me not to entirely ignore my boyfriend.
Props, while I’m thinking about it, to bodybuilders with beaux who are not bodybuilders. (Many of the female powerlifters—not to mention hockey players—I’ve met have lifter/skater partners … but of course that’s often because it’s the guy who got them into it.)
Far as I can tell, you can hardly have a life outside the gym (and your Tupperware), never mind a love life. Only a wee percentage of bodybuilders make a living from it, so most are lifting weights and holding jobs; no wonder so many are trainers. Why is that different from any totally intense job or hobby? Because as a bodybuilder, seems to me, it’s the very basics of your life that are consuming and inconvenient; you’re in your own orbit. Whereas, you work late as a litigator, you order in sushi, you go out, maybe have a drink, to unwind; in theory, you can step between work and the world without breaking stride. Not saying we should cheer or pity the bodybuilder like the brave ER doctor; just saying hey, it’s a tough thing to pull off.
Take tonight, for example. This schedule had prevented me from even considering shacking in Central Park for golden tickets to the celeb-fest The Seagull. But guess what? Apparently I’ve built up not only my strength but also my brute force of cosmic will: Who should call on Monday but my pal Ira, smug bearer of two advance tickets for tonight. Good things come to those who weight lift.
But, of course, we can’t go out to dinner before. I have to schlep Tupperware on the subway. Even if I weren’t on such a martial diet, I’d have to get all Sally on some poor waiter’s ass. (“I’ll have the skate in beurre blanc, without the beurre.”) I have to find a way to do some cardio after the play—and, in a bold disruption of the space-time continuum, be in bed by 10. Sure, I’ll live. But it’s no way to live. Especially in New York.
Props, too, to my boyfriend, who’s been more than patient with this week’s bizarre schedule. It’s partly because it’s only a week, partly because he’s that kind of guy, partly because hey, he’s got plans and a life of his own.
Bet you thought I was going to say, “… partly because I can kick his ass.” Nah. Sorry. Some strong women might seek, in big fat quotes, a “wife.” Fine. But this one seeks an equal—a challenger, even. Strength is key, particularly (but not limited to) inner. I don’t care what he does or doesn’t press. Point is, I’d rather he beat me at arm wrestling (he clearly can) than never push back.
So I wouldn’t ask him to put up with this forever. He wouldn’t, anyway. It’s just too about-you to deal with a Numero Two. In fact, I’ve been so absorbed in reps and grams and inclines and deadlines that I did fail to weigh someone else’s feelings. That is, I let someone excellent whom I’d recently dated find out—from this “Diary”—that I’m seeing someone new. Normally, I’d have thought to send a gracious heads-up e-mail, but I … just plain totally, completely spaced. “I expected more from you,” he wrote, smarting, in an e-mail. As well he should.
If I trained like this for more than a week, I, for one, would probably get used to it. But the number of others—as in “significant”—who’d get used to it would likely be lower. I’m in good shape for the photos on Sunday; I feel that I’ve met some focus and discipline challenges. But I hate to be the one who puts the “mean” in “lean and” … you know.
