Day Nine - Thursday April 19, 2007

I woke up today feeling ready to go back to sleep. But against all odds and in the face of danger, I persevered. I weighed myself, as I do every day, but today the scale said: 232
232!! That's eight pounds in just eight days. I realized that if I keep up this pace, I will actually disappear in 232 more days. Incredible!

On a mental high, I went straight to the gym.

I trained arms:
Dumbbell Curls: 25x12,35x10,45x8,55x4
One arm extensions: 15x15, 20x15, 25x15, 30x15 supersetted with tricep kickbacks
Preacher Curls: 65x10x8x5
Tricep Pushdowns

Then I did 35 minutes of cardio and some ab work.

Then I went home and ate some chicken meatloaf with almonds.

I picked up some lean hamburger meat on sale last night at the grocery so I made cheeseburgers for dinner. I ate a couple Batampte Half-Sour pickles with my burgers. If you've never had these pickles, I highly recommend them. They're about $2.99 to $3.99 a bottle in your refrigerated section of your grocery.

I can't eat burgers without buns, but I figured I could use some carbs.

I heard we picked up MHP as a sponsor for the Body Transformation. That's cool. Gerard and Rob Dente are nice guys, they're Jersey guys, and their products taste good.

Day Eight - Wednesday April 18, 2007

Man, am I tired. I was up until 5am editing video from the New York Car show into a trailer clip. Then my wife woke me at 8am and it felt like I had just closed my eyes. I hate when that happens. Going to bed late and having trouble waking up has been a lifelong theme for me. I distinctly remember in 1st grade having my parents drag me in to a meeting with the principal to talk about why I couldn't/wouldn't wake up for school in the morning. It was one of those stupid things parents do when they don't have any solutions of their own and think that the principal will either: a) Intimidate their son into changing his behavior (fat chance); or (b) Have some ideas of his own.

They tried moving the alarm clock to the other side of the room (annoying but unable to stop me from returning to bed and sleep), getting one of those REALLY LOUD RINGING old-fashioned alarm clocks (just as easy to turn off), having my dad personally wake me up multiple times (Yes dad, I'm awake...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz), and then resorting to threatening me with spanking and "the belt" first thing in the morning. Oh, how I miss those Wonder Years.

When I went to Target on Monday night, I purchased some supplements, which is pretty rare for me because: a) I think supplements are a scam; and (b) I'm no sucker. But I had run out of my Keto Protein powder which I had picked up about four years earlier at a cost of $1.59 in some GNC bin. I almost ordered online, but Target had EAS Vanilla Whey Protein for $13 for a 2lb tub, which seemed reasonable. I also picked up some MuscleMilk punchboxes for $5.99 a pack to take with me in the car or into the city. They're really tasty. I have been a fan of MuscleMilk since I picked up some free tubs at the 2004 NFL Combine where Cytosport had an unmanned booth and left about 10 tubs sitting on the table. Regrettably, I could only fit two in my bag that day.

I ate clean all day:

Chicken Breast
Chicken Meatloaf
Protein Shakes
Muscle Milk
Almonds
Cashews

Crystal Light (particularly Raspberry Lemonade) has been a savior for me since I crave sweet drinks. I also went shopping and picked up some Diet Pepsi Jazz Black Cherry Vanilla which is totally awesome and I still can't believe they can fit all that goodness into a 12oz can without a single calorie. That's some first rate technology on display right there.

I did a Back workout at around 7pm.

Pulldowns
One Arm Rows
Deadlifts
Shrugs
Rear Delt Machine

Then I did 40 minutes of cardio. I'm so freaking ripped it's unbelievable.

Okay, so I'm still fat. At least I have the right mindset.

Day Seven - April 17, 2007

I can be a bit of a procrastinator. Okay, a bit more than a bit. For example, today is tax day -- the last day to file. And I will drive 40 miles to Manhattan's West Side to file my tax return at three minutes to midnight. My 2004 tax return!!! DOH!

I felt I deserved a day off from the gym today for all of my hard work the past week.

