#eventually had to download a different video with different subs and then found out that the film is much brighter than i thought?

[theinfinitedivides]

ghum shuda is a entire f*cking bop how did i not know this earlier

[lavenderwhore444]

God Im pretty sure I’m going to hell ANYWAYS ok so this is a hybrid cat shigaraki, u end up adopting shigaraki from a very abuses owner so our little kitten is traumatized and terrified of everything, it took u a bit of time until he was comfortable with u , he doesn’t trust u in the beginning and thinks ur gonna do the same as his previous owner did but ur different u were so patient, sweet and soft not to mention he LOVED getting head pets from u ( he would never admit it tho) once shigaraki found out that he was in love with u he was stuck to ur hip ( he was super clingy) shigaraki’s heat was closer then expected, shigaraki didn’t want to ruin his chances with u but he couldn’t stop himself from humping everything so he hid in his room , you absolutely loved shigaraki since the day u saw him u knew u wanted him, when u first met him he scratched and hissed at u he was terrified, it honestly made u sick knowing the person who did this to him is still alive, u both got much closer he even started cuddling with u!!!! U soon fell in love with shiggy but u didn’t want to ruin what u guys have so u kept it to ur self , u noticed shigaraki was acting weird and hid in his room for two days at first u thought u might give him some space but u started getting worried u wanted to check on him before u came in u heard some little moans and whines, it just hit u that ur little kitten has there heat, u decided to help out 👀

Kinks pet-play of course dom reader and sub shigaraki maybe some pegging that’s all I can think of so feel free to add any kinks. I was listening to hello kitty by Avril Lavigne there was part where she says “ come come kitty kitty your so pretty pretty” that was inspired me to write this lmaooo 

-🤡

HELLO KITTY

If you want to use interactive fics, it's easy and makes reading fics SO much better. First, you download the Google Chrome extension. You'll see it in the top right corner of your screen. Next, you enter your name in the first box. If you want to change something other than y/n, please click on the text that says “want to change something other than y/n?” here, you can change any word you want to a different word. When I talk about your quirk I will use y/q.

InteractiveFics

Master List

Samesies, but it's ok, we’ll go to hell together 😫

Now you might be wondering, Claire, why did this take you literal MONTHS? Well, I wanted to perfect it. I love this concept so much that I just HAD to spend so much time on it to make it perfect. And let me just say, it's pretty good 😏

Warnings: vaginal sex, overstimulation (male), anal sex with strapon, heat, pillow humping, marking mating, whatever you want to call it.

I've decided I'm obsessed with making cat shiggy meow ☺️

‘Where the fuck am I?’ Is shigaraki’s first thought of the day.

He’s never been on a bed this soft or a house this warm. Where is he? The blankets are all fuzz. The bed is littered with stuffed animals and pillows, and sweet-smelling candles, are burning somewhere. Is he being sacrificed?

“Hey, you're awake, ” a soft voice says, coming from the end of the bed.

He recoils in fear but, upon second glance, he sees that you aren't who he thinks you are. A girl replaces the scary form of his “master.” he looks you up and down. He has to admit you are quite pretty. The sight of someone other than the large man who used to own him excites him. Maybe this is a fresh start? But perhaps you're just like him...

“Get the fuck away from me, ” he snaps, scrambling into a corner.

“It's okay, sweetie, ” you say, “I'm not gonna hurt you, ”

“Everyone says that, meow ” Shigaraki retorts, “get the fuck away before I scratch your eyes out, ”

You bite your lip, “ok, Tomura, I'm gonna sit with you for a while, though. I'll be right across the room if you need anything, ”

“I don't need shit from you, ” he says, hissing making a show of his claws.

You laughed a little, more than a bit sad at his fear, “alright, but I’ll still be here, ”

He sits in silence for a moment, surveying his surroundings. He notices fresh clothes in the dresser, and there are some game consoles set up for him. How do you know he likes video games? Fucking creep. There aren't really any escape routes but escaping is complicated when he doesn't know where he is.

“Where am I meow?” he asks, sounding meeker than intended.

“I guess I kind of adopted you, ” you explain, “we’re at our house, ”

“Why did you do that?” he asks, the edge coming back to his voice.

“You just seemed so sweet, and the man who owned you was so mean. I couldn't just leave you there; he was hurting you, ” you say, frowning a little at the thought of Tomura getting hurt.

"Why do you care?" he snaps.

You sit closer to him, making him tense.

"I already told you, I think you're sweet Tomura," you repeat, "I just can't explain it. I'd really like it if we could become friends,"

'Or maybe more,' you think to yourself.

You can't deny he is very attractive.

"How do I know you're not lying meow?" He asks.

"I think you'll just have to trust me. Do you want to play some games with me?" you ask.

"Fine," he says, "only cause I'm bored,"

You grin, "awesome. What should we play?"

Shigaraki stands up and walks over to the games, tail swaying.

"This," he says, holding up animal crossing, "you probably like it cause it's dumb. What's your name anyway?" he asks.

"I'm y/n," you answer.

"I guess your names not awful, meow”, he mutters.

Truthfully, he already thinks you're beautiful, and you seem so kind. Shigaraki sits unusually close to you on the bed as the two of you play. You play late into the night; he makes a good bit of progress. Eventually, you feel his head rest on your shoulder, and he falls asleep on you.

You ease Tomura into your lap.

"There we go," you whisper, "you're safe now,"

Little did you know he's wide awake, smiling to himself and nuzzling his head closer to you. The sound of soft purring fills your ears as he drifts off into the most peaceful sleep.

He's pretty disgruntled when he wakes up alone. Where have you gone? Shigaraki doesn't have to wonder for long when you come back with a plate of food.

"Hey, are you hungry?" you ask, setting a plate of food on the table next to him.

He nods, digging in right away. You watch him eat like a man starved. Honestly, he might have been. He puts the plate down and moves closer to you. He's beginning to trust you more and more.

"Tomura, ” you say, “I have to put a collar on you now, just in case you get lost, ok?” you push some hair out of his face, “id be so sad if I lost you, ”

“fine, meow” he mumbles.

Truthfully his heart is melting at the thought. That you aren’t embarrassed by him, that you want to keep him safe and close to you. When you click the collar into place he hugs you, tugging at your shirt.

It’s shocking how fast he’s becoming comfortable with you but definitely pleasing. The next few days are calm, spent lounging around the house. He‘s getting so trusting with you. He occasionally pushes his head beneath your hand so you scratch his head. He always denies it, though; he has a tough-guy exterior to keep up.

However, something changes within him. He feels a strange warmth, not a necessarily bad feeling, around you. Tomura knows what cats were supposed to do. They are supposed to cuddle and play with their owners. Should he be doing that? Should he act like a “normal cat”? He concludes that you don’t want that at all. The lack of cat toys, a cat tree, and you allowing him to eat at the table solidify that.

However, he does want to cuddle. He tries to cuddle like all the time. But you have work, and you get tired, and you run errands, and he becomes sad. Tomura knows you have a life outside of him, but you really shouldn't. He should be your only priority. When Christmas break finally rolls around, and you start spending more time at the house, he's elated.

He has internet access, of course. He needs it to play his video games! But it was restricted. You don’t want your little kitty to see things he’s not supposed to. He starts to like watching movies too. At first, they‘re action movies with lots of blood and fighting, which you don’t necessarily agree with, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. He slowly gets bored with them and stumbles across a romance movie.

Tomura becomes engrossed in them. He loves watching the couple fall in love and be happy. One movie, in particular, weirds him out. It looks like they were taking off their clothes. They start kissing and making strange noises. He doesn't like it one bit, it makes his cheeks feel hot, and his cock gets semi-hard. He turns it off immediately.

It doesn’t take long for him to forget about it and keep watching different ones. Soon he finds some similarities between him and the main character. The way they feels around their love interest is the same way he feels around you. Is he in love with you?! It seems so and you have just recently come to the same conclusion as him.

Soon he’s all over you, following you everywhere. Tomura pushes open your door every night and snuggling up to you. He’ll purr and nuzzle into you, happy sighs escaping him. Whenever he “accidentally” wakes you up, you never get mad at him. You just cuddle him and talk all night, giggling and talking until you both fall asleep.

Oddly enough, you‘re oblivious to his feelings for you. Whenever he cuddles with you, you hold back the urge to kiss him on the lips. You don’t want him to feel awkward around you. Soon he starts acting strange without any change in behavior from you. He stops coming in your room at night and wont come out of his room.

You don't want to be overbearing, so you give him space...for a while. Meanwhile, in his room, Tomura is lying naked on the bed, panting and sweating. He feels strange, just like he did when he was watching that movie. He doesn't understand what‘s happening to his body but when he humps his pillow it feels like an itch is being scratched. The first time he cums he‘s terrified and lets out a scared “meow!”

But it feels so good. The feeling doesn't go away, so he decides the only solution is to keep humping. Soon he‘s limp but still grinding his hips on the poor pillow. He takes deep whiffs of your sweater, huffing it like a drug. His tongue is lolling out of his mouth and his eyes are rolling back in his head. He‘s starting to hurt down there but he just can't stop cumming.

Oh, why can't he reach the phone you left in his room? Why is his voice too hoarse to call out to you? Tomura is scared. He can’t eat or sleep. Sweat has soaked into the mattress and his poor little cock is starting to hurt. You‘re getting worried too so you wander up to his room and callout to him, pressing your ear to the door.

“y/n meow,” he calls out hoarsely, almost a whisper.

All you can hear are desperate whines and moans. Is Tomura...in heat? Oh, your poor kitty is probably in so much pain! You have to help him, so you open the door and see him. It is a pathetic (yet erotic) sight. He looks so desperate. He‘s crying and looks so scared. Tomura just whines and reaches out to you even though he‘s far away.

“Oh, sweetheart,” you whisper.

You walk over to him and scoop him up, sitting him on your lap. He continues to try and hump you, but you can tell how much his poor dick hurts. You hug him tightly, feeling guilty that you took so long to check on him.

Tomura tugs at your shirt, he can't figure out why he wants you to take off your clothes, but he does. You oblige, ready to do anything your sweet kitten wants. When he sees your top half naked, he feels his cock beg for you. He starts to tug aimlessly at your pants, and you take them off, once again, all too eager to please.

He doesn't have any sexual knowledge, but he has instincts, pure carnal instincts that tell him just how to breed his mate’s tight pussy. Tomura grabs your hips, his claws accidentally puncturing the skin. You yelp as he pulls you on top of him. When he slams you down onto his long fat cock he doesn't get the rush of pleasure he expected.

He's hit with an extreme amount of pain and lets out a panicked meow. You lift yourself off of him quickly, and Tomura misses the feeling of your cunt even though it caused him so much pain. He paws at you, but you keep him from shoving himself in you again.

“Tomura,” you say softly, “you need to calm down; you're hurting yourself,”

“Meow! need!” he cries.

