Drug addicts all seem to develop specific physical and habitual characteristics as they spiral down into the hole of addition; Meth addicts seem to show these traits in an especially ugly form! I believe knowledge is power, I may dedicate my life towards my passion but I also try to educate myself about those who dedicate theirs towards self-destruction. Why? If you don’t know how bad things can become, they you cannot fully appreciate the gift of not living that type of life can be!

What is Meth?

Meth is a nervous system stimulant which gives its users an instant rush of energy, they feel like they are 10ft tall and can do anything. It is also goes by the name “ice”, “crystal” and “glass” for its smokable forms while the pill forms go by “billy whizz”, “speed”, “sulphate”, “fast”, “uppers”, “powder” and “crank”. It is made up of mix of commonly available, hazardous chemicals, as such it can be mass produced relatively easily and requires no importation such as other hard drugs.

How is Meth taken?

Meth can be taken in various forms such as powder, pill, injectables and I am sure there are other creative ways addicts have found in order to receive a high from this awful drug.

Why do people take Meth?

When the dangerous mix of peer pressure, low self-esteem and easy availability come together, the perfect storm begins. I can easily say that these are the same pressures that create many other types of addicts from nicotine to alcoholics.

What happens after a user stops use?

Well, the reason they took the drugs was to feel 10ft tall, once off, they receive the opposite effect and feel like they belong 6ft under. With prolonged use, Meth addicts become extremely paranoid and develop a host of traits that would make a schizophrenic appear normal. Like other drugs, there is also an adaptation that the body does to cope, meaning more regular and higher doses are required to achieve the same effect.

What do meth addicts look like?

These aren’t pretty pictures, it shows you what drugs can do to you in their extremes. Note that cigarettes and alcohol have the same effects but they are to a lesser extreme and more internalized.

Governments “War on Drugs” commercials: The Montana Meth Project Ads

I may be wrong, but I believe these commercials where actually produced by a concerned individual who had enough with seeing the government do little in the face of the Meth epidemic that was happening in his city. Hopefully these scare the shit out of you… if they don’t, you have deeper problems.

The ugly physical effects of Meth

Like other hard drugs, Meth has a profound effect on the physical body. As the substance is completely toxic to the body, it tries to excrete these substances through the skin’s pores, which tend to get infected. This specific trait seems to be specific to Meth users. In addition, many Meth users end up with mouths that would make even the local dentist freak-out! The internal organs are also taxed beyond recovery most of the time with prolonged use, which means that you don’t only age much faster, but you are really screwing yourself internally as well. Any type of drug use leads to malnutrition, lack of exercise and the usual culprits that don’t have any positive impact on living a long, healthy life.

The Bottom Line

Drugs, of any kind, produce nothing of any positive value to a life.

Buzvia: Documentary Review -> The Meth Epidemic, Amphetamines/Methamphetamines on myfoodcount.com drug listing

I got a comment today from a reader of the article I wrote titled LegendaryLife Profile: Mariusz Pudzianowski in which I stated that although bodybuilding has seen huge strives in physique, the same gains in strength in the power lifting world haven’t been achieved. This is the answer I would have given to my younger self knowing what I know now.

Question from Australia:

What I like to know is that these people (as you had mentioned) are from a specific gene pool. Is it possible for a person who does not have the genetics such as theres to achieve strength and fitness not to their level but close to it?

Answer:

Let me be the first to tell you I am not a doctor, sports physician nor expert in the fields of genetics or optimal training so my answer is based off the discussions I have with athletes of all ages, 15 years of studies in the field and personal experiences. Nobody wants to be “second strongest man” so I will re-phrase your question. “Even with bad genetics, can I become the world’s strongest man?” My answer to you is both yes and no. Take this advice at your own risk and don’t even consider following any of it until you understand the WHY behind it.