I ate clean pretty much all day:

Turkey roll-ups
Cucumber
PB Protein Shakes
Chicken Breast
Trout

And then I went to file my tax return in NYC and I couldn't help myself. I was just four blocks from Gray's Papaya Hot Dogs. If you've never been there or heard of it, let me tell you about it. The dogs are thin and crispy. They cost $1.50 each. They have all kinds of Yummy drinks like pina colada punch and coconut juice, but of course, the namesake papaya drink is the choice of most hot dog fans. Gray's Papaya is actually rated the #1 Value in the New York City Zagat Restaurant Guide.

I exercised some self-control and only had three plain hot dogs and passed on the papaya juice. Mmmmmmm...those hot dogs sure were good. Still unsure about whether or not that qualifies as a cheat meal since I didn't have any ice cream or cake.

This photo is the actual Gray's Papaya I went to on 37th and 8th Avenue. Bon Appetit!

Day Six - Monday April 16, 2007

Greetings Earthlings...I am a robot. Must eat clean. Must not cause internal motor to rust.

I trained arms today. When I train arms I like to superset the bi and a tri exercises.

I did it like this:
Dumbbell Curls: 25x12, 35x10, 45x8 supersetted with
One Arm Tri Extensions: 15x15, 25x15, 25x15
Preacher Curls 65x10, 65x10, 65x7 supersetted with
Tricep Pushdowns = silly cable exercise

Then I did my 30 minutes of cardio on the treadmill and went home and ate:

Meal #1: Eggbeaters with cheddar sprinkles
Meal #2: Chicken Breast w/Peanut Sauce and Almonds
Meal #3: Protein Shake
Meal #4: Flank Steak
Meal #5: Turkey breast w/provolone roll-ups

My wife is also on the low-carb diet with me, but not as strict. Nonetheless, it appears to have taken its toll on her this evening as she absent-mindedly caught the wrong train from Grand Central that took her far away from me. To make matters worse, I gave her instructions on how to get on a second train at White Plains so I could pick her up closer to home. Somehow she got on ANOTHER wrong train and wound up in Bedford Hills. Since Bedford Hills is right next to Mount Kisco...

...we went to Target. I did the MD Radio show from my car for the 3rd time in 4 weeks. Now I normally pig out whenever I'm in Target but this time was different and I wasn't even tempted to eat anything in the junk food section. Okay, that's not entirely true. I tore open a Muscle Milk drink off the shelf and chugged it in 4 seconds. It was so yummy, I bought up the store's entire stock of Muscle Milk boxes. I also bought some EAS Vanilla Whey for $13.00 for 2 lbs. That's not a bad deal. I spent about an hour walking around the store trying to find my wife and son, so I think that covered the evening cardio session.

I can see myself losing weight in my midsection. It comes off my high ribs first and actually makes me look fatter because it now goes in by my ribs and then juts out again at my waist/hips. Geez, I must sound like a girl!

Day Five - Sunday April 15, 2007

I didn't weigh myself this morning but I looked much better in the mirror, which means that I didn't have to suck my stomach in to make the crease disappear. The cardio and smaller meals is really helping.

Went straight to the gym and did chest and legs. Chest workout consisted of:
Incline Dumbbell Press: 50x12, 60x10, 70x8, 80x5.
Flat Dumbbell Flyes: 40x10, 40x8
Pec Deck: Silly Cable Machine

Leg workout was:
Front Squats: 95x15,135x10,135x10
Squats: 135x10
Leg Curls supersetted with leg extensions: Cable Machine!

No time for cardio so it was home to make some Omega-3 eggs with some almonds and a wee bit of cheese.

TBC

Day Four - Saturday April 14, 2007

Today was one of those days when you wake up and think it's going to be a nice relaxing day, and then your wife/girlfriend/partner tells you about all of the plans she's made for the day without of course letting you know in advance.

Morning Weight: 236

We went to the gym in the morning and we did cardio together: 20 minutes on the Treadmill and 10 minutes on the StepMonster. I came home and made some Eggbeaters and a peanut-butter protein shake. I'm very grateful to Crystal Light for allowing me to drink something sweet. Normally I cannot eat eggs without drinking orange juice, but CL is making it possible.

