Tis the season for bulking, and oh yes, there happens to be a lot of holiday crap going on, too. This holiday crap just takes time and energy away from bulking, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.
This year's bulking season is turning out to be much different than my last 12 or 13 bulking seasons and it's inducing some thoughts of a very different world, a world of huge people compared to a world of skinny people. There is also a world of really, really tiny people, but thank God I'll never see that world!
My last 12 or 13 years have been spent in the huge world, where I maintained a solid 385-ish pounds. The bulking season was a wondrous time of year back then. It made me feel like a kid on Christmas morning opening up my new lifting equipment. This year is a much different scenario. Due to some life changes that I really needed to make, I'm now in the bulking season as a skinny person. Worse than just being skinny, I'm in the bulking season not wanting to bulk up. In some ways, I feel as though I've lost my faith in a religion. This has put me in a very reflective place and has me thinking of the pros and cons of being huge. I feel as though I'm the perfect person to write about these pros and cons because I've experienced both sides. After so many years of being huge, I'm now a skinny 300-pound man. I even recently had to order new pants, and with tears in my eyes, put 40-inch X 32-inch in the size drop-down window. Yes, I know it's hard to hear. Chad Aichs is now a skinny man!
As all huge men know, bulking season starts with Halloween and runs through New Years. There is food everywhere, and those annoying social engagements at least have tons of great bulking food this time of year. It's so much easier to ignore people when you can focus on the bulking of sugary sweet food.
This Halloween, I was able to stick with my non-bulking plan, although it really is only the appetizer of the whole bulking season. The holiday usually consists of me pounding down a ton of candy during Halloween and buying even more the day after at a discount. This year, I only had a few pieces and actually lost weight because on Halloween night, I rode my BMX bike with my niece and nephew for hours.
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I think the really hard part so far this year was seeing eggnog on sale earlier than I've ever seen it. For those who don't know, eggnog and white fudge-covered Oreos are my all time favorite bulking food. There are calories galore. To see eggnog on sale early was like a dagger to my heart. I generally don't believe in conspiracy theories, but I feel there is good evidence that the National Dairy Council is waging a secret war against me. It's probably because of the financial hit they'll be taking this year because I won't be consuming eggnog. Here's a financial tip—don't invest in dairies this year because their projections won't be met. So far, I've held strong and only bought one half pint. Yet another painful bulking season moment so far this year. Luckily, I haven't seen any white fudge-covered Oreos yet. It appears the National Dairy Council wasn't smart enough to team up with Nabisco. All I can really think about is how jealous I am of those lucky bastards looking to bulk this year.
During this bulking season, my thoughts keep turning to huge versus skinny. In my brain, it makes sense to list the pros and cons, but even that will be difficult because some things are both. For example, I've had to turn sideways to get through some doors. Do I list that one as a pro or con? I mean “I had to turn sideways to get through some doors!” That shit is f#$@%&* awesome! It felt like a pro to me, but at times it got annoying. Needing the seat belt extender on a plane—pro or con? It was a pro for me, a thing of pride! Yet it was frustrating at times, too. Watching people try to sneak a peek at your massive freakiness but being afraid to make eye contact with you—again, I would say that's more of a pro, but at times, it can be a con. So I think the best thing to do is just cover each topic and list the pros and cons as I go.
The first subject should undoubtedly be the bathroom and crapping. Having to stretch before my morning dump was definitely a con. If I didn't stretch, I risked a serious cramp in any number of muscle groups. The stomach or lat cramps were the worst. Once they happen, you're stuck there in the bathroom trying to stretch the cramps out or you have to be patient until they stop so you can finish the task at hand. Even once they let up, you fear the next wipe because they may start again. I can't even count the number of times I thought, "Good, that's over. Now I can finish wiping." But as soon as I reached around, bam! There was another cramp. My only thought at that point is, “F%$#! Am I ever going to get out of this bathroom?!” Of course, if it's your abs that cramp, you're forced to do a deep, dynamic squat first thing in the morning, which just isn't any fun at all when all you want to do is go eat again.
This brings up huge man wiping techniques. You can reach around and definitely risk the lat cramp. Let's face it—if you're huge, it's hard to even reach back there. Huge shoulders and lats make it very difficult. There's the option of the reach through, which has a greater risk of abdominal cramping, and you risk getting crap (literally) on your package. For the huge man, the reach through also means the possibility of passing out or busting out a big nose bleed, which means you now have two areas to wipe. It's very similar to tying your shoes, but we'll cover that later.