“So needy,” you mutter, “youre just gonna hurt yourself,”

“Don’t care! Need!” he begs.

“Hold on,” you say, getting up and ignoring the insistent pawing at your shirt as he whines.

You rifle through your drawers until you find the dildo you got and the free strap-on attachment that came with it. You smile and gran some lube; this is exactly what you need for your pretty kitty. He watches with curious eyes and blown out pupils due to pure lust.

“Let's give your poor cock a break,” you say.

He nods, but where are you going to put that? You climb onto the bed with him, and he hugs you, sucking on your tit. He feels so at peace. Your boobs are so soft and pretty. He wants to stay like this forever. But when Tomura feels those nimble fingers of yours start to trail across his lower back just above his ass he shivers.

He leaves open-mouthed kisses across your chest; he lets them get sloppy and wet as you rub his back.

“Need,” he whispers again, eyes half-lidded.

You tilt Tomura’s head up and give him his first proper kiss. He's seen this in movies and knows you're supposed to say “I love you” after...right? He doesn't know the full meaning of the three little words he's about to say.

“I love you y/n,” he says when you pull away.

“I love you too,” you say, taken aback just a bit.

He gives you a love-drunk smile and tries to rut against your thigh but yelps again, remembering how sensitive he is.

“C’mere pretty kitty,” you coo, “lay on your back for me,”

He nods and lays on his back, painfully aware of how exposed he is to your careful, calculating eyes. He starts purring when you muzzle your head into his neck. Are you going to mark him?! Do you really want him to be your mate?! Oh, he hopes so! He smiles, and his breathing picks up, but his ears flatten on his head when you pull away.

“No mate meow?” Tomura asks, face falling.

For the first time all day, he feels his cock soften sadly. He doesn't understand the look of confusion on your face and tears up a bit.

“I'm not sure I understand,” you say, brushing some hair out of his face and feeling guilty when you see his teary eyes.

“I want you to mark me,” he says, bottom lip quivering, “please meow?”

Your eyes widen, “oh,” maybe you did learn something useful in school, “of course honey,”

You lean down again, unsure of how hard to bite his neck. You can tell exactly where you're supposed to bite. A strong musky smell radiates from the side of his neck and you decide to sink your teeth in until you break skin. When you do, he sighs happily at the feeling of your admittedly dull teeth (in comparison to his) in his neck.

“Mate,” he purrs.

You pull away when you can tell he's satisfied. He pulls you in for another kiss, tasting some of his blood on your tongue. He doesn't notice your fingers traveling to the bottle of lube on the bed and pumping some onto your fingers. He does notice when you start to rub around where you're not supposed to.

“Hey! What are you doing, meow?!” Tomura says, squirming at the strange new sensation.

When you find your mark and circle his asshole, any objections he just made the in the past. When he feels your finger begin to sink into his tight hole, he sighs happily. He isn't supposed to be the one getting penetrated, but he can't help how much he loves the feeling of your finger wiggling around inside of him.

When you add in another finger, he meows happily, grinding on your fingers. All this pleasure without the pain, what has he done to deserve this? To deserve you? Tomura’s back arches as he moves his hips; he can feel himself coming to a different kind of climax, but you pull away right when he's on the edge.

He looks up at you with pleading eyes and trembling thighs. He sees you putting that strange liquid on something much larger and gulps. He feels his asshole gape around nothing, waiting for something to fill it up.

“Is that going inside me, meow?” he asks nervously.

“It won't hurt,” you say, cupping his face, “i promise,”

Tomura gulps but nods. He trusts you. When the head of the dildo pushes into him he's tense and panting already.

“You have to relax,” you whisper in his ear, “be a good boy and relax,”

He tries, letting the nervous knot in his stomach untangle. His breathing slows as you push in more of the dildo. It starts to feel good, having you in some of him, and it's even better when the head of the dildo hits a spot that makes him mewl. He wraps his arms around your neck and pulls you down to him, causing you to poke his prostate again.

He moans and buries his face in your neck, purring loudly. You start to move your hips at an agonizingly slow pace. You worm your arms under him and hold him close while you help him adjust. He's planting and mewling happily.

“Love you,” he moans, “I love you so much y/n,”

“I love you too, Tomura,” you whisper, kissing the shell of his ear.

“It's so good,” he groans, “you're amazing meow. The perfect mate,”

“Yeah?” you say, too focused to respond.

He nods, “the best ever,”

You keep thrusting, speeding up just a bit. That makes Tomura yelp happily. His tongue lolls out as he smiles. There's not one thought behind those beautiful red eyes—just pure pleasure. It's taking over his entire body and he can't help but meow happily.

He likes to think of himself as more refined than most hybrids. More human, but all he can think of now is how wonderful being your little kitty is.

“I'm gonna cum,” he whimpers, “gonna cum, meow”

His dick quivers, and his asshole clenches as cum spurts out of him, but it's still not enough. To satiate his desires, he needs to be inside of you when he cums. When you pull out of him slowly and remove the strap on, he bites the bullet and plunges into you, ignoring the pain that makes him sob and absolutely hammers into you.

You're helpless underneath him as he has his way with you. You can't deny how good he feels inside of you. Tomura hates how long he's lasting. He needs to get this over with, although having you cum on his cock would be pretty nice. When he feels you worm your fingers down to your clit he starts to be thankful he hasn't lost his mind and cum yet.

That look on your face makes him so happy. He wants you to be happy. He wants you to cum, so he holds out until you milk his cock with your cunt. And when he lets go it's heavenly. The itch has been scratched, and he collapses on top of you, purring as his tail twitches. You scratch behind his ears to help him get some much-needed rest.

It works nearly immediately, and your sweet kitty is asleep in mere minutes. You love Tomura more than you can put into words, and he loves his pretty little mate. His adorable little y/n.

[hearteyes-for-killmonger]

This is gonna be a flashback chapter. How our babies met because I remember a few people had forgotten. Had to have one of these eventually, right?

Part 21: Introduction

Should I download Tinder?

Glee plays from the firestick, the scene where they're all walking and singing How Will I Know.

I should.

Laying cozied into the couch in a faded t'shirt with the tiniest pink shorts, your head rests on the butt cushion and your feet dangle over the arm as you hold your phone up in the air over your face.

"How will I know?.. How will I knoow..," you mumble along with the crew. You've heard the Glee version of this Whitney classic at least 8 times.

No, but what if I do and someone recognizes me? Someone I work with? What if my family is on Tinder? I'd die.

You put the phone down on your belly and pick up your apple juice from the coffee table, doing a sit up to sip.

Mm. You wipe your mouth nearly spilling. But if they're on there too then they shouldn't comment on what I'm doing, right? We'd ignore each other's presence and continue like ships passing in the night. So technically I should be able to download this app with no blowback.

Picking the phone up, you hit download and open the app. It immediately asks for your information and won't let you skip. Not even your location. You fall back down to your back raising the phone up again.

But what if someone's a serial killer?Would they look for me? No, that won't happen and I could tell if they were psychotic..

Tapping the download button, you go through the steps to set up an account including giving them access to your location and posting a headshot from a selfie. Scrolling through your gallery for more decent pics to post, you decide one's enough and upload a full body photo so that whoever meets you will know who they're meeting, no surprises.

Inputting your information, you decide to write into your blurb that you're looking for some awesome friends, specifically a movie buddy. In reality, the activity doesn't matter you just crave human attention and closeness. Any decent, polite, nice, smart, funny, left wing, hopefully attractive, young, black human.. possibly male.. will do. Not that you're picky. In the meantime, you swipe right on everyone black nearby, men and women. Somebody's gotta respond. Someone sane who wants to meet. Shockingly there are a lot of pretty people. Unfortunately the app only gives you one super like.. a blue star which you decide to save.

Giddily you head over to your match tab and see four matches. Drew P seems nice. Ashley J looks stylish. G Papa looks like he lives in a Freaknik video. Pussy Hunter is just nasty. Your nose twitches as you shamefully start conversations with all four. When neither responds right away you return to swiping and a notification says you've been super liked, but you can't access who super liked without paying money. You're not doing that so you just go back to the bios and swipe right until you get a reply.

Wyd, Pussy Hunter writes.

Bored, watching movies. You?

You gotta fat ass

Um. Thanks?

Netflix and chill?🙈

Netflix and Netflix. We can talk and hang out..

So no chill

No sex, but we can hang out and do something else

After 5 minutes, you realize he's not going to write you back. You start to swipe again on pictures, left for the whites and weirdos. Right for the black people.

Your finger hovers in the air as you gasp lightly at the thirst trap provided by a man self-identified as Erik. It deserves another sip of apple juice. You gulp it down from your cup. "Jesus.." You can't even see his face, because it's all BODY, but you can tell by the picture exactly what he's on Tinder for. Same m.o. as Pussy Hunter.

Erik S, 28

Fucc around and find out

Good Lord.. those shorts are yet holding on, you stare as if they'll slip down further by you willing them to. You swipe right. Your eyes widen as the app alerts you with a blue star meaning... He super liked your profile.

"NO," you gasp wide eyed at the phone ready to chuck it at the wall. Switching to the messages, there's a new one.. from him.. and you know what it's about. "I need some tea."

---

Erik lazed around his house bumping Schoolboy Q, clad in a white terry cloth bathrobe with a short glass of iced Ciroc and Lemonade in his hand. Dancing, he exfoliated his face with his spin brush, trimmed his mustache and beard, shaped himself up, and moisturized his locs and facial hair. The lil lip scrub he'd gotten as a gift from Cierra, he'd initially fought her on because it smelled like peaches but he liked how soft it made his lips. They even tasted good. He licked his lips for the umpteenth time tasting sugar. They tasted like Cierra.

Speaking of sugar, he looked at his phone wondering why his hoes ain't called. Then again, they could've. He wasn't near the phone all day. Checking the iPhone on the charging dock he saw that he had a missed call.. from Cierra.

Checking the time she called, he figured that was back when he was cleaning his guns and checking the parts. He'd already cleaned and sharpened his knives. He'd checked his security cameras. He felt good. Having no major responsibility and no place to be.

Outside of the missed call he had three new nudes and a video sitting in his messages to watch and record himself masturbating to. He was looking forward to doing that especially since Rell hadn't called with no bullshit local cases. Erik had stated he ain't want no hits near his temporary home.. for a year, he wanted peace. One damn year. But here he was still racking basic skills for pennies. "Chump change is still change," Rell's voice played in his ear. "You don't wanna get rusty. Gotta keep your skills sharp."

Erik had done his share of moving around, racking up international kills and earning the nickname Killmonger. But for a little while, he wanted to settle down in one concealed location where no one knew where he lived, who the fuck he was, or where he was coming or going. He wanted the illusion of peace and normality for a year at least. As much money as he had, he figured he could afford to stay in one place for that long if he was careful.

Only two people knew where he lived and that was Rell and Swift. They knew not to come over. Not even the previous owners of the house knew he was there.. because he'd made them an anonymous offer, killed them and moved in a few days after they'd sold it to him for cash. Needless to say he took all that money back.