We had to drive all the way to central Jersey to visit her friends and their baby. Before leaving, I stopped at the specialty food store and bought some more teriyaki chicken for myself and some vegetable coated salmon for my wife. We ate while we drove and polished off a can of cashews and a few bottles of water. After two hours of driving we get there and they have this nice spread of cold cuts, veggies, and chip assortments. I drink a few glasses of Diet Coke and have a few carrots. The strawberries are tempting but I refrain.

After a few hours there, we were starving. We went to a local deli and did a baby cheat meal. We shared a roast beef and cheese sub, but we removed half the roll and ate it open-face. Let me tell you: After not eating anything of substance for three days, that sandwich tasted like a strawberry shortcake dessert. The bread also filled my ever-shrinking stomach quickly.

We drove home, had another protein shake, and went to bed.

Day Three - Friday April 13, 2007

Special Ed woke up today at 8:30 am and went to the gym. I chose to do back because it is a weak bodypart for me. I have a good mind-muscle connection but with a bad shoulder, many back movements are painful, including the King Exercise, pullups. Not that I can exactly do any pullups at 240 lbs, but it's fun just hanging there. And painful too.

My workout consisted of lat pulldowns to the front for four sets. As stated, I don't really pay much attention to the weights because lat pulldowns are a silly cable exercise, but I'm in the 140-160 lb range after my warm-up and I use good form. After pulldowns, I did some t-bar rows. It's hard doing shit like that in the morning. I don't have any energy until mid-late afternoon and my preferred workout time for energy and strength is in the evening, around 9pm. But I know how important it is to get the workout in and done with, so I'll be working out every morning and sometimes I will double up in the evening if I had a chance.

After t-bars, I did a few sets of hyperextensions. I have been having some back pain lately and I know sometimes that can be the result of an imbalance in the core muscles. So I think it's important to strengthen my lower back and stomach before I get to crazy with the weights.

I spent about twenty minutes peppering my friend and NPC National Contender Dana Capobianco with some questions about diet. Dana is a serious bodybuilder and personal trainer with a lot of knowledge.

Running low on time, I hit the treadmill for 30 minutes on 3.4 with an incline of 2-5. And that was it for the gym.

After speaking with Automobile Magazine several times during the week about covering the New York Auto Expo for them, I was looking forward to picking up my brother-in-law Phil so he could work the camera for me at the show. We headed out to the Autoshow around 6pm and got there at seven. We went downstairs to get our media passes and of course, the idiot at the media desk takes one look at Phil with his cornrows and do-rag and tells us that without a business card, he can't help us. A business card?? I get emails all day long from a company offering 500 free business cards and this turd is acting like a business card is the be-all, end-all.

I tell him that I'm a contractor hired to cover the event for the magazine which doesn't persuade him in the least. Knowing full well, that the magazine offices are closed for the day, I ask him if he can just call the magazine and ask for my contact. This tactic seems to gain some favor with him by adding to my credibility when I produce a telephone number in Detroit that probably matches up with his own contact numbers. He asks me to wait while he disappears into the "back room". While I'm standing there, I see Aamer Haleem, the VH1 Countdown host, walk in with his VH1 camera crew. I call out to him and he comes over and I tell him I'm a big fan of his show "Bands Re-United" even if they couldn't get EXTREME back together again. I ask him if I can interview him for SpecialEdTV.com and he says "Sure!" I tell Phil to load up the camera and get it ready to go. I briefly show him how to operate the camera (it's a Sony), and show him which button to press to record and pause. It's not rocket science.

I walk back to Aamer and he's actually already online watching my videos on SpecialEdTV.com on his computer. I signal Phil to start recording and crack Aamer up with my first question: "Out of all the rock stars you've met, who most deserves a big smack in the mouth?" Aamer has a great sense of humor and he handled all of my questions like a fellow wise-ass, throwing in some funny tidbits of his own. When we finished, I saw the "front desk guy" looking over at us. I walked back over and he simply stamped our press passes without saying a word. I had a positive feeling that it was going to be a good Special Ed day for interviews.