Whenever possible, plan to use a shower with a detachable shower head before the dump. This is the safest and smartest course of action. If finances and space are available, a bidet is highly recommended. During a training session, my brother and I decided that the word 'bidet' is stupid and it should hence forth be known as an ass shower. There isn't any need for a pretty name. Call it what it is. The shower also comes in handy when your shitting over eight times a day. The con is shitting over eight times a day. Needless to say, when you're taking in enough calories to become huge, a lot comes out, too. That many shits a day and you'll get very sore down there. A sore bung hole is much worse than any sore muscle, so baby wipes are always a good idea. They help with the soreness, but you're still left with the difficulty of reaching around to get the job done.
In general, bathrooms are a con for those few huge people. I've been in public stalls where my shoulder touched both sides. How the hell am I supposed to wipe when I can't hardly even turn? What about those urinal blinders (the little partial dividers between urinals)? I've actually had to bend them out with my shoulders just to take a piss. It was either that or stand back and arch my stream to hit the urinal. What point do they serve anyway? If you're huge enough, no one can stand next to you anyway. It's the handicap stall all the way for me. In a world for tiny people, being huge is kind of a handicap. It's not even just a problem in public bathrooms either. In my parent's bathroom, there's a separate door and room for the toilet inside the bathroom. It's smaller than most closets, and I physically don't have room to wipe in there. I have to take a dump and wipe in the other part of the bathroom.
One of my favorites is when the toilet paper holder is mounted on the cabinet, which is already too damn close to the toilet. Who the hell came up with that idea anyway? Not only do I have to strain to wipe and risk cramping, but now I have to strain to reach the damn toilet paper. In my bathroom, I bought a stand-alone toilet paper holder that I can place right in front of me for easy strainless reaching. So I think that makes the whole subject of bathrooms, toilets and crapping a big sore, frustrating, cramping con. I can't find anything pro about these subjects and being huge.
Let's move on to airplanes and airports. For starters, let's just say that a huge person has to use the restroom before getting on the plane and then hold it until the damn thing lands. Everything in the paragraph above holds true and is amplified by ten. Maybe taking a leak is possible if you're huge and flexible enough, but at one time there was physically no possible way that I could wipe my ass in one of those airplane bathrooms.
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The whole airport experience is a pain in the ass for the huge person and it all starts with packing. You have a lot of fabric to pack, even it's just for a short two- or three-day trip. When I try to pack light so that I can just use a carry-on, it's difficult. One 5XL T-shirt weighs about four pounds and has four times the amount of fabric as a normal size T-shirt. So do the math. Three or four T-shirts take up the space of 12 shirts for a normal person. Luckily, huge people rarely wear pants so that saves some space, although a pair of huge shorts is about the same amount of fabric as a normal person's pants.
If you plan on training during your trip (what's the point of traveling if not to train somewhere new), there is a whole other huge bag of lifting gear. The weight belt is big enough for a small cow to use. The bench shirt is the size of a comforter. I've seen tents smaller than some of my squat suits. Add in knee wraps, wrist wraps and lots of extra ammonia and you have a big ass bag that is usually pushing the weight limit of luggage on the plane. It's funny because as strong as the huge person is, we tend to be lazy unless we're actually lifting weights. Because of this, our bags are usually dragged or kicked through the airport line to get checked in. The kicking is mostly because bending over risks a bloody nose and just burns way too many calories. Then it's off to find something to eat. I find airports to be expensive to eat at and the portions are way too small. A huge man needs to eat a lot before getting on a plane for a few hours.
The very best thing about flying is squishing your nuts as you try to cram yourself into that little seat that had to be designed for an eight-year-old. I think they make some kids' car seats bigger than airplane seats. At my biggest, I always bought two seats, which helped a lot, but both of my shoulders still almost took up both seats. At least I could spread my legs out and not squish my nuts though. My ass always fits in the seat, but my thighs never even come close. I've been known to go right ahead and reach into my pants to adjust my nuts to the best position before sitting. I don't even want to mention the snacks, but again, they're for eight-year-olds. Do I look like I weigh 80 pounds? When I was at my heaviest, a snack was two ultimate western bacon cheeseburgers. Also, if you get an aisle seat, you'll get hit by the cart and every single person who walks by.