Yes, you can

Let me be the first to tell you that genetics play a large role in how much strength you can achieve but what is a far bigger factor is your personal ambition to achieve this goal. Some of the most gifted people genetically can amount to absolutely nothing simply due to a lack of desire. If you think you can become the strongest man in the world, then you have a heck of a shot better chance then the average person with achieving this goal. The more important question I have to ask is are you willing to do what it takes? I have met more then my fair share of bodybuilders, gifted athletes and just freaking huge gym rats, by the age of 35 have shot their joints to hell. You see, muscles are capable of growing bigger and stronger up to a certain point far faster then your joins or ligaments can. There are guys who take steroids who can double their strength within six months but let me be the first to tell you that you wouldn’t want to spend one day in those bodies a decade later. Read up on past sports heroes, pro-wrestlers and even great power lifters, what you will find out usually isn’t anything to brag about. Many need hormone replacement therapy the rest of their lives due to steroid abuse, they need a constant stream of sleeping pills and pain killers just to get through the day and their personal lives are a mess. The body can only take so much abuse before it begins to shut off, hence why steroids, growth hormone and a host of other drugs including pain killers must be used on a regular basis just to keep the momentum going or gains from fading. There are exceptions to every rule, but if you really push yourself beyond your physical limits, you will pay a price one way or another.

Ron Coleman for instance looks like the healthiest person in the world, he is HUGE, POWERFUL and quite intelligent but he is completely dependent on “supplements” the rest of his life. He is the result of fantastic genetics meeting incredible determination with lots of help. He is like the 0.1% cream of the crop with an extremely gifted body but he has also been working out most of his life, just look at the photos of him as he progressed in bodybuilding and you will see a slow progression from well built into HULK over an extended period of time. He has earned, in every sense of the word, the body he has but I wouldn’t want to be in his body if he ever reaches the age of 80.

Remember that only in this century was the 5 minute mile broken, somebody had the will to make what others said was impossible, the next day many others achieved exactly the same goal… moral of this story is if you truly believe you can do it, it will happen.

No, you can’t

Now for the cold hearted reality, if you are unwilling to take the drugs, unable to handle the mental stress of lifting huge amounts of weights and don’t have the muscular or bone structure that is capable of supporting massive amounts of pressure then you will never become the strongest man in the world nor anywhere close to it. You may be an incredible one in a 10 million man exception but odds are that you are not. We are all limited by our genetics, sure, drugs allow us to somewhat morph from one body type into another but the underlying structure that supports everything cannot change enough to turn an extreme ectomorph (skinny, has trouble building and maintaining muscles, long arms and legs) into an extreme mesomorph (muscular, builds muscle very easily and athletic build). Your body type is a birthright given by your ancestors, hence why I believe the next revolution in augmenting body types must come at the genetic level BEFORE the body has had time to form itself fully, soon after conception in a petri dish.

Here is my advice to you

I don’t believe in hiding the facts from anybody but before you do anything, learn to eat, train and build goals for yourself to make your dream of being almost as strong as the Bill Kazmaiers of this world a probability. I am assuming your in your teenage years, so don’t even consider taking steroids, growth hormone or any other supplements as they will screw you up big time (protein and creatine are fine). Your body is swimming in testosterone, this is THE TIME to take full advantage of this, eat and train like a madman, strive for 10 pounds of muscle PER YEAR. Work on your foundation, hit the gym and read all you can about bodybuilding and improving your health. After a few years of doing this and once you have stopped growing (your growth plates have sealed), if you still want to be the worlds strongest man, then additional supplementation is a must. I know it isn’t politically correct to say this but you don’t become a 280 pound man with huge muscles by just eating oatmeal every morning. Be warned though, once you take this path there is NO going back. You will have the body of a God for maybe 10-15 years if things are done well but expect a future of erectile dysfunctions beginning after your first cycle even with post cycle therapy (clomid, nolva etc.). Expect to become addicted to pain killers and don’t expect to be in any kind of healthy shape, if your body doesn’t pop beforehand, in your senior years. From one guy to another, to be blunt, if you have the body of a God but can’t do anything with a woman you are deeply attracted to in bed, it will tear your mind apart and crying like a little boy.

My goal is to live to 150 years old, as such, steroids, growth hormones and many other supplements are in my future but I won’t even consider the possibility until I am mid to post manopause (male version of menopause) in my early 40s… even then, these will be maintenance levels of maybe 80-100 mg a week of testosterone, nowhere near abuse levels that are exponentially higher. Sure I will end up with size 18 shoes and cranium the size of a basketball by the time I die but this will be my choice to make. It’s your body and your choice but I would advise you heavily not to even touch drugs of any kind until you have reached at least 200 pounds in bodyweight with a single digit body fat percentage in your early 20s, naturally being the strongest guy in the biggest gym in your town. If you cannot achieve this, then I am sorry but you simply don’t have the genetics to be THE strongest man in the world, you will become strong, no doubt about it… but not THE strongest, becoming instead, best friends with your neighborhood dialysis machine by the time you hit 30 if not sooner with no cute girlfriend or wife to soak up your tears after realizing you just threw away your life.