That was until I went to interview a spokesmodel right out of the gate, and I saw Phil pressing on the 'photo snapshot' button and not the 'record' button. "What the fuck are you doing?" I asked, pointing to the right button. "Oh," was his limited response. I rewound the tape and sure enough, the interview with Ameer was nowhere to be found. Just a few snapshots of me smiling like a goofball while I asked him questions. DOH!

We made the rounds at the AutoShow and I have to say that the people there at the booths were not the friendliest group on earth. I understand that some of them had been there for the past 6 days and they had been there for 12 hours already, so perhaps it was my own fault for trying to interview people in grumpy and tired moods.

To add to that, I found that most of the "product specialists" are independent contractors trained and hire by the auto companies to represent their product. They travel around the country appearing at the various auto shows. What I didn't know was that most companies forbid them from appearing on camera to talk about the cars. My guess is that's either because they don't want them saying something incorrect about one of their products and having that appear on national television, or it's because they're afraid that a jackass like myself might make of their beautiful spokesmodels look silly by asking her about her prices for "Hummers" for five minutes before she finally catches on. Or, maybe someone tipped them off that SpecialEdTV was coming.

Either way, we didn't get great audience participation, but I think there's enough to satisfy the masses. Of course, I haven't reviewed the tape yet, so I don't even know if there's any video at all or if Phil continued to take snapshots for the entire show. I will keep you posted. You can check out my Youtube Channel to see a trailer for the Autoshow clip collection soon.

On Competition

I'll tell you the truth. I have won some money the past two years doing weight loss contests. In 2005, a friend asked me if I wanted to participate in neighborhood contest. The entry fee was $100, Winner Take All. The prize would be about $1000. Because the contest included both men and women, the winner would be decided on the percentage of weight lost. I weighed in at 233 lbs at the time. We were given 8 weeks to lose the weight. I watched my competition closely. No one appeared to be losing a significant amount of weight. I figured that 10% would be enough to win. I didn't diet at all for the first six weeks. I went to the gym about 3x/week and did about 60 minutes of cardio PER WEEK.

At the six-week mark, I cut out all simple carbs and junk food. I began doing double sessions of cardio, which consisted primarily of alternating treadmill sprints with uphill treadmill walking. Going into the last week I weighed around 223 lbs. I heard through the grapevine that only one other person had lost significant weight. It was one of the girls who had started at like 130. I realized that if she lost 13 lbs., I would have to lose 24 lbs to win. I decided to win.

I ate nothing but peanuts the last week and drank water constantly. I continued doing double cardio sessions. On weigh-in day, I weighed 212. About 3-4 lbs. over where I felt I needed to be to win. Let me make this clear: I've never wrestled or participated in a sport where I had to cut weight. But I did watch 'Vision Quest' several times over the years. I sat in the sauna for about 40 minutes and sweated out the last 3 lbs. I weighed in at 209. A loss of 24 lbs. or about 10.2%.

My competition lost exactly 13 lbs for a 10% weight loss. I won by 0.2%.

I admired my 209 lb body for a few hours and then began to pack. I was leaving on a Cruise the following day. Yep, you guessed it. One week later, I was 20 lbs heavier.

And $1000 richer.

Still Day Two - The Man Behind the Mask

This is a still of when I was on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. If you never saw the episode, you might want to know the question that eventually knocked me out: Which of the following "nuts" is actually a legume?

(A) Peanut (B) Cashew
(C) Beechnut (D) Chestnut

I actually used a 50/50 on this one and still blew it. What a SCHMUCK!

I was pretty sure I was going to win a million dollars that day. But I should have known better. All of the other contestants backstage with me knew about ten times more than I did about random stuff. I was lucky to get a bunch of easy questions about the WWF and the rock band KISS. The show was taped the first week that Meredith Viera took over for Regis. I was disappointed to only go home with $64,000 but that's life I guess*. I got another chance to win a million the following year when I was a finalist in the Pepsi Billion Dollar Sweepstakes. Sometimes God gives you multiple chances in life!