Despite all these obvious cons to airports and flying, there actually are some pros. Asking for the seat belt extender was definitely a pro for me. I chuckled to myself every time I proudly asked for it! I found having to buy two seats painful on my pocketbook but pretty sweet on my ego. I would look at all the "normals" on the plane and realize that most of them don't even have big enough shoulders to spread past one seat. Mine were halfway in the aisle with one seat and almost took up both when I bought two seats. It gave me a sense of pride for all my hard work to become truly huge!
Eating is a great topic for the huge person, and for me, it had, or has, a lot of pros and cons. I actually got to the point where I hated to eat. The foods I loved became mundane and boring. I forced down food all the time to the point of wanting to puke. I had to schedule eating and prepare food. It was work and it took all the joy out of food after so many years. Maybe some people can get to nearly 400 pounds easily, but it was a ton of work for me.
One of the best things after a meet was that I didn't have to eat for awhile or focus on it at all. So the work it took was a con for me, but there were times when it was awesome. I've pounded some large amounts of food at times and really enjoyed myself. Now that I'm skinny, I get to see the other side of the coin. For starters, eating healthy is super expensive. I spend way more money on groceries now than when I was huge. Junk food is loaded with calories and it's cheap. Speaking of that, I end up still eating a large amount of food, trying to keep my calories somewhat high. Healthy food is not very calorie dense. I also miss the fact that a nice greasy hamburger sits in your gut for a much longer time than a plain chicken breast.
Even though I'm eating healthy now, I give myself a junk day, which is usually more of just an evening. In the beginning, I found that I looked at cookies or snack cakes at the store. I would think to myself, "Well, it's cheaper to buy a whole package and then I will save some for the next junk day." Bullshit. I was totally lying to myself. I would start with one, and 20 minutes later, the whole container would be gone. It didn't matter if it was a package of Oreos or a box of ding dongs. It would be completely gone. So there is still a part of me that misses those huge days. Like they say, you never miss it until it's gone.
When I was huge, I never had to decide on which meal I wanted when I went out to eat. I would order two or three. Now when I go out, I have to pick just one. Even at fast food joints (which I rarely go to anymore), I have to pick a sandwich. It used to be a two sandwich minimum. Burger or chicken or fish? Simple solution—just get all three! I think this subject may end up with more pros than cons. I don't have to force feed myself like I used to, but when eating healthy, I still end up forcing down food. The cost of healthy eating is way more expensive, and I enjoyed my cheap, unhealthy food more. I never had to pick which meal I wanted because I could have both. I never had to pick only one junk food a week. I had as much as I wanted and more. I think I'm starting to get hungry. Chicken breast, here I come!
For the huge person, clothing is a con. The only pro I can seem to come up with is that you always have an excuse for not dressing up. Even if you can find nice clothes that fit, they always fit like crap. I guess the clothing manufacturers and designers think it's impossible for a human with a chest larger than 50 inches to have a bigger chest than waist. When I did try to buy a nice 5XL size shirt, I had to wad up 20 extra inches of fabric in the back of my pants. That is if I could find nice pants that didn't have an enormously long crotch. I can only guess that this is because someone with a big waist must have a bunch of saggy belly fat they need to tuck in the crotch.
The legs have pants never have enough room to fit a huge man's thighs. If you're in the high 40-inch waist category, you should have thighs at least in the high 30s. I just bought new 40-inch waist pants and the thighs are still tight as hell. Keep in mind, my thighs are down to a skinny 31 inches right now. Apparently, I can't have both—a waist that fits or thighs that fit. In order to get the thighs comfortable, I need the waist size two sizes too big so I look like Jethro Bodine from the Beverly Hillbillies with a rope cinching my waist. So for the most part, the huge man is limited to shorts, sweat pants and T-shirts. That isn't really so bad because the huge man is usually burning up with heat and needs to have expandable waist lines for the huge meals it takes to maintain that much muscle mass.
I think hats and shoes can also fit in the clothes category. They're another great topic for the huge person. I've worn hats off and on my entire life. Once I got huge, that pretty much changed because finding hats to fit a melon of my size was pretty much impossible. They usually ended up looking like a little beanie or a Yamaka. Even those adjustable trucker type hats wouldn't fit my head. Maybe they need to make hats with a seat belt extender for them, but let's face it—they would still look stupid sitting on gigantic heads. When I was lucky enough to find a hat that fit (usually a really big flex fit hat), people laughed when I ate because my hat would move up and down. My temporalis muscles had gotten so big and flexed so hard when I ate that it made my hat pop up and down with every chew. It was kind of amusing to watch and, of course, I took pride in the fact that even my chewing muscles were huge. The huge person also has limited choices on motorcycle helmets because of melon size. I would usually get the biggest size and it would still give me a headache for the first few times until the enormousness of my head squished the padding down so it fit better.
