Exercise

How can a skinny guy put on muscle?

I got asked this question recently and answered it with a video. Here it is:

There are two main things you can do:

  • Eat like a horse
  • Work out like a horse

There are more things involved, such as getting enough sleep and focusing on big, whole body exercises such as the deadlift, the squat, the clean and press and other similar exercises, but those two things, if put in practice with determination and with the clear goal in mind of getting big, will take you from a skinny ectomorph of 135 lbs. to a muscular, strong 195 lbs. See the diptych below. On the left is what I looked like when I started college and on the right is what I looked like when I graduated.

Diptych Bodybuilding College Years

There is one more thing I must mention: there is a price to pay for this and it’s also big. Huge. You will inevitably get gas from all the protein-rich foods you have to eat frequently during the day. It’s not a toot here and there. Exactly when you make most of your gains in mass, you have to prepare for flat-out flatulence, all day long and all night long. It gets nasty. The odor is unbearable. Intolerable. It’s not like I was gulping down cheap buckets of mass gainers. I was eating healthy foods from the cafeteria at one of the top liberal arts colleges in the US. Between meals, I was drinking quality whey shakes and supplementing with cans of tuna. But it was very, very unpleasant. I loved working out, I loved getting big, I loved the way I looked and felt but boy, did I hate the farts… I messed up my gut for a number of years and I’m still not sure if my gut is fully recovered these days. I wonder if I did something wrong with my diet back then and if I were to do it again, I’d focus on gaining weight more moderately and more slowly and definitely eating less, even if it meant the progress would be much more gradual. Food for thought…

Hope you find the video helpful!

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A Guide To A Good Life

Character, Body, Clothes and Behavior

In this video, I talk about four layers of one’s being that make up a gentleman — or any man worth his salt for that matter. As we stand in the core, the very substance of a man, the most inner layer is his character and looking outward, we see the other layers: the body, the clothes and the behavior.

I hope you enjoy this video and find it useful! Till next time.

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Thoughts

The Singing Cockatiel

YouTube user pokomarichard posted this wonderful video of her cockatiel singing along to “Totoro”. I love it!

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Ligia's Kitchen

Ligia’s Kitchen: Raw pickles

Video

It has been a while since we published an episode of Ligia’s Kitchen! I’m so glad we had a chance to film one this past weekend, even though we had to cut it short because Sophie needed Ligia’s attention. That by the way, is the reason we haven’t been filming new episodes. The little sweetheart needs us and we can’t dedicate a few hours to the filming of an episode.

In this new episode, you’ll learn how to make delicious, healthy, probiotic raw pickles without vinegar or preservatives. You’ll be seeing how pickled cucumbers and pickled green tomatoes get made. All of the ingredients that go into these pickles are fresh and organic and the pickling process itself involves no heat or vinegar whatsoever. The recipe is posted in the video.

Ligia’s co-host in this video is Izabela Panescu, the creator and host of a show called “Tinerete Fara Batranete” on Digi24, a Romanian TV station.

We filmed this episode in Romanian but don’t worry, I’ve provided English subtitles for you. Make sure to click on the CC button below the video to enable them.

Enjoy!

A Guide To A Good Life

Respect and Discrimination

So often in life we meet with situations where the question of respect and discrimination comes up in our minds. We get to decide whether to extend respect or to discriminate and after the fact, probably question our decisions, wondering whether we did the right thing.

In this video from “The Elegant Gentleman” series, I wanted to talk to you about the meanings of these two words and to give you a few simple criteria (such as appearance, personal hygiene and behavior) for evaluating a person or a situation that should ease your decision-making process.  I should make it clear here that I refrained from talking about the more controversial meaning of the word “discrimination” in my video, simply because it’s not the word’s primary or even secondary meaning; it is something we’ve chosen to associate with the word in recent times, which perhaps says something about the state of our society.

Here’s this video posting on my Facebook page:

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