This is a great Daily News photo of me fighting in the New York Golden Gloves boxing tournament. I'm the guy in the blue beating on the dude with the tattoos. I knocked him down in the first round, but somehow he won the fight. Politics. The fight was at Yonkers Raceway in front of about 2,000 people. It was so loud I could barely hear my trainer yelling at me to 'Duck!'. As you can see, I'm pretty diesel in the photo. I fought at Light-Heavyweight which is 178lbs. I trained at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn from 1991-1999.

*Just kidding about the $64,000. I won $1000.

Day Two - April 12, 2007

...This is me from 1988...

I woke up around 8am today and drove my son to pre-school. Then I went straight to the gym. This is the only way that I can be sure to get to the gym and not be rushed. My plan was to just do straight cardio because I find it almost impossible to lift weights in the morning without having eaten and without any energy. I did 40 minutes on the treadmill, rising from 3.0-3.4 mph and raising the incline to 2.0 and then 4.0. My heartrate never went above 114. Usually when I run on the treadmill, my HR goes to 150. When I sprint, I think I've hit 170 before.

I am concerned about the cardio plan. First, doing the recommended 70 minutes per day is a LOT OF TIME to spend walking in place. Second, in the past, I've found that the only thing that jumpstarts my metabolism and causes the pounds to start melting away is to run at a 5.5-7.5mph clip. Just 20 minutes of that has allowed me to lose 20-25lbs in 2-3 weeks in the past. Oh well, we shall see.

I went to the grocery store after my workout and picked up some Omega-3 eggs and a large box of Eggbeaters, for when I'm too lazy to break eggs and clean up. I also picked up a few cans of Cashews and another lb of almonds (which are pretty expensive!).

Meal One: I made eggbeaters over macadamia nut oil and tossed in a little shredded cheddar. Those eggbeaters are pretty bland so I added some salt and pepper to make them edible. I ate some cashews too. I was thisclose to pouring some OJ, but I decided to stick with the program and made a batch of Crystal Light - Raspberry Lemonade. That was actually pretty good!

Stomach feeling empty within 1.5 hours of Meal One.

Meal Two: Chicken Breast with Cashews. (No omega capsule!)

Meal Three: Protein Shake w/peanut butter

I am taking my inlaws out to dinner so I drank a protein shake first. Unfortunately, it's been 30 minutes and I'm starving again. I need some FOOD IN MY BELLY!! It's 7:30 pm. I'm gonna go drink a glass of water and find something else to munch on.

Day One - April 11, 2007

ON April 11, 2007 (yesterday), I began my 'BODY TRANSFORMATION' . Yesterday, I had to attend a "training seminar" in Brooklyn. I was operating on about two hours of sleep, so I had neither the energy or the fortitude to even bother trying to eat right. I rolled out of bed and into the shower and into my car without even passing by my kitchen. I took a Dasani water with me for the ride but I didn't even drink it.

Once I got to my destination, I was pleased to see that they had bagels with cream cheese and muffins and danishes. I had one-half of a cinnamon-raisin bagel with cream cheese and butter. I had half of a cranberry muffin. I drank a cup of whole milk.

We had a lunch break, but it was cold and nasty outside and this was a catered event, so I ate one half of a turkey/ham/muenster cheese sub. I was disappointed that there were no chips, but I guess that was good for my "diet". I went to the soda bin and saw they had diet and regular. I almost grabbed a Coke Zero but then I saw a Mountain Dew. They had diet Mountain Dew, but Diet Dew is probably the most disgusting version of a diet drink I've ever tasted. Mountain Dew is my favorite beverage.

Half of a sub didn't fill me up so I went back for seconds and ate a turkey/bacon wrap. I had finished my Dew, so I grabbed a Coke Zero. If you've never tried it, Coke Zero is a better version of Diet Coke. Tastes almost indentical to Pepsi One. I've never been a fan of diet soft drinks, but Coke and Pepsi have done well with these fine new products.

At around 2:15, we got another break and they had busted out the cookies for us. They had all kinds. I'm a bit of a cookie connoisseur, so I grabbed a Macadamia White Chocolate Chunk, a sugar cookie, two oatmeal raisin cookies, a chocolate chip, and two chocolate sprinkled covered jelly cookies. I also poured myself another cup of whole milk.