He dialed Cierra, roaming to his bedroom to collapse over the bed as the phone rung. "Sup Ci?"

"Master," she whimpered, the desperation in her voice telling him she needed release. She'd been working too long through the past week and needed Master to come take control for a few hours. He could picture her on her knees, already in puppy space. She knew exactly how he liked her to wait for him.

"Yes, Ci. You need me to come for a scene?"

"Rrrrr," she growled. "Arf arf!"

"My bad. Lil Bitch."

"I gotta go to Target and see my sister," but come through later. I don't care how late just call up."

"Your sister? The one you met on Facebook?"

"Yeah, her! She live like an hour away. I'm a link with her and put her on Tinder! Get her a man to pop that back out," she giggles.

"You know I don't mind a two for one," Erik teased knowing she wouldn't go for it. He liked to mess with her anyway.

"Not with my damn sister, I'm not that nasty. A white girl can have it,"

"Damn crush my dream."

"Anyway!"

"Aight, I'm a let you go." Hanging up, he sat up and went to his closet pulling a colorful glass bong he'd gotten from a nigga he once knew in the military. Bruce Everett, white boy. Cool nigga... Too bad he shot hisself with his own gun. Sighing, Erik shook his head and went to the bathroom to fill it with water and headed back to pull his chrome grinder from his drawer along with a screen, hempwick, and a nug of Dr. Greenthumb's Emdog OG, grinding it down to pack the bowl making it fluff up.

"Perfect," he whispered lighting the bong with the hempwick. He lit the edges of the weed going around in a circle for an even and smooth burn as he stood taking a good long hit. "Shit," he exhaled releasing the smoke. I love bongs.

He looked and the bowl was empty as he'd expected. One hit's all you need when you do it right.

"Tinder...," he played in his mind. He already had a fetlife which was how he'd found his subs. Tinder was something different though. He was curious.

Downloading the app on the phone used almost solely for contact with subs, he went through the process of setting up an account, hesitating to put his info. It was general enough and the shit that was too specific, he could just lie. Still, he wouldn't upload his face.

So all I gotta do is swipe and see everyone in the area, he mused looking at all the faces.

"No.. No.. Nope.. Facially challenged.. The fuck is that?.. Hell nah.. Yes.. Yes.. She cute.. Hell nah.. Yes... No..," he paused looking a little closer at the screen. "Hello... Damn."

Out of curiosity he clicked on the profile. "That ass tho!"

He smirked hitting his super like.

"Shid... You can get the blue like.. Whatever the fuck that mean.." He stared at the picture. She had a juicy looking aro with thick black curls, brown skin, bright almond eyes, and enough ass to feed the needy for months. "Shit, if I was on a deserted island with coconuts and that ass.. that's enough meat for a damn.. shidd.." He chuckled. "Fuck is a super like? I super like yo ass meat..," he chuckled again falling back on his bed. "It mean I'm a break yo shit in thirds and fuck the pieces," he coughed, over his own bullshit.

---

Jumping up, you speedwalk into your kitchen and quickly heat some water in a pot, pulling a red mug and a bag of chamomile and a bag of lemon balm to mix with sugar. Combining it all, you take a sip and stand there staring at the wall before taking it with you back to the couch. "Okay," you sigh picking up the phone to open the Tinder message thread.

Cum talk to me, he says. You stare at the words. Wow, this is so cringy you don't know how to respond. You sit the phone back down taking another sip. You think about ignoring him, but you keep touching the phone, coming back to the message and staring.

Hey, you finally type hesitating at the simplicity before sending.

How are you tonight ? Why you up ?

Bored, lonely, contemplating my existence over Glee and wondering why my high school years were never that damn musical. You sip your tea.

Having a tv party with just lil ol' me. Why are you up?

The fuck kinda life you living. You need me to cum spice shit up for you? 👀

You think you that spicy? 👀

You wanna taste me and see?

Jeez. You flip back to the faceless picture of his body. Lord have mercy.

Don't play with a real one I'll show the fuck up real shit, he writes.

Internally you're screaming. He really thinks you're about to have sex with him. "I can't, oh my god," you sigh bouncing your knee. You hesitate before responding.

You can come, but bring food.

Hell yeah. Then you can be dessert. 😈

What? You turn the screen off and grab your head, your elbows on your knees.

What am I doing. Y/N what are you doing.

No sex nigga, you type before taking it back and staring at the screen perplexed. If you say that, he won't message you back.. If you don't say it, he'll be expecting to get some! You still want him to come through though even if he leaves because you're bored. You just want a little company for a little bit.

Maybe you should get a cat..

Your leg shakes unsure of how to respond and you take another sip of the hot tea mix feeling anything but calm.

Without further delay you just drop your address and hope for the best, wondering if you just signed off on your own murder. Maybe I should've told him to meet me somewhere else in the daytime.

Washing your apple juice cup, you put it away and then throw on some black leggings and rainbow fuzzy socks not wanting to open the door in pink bootyshorts adding onto the wrong message you'd already sent him. You also put a kitchen knife under the sofa cushion for easy access just in case.

40 minutes. You like wings?

Parmesan

🤢 Love yourself, sis. I'm getting a mix.

Oh I see you Mr. Petty Labelle, you smile getting a taste of his personality.

Yep. Finna get some of Ms. Petty's pie 

Uh uh, you smirk.

We nuh ave dat

That right? Guess I'll see for myself when I pull up 👅

He's a whole fool. You set the phone down smiling at the tv. Meanwhile you watch another episode.. actually watching it this time.

Knock knock, he messages and you see it having kept the thread up just in case he had an issue.  Jumping up, you snatch your phone and take a deep breath to steady your nerves. This is the first time you've ever done something like this and you hope it doesn't go badly.

Who's there, you jest messaging back right before you unlock your multiple locks and crack the door. Peeping out, you shut the door automatically throwing your body against it, holding your breath. He's huge! You didn't even look up, you just saw all that muscle like Kangaroo Jack. And why was he all up on the door?!

"Word? You must not want these wings then," he says through the door. You hear plastic rattling dramatically. "That's aight I don't mind eating em by myself."

You crack the door again, peeping out. You hadn't even seen the plastic bag hanging from his hand, you'd shut him out so fast. You reach out to grab it and he pulls it back.

"Aht! This how you treat guests? Door in the face? Snatching bags?" Your eyes roam from his hard chest to the broadness of his shoulder, resting on the sleeve of his charcoal grey Chicago Bulls shirt. Those biceps.

"Look at you undressing me in your mind already. Go ahead, you can touch me," he adds holding his arm forward as if reading your mind.  He talks a lot.

You snatch the bag and put it behind your back a bit, opening the door. Then you look up and your kitty jumps. It's the devil himself. You try to control your surprise but between his sharp narrow chestnut eyes that smirk down, his sculpted nose, and his full pouting lips, you don't know if you want to kiss him, bite him, or climb him. You wanna do all three and more right in the hall.. up against the wall. His hair too, it's a mess of semi-thick locks that point everywhere like Coolio. It's his everything really..

"Y/N.."

Omg. It sounds so good coming from him. This isn't fair.

"Aye..," he waves.

"Hm," you sigh staring at his face.

"You gone let me in?"

"Huh? Oh." You step back quickly and scan him from head to toe as he steps across the threshold. Bulls shirt, black track pants, black sneakers. His shoes are ugly though, the back heel juts out too far. Balenciaga is written in white. Oh.

You look up and see he's looking you up and down too. Oop. Leading the way you take him to the living room and he settles on the couch, his develish eyes on yours. His knees spread wide as he leans back, hips forward.

Silently screaming, you look away and sit the plastic food bag on the table.

You can feel him staring. The air is full of raunchy expectation and you can't say you blame him. You practically encouraged it on the phone.

"You want something to drink," you smile in friendly attempt, risking a glance and it's just as you thought.

"You know exactly what I want."

"To DRINK," you exphasize, ignoring the thump of your heart in your nana as his eyes roll over your hips.

"Mmm... You got Henny?"

"I have apple juice, tea, water.."

"Ciroc?"

Your face screws, Didnt I just-- "I don't drink.."

"Ever?"

You shake your head.

"Damn, Apple Juice."

Taking your sweet time to pour his juice and refill your tea, you re-enter the living room as the Glee cast kicks off another song that he mutes.

"Here ya go."

You give him his cup and feel the chill in your spine as his fingertips brush yours. Unmuting the tv, you sit on the opposite side of the couch, legs crossed, tense and unsure of what to say to him now that he's there.

"You look uncomfortable."

"Me? I'm fine. I was just marathoning Glee before you came," you say handing him the remote, "I've already seen it though."

He hands the remote back. "You seen Menace II Society?"

"I've heard the title!"

"Well pull it up, let's watch it."

Thank God. That's something easy. You fumble through buttons and he starts opening the food as you set up the movie.

---

"Ooh Laurenz Tate he so fine," she smiled sitting up as the movie started. She would be into his ass. Erik rolled his eyes. Wait for it.

"I hate when they do that," she mumbled in response to the Asian woman following them around the store.

"Yeah," he agreed with swig of the juice looking from the tv to her face, watching her reaction. Wait for it.

"Why don't you give my homeboy his change," O-Dog says before walking to the door. "I feel sorry for your mother," the store owner snubs.

Bitch, don't talk about my mama. That part always pissed Erik off.

"What you say about my mama? You feel sorry for who?!" O-Dog shouts. "I don't want any trouble, just get out," the shopowner shouts, backtracking like the bitch nigga he is.

Fuck that, shoot his bitchass, Erik barked in his head. POP. POP POP. POP. POP. There you go! He shot the wife too, meanwhile, the princess jumped in her seat, absorbed in the felony she just observed on screen. Double-homicide.

"He shouldn't have shot them.. Bruh, now the cops gone be looking for him and his friend wasn't even in it but now he's an accomplice."

"You telling me you wouldn't have shot a nigga talkin shit on your mama?" Erik leaned into her space, curious, but she ain't seem to notice.

"No, 'cause they're rude, ugly, and racist but still. You can't kill without consequences."

Erik steeled. She wasn't wrong.

"I'd have shot his ass too," he admitted watching her. She didn't seem to agree. "Should've kept his mouth off his family."

"You close to your family," she asked suddenly.

"Yeah," he lied knowing his people were dead. "...You mind if I get more juice," he pointed to his cup and she took it refilling it.

Fifteen minutes into the movie, she noticed her wing choice wasn't in the selection and Erik kept a poker face having wondered when she'd realize. He'd already started on the barbecue.

"Where's my parmesan," she frowned looking in the boxes.

"They ain't have it," he lied. "Ran out."

"You're such a liar. Now what am I gonna eat," she pouted to his humor.

"Eat the carribean jerk," he nudged the box to her. She eyed it and he felt like a wolf trapping a rabbit, the wings being the bait.

"I ask you for one thing."

