We'll miss you, Guy!

For those of us us lucky enough to know Guy Merchant, (the guy in the back middle with the biggest smile and both thumbs up) we know him as a kind, light-hearted, easy going dude with an infectious laugh, a huge smile, and a scary wheeze. Oh, and lets not forget the unbelievable amounts of sweat.

Unfortunately, Guy passed away on Monday from a quick bout with an aggressive cancer. We lost a good man and a great friend to the UCLA community. This news is a shock to all of us, but let's try to remember Guy the way he left us.

From what we gathered in our short, yet frequent interactions, Guy loved swimming, reading the New Yorker, watching shows like Mad Men and The Walking Dead, and desserts. Desserts bears repeating. I'm pretty sure we all got a new recipe for some insanely awesome-sounding dessert every week. And if you ever tasted Guy's flan, well then it ruined flan for you because nothing compares.

Guy's incessantly up-beat spirits and the joy he found in working hard and training like a true competitor was a lot like dessert after a brutal workout for everyone around him. His positive attitude and his jovial approach to the hard things in life were highly contagious to the folks at 6:15pm and it was very noticeable. He was good time, through and through.

As you all take a moment to mourn Guy, please keep in mind that in life, he cared very much about others' happiness and we should remember him with gratitude for being the man that he is. I am very thankful for getting the opportunity to coach and be friends with such a benevolent person and I will really miss him.

Here's a few more picture of Guy.

We'll miss you, Guy.

Like Gatorade for vampires.

Blood tastes weird. So what better way to really hook the vampires than to sweeten it up? What would you rather drink: irony, salty, mineraly stuff or gatorade? Lets turn our blood into gatorade then. I bet the face-eating bath salt freaks aka Zombies will appreciate it as well. This joke sounded a lot better in my head. Oh well..

Here's the real issue. Syrup doesn't flow very well. It is very viscous. Flush it down a fat pipe and it won't matter, but as the capillaries narrow, the flow decreases proportionally and fluid pressure rises. This works well for a tree that needs to keep moisture high up away from the water source, but it is an absolutely disastrous state in our bodies. Our brain and eyes and our appendages and basically all of our tissues have very narrow extensions of blood vessels; some so narrow that only single red blood cells can pass through them at a time. So if a person cranks their blood sugar up and makes it slightly syrupy, then forget about those narrow capillaries passing anything through them. Pump up the blood pressure to boot so that things keep flowing, just a slower rate. It's not good.

Now take a chronically high sugar state. Blood doesn't get to certain tissues for too long, they die. Ever heard of diabetics losing limbs? Going blind? Ever wonder about Alzheimer's Disease? I'm not saying that I have the cure and I'm not trying to blanket the pathologies of these diseases, but it makes you think about the value of preventing these diseases with minor adjustments to our daily lives. So does reducing sugar intake and increasing sugar metabolism (exercise) sound like good ideas? Your call.

So in order to take this serious dialog and make it a little more bearable we made a video. Starring ME! And Dr. Zebra Fish! We made science! Kind of.. ish... whatever.. ENJOY!

Spoiler alert: nothing blows up.. sorry folks. Maybe next time.




Big thanks to Bill and Dr. Rios for helping me out on 15 minutes notice and to Elisa for buying all the goods.

Real food? As opposed to?

Personally, I believe that there is FOOD and then just things that can be swallowed.

This guy has a free seminar where he will teach you about real food, in case you're confused. It's FREE!

http://realfoodsummit.com/

So read it, watch it, enjoy it, an then fill me in. Do it!

Thanks.

wah wah wah

Even if you're just joking around, complaining about the workouts, verbally or physically expressing discontent about the workouts, or asking us if we're "going to take it easy on you today" is merely an advertisement of your work ethic and nothing more.

First of all, we don't take it hard or easy on anyone. Everyone is SUGGESTED the same workout and if you don't want to do it, no one makes you do anything you don't want to do. Frankly, you can walk away or stand there the whole time. The choice to do the work is YOURS and YOURS ALONE. With that said, I suggest that if you chose to show up, you may want to also choose to JUST DO THE WORK. That simple.

Keep this in mind:

Bam. Slurp that up with your protein shake.

We all have our off days and you all have heard my urges to get more rest countless times. There is no such thing as getting too much rest when you need it. I often force myself to keep sleeping on weekends so I can get a good 10-11 hours of excessive sleep. If it's a day of rest for me, I move and act like a hibernating bear. But there is a big difference between that and plain laziness. So if you do choose to do the work. You might want to add the gusto it requires. The work isn't going to do itself just because you asked it to.

Paying for a membership only gets you in the door. It's the work that counts, and you can't put a dollar-figure on that.

Ask these guys about "going easy"

Or these guys:

Get my drift?

Have a fun 4th!