last night i was watching a disturbing documentary on bbc america called my secret female body. the story followed the life of a girl that felt “trapped” in her body and decided she wanted to instead be a man. she began taking male hormones, which caused her to grow facial hair, get a deep voice and stop having a period. but she/he had big breasts that she had to tape down every time she went out. the hormones eventually brought her d-cups to b-cups, but that still wasn’t enough so she went to have a double mastectomy.

when she/he went for consultations, they blurred out her boobs, and after the surgery, they didn’t blur them out anymore. so that got me to thinking… when is a boob a boob? usually, on tv they can show all the cleavage, side, upper and under boob they want, as long as there’s no areola or nipple. but what about when a woman gets her breast tissue removed and still has a nipple, is that really no longer a boob? i mean because of the skin and swelling, they still looked like a-cups, and it’s still a female nipple, so how is that not still a regular, ole’ boob? either way it was disgusting, and for all practical intentions now just moobs, but clinically they were still boobs.

even worse, she/he now wants to get a penis installed. they make it out of pieces of your forearm. they didn’t get into too much detail about it since she/he will have to wait a few years for the psychiatric evaluations required to do this type of surgery, but the one point they glossed over that i was dying to know: will it work?

for some reason in 2006 (or maybe it was 2005), one of my wacky new year’s resolutions was to solve a rubik’s cube. i went to the mall, bought a cube and after playing with it for an hour or so, let it sit on my shelf for the rest of the year. i’d occasionally pick it up and figure out an algorithm or two, but never made solid progress. this last week i’d been reading a lot about how to solve the cube and have been working at it for an hour or two a day. well a year or two late, but cube solved!

speaking of past new year’s resolutions, i’ve been writing in my workout journal during this get-big process and noticed that my 2007 workout goals were to be able to pull out 4 reps of 200lbs in the lateral pull down and flat bench press. two weeks ago, i exceeded the bench press goal when i did 215lbs, and last week i barely eeked out the 200lb lat pull down goal.

since i’m talking about goals, i’m going to go ahead and reset those same goals to 4 reps of 215lbs for the lat pull down and 4 reps of 230lbs for the flat bench press. if those end up being too conservative, i’ll bump them up when i achieve them.

yesterday, i did 1 rep of 210lbs on the flat bench press. that’s a 15lb increase in my max press in the last 2 months. that means i’m just 15 pounds away from doing 2 plates. (that is 2, 45lb plates on each side, where the bar weighs 45lbs). huzzah!

last night i bumped up my max chest press and did 2 reps @ 205lbs, and then pulled out 2, 8-rep sets @ 185. i’ve been making some strong chest/back increases in the last month or so. i had kinda been in a plateau situation for the last few months, but recently i’ve started doing core workouts with takako every other day, i’ve been keeping a log book of my workouts so i know exactly how much i can do, and taka’s been making me 2 shakes a day. i also switched from champion pure whey protein, to EAS max milk which is a full recovery shake:

ingredients:
Whey Protein Concentrate
Whey Protein Isolate
Calcium & Sodium Caseinates
Micellar Casein
Colostrum
Glutamine Peptides
Taurine
Lipid Blend
Dairy Lipids
Sunflower Oil
Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCTs)
Coconut Oil
L-Carnitine
Mono and Diglycerides
Creatine Potentiator Blend
Creatine Monohydrate
Betaine
Arginine
Methionine
Boron

… i bet it’s the colostrom or boron that’s making the difference :)

so today i tried flat-bar bench press for the first time in about a month, and i was able to do 2 reps at 200lbs, and then did another 2 spotted. at the end of last year, i had made a goal of 4 reps at 200lbs, having never done 1 rep at that weight. anyway, looks like i’m gonna meet my goal a lot sooner than i expected :)