I've been lifting weights for a year now, and have read more than my share of bodybuilding books, and I still share the sentiment of most people: I find competitive bodybuilders downright ugly. Freaks. Unnatural.

(And what's with the brown paint?)

It is right that most people want to avoid such physiques. Most people are looking for a "toned" body: A middling chest, nice legs, some traps, somewhat larger deltoids, and very, very low bodyfat. The last thing they want is to look too obviously gym-built.

However, they have no idea how difficult and how expensive it is to look gym-built. All that excruciating heavy lifting. The hours and hours in the gym. The constant attention to nutrition. The tubs of whey.

But training is addictive, or so I've found. It feels good to be fit, especially since my office job is sedentary. I see all these ugly people around me: More fat than muscle, bad clothes, bad shoes, lousy haircut, oily faces, and low metabolic rate. I, OTOH, feel invincible. My muscles are capable of real work, I am well-coordinated, testosterone is high(er), metabolism too, etc. A different creature.

I have been training irregularly in the last months, but I've always returned to training. How can I not? After a while of not working out, I feel soft and lethargic and pathetic and weak. I always return to training. I think it will be for life.

No, no tongkat ali so far. Couldn't find them in small quantities. I reduce the volume instead.

Actually they do. Off stage and in a T-shirt, they look very BBrish. And their arms are lifted off in an angle like apes because of their hypertrophied lats. Also, the puffy look, all that water retention due to the creatine etc. Everybody knows the look, and most want to avoid it.

I noticed this too. It's mostly flat in the morning, but as the day progresses, it grows convex. Poeple who don't lift have flatter tummies than me.

I wonder what causes it. I do stomach vaccuums whenever I can think of them.

Somehow, swimmers have very flat abdomens. But they have wicked chests, delts and upper backs.

It's genetics. I had lots of pimples when I was younger, but my younger brother had none. We ate the same stuff.