"Yeah and? I wasn't finna buy that shit," he chuckled grabbing a jerk wing and biting it, closing his eyes and humming as he chewed to entice her. When he peeked, she was watching his mouth out the corner of her eye as he licked spicy sauce off his thumb. Sliding down in the cushion, she crossed her arms and raised a knee with her fuzzy foot on the couch. Such a damn brat. Ol' hungry ass.

He started to flex the length of his tongue since she was looking but decided against it. He couldn't be too aggressive or she'd spook and he wouldn't get no ass. Why he cared, he couldn't put a finger on other than the fact that she'd become a challenge. This girl would not let him anywhere near her. She was very shy considering she was down for a one night stand. I'm getting the draws, he promised himself right then. How? He just had to make her come to him.

Her nose wrinkled as she picked up a jerk wing, rotating it.

"Girl eat the wing, this ain't rocket science," he fussed watching her bite it.

"It's better than parmesan?" Lie, he dared watching her closely.

She took another bite.. then she attacked the wing and when she licked her fingers, he looked away grabbing another wing and swig of his juice.

"OKAY. SHUT UP." She grabbed another wing chewing through it as he coughed in his elbow hiding his laugh.

"I didn't say anything," he croaked shrugging her off.

"But you smiling and I can hear you thinking."

He couldn't hide the fat grin plastered on his face though he'd tried by looking away. "How you hear me thinking," he squinted watching her collect bones.

"Because I do, you're loud," she stressed.

"How I'm l-"

"SHH!! I'm tryna hear," she whispered. He shook his head watching the corner of her mouth lift and they watched the movie in silence until she reached for another wing and all the jerk were gone. He pushed her another box.

"You all the way over there. Come sit next to me."

"I'm not that far."

"You are. I promise I won't bite you.."

Her eyes rolled.

"Not unless you into that shit," he added patting the cushion beside him. She lifted, barely moving. "You scared?"

"What you mean?" She looked nervous all of a sudden looking anxiously in his eyes. This was gonna be a tough wall to break.

He patted the cushion again, waiting, and she finally moved in closer filling the empty seat beside him. He determined right then not to touch her but to get as close as possible maintaining proximity to get her used to his presence. Draping an arm over the couch behind her, he observed silently as she sat tense for the the next five minutes before relaxing. He had his work cutout.

@soufcakmistress @itsiesha @ju5tp34chy @scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade @blackpantherimagines @blackpinup22 @muse-of-mbaku @goddessofthundathighs @panthergoddessbast @thadelightfulone @misspooh @marvelmaree @youreadthatright @forbeautyandlife @theunsweetenedtruth @bidibidibombaclaat @myboyfriendgiriboy @dameshaemonique @hidden-treasures21 @mysidefanting @hold-me-like-a-heart-beat @syndrlla97 @winteroflife @thotyana-in-this-hoe   @texasbama @gingerylimonte @princessstevens   @magic-madness-heavensin @wawakanda-btch @wakanda-inspired @blackgirloneshots @thegucciwaffle @thiccdaddy-mbaku @purplehairgawdess @indigoxsummers @cccccx1   @dynastylnoire @iamrheaspeaks @blowmymbackout @they-call-me-le @theblulife @raysunshine78 @sheisexcellent-blog

[sturlsons]

french in 1.5 years anon

Kinda random but I just found out that I’ll be required to be intermediate/advanced in French by the next 1.5 years; ALL I KNOW IS THAT MEIRDE IS A BAD BAD WORD! Idk if you’re a native speaker but I was wondering if you could provide me of any good French language resources (or language in general since I’ll be needing to learn Arabic soon as well), and like tips for language learning and how to go about it? Sorry to bother you haha this is MY stress but I appreciate any help! Have a great day!

HEY. so i really fucking dropped the ball on this one, i’m sorry. 2019 has been one health fiasco after another (or more like the same fiasco again and again) and i kept telling myself i want to sit down and make a proper post for this, until i realised that that’s just never going to happen given the way things are rn. and i’d rather give you a quickly-written post which is actually helpful than never write that perfect bullet-pointed one. 

first of all, i’ve been in your EXACT position (so no, i’m not a native speaker) except i had about...six months to go from je m’appelle teesta to voyez-vous, le problème qui se cache derrière tout ça n’est pas le manque de respect mais la personne dont il s’agit or whatever. i was like, i can so do this. (spoiler: i didn’t, because i was 18 and overconfident and stupid and didn’t actually know how to learn a language.) GOOD NEWS: having learned 3 more foreign languages since then, i am now REALLY GOOD at learning languages REALLY FAST. 1.5 years is a good amount of time, so don’t stress.

i’m going to go generic on this, with some extra tips about french since i speak it, unlike arabic. 

first thing, that typical thing everyone hates to hear but knows is coming from the mouth of an accomplished person (pat on my back) in any field whatsoever: you’re going to have to work really hard and practice like fuck. 

there’s just nothing else that can replace it. i’ve filled up notebooks and notebooks with japanese verb conjugations, once i did like 1800 of them in one sitting. but you better believe that a bitch will never forget those now. resign yourself to putting in at least three hours of your day to this until you get to the level you need. (and three hours is...kind. at my peak i was literally reading through french dictionaries at the library, 10 AM - 8 PM. i treated it like a workday.)

now, what you need to establish is: are you a hands-on learner or a digital one. 

i don’t really care for all the auditory learner and visual learner stuff, i don’t know about anyone else but i personally used those as excuses to avoid certain exercises. unless you have actual disabilities preventing you from accessing certain methods of learning, you can train yourself into anything. it’s a matter of practice. i could barely understand a new song without reading its lyrics first, now i eat up podcasts. 

SO. the question here is different. a hands-on learner, like i used to be more or less throughout my bachelor’s, is someone who absolutely cannot retain information unless they’ve written it down BY HAND at least once. pen and paper. (i’m still like this but i’ve learned to combine it with digital methods to go faster.) if this isn’t a hurdle for you, congratulations. your process is going to go that much faster, at least for french. (you’ll have to spend hours practicing your written arabic however, if you’re not familiar with the script.) 

now, if you’re a hands-on learner, you need to add an extra hour to your daily time. no matter how fast you write, you will take that time. and you cannot shorthand your way into languages. you need to understand how french is spelt, what accents it uses, that they put a space before exclamation points, question marks, and semicolons. (side tip: learn the IPA. it will be useful to you forever in language learning, at least for the romance languages.) i’m not gonna teach you how to make notes since i’ve never benefitted from copying someone else’s style, so if you don’t have a set method start establishing that. you need regularity and rhythm when you learn a language. my grammar notes look the same regardless of the language. i don’t have my french ones since it’s been years and i didn’t take good ones then anyway, but here’s my japanese and russian stuff. 

JAPANESE NOTES // RUSSIAN NOTES

now, it bears mentioning that these notes are NOT the notes i take when i don’t know shit. these are final level notes. they’re brief, idiosyncratic, and only reminders. something to refer to when i’m revising and suddenly forget a rule. the first notes i make are much more elaborate, whether they’re pretty or not. i’ve gradually lost the fucks i had about really going ham on academics so my russian notes are very messy, but my japanese ones from back in the day are magnificent. here’s a look. during lesson one i realised that japanese and my mother tongue, gujarati, are syntaxically similar as shit, and i started taking notes with references in gujarati. it sped up my learning process 2x while my french classmates were still going “BUT WHY IS IT LIKE THAT”. 

PRACTICAL GRAMMAR // THEORETICAL GRAMMAR

if you plan to learn more languages in the future, this will be so valuable. sometimes a phrase i learn in russian doesn’t make sense in its french explanation, but a phrase in english might use the same logic. bam, put down the translation in english then. you get what i’m saying? the more languages you learn, the easier it gets to learn languages. 

now if you’re a digital learner, i’ve got great news for you. duolingo and anki are your best friends. duolingo’s memed to hell and has a system that might not work for everyone, but they’ll do the brunt work of compiling grammar notes for you in the beginnings/ends of their lessons. note those down and transform them into anki flashcards, and you can learn grammar concepts without doing 20 exercises. (do those exercises if you can, though, nothing beats mindless practice.) now anki is an intimidating-looking but actually super intuitive app that basically builds digital flashcards for you and shows them to you in a rhythm based on your own learning speed. it’ll show you the front of a card, let’s say merde. you say the english translation out loud, shit, and hit enter. correct! was that easy? anki’ll show it to you in 10 minutes. hard? it’ll show you in 1 minute. super easy? merde won’t come up again until tomorrow. eventually you get so good at it that you can bury a card for 2 months. anki will also show you the same cards reversed, which is harder but trains you better. you’ll see shit and have to remember what it’s called in french, which is more difficult than you’d think it is. 

you can use anki for more than just vocab, like i mentioned. it’s a little tricky learning to convert grammar concepts into front/back flashcards, but you can do it. for example, here’s a sample of one of my russian grammar cards: 

front ^^

back once i hit enter^^

see? not that difficult. now don’t be an idiot like me who manually entered every single flashcard into anki. you can find pre-made packages online (but you can’t guarantee they’ll be correct) or you can make your own without killing your fingers. what you wanna do is open up a spreadsheet and make two columns, A for front of the card and B for back. it’ll look like this:

then you’re gonna save that spreadsheet as a .CVS (comma separated values) and import that into anki. bam, your flashcards are made for you with half the effort. there’s also a script floating around somewhere to make excel translate words automatically for you, but i don’t recommend that unless they’re really easy words. google translate can fuck up. reverso is your friend. 

you need to review your anki cards every day. it’ll take less and less time as you go along. i can review 300 russian cards in 15 minutes now. but you need to keep the rhythm going. download ankiapp and sync your cards, review them on commutes or in the hallway or whatever. trust me, it’s magic. 

apart from this, if a traditional textbook helps, go for that. i’ve always used textbooks and workbooks, more as supports than as principal methods, but it does help. it’s structured and organised and these people know how to train you. bescherelle is a good go-to for french. 

media is always a great way of immersion too, until you get to the country itself. it’ll show you how french people speak french. when i first came to france i didn’t have that experience and even though i spoke an arguably decent amount of french when i got here, it was like, if this is french then what the fuck was i learning in high school. if you like watching movies this is your chance. watch the classics first so that you can get an idea of french pop culture. amélie (though the pop culture aspect here is about shitting on it) and les intouchables, for starters. watch your favourite films, first subbed, then subbed and dubbed, then just dubbed. i watched all ten seasons of friends with french subs, it was wild. with music you want to start off with some indie-ish singers since they will universally sing softer and slower, making things easier to understand than idk, la tribu de dana. (if you’re into bts there’s a hilarious video of their baepsae choreo set to la tribu de dana.) anyway - angèle, cœur de pirate, céline dion, fréro delavega, uhhh that fucking french sufjan stevens. what’s his name. VIANNEY. don’t fucking listen to biglo and oli or like, fatal bazooka right away. you will not understand shit. i barely understand it. white people are wild. ooh listen to stromae. orelsan too, he’s a rapper but he has a relatively clean diction imo. he also sang the french opening for OPM. they call him orelsan-san in japan.

last but not the least: if you have the opportunity to interact in french with people, DO IT. native speakers will do their best to help you and be kind about it. people who learned french might sometimes be assholes from experience. it’s a whole superiority complex thing, and very hypocritical. anyway - online or IRL, wherever you can practice your french, do it. it’ll be immensely helpful. there’s nothing like the frustration of not being able to express simple things to get you motivated to get better. do your best to immerse yourself - changing the language on your devices can make a difference too. 

i think that’s all i have and again, i’m sorry for taking this long to finally deliver, thanks for your patience! if you have any specific questions don’t hesitate to hit me up, on anon or not. 

good luck - it’s not going to be the easiest but nothing is as gratifying as beginning to understand the workings of a language. you’re gonna love it!