I got home around 5pm and waited for my wife to get home so we could eat. At around 7pm, she came home and around the same time, Mister G called me. That kind of put me on track. The way I look at it is that I can waste my own time and body, but that it wouldn't be polite to waste Mister G's time. My wife fixed a TV dinner for herself and I passed. We went out to a specialty food store called Zeytinia around 8:30pm and I bought some macadamia nut oil and some almonds. They had almond butter there but it was like $10.99 a jar. No thanks! I'll stick with my Goober Grape! I also bought 1.5lbs of cooked Teriyaki chicken breasts. I came home and cut up about 7 oz. of that and ate it with some of the almonds.

My wife and I went to our New York Sports Club at 10:15pm. We trained chest together and started off with incline dumbbell press. Chest is my favorite bodypart to train. It grows fast because my tris and delts aren't that strong and don't help out much. I always warm up with pushups. My incline dumbbell routine: 50x15,65x12,70x4 and 75x4. I would normally do dumbbell flyes after a pressing movement but Mister G recommended the pec deck machine so we gave that a try. I don't really pay attention to amounts on silly cable machines, so I don't recall how much I did.

Because I'm just getting back into lifting regularly, I know the biggest mistake would be to do too many sets and overtrain the muscle. If I train too hard, the muscles will be sore for a week and that's just not smart. So I'll be sticking with 6-8 sets for bigger bodyparts and 4-6 sets for the smaller bodyparts until I get back into my groove.

My wife and I then did about ten minutes on the Stepmill on Level 6. That's about 40 flights of stairs. For those of you who haven't done the Stepmill, it's a killer. It's brutal because unlike a treadmill or elliptical machine, where you can slow down and make it easier, the Stepmill almost feels harder when you slow down because it's like you're lifting your legs in slow motion. Ten minutes was plenty. My legs were toasted and I had a good sweat.

I came home and thought about eating a shake or something, but then decided that I had eaten more than enough calories for the day. I took a Omega capsule, a Primrose capsule, and some type of pill by EST Nutrition called Test Drive that the owner Keith Thomas gave me at the Arnold. I buy most of my stuff at my local Trader Joes store in Scarsdale because their prices are great, their staff is very helpful, and they have a nice selection of products.

I also take 3-4 capsules of Super Colon Cleanse every night. I know I have a bit of a gut, but without this product, my stomach and waist would be another 2 inches wider. This product REALLY cleans you out. I take it late at night and in the morning, I can't make it more than an hour without having to go to the bathroom. It makes me feel better for the rest of the day. When I don't take it at night, I feel bloated and constipated all day. Wow, you'd think I was getting paid for this endorsement!

Anway, that was it for April 11, 2007. I'll be back!

Welcome to My Blog!

Welcome to Special Ed's Blog! What the hell is a Blog, you ask? It's like a diary, only gayer. It used to be that only teenage girls and closeted artsy types kept diaries, but now even some straight guys have them. I bet the word Diary is really pissed off at this Blog dude for stealing all of Diary's thunder. Diary.com is like "What the fuck happened?" But he shouldn't worry too much because eventually people will realize how gay the word "Blog" sounds and Mark Cuban will buy Diary.com for $38 Million Dollars and Diary will be fashionable and hip again and Blog will be left holding his asshole wondering what happened and Hey, where did all my friends go? Did you catch that hotlink there? Yep, that's Mark Cuban's BLOG! Most blogs are freaking boring because most people are so boring. Who cares about the lives of these people?? I want to read a blog by a twelve-year old child soldier in the Sierra Leone civil war. I want to read a blog by an NBA rookie detailing all the ass he's getting. I want to read a blog by a hot, young stripper describing how she gets herself pumped up to dance for fat old men for a bunch of dollar bills. Or I want to read a blog by a homeless guy. A tech-savvy billionaire like Mark Cuban could totally step up and help the homeless. He should provide the homeless with affordable laptops so they can blog too. Maybe then, I'd have a reason to read someone's blog.