Where the need for male strength all began

I believe that men, at some primal level, are attracted to being the biggest in the land. For instance, I am slightly taller then Mariusz Pudzianowski but he outweighs me by 100 pounds of pure muscle. If we met in a jungle and had to fight for the last woman on Earth, unless I had a gun, I wouldn’t stand a chance in hell even if I had a baseball bat. Since the dawn of time, animals (including us) have fought for reproductive opportunities for that one incredible, one in a million, female… before wealth came into the picture, which provides security in our modern age, physical prowess was the deciding factor. Women want a man that can protect her and her child from danger. For instance, if you where in a jungle full of tigers, would you want to have a child with Woody Allen or Arnold Schwarzenegger?

The Bottom Line

I know I probably swamped you with more information then you can probably comprehend, I tried to keep it as simple as possible. Your job now is NOT to follow my advice blindly but understand the WHY behind my response. This isn’t even touching the surface of what you need to know, the answers are out there, it’s your job is to find them. Best of luck!

Check out Big Ron Coleman’s Website to get some inspiration as to what IS possible, he IS the strongest bodybuilder out there right now and I think his body looks better then Bill Kazmaier’s or Mariusz Pudzianowski’s for that matter.

In North America and to a lesser degree in Europe, when you call customer service, more often then not, your being patched directly through to an Indian call center to handle your requests. Taxes with companies such as H&R Block are also subcontracted to India including a lot of manufacturing, resource allocation and even strategic development. If you have some money and don’t have time to become pregnant yourself, it only makes sense to outsource that to India as well!

Pregnancy

It’s no secret that the entire process of pregnancy takes a number of the woman, that, till now, was simply a birthright, there where no other alternatives. The hormonal, psychological and physical toll or pregnancy stay with her the rest of her life along with the stretch marks. Pregnancy isn’t without it’s risks but as women push their child bearing years into their mid to late 30s, infertility becomes a growing issue as well. India serves an unlimited number of young, economically disadvantaged women who are willing, if the price is right, to become a surrogate. The process occurs through in-vitro fertilization (sorry guys) using the man’s sperm and the woman’s eggs, they are then implanted into the surrogate. The end result? Your child in every sense of the word, sharing no genetic material with the surrogate and your wife or girlfriend gets to keep her amazing body, having a child without ever taking a day off work nor pain associated with giving birth.

Womb for Rent

Now, this surrogate isn’t getting pregnant with your child for the fun of it, she expects to be financially compensated. In India, a woman can expect around $4 500 for the entire process, not a lot by First World standards but this is 15 years of wages for the average maid! She gets pregnant and wins essentially a lottery that sets her up on a better path in the future. She wins as she gets out of relative poverty, the family wins as they get a child out of the transaction. Both winners right?

Self-Induced problem

It’s no secret that one of the major factors causing infertility is age, the longer people wait before starting a family, the harder it will be. A woman as at her peak reproductively in her 20s, out in nature, this isn’t a problem but in the real world, that is right before university, after high school! It seems nature hasn’t adapted fast enough to our ever changing world and now, couples the world over, are paying dearly for it. A woman having a child in her 20s, unless within a very secure relationship, has a higher chance of being marginalized the rest of her life. I wrote a few months back about my experiences working in Canada and Australia at minimum wage jobs, what I may not have mentioned is that the vast majority of the women that where there, you guessed it, started their family in their early 20s if not younger. They where mostly divorced or never got married to begin with, most of them hated their jobs as much as their lot in life. For men, although we can have children all our lives, our peak is in our mid 20s. It isn’t just infertility rates that increase with age by the way, genetic defects rise as well such as Autism, Down Syndrome and a host of other conditions that a family would want to avoid at all costs.

Moral Issues

This isn’t just happening in India, it’s happening around the world, even in the industrialized world so I am not picking on India specifically. The biggest question you need to ask in these circumstances is that if the woman was economically advantaged, would she want to become a surrogate for a family she has no relationship with? Although there are exceptions, I bet 95% of the time the answer will be “Hell No”. So, the question must be asked, is renting a strangers womb for 9 months a moral act? I know that on the streets of Bangkok (Thailand), you can rent a young woman for $20US for a 24 hour period (use your imagination) so is this much different? How much different is renting a woman for 9 months compared to a 24 hour period, or even buying a liver for that matter? These are poor women, who have no real choice, selling the only thing they have to try to better themselves. Alternatively, most people rent their brains and bodies 8 hours a day, so how is even this act different? I am not here to preach, but just think about this and feel free to share your comments.