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 334: Bokosuka Wars (1983)

           Bokosuka Wars

Japan

ASCII (developer and publisher)

Released in 1983 for Sharp X1; 1984 for MSX and PC-88; 1985 for FM-7, PC-6001, PC-98, and NES 

Date Started: 25 June 2019

Date Finished: 28 June 2019

Total Hours: 6 Difficulty: Hard (4/5), but would probably go down to 3/5 with more experience Final Rating: (to come later) Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

Well, I did it. I downloaded a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator–Nestopia–and I gave it a shot. It was easier than I expected. I was the thinking that the NES had a directional pad and an analog stick, but I guess that came with later consoles. The original NES controller is little more than a joystick (albeit one that made it harder to move diagonally) with two buttons. Easy to emulate, easy to remember.

Bokosuka Wars was on no one’s list of “must play” console RPGs, but I figured I’d give it a try anyway. It’s the earliest Japanese game on my list that had a western release and the earliest Japanese console game, beating several 1986 titles by a month or so. That it’s not actually an RPG by my definitions (no inventory) shouldn’t bother us too much. It was an easy step into this sub-genre.             

A common screen, probably responsible for a lot of the hate the game receives.

          The game is an “afternoon RPG,” as any console must be until saving was possible. The setup is simple. You are King Suren, and your country has been overthrown by the evil King Ogreth of the Basam Empire (Ogreth is called “Dragonet” in the original Japanese versions). Ogreth has used his magic to turn all your knights and soldiers into rocks and trees and cacti. You embark on a mission to reclaim your throne. You start 600 meters to the east of King Ogreth’s throne room and slowly make your way left down the battlefield, fighting his forces as you go.           

The king starts alone, with 595 steps to his evil counterpart.

            You’re not alone in this endeavor. Along the way, you can rescue many of your knights and soldiers. (In the Japanese PC versions, Suren starts with many of his warriors already activated, but in the NES version, he starts alone.) Some are inanimate objects, but they’re revived if you touch them. Others are kept in stockades and must be rescued. Either way, you slowly build (and, just as fast, lose) an army. Eventually, if you survive, you reach Ogreth’s throne room and throw your remaining forces at him, including King Suren if necessary. If any of your units defeat Ogreth, you win the game.          

King Suren turns a tree into a knight.

           The problem is that you can revive and rescue only 50 warriors (about 15 knights and 35 soldiers), and opposing you are 180 enemies: guards, mages, warriors, and pages. Some of them can be avoided, but most must be fought. Characters move around the battlefield in real-time, but this is in no way an “action RPG.” As frenzied as the game looks, no part of your success depends on your speed with the controller, particularly since enemies cannot attack you and combats are resolved statistically.

The game’s strategy lies in who fights what enemies, and in what circumstances. Your one huge advantage is that enemies can never initiate combat. They can block your way, but combat only begins when you decide to move Suren or one of his warriors to the enemy’s square. Thus, you can almost always choose who fights.

Combat is a probability test that pits your character’s power against the enemy’s, but with a heavy random component. If the die rolls go in your favor, you win; if not, you die. If the character fighting on your side was King Suren, and he dies, the game is over. Winning and losing is completely binary; there are no hit points in the game, so one character can’t “weaken” an enemy for the next character.            

My king battles a “summoner” in the middle of his spirits. Since my king has 320 power and the summoner only has 50, I’m relatively confident. During battle , the tile flashes between crossed swords and “B.” I’m not sure what the “B” means, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the “B” button on the controller. Maybe it means “Bokosuka.”

        If you win, the winning unit gets an increase in power–sometimes substantial. For instance, soldiers start at a power of 30 and rise to 40 and 50 with their first two victories. But if they achieve a third victory, they change color and rise to 140. Knights do the same thing, with the progression going 150, 160, 170 and then jumping to 260 on the third victory.           

Note that one of my knights and one soldier have “gone gold,” making them more powerful than their counterparts. A knight is needed to bust through the shield around the stockade.

          King Suren himself starts at 220 and maxes at 320; soldiers and knights max at 310. Throughout the game, you have to keep making the decision about whether to throw your more powerful figures into combat, thus risking them, or try to build up weaker units. There’s no easy answer. And occasionally even the most disproportionate combats can go wrong. I saw plenty of knights at 310 power killed by enemies at 10 power.         

Enemy and ally unit powers. This is from the Sharp X1 version. NES players had to read the manual.

                      There are a few other tactical considerations. Regular soldiers (for some reason) knock enemy guards from 100 power to 10 power when they engage in combat. Knights are the only units that can break the walls of stockades, so you want to keep at least one around. You need soldiers to disarm traps (which don’t appear until after your first victory). Only the king can trigger special squares that remove the walls blocking “summoners,” who then summon a bunch of spirits (which don’t count against the enemy’s total) until you kill the summoners.            

Every once in a while, the king runs out of soldiers and stands alone.

           I suspect the game would be “easy” for those with a lot of patience. One key problem is the movement of your forces. By default everyone moves together when you press the directional pad; if they’re up against an obstacle, they just stay in place. You can toggle so that you’re only selecting one type of unit at a time (i.e., the king, all soldiers, or all knights), but it’s still tough to move them in unison, and I probably left more allies stuck on obstacles behind me than I lost in combat. This problem is the source of a lot of modern complaints about the game, I later found, but I think it added somewhat to the game’s strategy. When you have a lot of units in your army, you have to be careful about every move, noting who is going to end up in what square, and thus what units will find themselves in combat. A player who develops a huge army is handicapped by having to more carefully manage its movement. I can’t claim that I exactly “enjoyed” such a gameplay element, but that doesn’t make it inherently bad.           

Moving through terrain like this is easier when you only control one unit “type” at a time.

           You don’t have to fight every battle. In fact, there’s a good argument to be made in fighting as few as possible, thus reaching the end of the game with as many forces as possible. On the other hand, it helps if those forces have gained a lot of experience along the way, so you don’t want to eschew every combat. It’s a tough call.

            Having broken a bunch of soldiers out of a stockade, now approaching a phalanx of guards. To get the soldiers out of their building, I’m going to have to move everybody back and up a few spaces.

          You eventually reach a point where you have to thread a narrow hallway to get to the throne room, which features a number of unavoidable battles with “killers” with 250 power. Even though you might have more than 300 power at this point, the killers seem to win more than half the time. The same is true for King Ogreth himself, who only has 250 power but seems to beat 300+-power allies at least three-quarters of the time. So whether you win or lose upon reaching the end is largely a matter of whether you have enough allies to overwhelm the probabilities of losing individual combats. You definitely don’t want it to come down to King Ogreth vs. King Suren.

Reaching the final throne room. Looks like I’ll have to take out a summoner before engaging the king. I only have three (promoted) units with me, but there are 10 more somewhere behind me if I didn’t want to risk Suren in the final battle.

A good opening strategy is to have Suren fight all the combats until he gets to his maximum power of 320. If he’s going to die, better it happens in the opening few minutes than hundreds of meters down the battlefield. After that, I tended to prioritize building weaker units than risking more experienced ones. That had the effect of keeping my numbers small but my individual units powerful. However, I’m sure there are several strategies that would work. I’m sure it’s possible to have King Suren charge down the battlefield alone, fighting only the necessary combats (i.e., when an enemy is blocking you and there’s nowhere to go), and make it all the way to the end. I tried it and made it to about the 300-yard line–halfway through the game–before I was overwhelmed by a group of knights and ultimately killed. Some other player makes that strategy work in this video, winning the game in just under 5 minutes, but there’s a note that the session somehow “manipulates luck,” so I’m not sure if it’s an honest win.

A winning game takes about an hour, taking modest care, and perhaps two hours being extra careful. If you win you get a nice screen and then an invitation to try again. Small squares in the upper-right corner keep track of your victories. The only thing different about subsequent loops is that they feature traps that kill you instantly unless a soldier walks over them. Apparently, you face more traps the more previous victories you have under your belt.           

An angry King Suren chases his enemies off screen.

             The game scores poorly as an RPG, getting only 15 points on the GIMLET, nothing rating higher than a 2, with 0s in economy and equipment. Nonetheless, it was enjoyable for a few hours as I tried to figure out the right strategies, watched the odometer count down my distance to Ogreth, and held my breath every time Suren entered combat. I lost 8 times–twice in the last 100 meters–and I suppose I would feel differently about the game if that had continued much longer.            

The box captures the somewhat linear nature of the game.

            Given my generally positive feelings, I was surprised when I started doing my post-game research and saw Bokosuka Wars repeatedly referred to as the worst game ever made for the NES, with multiple sites calling it completely impossible. Granted, PC games were significantly ahead of the experience that Bokosuka Wars could provide, but even console-only players seem to love to trash this title. I suspect what’s happening here is that RPG-oriented players want their success determined by statistics that they can manage, and arcade-oriented players want their fate decided by their own dexterity. A game that’s so heavily based on random probability serves neither group. Nonetheless, I had fun with it. It showed me an approach to gameplay I haven’t experienced before. I wouldn’t want every game to take its mechanics from Bokosuka Wars, but as a one time experience, it was fine.

(Believe me, I appreciate the irony of me, who never heard of this game two weeks ago, who resisted the console sub-genre for a decade, suddenly mounting an impassioned defense of the first console RPG that I played.)                 

The Sharp XI version starts the king with a large army.

            As poorly as the game was apparently received, it is credited in many sources in laying the foundations for the tactical RPG genre in Japan. I’ll reserve judgement on that until I actual play more tactical RPGs. In a funny footnote, Bokosuka Wars II was released for the PlayStation 4 in 2017. (There’s a so-called sequel called New Bokosuka Wars for the Sharp X1 alone in 1984, but I really think it’s just another version of the original game.) That gap of 33 years must be one of the longest between an original game and its sequel in gaming history, although Bethesda seems determined to beat it.