When it comes to shoes, it isn't really the size that matters as much as tying them or getting them to last. At my biggest, there was always a chance of passing out while trying to get my shoes tied with one breath. It usually took a couple breaths per shoe. When there happened to be a kid around, it was always worth it to bribe or trick him or her into tying them for me. For the most part, I solved this issue with slip-on Vans or by tucking my laces in without tying them, especially on airport travel days. To this day, I still don't tie my shoes, even though as a skinny person, it's easy.
For the huge, finding shoes that won't break down within a month or two is a practice in futility. Because of this, I usually wear my shoes until the soles are paper thin and the shoe is pretty much shredded. Without a doubt, boots hold up much better and actually give some support, but because of all those laces and how loose they have to be to get the boot on, it isn't even an option. That's not to mention how hard they are to get back off. Hats and shoes are another sore subject for the huge person and, for me, they're a con.
There are many pros for the skinny man when it comes to clothing. I can actually buy clothes at a store now, and I don't have to just get them online, although because I'm antisocial, I tend to buy them online anyway. I have a much wider variety of clothes that I can wear, but again, I'm simple. I pretty much wear shorts and T-shirts anyway. Of course, I'm still affected by the horrible waist to thigh ratios in pants and chest to waist ratios in shirts. I'm able to pack with a little less clothing mass nowadays, so when I think about it, the whole clothing issue is kind of a draw for me.
I've noticed a trend with cell phones. They seem to be getting bigger again. This is a benefit to the huge person, but the damn keys are still so small. They still have those touch keys that make it hard to type with fat fingers. The size of the phone doesn't help. You end up trying to hold the phone to your ear without your arm going to sleep. You can always lean up against something to support your big ass arm, but it still falls asleep. Of course, you can get one of those blue tooth ear pieces, but huge men have fat heads and fat ears. Therefore, the stupid ass ear piece keeps popping out of your ear and you end up keeping it pushed in with your hand anyway. Guess what? Your arm also goes to sleep doing that or, even worse, it cramps up. I always leaned toward the speaker phone, but that has its disadvantages, too. On the pro side, I did always use the arm falling asleep excuse to get off the phone more quickly. So cell phones are a con for the huge man.
For the huge person, vehicles always seem to be an issue. The only vehicles that are even half way close to comfortable are full size trucks or SUVs. Both have room inside and you don't have to do a low squat to get into them. Most cars just aren't an option for the huge person. I've been in cars that I physically can't sit up straight in because my shoulders are squished up against the door of the car. I've actually been a passenger and forced the driver to pull off to the side of the road because I was freaking out because I wasn't able to move in that stupid little car. Your legs are squished, your nuts are squished and your shoulders are squished. Of course, it's as hot as hell in there because normal people always seem to be cold. In my opinion, it's a little glimpse into hell.
Even the cars I can deal with inside are a bitch getting in and out of. Each one seems to come with its own problems and there seems to be a technique for getting into each one. Sometimes it's one foot first followed by sitting down, smacking your head against the roof and finally pulling your other leg in. My favorite is the ones where you have to put one leg in first and then do like a mid air recline (like popping the leg rest in a lazy boy) while tucking your head. It has to be done in one full movement, and hopefully you didn't do a squat session the day before. Getting out of the car is a whole other ordeal. They need handles outside of the cars like they do on semi trucks. I'm kind of surprised that I haven't ripped a door off by pushing on it to help get me out of a rock bottom squat.
It isn't all bad because there are pros even to this nightmare. I always get shotgun because I'm (or was) always the biggest, although in some situations, the back seat isn't so bad because it's like getting two seats on the plane. You can spread your legs so the boys can breath and you have more shoulder room. We haven't even talked about motorcycles or quads yet. Even at my biggest, I still rode and had nowhere near the issues that I had with a car. I always had shoulder room and loved to ride. I did find that I had to quit riding crotch rockets because I just got too squished up. It got hard to shift without lifting my entire leg up. My arms and hands would go to sleep from the pressure of the position and that isn't a good thing at 80 miles an hour. There is also a big suspension issue with huge people. With cruiser street bikes, this isn't so much an issue, but with dirt bikes and race quads, it's a huge issue. Going through the woods used to be a huge pain, and my quad or dirt bike suspension would basically load up and then try to buck me off. It was a major workout every time I went for a ride. I was out the other day and laughed the entire time because riding at a skinny 300 pounds is so much easier. It's still more than the recommended rider weight, but those are just suggested guidelines. Overall, I have to say that vehicles are a big con for huge people.