The Bottom Line

There is no way around this, renting a person, now matter how well intentioned, is still renting a person.

Buzvia: Giving birth becomes the latest job outsourced to India

Although a large segment of the worlds population has self-esteem issues, only a fraction of them have enough money to make changes to their physical image in order to try to improve them. Luckily, we also have positive role models in the area of self-esteem.

What is Self-Esteem?

Well, self-esteem is how you view yourself, your accomplishments and overall quality of yourself. Self-esteem peaks when you feel on top of the world without a care in the world and dives when you are worried everybody will see something that hardly anybody will notice about you. Self-esteem is essentially how you perceive the outside world feels about you.

Negative Self-Esteem

Money, fame and even good looks have little to do with how a person feels about themselves, and here are a few examples of the effects of negative self-esteem.

Micheal Jackson

Regardless of his media stunts, he has achieved INCREDIBLE success that I feel is what is leading towards his downfall. He achieved so much at such a young age and, being a perfectionist, has struggled to reach again with little traction compared to his incredibly high stratus at a younger age. He was once worth north of 200 million dollars, with fans all around the world and basically the King of Pop while today, he is relegated to the back pages of the Inquire or People Magazines. For all his accomplishments, he hasn’t been able to master the most important of all, himself. No amount of children, fame, fortune nor media attention has changed the fact that he has a chip on his shoulder that will probably haunt him until his final days. He was once a great role model for millions of aspiring fans around the world but I feel, in his present state, he is unable to fill those shoes even with his own shadow.

Jocelyne Wildenstein

A once very beautiful Swedish woman, Jocelyne was born in a middle class family but upped her way in the social elite by marrying Alec Wildenstein, whose family is worth about 10 billion dollars. She had two great kids, incredibly luxurious houses on just about every continent, a loving husband and more money then she could spend. When the marriage fell apart, it seems, so did she. Her escape was, like Micheal Jacksons, plastic surgery. Sadly, she put so much of her self-esteem deposits in her husbands bank account that she forever changed her look simply to try to win his heart back. It failed… and she has been living with the consequences ever since.

Anna Nicole Smith

She had more beauty then brains but all throughout her short live, she suffered from drug abuse of every kind. She had no personality, self-esteem of her own. She invested all her time and energy into getting the most out of life at the detriment of her own life. From cosmetic surgery to failed relationships, businesses and you name it, she, like the two celebrities above, suffered greatly psychologically. I am sure, before the fame and fortune came, she had some self-esteem within her but it seems as if it evaporated rather quickly.

Positive Self-Esteem

For some, their success seems almost based on the ability to either turn around personal self-esteem issues or simply continually building upon an already strong foundation.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

I have to admit, he is one of my many role models in life, he has the almost inhuman ability to write his own script for life, turning his predictions into reality with uncanny accuracy. If you look at Arnold’s life, one thing becomes very clear, his nick name “the Oak” is an impossibly strong foundation for where his self-esteem stands. He wants something, he makes it happen, no matter how impossible, how treacherous the path nor how many people doubt him. He is one of the ultimate go-getters who easily has earned every bit of luck and success he has fought so hard to achieve.

Sylvester Stallone

He isn’t the most handsome, isn’t the tallest (compared to the above two) nor did his speech impediment help him on the road to extreme success… but he did it! Talk about a strong foundation, he was broke in Hollywood but even when a studio exec offered him hundreds of thousands of dollars for his first Rocky movie script, he said no! He so much believed in himself that no matter how much somebody thought he was worth, he knew his value and dreams were worth so much more. Since then, he has achieved one fantastic success after another in various fields such as art, entertainment and even in his entrepreneurial activities.

Anthony Robbins

He began his career broke, obese and feeling like a truck ran him over and over a few years, turned himself around into the foundation that people around the world pay big bucks to try to emulate. He has his own island in Fiji, no lack of money and even though he went through a tough divorce at the peak of his success, was able to overcome those obstacles and re-invent himself. How did he do it? He did it by himself for himself, and that is why he has achieved the incredible success he so well deserves.