I’m disappointed that the game didn’t explain what bokosuka meant. Does anyone know? Googling provides mostly this game and a VR game called Bokosuka Girls. I’m trying to think what adjective could apply to both wars and buxom women and I’m coming up short.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-334-bokosuka-wars-1983/

[shesaidclud]

If you happen to have known or followed me for a long time, you know I go through pretty intense obsessions... 

Back in the day I was obsessed with The Lord of the Rings. Eventually the movies finished, I’d watched all the possible DVD extras, they won all their awards, and the obsession got replaced with Anime.

Anime is full of stories with limited episodes and back in the day I had very limited access to what anime I could watch and when since it was pretty much Toonami and Anime Unleashed and the manga the bookstore carried. Even the ones I got fixated on either ended or I lost access to them, so they eventually all petered out.

Later on, and this one was definitely while I had Tumblr, I got obsessed with Arashi. I adored them. Theirs was the only music I wanted to listen to, the only dramas I wanted to watch, the only game shows I wanted to see. I was devouring their content as fast as I could find it. 

But then the internet cracked down on fansubs, changed the definition of piracy, and made subbing and sharing content illegal even if it didn’t exist in your country otherwise. Japan as a whole, but famously Arashi’s parent industry JE  do not export their media content. Arashi’s music wasn’t available for download, their shows couldn’t be found except through the most underground sources, and their music videos were removed from online spaces. The only way to get any of their content was to pay large amounts of money to get imports of Japanese copies of their CDs or DVDs with no translation and which weren’t compatible with my computer. Needless to say, my obsession had nowhere to go and died down.

Well now I’m back, ya’ll. And BTS has taken over my life. The difference here is, this is a young, ongoing group who heavily creates and exports content and encourages fansubbing. They have an enormous backlog of videos, music, shows, and an entire alternate universe storyline hidden within it all. Even when I find an end to some of their content, things I missed show up or new content comes out. And it’s accessible and translated. On top of that, there are seven equally talented members to each fixate on in turn. Their music is gorgeous and poetic, their dancing is insane and precise, they’re prettier than humans have a right to be, they’re very affectionate with one another, and they’re funny. There’s a reason they’re taking over the world right now. They’ve got a winning combination and I’m weak to it.

Basically, if you’ve followed me for a long time and aren’t super excited about the BTS content I’ve been spamming, you’d better hope their mandatory military service slows them down because I don’t see this obsession calming down any time soon. 

This is your warning to embrace the boys or get out while you still can. XD

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

People Have Different Tastes

Something that has always bothered me is when people end up absolutely befuddled because I didn’t watch a certain children's show or listen to a particular song. I’ve had numerous people gawk at me because of this as though it’s some unspoken requirement of humanity to all watch and listen to the same things. What’s popular to you doesn’t necessarily mean it’s popular to someone else. Granted, I know there are videos that go viral and songs that make it to the top ten and shows that people rave about worldwide. I have still managed to avoid that though, for the most part. It isn’t intentional, I just generally immersed myself in what I found interesting to me. I grew up listening to what my mother played from her ipod or CDs and I watched more movies than I did TV shows. I never really had a vessel to explore music tailored to me or videos I personally enjoyed until I was in about ninth or tenth grade.

I received an ipad for christmas and downloaded a knock-off version of youtube that allowed me to play music while using another app. That was when I started exploring. When my younger sister was looking up epic music to use jokingly in a school project, I found that I actually really enjoyed it. Epic instrumental music and movie scores were the shit I loved to listen to. It took me a wee while actually to branch out from that and find songs with words. I wanted something with the same feel, same use of instrumental abundance. The band Of Monsters and Men took me in a different direction though, interesting sounding vocals. I’m a sucker for accents so listening to foreign bands gave me that satisfaction. I never fell into a boy/girl band phase, I either wanted a mix of both or just a strong male or female vocalist. So when One Direction became a sensation, I just pretended to be a fan. I wanted to be a part of the community of people that adored one thing, whether it was a band, a song, a show, a clothing trend. It simply never fit with what I enjoyed though. There were rare moments when I felt that inclusion with appreciating something but it was often few and far between.

I watched Nickelodeon as a child, but it was mostly Spongebob Squarepants and iCarly sprinkled in between. H2O: Just Add Water was a favorite as well. I still managed to miss a ridiculous amount of shows there though. Still managed to baffle people with my lack of indulgence. The thing is, I watched an episode or so and then I was done for the day, so that episode was from the one channel I knew to get to. Netflix wasn’t a thing yet, hell, flat TVs weren’t a thing yet. Channel 37 was all I knew so dammit that’s what I hit on the remote. Also, like I said, I was also a big movie fan. I watched Titanic religiously with my younger sister, we were about four and six years old. Eventually our parents banned us from it because they were so sick of it. Our love for it was rediscovered two years later so that was a fun thing to relive. We liked Disney movies but not as much the old classics like Snow White, more like Mulan and Pirates of the Carribean. This of course led me to be considered a fake Disney fan since I wouldn’t watch as many princess movies. Barbie movies on the other hand were a blast to watch but that doesn’t count, so again I was on the edge of the crowds.

I never bothered to follow clothing trends, I was poor, then I moved to a small town where going to Vancouver only happened twice a year for us. Buying the next trendy thing wasn’t something I could do when most of my clothes were hand-me-downs or from what I found at the thrift store. On top of that, I have a habit of wanting to look like the last character I saw in a movie that I like. I’m a fiend for overcoats because of that. I was more interested in looking like I popped out of another time period than keeping up with a trend that would last a week and come around again ten years later. If there was an in-style look I fancied, I always ended up acquiring it late and then it didn’t even matter if I caught up, the world already moved on.

Video games were never really present in my life, until we got a Wii. That became addicting for awhile but even then, my parents never really had to urge me outside much because I loved being outside. I thrive among trees, grass, and creeks. I would wake up early and sneak out of the house before my sister woke up just so I could have an hour of poking around ditches and bushes with a stick, pretending it was alive and I was narrating its existence like the gent from Planet Earth. My group of friends would play manhunt in the woods or make up civilizations in my backyard. We would be out in the neighbourhood streets from late morning to twilight. Of course those that didn’t do that as kids wondered why I was so horrible at video games and never saw all the episodes of anything because I was never in front of the TV that much. Even though I had a small herd, I still felt isolated from the much larger herd of people familiar with something I wasn’t.

I’ve been in dance classes all my life from when I was two so no, I don't know how to navigate an Xbox. I grew up listening to Enya, Simon and Garfunkel, and opera, so no, Katy Perry wasn’t someone I jammed out to. I’m a shy, awkward introverted bookworm so no, I never went to parties. I don’t have a lot of money so no, I don’t really buy brand name clothing. I’m not trying to sound like I’m such a one-of-a-kind, not like the others, clearly a quirky and unique person. What I”m trying to say is, there are loads of people like that, loads of people that find joy in the less known, the more obscure, the sub-genre of things.

People forget that just because they grew up one way, knowing the things they learned and seeing the things they saw, does not mean everyone else did too. The world is a grand place because there is so much to offer, so to ridicule, tease, taunt, shame those that dwell in something different than you is stupid. We don’t all have to agree with one another’s tastes but we should at least appreciate the fact that we have different tastes and aren’t instead clones that all march to the same destination without knowing why. So whilst someone plays Assassin’s Creed or goes to a club or reads a book or takes a hike or browses a mall, I’m writing a blog and doing any of those things is wonderful.

Do what makes you happy, and be happy that others are doing what makes them happy because the happier we all are, the more tolerant we’ll be of everyone’s differences.

[droneseco]

Lanq PCDock Monitor Stand Tries to Do So Much, but Fails at Nearly Everything

Lanq PCDock

5.00 / 10

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The Lanq PCDock is a competent monitor stand with RGB lights, a fingerprint reader, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and some USB ports. But I can't quite figure out ... why?

Key Features

All-in-one desktop hub

Specifications

Brand: Lanq

Connection: USB-A

Ports: 2 x USB3.1, 2 x USB-C, Fingerprint reader, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 5.0

Pros

As a monitor stand, it's solidly built

Qi charging pad is convenient

Cons

Drivers requires for the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and fingerprint reader

RGB lighting doesn't integrate with anything

Buy This Product

Lanq PCDock other

Shop

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The Lanq PCDock claims to be the new standard of monitor stand. With a built-in USB hub, fingerprint sensor, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, Qi charger, and RGB lights—everything except a kitchen sink, in fact—is it everything you could want from a monitor stand? Probably not.

Crowdfunding Disclaimer

The Lanq PCDock is currently seeking backers on IndieGogo, with about a week left on the campaign. Back it now to save around 40-50% off the eventual RRP. Or don't.

The usual disclaimer applies here: crowdfunding is not a pre-order system, and there's no legal responsibility for the company to deliver anything to backers. Lanq—or Langqun Yunchang (Shenzhen) Electronics Co—appears to be a new company, with no previous products or crowdfunding history.

PCDock As a Monitor Stand

Two sizes of Lanq PCDock monitor stand are available—the Pro and Max—and they only differ by width. The largest Max size (as tested) measures 43.5W x 8.62D x 3.27H inches (1105W x 219H x 83D mm), while the smaller Pro measures 24.8 inches (631mm) wide.

One benefit of a monitor stand is that it frees up desktop space, allowing you to store a keyboard, mouse, and other bits underneath it when they're not in use. Both sizes of the Lanq PCDock offer 2.24 inches (57mm) of clearance underneath. That's just about enough for a mouse, but just shy of what's needed for an Xbox controller. It's deceptively small, in fact.

The PCDock Max size is designed to accommodate dual monitors, side-by-side, though I "only" have a 55-inch TV to test with on my gaming desk. It handled that fine, thankfully not collapsing at any point during testing. With ABS plastic legs on the side, the main frame is made of an unspecified metal (probably steel), and certainly feels sturdy.

If I did have two, or three monitors, I suspect I'd rather attach them to adjustable VESA mounting arms, so as to give me more control over the angle and tilt.

Lanq claims the PCDock stand will raise the monitor to the correct viewing height, thereby easing neck strain. I can't help but think monitor manufacturers have already considered this rather fundamental design aspect into their products, so this statement may be a little presumptuous. My work monitor actually includes a height-adjustable stand, as do many designed for use in an office.

RGB Lights

RGB lighting is not to everyone's taste, but it's a key feature of the Lanq PCDock. Offering either 60 or 120 LEDs depending on the size of the dock, these are pixel LEDs rather than a single color strip. A remote control is included, and a variety of attractive, if somewhat distracting, animations are pre-programmed.

You can also choose static colors, or you can change the speed of the animations to be less annoying. It really does look quite impressive, if you're into that sort of thing, which I am. I want all the RGBs.

Unfortunately, there's no integration here between the lights and desktop controller software. Your only method to choose how the lights behave is through that small remote control, so don't lose it.

Keen gamers who already have a lot of RGB kit will likely have already bought into a specific system, such as Razer Chroma, Corsair iCue, or even Philips Hue. This is therefore not going to appeal to them.