There is one more major pro to being huge in a vehicle that I just realized on a trip up to Oregon. I normally take up from the middle of my truck to the door. The benefit to this is that a cop has a very hard time telling whether or not I'm wearing my seat belt. You guessed it—my skinny ass got a damn seat belt ticket. I won't tell anyone that they should or shouldn't wear a seat belt, and I wish the government wouldn't tell me.
What have I become?
This also brings up another con for the huge person and vehicles. For the huge person, the seat belt is extremely annoying. Some don't even fit, and if they do, they're extended all the way. If they do fit and aren't all the way extended, it seems that they lock up at the smallest movement. In this case, the more you struggle to reach anything, the tighter they get. It's like some kind of torture device. You can hardly lean forward to change the stereo, turn the air conditioning up or get that Snickers out of the middle cubby. Half the time you give yourself a shoulder cramp trying to stretch your arm to do any of these things. You can't lean forward to adjust your position in that cramped, small, annoying seat. This also reminds me that the huge person has to back up with only the mirrors because he can't turn his head enough to actually look behind him. Of course, the seat belt locks up, so he can't turn his shoulders either. On a motorcycle, the mirrors don't help because your huge shoulders are so wide you can't see past them. This whole subject of vehicles and being huge is depressing. Right now, I'm feeling pretty good about being skinny because I love vehicles.
For me, one of the greatest things about being truly huge was that it scared a lot of people. Most people were so afraid of me that they wouldn't even want to make eye contract. The people who had the courage to approach me were usually scared off with any kind of low growl as they approached. The funny thing is now that I'm skinnier and leaner, I get more comments on how big I am. Of course, this just infuriates me because in my world, I'm now skinny. These people have no idea what huge is. Being lean has nothing to do with being huge. Saying that I look huge is like rubbing salt into a fresh, open wound. It's all lies. The proof of this is that they come up to comment on how huge I am now whereas when I was truly huge, they were afraid to talk to me. I had hoped that my new facial scar would keep people away, but it hasn't done a very good job of it. Maybe I need a more drastic, gruesome scar.
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Normal people don't have any idea what truly huge is. Just the other day, I was talking to a friend and he reminded me of a story from my glory days of being huge. He said that he remembered me coming over to his house for a UFC fight and he commented on how I made his love seat (a two-person couch for those who aren't familiar with that term) look like a single, small chair. He also reminded me about when his little daughter came up and looked me straight in the eyes to ask, “Why is your head so big?” Ahh, the good old days.
Throughout this article, I've discussed the pros and cons of being huge. I could take the time to add them all up, but who really cares? I say this because there is one pro that trumps any con and that is being insanely f@#$%&*strong. I was huge and I was insanely strong. I still think back to some of the crazy things that I did and lifted, not even just in the gym but everywhere. At work, they tell stories of me pushing my forklift to get another tank of propane instead of just getting another tank. I used to load the battery cart up with 1200-pound batteries and then walk with it like a wheelbarrow. When I delivered kegs, I routinely carried them on my shoulders or carried two kegs at a time. Not that any of these were great feats of strength, but they were easy to do. I would pick up crazy sized stones in the desert just to see if I could. I suppose I did this my entire life just to challenge myself, but when I was huge, it was much bigger and heavier stuff. It was fun being huge, and I'm glad I had the chance to experience it. Even with all the cons, it was still awesome and worth everything that it took to get there.
Now that I'm a skinny 300 pounds, I'm enjoying that, too. I miss being as big and strong as I was, but other things in my life have become more important than being huge. I know. I can't believe I just said that either. But at this point in my life, being in better control of my narcolepsy and type II bipolar are more important than being huge. At this weight, I have those under better control than I've had in many years. Strength and training are still a huge part of my life and they will be until I'm dead. I've said many times that life is training and training is life. I can't have one without the other. So I'm trying to find a balance between being as strong as possible without pushing myself over the edge back into a dark oblivion.
I've given everything to my strength and to being huge. I've pushed myself to the edge of my limits and I don't have any regrets. As long as my heart beats, I will still be training though. I will be as strong as I can be while keeping some sort of balance to my life, even if that means that I have to do it while being a skinny 300 pounds in my 40-inch waist jeans with the way too tight thighs.
Thanks. I like that idea, 300lb skinny stand up comic! Lol