Self-Esteem: YOU

So, how do you feel about yourself? Do you feel like shit? Well, if you do, no matter what else is going on in your life, you need to get these issues resolved first and foremost. As you can see from the above examples, fame and fortune only seem to make things WORSE, not better. Self-esteem is the inner relationship with yourself, if you cannot make peace with it, it will quickly spiral into absolute dysfunctionality. Before you seek fame, fortune and the life you feel you deserve, you need to focus on making sure the foundation upon which YOU are built is sturdy enough to weather any earthquake that will come as you pursuit a path of success.

The Bottom Line

Wealth has huge responsibilities attached with it, are your self-esteem able to handle such weight?

Americans spend over 40 billion dollars a year on potions, products and programs designed for a singular purpose – to loose weight. Ironically enough, the more Americans spend on loosing weight, the more weight they gain! Frontline has looked into this phenomena in it’s documentary Diet Wars.

Summary

I believe this is worth watching but if you don’t have time, here is a summary of the key points outlined in the documentary:

• January is when most Americans think of shedding the weight
• many obese people realize the damage they are doing to their health but simply cannot change their habits
• heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, stroke, high cholesterol and cancer risk factors are all influenced by carrying excess weight
• 2/3rds of Americans are overweight with most living in a state of denial
• Pritikin diet consists of fruits, fish, vegetables, soy milk, beans, it’s basically an ultra-low calorie reduced diet
• Atkins consists of eating all the fat you can while limiting the starches, fruits and cereals
• Atkins contradicts everything the government and scientific community has told the public
• Atkins works by reducing caloric intake, just like all diets that are effective
• the anti-fat (low fat diet) dogma is difficult overcome
• in the 90s, the food industry began removing fat from our foods (to reduce caloric intake and reduce weight of consumers)
• all commercial foods are made up of protein, water, carbohydrates and fats but removing the fat from a product requires the addition of one of the other three (usually carbohydrates) which gives them the same calories as regular “non-low-fat” products
• 3 000 calories of carbohydrates = 3 000 calories of fat
• low fat era of the 90s caused Americans to before fatter then ever with a third being obese by the early 2000s
• eating too much refined sugars (rice, white bread, pasta) cause sugar rushes which then causes the pancreas to over-compensate with insulin which in turn stimulates hunger
• Atkins works by satisfying your hunger due to the high protein and fat content (it’s burned slowly by the body verses carbohydrates which are burned quickly)
• saturated fat and cholesterol help clog up the bodies arteries
• Harvard recorded the lifetime diets of health professionals and after 20 years of research they found out that saturated are animal fats are linked to heart disease and cancer but unsaturated fats from fish and vegetable oils help protect people from these conditions
• unrefined carbohydrates are filling and nutritious while refined carbohydrates have the opposite on the effects on the body
• nuts are very high in fat and protein but also very nutritious
• South Beach Diet outsells Atkins now in the United States
• 80-90% of people who loose weight from specialized diets gain it back within a year due to cravings and returning to old habits
• Weight Watchers keeps the weight off longer then other plans due to the community support lacking from many other diet programs, it isn’t a diet, it’s a lifestyle change
• Weight Watchers uses a buddy system, teamwork, to maintain weight loss
• 65% of Americans are overweight or obese
• Americans live in a dream world compared to our ancestors where food is plentiful and cheap without requiring physical activity to acquire it
• childhood obesity rates are skyrocketing due to improper diet and lack of activity (some 12 year olds already have type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol)
• one child in two within the United States is at risk of developing diabetes over their lifetime
• most school cafeterias are full of junk food which works against their abilities to get a proper education
• children don’t play outside as before, families don’t eat together and the television has become a baby sitters (societal values have changed)
• sedentary lifestyle reduces calorie requirements by the body so even a normal diet can cause obesity
• America On The Move promotes healthy weights by using pedometers, creating fun, goal orientated activities to loose weight
• schools that cut out physical education to save funds are now returning towards physical activity as part of the school curriculum
• food is an important part of American culture, which is why limiting food consumption is a difficult task for most Americans
• all diets are gimics, long term changes are required after the initial weight loss and self-control isn’t a sexy marketing catch-phrase

My Dieting Views

The entire diet industry is made up of a lie, that of money. To be more specific, that you need to spend money to get the body you want… things couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead of giving your power to a third party, save your money and time, invest in yourself instead!

The Bottom Line

Permanent weight loss is easy if you are willing to change your lifestyle.

Buzzvia
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/diet/view/