As a Hub

The Lanq PCDock is also a generic hub, offering two USB-A 3.0 ports, and two USB-C 3.2 ports, which have fast charging capability. However, these aren't Thunderbolt, so don't expect to be running a monitor off of them.

The exterior right-hand side of the dock feels like a sub-optimal placement. I'd much rather hide my keyboard and mouse cable underneath the monitor stand, and keep the cables off the desk. Useful as quick access for plugging in a USB stick perhaps; but my Razer keyboard also does that.

Ultimately, you wouldn't be purchasing the Lanq PCDock for the USB hub alone, so I'm not going to dwell on it; it's an ancillary feature that's useful to have.

10W Qi Charger

Also on the right-hand side you'll find a smartphone-sized rubber pad embedded into the top surface; this indicates the location of the 10W Qi charger.

This functioned much as expected, reliable triggering a wireless charge when my phone was placed onto it. But I can't say I found it all that useful. Modern smartphones tend to last me the entire day if I'm sat at my desk. It's only when heading out and about, using GPS, or taking videos that the battery doesn't last a whole day. In which case, I'm not at my desk.

Fingerprint Reader, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi

I've grouped these features together because they all require a separate driver download. The drivers come as a RAR file, and extract to reveal a bunch of DLLs, as well as a INF file, which you should locate and right-click on, then select "Install" in order to add them to your system. In 2021, I expect much better. A single driver package with an install executable should be an absolute minimum. But moreover, the fact you even need to install drivers for such generic features is almost unheard of nowadays.

It seems even more curious when you consider that in order to activate the Wi-Fi functionality, you either need to already have Wi-Fi, or an Ethernet cable plugged in. Are you going to unplug your faster, Gigabit Ethernet, to replace it with a less reliable and potentially laggy Wi-Fi connection? I doubt it. The only reason to use this Wi-Fi adaptor is if your existing one is a decade old, and only capable of 2.4Ghz. The Lanq dual-band Wi-Fi apparently goes up to 5.8Ghz.

The Bluetooth chip (BlueSoleil), worked briefly after a lot of fiddling and allowed me to connect to an Xbox controller. Until Windows decided something was wrong and disabled the driver. Fixing it required a restart and USB dance each time, which seemed like far more effort than it was worth.

I was unable to test the fingerprint reader, but in fairness, I don't think this is Lanq's fault. I disabled Windows login years ago, and now it won't let me re-enable it again. As a gaming-only Windows user, I don't need to secure my desktop in any way. Supposedly it can be used for Windows Hello, but there doesn't seem to be any deeper integration such as web payments, as I'm accustomed to on my Macbook Pro. That said, this might be the one killer feature for you, and if it is, you can probably justify the rest of the package too.

Should You Buy the Lanq PCDock?

The sales page seems to be aiming the Lanq PCDock at professionals and office workers, but the inclusion of RGB lighting would suggest gamers. Yet, the RGB lighting isn't integrated into any existing RGB system, which means gamers won't be interested in it unless this is their first foray into this kind of lighting system.

If the lighting was exposed to the connected PC system through the third-party "works with Razer Chroma" plugin or similar, it'd be a whole lot more useful. As it is, the reliance on a single point of failure (a tiny remote control) makes this aspect of the dock difficult to recommend.

Then there's the fact that the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and fingerprint reader require separate driver downloads. I can't remember the last time I had to install drivers for such basic features. My experience with Bluetooth dongles thus far on Windows 10 has been "plug and play". And even if the Lanq Bluetooth had worked reliably for me, which it didn't, a plug-and-play dongle from Pluggable is less than $10, and only a fraction bigger than the USB port it plugs into.

The whole thing feels like it was thrown together as part of a "design your ultimate monitor stand" competition. It's a mish-mash of nice-to-have features (if they worked), but none of them are individually compelling, and the whole is, well, less than the sum of its parts.

The Lanq PCDock is a sturdy monitor stand with some cool lighting and a USB hub, but at $200, the value for money simply isn't there.

Lanq PCDock Monitor Stand Tries to Do So Much, but Fails at Nearly Everything published first on http://droneseco.tumblr.com/

[jouska-the-deer]

Jouska’s Storytime

Want to hear about how I called out my permanent substitute teacher for being horrible at his job today?

Alright. So, I was in my first-hour Creative Writing class and the sub was talking about how to write non-fiction, more specifically, newspaper articles. I have no idea what writing newspaper articles have to do with creative writing, but I digress. 

Anyway, so the teacher told us to do a fifteen-minute quick write in the style of a newspaper article, after showing us a childish video about making sure to include the who, what, where, when, why, and how when making a headline to an article. 

Unlike how things usually go, I actually had an idea for a true story to write about instantly. My idea was to write about yesterday when he gave us, a class of juniors and seniors, a worksheet intended for third and fourth graders. I wrote it all out and I thought it was pretty awesome. 

So, after the time was up, he asked if anyone wanted to share their newspaper article quick write. I couldn’t help myself from smiling like an idiot while he looked around, and he soon noticed. He asked me if I wanted to share, and I responded by saying he wouldn’t want me to. (You know, because I spent the entire paper basically mocking him) He said that I should share it anyway, and I said I’d read him the headline and see if he still wants me to share the entire thing. He agreed. This is the headline (With the name of my school changed for obvious reasons):

Yesterday at Golden Hill High School, school teacher Mr. C assigned a worksheet intended for grades three and four to a group of juniors and seniors for a lesson on facts and opinions

I could tell that he was at least a little uncomfortable, but the thing about Mr. C, is that he always wants to look like he’s unfazed, and has the upper hand. He told me to continue reading, saying that it could be an interesting story. This was a bad idea for him to do.

So, because I feel like typing, here’s the entire paper that I wrote. Please note that I only spent like, fifteen minutes on writing it, so it’s nothing award worthy. 

On the morning of January tenth, 2017, at approximately 8 AM, A permanent substitute teacher by the name of Mr. C assigned a worksheet that many of his students found to be very easy. After the class had a small debate, I asked Mr. C where he got the worksheet, and he did not respond.

Later that day, I decided to get the answers myself. At approximately 12:50 PM, I used the free time in my class and a Chromebook to find the source of the easy worksheet. 

Using the copyright and source information at the bottom of the paper, I discovered that the paper came from “k12reader.com”. Once I searched the worksheet title, “Fact and Opinion: Switch it Up”, I found the download page for the paper. 

What I saw was shocking. In the description of the worksheet, it was stated that the assignment was recommended for grades three through four.

It was appalling that a high school teacher would assign such a low-level worksheet to a group of students who are almost legally adults. 

When asked about the difficulty of the paper, one student, who will remain anonymous, stated that the paper must have been for elementary school students. She went on the say that she had heard many complaints about Mr. C and that she was not surprised that he would assign the paper. 

What does this say about our current educational system? Will things improve? Will students be able to learn things at their current level soon? Only time will tell.

So yeah. After I finished reading the paper, Mr. C wasn’t looking too great. One of the students in the back of the classroom said out loud, “Exposed!”, which I think was really funny. Then a bunch of students started breaking out into a discussion, and Mr. C tried his best to get everyone to calm down. 

One girl spoke up and told Mr. C that he shouldn’t be giving us worksheets for third graders, and he responded by saying that I just wrote a random paper and that it wasn’t necessarily true. I then clarified that everything I wrote was true and that if everyone also did some research, they’d find the same thing. In fact, here’s that website page I talked about. I want you to see exactly what I was talking about. 

Mr. C then tried to defend himself by saying that it was only recommended for those grades and that it was fine to give to us. A bunch of students then pointed out that it was still recommended for a very low level, and that everyone was still too smart for the worksheet. (Like, seriously. Most of us have taken college English classes by this point.)

He went on to say that not all of us knew about the difference between fact and opinion and that there was no way to tell if everyone already knew the information. (Uh, ever heard of a pre-test?) Then he said there was no way that third and fourth graders are actually working on that worksheet because it was too high level. 

I began to giggle, and he noticed. He looked at me with a confused look, and I asked him if he remembered when he was teaching us about plot diagrams. He said yes, and asked why. I told him that when we were working on plot diagrams, I told my sister about it, and she said that she was working on it at the same time and that it was review for her. I then talked about how she wrote a book using the plot diagrams, and that she was 11 at the time. 

Man, Mr. C looked so offended it was hilarious. He then told be that maybe my sister was smarter than I was. I responded in monotone with, “my eleven-year-old sister?” and he replied with, “yes”. Like, uh, you just got done saying that no kids in third and fourth grade were studying this stuff, I stated that my young sister was studying that stuff, and then you try to say she’s smarter than me? Like, really? What the heck was his logic?

Then, he randomly picked a fight with a girl in the class. Like, he just started talking about how everyone should do his assignments regardless of how easy they are, then scolded a random girl for not turning an old assignment in. They continued to argue for a good ten minutes before Mr. C cooled down. 

After the class ended and I went to my second hour class, one of my friends congratulated me for finally calling him out, and said that she would have called him out eventually if I hadn’t. I also got a high five from another friend. Then I showed the newspaper quick write to a couple of my friends just to brag, and they laughed a bit, and it was awesome. 

Seriously, today was such a confidence boost for me. I wasn’t planning on sharing that quick write with the class, but now I’m glad I did. I may not be learning anything new about creative writing in that class, but at least Mr. C’s constant foolishness has gotten me to become better at calling people out for their nonsense. So, I almost think I should thank him. He’s helped me become more confident, even if it was at his expense. 

[leon-k-musc3603]

Assessment #3 - Choose Your Own Adventure

Option 1: Create a 6 - 8 minute piece in which you manipulate a single sound source. A minimum 50% of the material should be derived from the original sample.

Artistic Vision

Single sound source chosen is an iPhone, utilising and manipulating system and application notification sounds.

I want to explore the ubiquity of notification sounds in their continual and functional presence in the day-to-day lives of majority of people, which in a way build and implant associations in our minds from consistent usage of smartphones. Ingrained in our sub-conscious, these sounds of alert trigger a sense of alert within ourselves, and by collecting and manipulating them in a composition I aim to depict the underlying anxiety that brews under the security and reliance we feel with these devices; the psychological grip that technology and overstimulation can hold on us.

 Musical Direction & Inspiration

Want to try and experiment with making a piece without a grid/tempo, having rhythmic irregularities and feel like a soundscape of sorts, with ambient music, musique concrete (i.e. tape music) and noise being points of inspiration.

