Basic Goodness

Life-changing journeys for talented human beings offered by a some zen dude with the brain of an advertising guy and the body of a nightclub doorman. Welcome to Atalwin's blog!

  • Connect
  • Ambien Mexico Online Ambien Brand Online Zolpidem Mail Order Cheap Ambien Cr Ambien For Sale Online Cheap
  • 100 DW website

Ready for transformation?

September 6, 2013 By Atalwin Pilon Leave a Comment

Amsterdam, Noord Holland, The Netherlands.

Today we measured my body fat again, tomorrow marks the end of my social life. That will be the day that Evolve’s Hypertrophy Camp starts. What is hypertrophy, you might ask. Muscle hypertrophy involves an increase in size of skeletal muscle through an increase in the size of its component cells. In normal English: hypertrophy camp makes you a ripped badass. Only downside: only if you follow the rules to the dot. And the rules are pretty strict.

Apparently I am carb intolerant. I knew that a ‘low carb diet’ was good for me but it seems to be going in the direction of a ‘no carb diet’.  That will be just eggs, meat, fish, nuts, seeds and veggies for me. No pasta, no bread, no sugar, not even a bit of brown rice. Look, I love my buddies at Evolve and I really respect the vast knowledge of the human body of the founders Mike and Sander. But I hate the casualness with which they  squeeze in my back, look at each other and say ‘yup, carb intolerant’. ‘With your body type you can’t eat any carbs for nine months. That way you can completely wean of carbs and then perhaps slowly reintroduce them into your diet.’ What? Nine months! That feels like receiving a prison sentence! It is not that I am such a sweet tooth but it requires a lot of discipline. And I just love breaking rules.

When I started this journey towards physical fitness one month ago my body fat was at 25.8%, last week it was at 18.4%. It is very pleasing to see the progress in numbers. But today the body fat was up again where I was convinced it should have gone down. I watched my food so strictly. But many factors influence the composition of our body. ‘How did you sleep last nights?’ asks Mike. ‘Well uh, good I guess. Apart from the mosquito in my room’ I respond. ‘Ah! A mosquito! Ruins your sleep quality! There you go’. What else did you do different last week? ‘Uh well, I didn’t have my cheat meal’. (I thought that not cheating would be a good thing). ‘Ok, have your cheat meal tonight then’ ‘You are damn right I will have my cheat meal tonight since I am going to carb prison tomorrow, my friend’

I confess, I feel a bit frustrated. But I think the lesson is how complex our body is as a biochemical machine. It works as an equation but is not a simple equation. It is a very complex equation indeed. There are rules and protocols but you have to learn by trial and error. It is interesting how much there is to learn. You think you have your diet and training right but then there is sleep as a factor. Also, my Rebellious Me had some a Club Sandwich out of protest. But if I am honest it doesn’t sit straight in my stomach. I have to admit to myself that my body likes bread less than me. I never knew that. I honestly believed I liked bread. But now that I eat it a lot less it strikes me that my body doesn’t respond too well to it at all.

I like training, I like unknown territory and I like physical, mental and spiritual challenges. So in a way I am looking forward to the challenge ahead of me. Also I should mention that I think my potential P.R. agent liked the idea of me having a ‘Men’s Health body’, I think she saw a way to increase my marketability. But I am a bit scared too. 12 weeks is a long time and the protocols are strict. I don’t mind training hard but I am a bit concerned about the time, effort and potential frustration of the daily meal preparation.

Yesterday I took a peek at the website of a famous gym in London. They have similar programs and a similar philosophy to Evolve. It was looking at their examples of successful body transformations that gave me a reality check. At Evolve’s website you will find amazing examples of Female Fat Loss Camp (the female counterpart of Hypertrophy Camp). By looking and reading the London site I realized that men should have more impressive results than women, just because men have testosterone. We are genetically and hormonally a lot better equipped to build muscle. That means that I am up for something so impressive that it somehow intimidates me (how to live with an extremely good body?) or that I have an opportunity to fail (I can’t do the diet). And since I decided to write about it: once again I have created an opportunity to fail publicly. The double edged catch. Damn.

Did I mention that I want to meet a lovely girl in the (very) near future? I find it quite important that the outcome of this mission is somehow beneficial to that mission. So failure is not really an option. Just to add some more invisible pressure to my shoulders.

Tomorrow at 5 pm I will enter the program and start another mission with an unknown outcome. It feels strangely familiar and strangely similar to – say – taking the plane to Baghdad. I will put my faith into the hands of trainers, protocols and dietary restrictions meanwhile relying on faith, willpower, perseverance and trust. It keeps blowing my mind that every step into not-knowing feels exactly the same. Sometimes it requires leaving home for a long time without a plan, sometimes it requires surrendering to a strict and exhausting program. I signed up because I liked the idea of a physical challenge after all the spiritual endeavors but now that I am sizing up the challenge ahead of me it might be a lot more mental and spiritual than I expected. Oh well.. that is what warriors do, I guess. Game on!

You may also like:

  1. “We Steal Secrets” – How The Shadows Of Julian Assange & Bradley Manning Change The World
  2. About psycho bitches from hell
  3. What makes me unique?
  4. Eps 45: When Life Pulls The Rug From Underneath You

Filed Under: Basic Goodness Tagged With: Amsterdam, Body, Death, Ego, Evolve Health, Fear, Transformation, Warrior

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

SideAd

Would you like some Basic Goodness in your inbox too?

More than 2,367 awesome people from all over the world follow Basic Goodness. Sign up and join our tribe if you are into courageous living too.
* = required field
Language



powered by MailChimp!

Top 5 Most Popular

  • The black wolf and the white wolf (406962 Views)
  • 12 things every guy should master to become a real man (379228 Views)
  • Using social media as a tool for spiritual growth (153260 Views)
  • Open letter to my teacher Genpo Merzel (82639 Views)
  • I dare you to become more than a coward and a liar (62799 Views)

13 Questions to Joost

13 Questions to Douwe

13 Questions to Joan

Tagcloud

100 Day Warrior Amsterdam Anger Australia Bali Beautiful Beirut Blogging Colombia Compassion Courage Death Ego Fear Frustration good Gratitude Healing Heart Honesty Hong Kong India Insight Inspiration Iraq Journey Joy Karma Liberation Life Love Masks Meditation Personal Relationships Sadness Sam van Eeghen Thailand Transformation USA Vulnerability Warrior Wholeheartedness Wisdom Zen

You may also like

  1. “We Steal Secrets” – How The Shadows Of Julian Assange & Bradley Manning Change The World
  2. About psycho bitches from hell
  3. What makes me unique?
  4. Eps 45: When Life Pulls The Rug From Underneath You

Are you ready to become a Warrior?

Click the button below and dive into the World of the Warrior. You will find everything you need to know about the course and you can register immediately. Your transformation is important, it's how you will inspire the people around you to follow.

Learn more about the 100 Day Warrior

  • Connect
  • 100 DW website

Copyright © 2025 · Genesis Framework by StudioPress · WordPress · Log in