-       Nuno Canavarro first came into mind, as I would like to initially implement a similar playful approach to manipulating the sounds. It is also the way that his music feels like sounds and voices being conjured from an empty white spacious void that resonates to me as being something to sonically aim towards in conveying the vast, sterile and deceptively clean sheen of internet and smartphone technology (i.e., the minimalistic and futuristic feel of Apple branding), soon to be contrasted with the resultant reality of anxieties.

o   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RHVq98KUJ4

-       James Ferraro, and his use of kitschy MIDI instrumentation and OS sounds to create unsettling compositions in his album Far Side Virtual.

o   https://youtu.be/tNpFFHd4y8Q

-       Autechre, and their boundary-pushing use of sample manipulation and digital software; consistently cerebral and sonically explorative in the realm of electronic digital music therefore always serve as inspiration.

o   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev3vENli7wQ

-       Arca, particularly their album ‘Mutant’ which has so many good instances of noise and distortion being used in a controlled yet wild manner.

o   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW4I_y56DC0

 Sound Sourcing

It was a little bit difficult to source a high-quality collection of iPhone system sounds, but I managed to find compilations on YouTube from which I downloaded the HD video and extracted the audio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-V_eyIgDiA

Other than those sounds, I needed vibrations that would be able to fulfil a low-end background role within the mix of the composition.

At first, I attempted to record my phone vibrating from a phone call on my wooden desk; but I soon found difficulty in trying to make a brooding drone synth out of it due to it lacking the low-end and also the subtle background hiss from my condenser microphone. So instead, I decided to use this sample as an introduction to the piece, rather than anything used thoroughly in the composition.

I ended up finding vibration sounds that more suited what I desired through foley websites such as freesound.org.

 Composition Log

My general approach to composition for this piece will be first creating sounds of interest and from there hopefully inspires a musical direction to take. Thinking about making it a tripartite piece, with each section revolving mainly around one specific sound.

After sorting out the various sounds, the first few sounds I gravitated towards were ‘bell’ alerts. Started making the first section, with the recording of my phone vibration as an introductory element. Filtering it in gradually, it’ll serve to establish the ‘sound source’, and as a way to allude to the elements of the soundscape (i.e. playing the sounds in their original form before manipulating them in various ways later on). Double the last few vibrations with the bell sounds, playing at same rhythm. Repeating the sequence and re-pitching them lower serves as a way to transition into the surreal ‘void’ soundscape. Found a ‘wooshing’ sound effect among the samples that also worked to transition, with a quick pan sweep from left to right.

To create an uneasy atmosphere, I played around with the ring modulator on Frequency Shifter, which along with the spread setting help create a sense of woosy spaciousness. To ground and provide a foundation for the section, I utilised a pitched down phone vibration sample, giving it more sub low-end content that through EQ’ing is emphasised to push its looming ‘buried’ character. These two are to serve as the central sounds, and here they are looping at separate rhythmic intervals for a disassociating effect.

 From here I continued to try find different ways to manipulate the bell samples. One exercise I did was putting a Filter Delay 100% wet on the bell track while it looped, recording onto an audio track. Since Filter Delay has three separate delays (L, R & L/R) with their own frequency filter, you can create a really varied stereo effect as you tweak with it. Once recorded, I placed it fairly low in the mix to make it a background layer, and aligned it with the bell hits but manipulating it by reversing, pitch-shifting, etc. Creates a unique call-and-response effect, where the delays unnaturally precede and ‘call’ the bells to respond.

  Returning back to the project I find myself in a little creative struggle in thinking of what more to add to the section, so I begin looking through more samples. It is interesting actively analysing these sounds that I’ve heard so many times in a passive manner, as you begin to notice some legitimately interesting tonal and textural qualities.

For example, I found that the iOS charging sound effect had a cool mellow tone with a fast but smooth pitch contour, so I put into a ‘Simpler’ instrument and played around with it using my MIDI keyboard. Immediately I heard potential with this sample, and I heard an interesting effect when playing chords where the length of the loop on each note would vary. This results in each sample going in and out of phase while played simultaneously, creating its own unique distinct rhythm. To make it sound wider, I used the “Ran > Pan” parameter which makes each sample be randomly panned as they play, experimenting with indeterminate elements. An issue with the sound I found was the abrupt volume dip from the initial pitch rise to the lower constant pitch (which serves as the loop), and to try fix it this I applied a decent amount of compression which served to reduce its dynamic range to a suitable degree.

Once getting the sound sorted with a nice amplitude envelope, I recorded some chords onto MIDI, playing long sustained drones with no strict timing alongside little flourishes in the higher register. Found good elements from the resultant recording (mainly inversions of Cmaj7 & Dmaj7 chords), so I decided to make this a new section from which to build upon.

 I similarly use another phone vibration sample, but this time as a consistent droning low-end element that follows the root of the chords through looping in a Simpler. It first retains its original pitch and ‘buzzy’ quality but becomes distinguished once pitched down and applied with a low-pass filter and some distortion (through Overdrive and Drum Buss). Also utilise a portamento slide feature to still keep its ‘vibration’ connotation. This is later doubled with a sub-bass sample that I derived from a “Siri bell sound” pitched down significantly, both fulfilling the bottom low-end of the layer-cake.

  To introduce a melodic layer, I duplicated the Charging Sound FX synth, but got rid of the pitch contour so it only had the last lingering tone. By changing the amplitude envelope and increasing the gain, it lend itself to being played like a synth lead, with the slightly hissy quality giving it a unique edge that corresponds with phone call audio quality, and to give it a more melancholy and distant feel, I added some delay with LFO’s altering the delay time slightly and a reverb with a long decay and diffused character. A layer to try symbolising the struggle to clearly communicate amongst an inevitable bombardment of stimuli.

 Continuing on this general idea, I played along to the recorded chords, starting off melodically sparse and gradually introducing more. Eventually climaxes to moments where the notes are held on towards the end of phrases, creating loud dissonant chords. For the last ‘climax’ section, I decided to re-introduce the bell sounds from the start to double the last note played.

 These loud dissonant sections needed more edge to it, as these are the points where I want to convey a sense of nervousness and anxiety. Here I decided to look up online appropriate Ableton plug-ins to tastefully approach making sounds noisier and decided to use ‘Saturator’, which provided highly flexible in shaping the tone of the noise compared to the simple ‘Overdrive’ plug-in I used previously. Placing one on a return track with an ‘Auto-Pan’ and Limiter, I gradually fed the droning vibration synth into it which created a dominating and overwhelming movement to it. Placing one Saturator on the lead synth also achieved a desired effect, by gradually increasing the Dry/Wet, but only by a small amount.

  This section also like the last has other assorted sounds dispersed throughout (e.g. phone typing, message incoming/sent) but gradually getting more and more prominent as it leads to the noisy sections. One sound effect in particular made an interesting ‘heart-beat’ like sound once slowed-down and looped, therefore a very apt association to evoke in a ‘panic’-driven section, where I decided to make the interval between iterations quicker as it climaxed (like an increasing heart rate). Intentionally did not want to add much processing (such as reverb) to these more middleground/background layers as to not clutter the mix and create a textual contrast between the already established foreground layers which are initially spacey and far-out. Serves to ground the piece into a false sense of ‘reality’.

  To add to the rhythmic disorientation, I decided to use the classic ‘Radar’ alarm tone which already has stressful connotations to many (including myself) and implement a similar method of rhythmic crossing and in-out phasing by having three layers of it on-top of one another, one with the original pitch and others at faster speeds. The original has an Echo slowly applied, with input gain increased to make the echo more prominent and distorted, adding to the sonic chaos.

Yet again, I start again looking for what other sounds I could play with and potentially build upon. Taking the ‘Siri’ bell prompt sound that I already used as a sub layer, I found it having a nice metallic chime quality when played up higher, almost like a music-box. With this association in mind, I began playing little short melodic motifs that I thought would be interesting to use as a loop for an ending section, to represent the ‘calm after the storm’, but almost in a deceptive way by contrasting the child-like quality with other eerie elements. I ended up settling on a motif and while looping it I added a few more effects to thicken the layer such as a flanger to space it out and a bit of a mid-high-end boost.

 I found that by extending the loop of the sample (instead of just one of the chime tones) to incorporate all three bells in the sub-bass synth, made a great rhythmic layer too, as it starts with two higher bass tones and falls down to the last deep note. A longer loop contrasting with the really short melodic loop on top of it.

Duplicating the ‘music-box’ synth, I wanted to use the occurrence of the really harrowing deep note as a call for something to respond to. Here I reversed the MIDI sequence of the motif and transposed into a lower register, still harmonising with the melodic loop but out-of-time. Adding reverb and a different ‘circuit type’ filter in the Simpler, I discovered an interesting effect when applying the gain parameter with increased resonance on the ‘MS2’ low-pass filter, creating a harmonic distortion that was nice to introduce with an upwards ‘swirl’ on automation.

Decided to differentiate the two even further in terms of space, by panning the main loop to the right and this new one to the left.

This is also a section I want to be ‘floaty’ and ‘spacey’ like the first, but not in a disorientating manner. So, I played with the Charging synth sound in order to generate some fluttery high-end tones at the highest MIDI range of my keyboard, as when you push a sample to its tonal limits the pitch becomes less defined but can become an interesting textural element.

Yet again used this synth, but to re-introduce the noisy-section but as more of a middle-ground element. Here I decide to increase the distortion and also implement Beat Repeat to get a glitch-y effect, and through these added effects I improvised over the loops established.

With the recording, I converted it to audio in order to additional glitch it out through Ableton’s ‘Warp’ tool, and by stretching the transients with the ‘Beat’ warp mode and re-pitching, I was able to get some suitable eerie and jarring tones to add on top of the created layer.

 It is at this point that I’ve satisfied my initial idea of having a 3-part piece, as now I have laid down three distinct sections with similar thematic elements but utilising different samples as centrepieces. However, in doing this I felt like they might perhaps be too distinct from one another, so in revising these sections I made some additions and changes in order to sonically expand upon each layer and try to make the piece as a whole feel more cohesive.

Part 1 (A/Intro):

-       Extended the whole section, initially felt too short and abrupt, but now it leaves a little more room for things to unfold.

-       Duplicated the vibration sample, hard panned both to opposite ends and slightly de-tuned one. Creates a doubling unison effect that places it more in the foreground and makes it feel more ‘shaky’.

-       Added more automation to the ring modulator, generate more interest by shifting the modulation rather than remaining stagnant as it was previous.

-       Created more texture with the reversed Filter Delay samples, by using Redux to create a sharp crackly tone to contrast with the smooth bell sounds.

-       Implement the similar reverse delay effect on a ‘iOS recording - ding’ sound, creates sonic consistency.

-       Added more bell samples towards the end with different pitch-shifting, thickening it up and creating more interest.

-       Introduce the ‘Charging’ sound effect in its raw clean form, alluding to its use in the next section.

-       Similarly, I allude to the bass layer from the last section, using its sample reversed and slightly pitched up here.

 Part 2 (B):

-       Begin to feel like the main ‘charging’ chord synth may lack a bit of higher-end frequency content and could generally using some form of textural doubling to increase interest. Here I decided to grab a bell-sound and placed it into similar settings on a separate Simpler and combined the two synths together. Tweaking the settings, such as the filters and EQ, I found it worked well to introduce this timbre gradually as it subtly thickened the layer. It also generated more rhythmic complexity as it loops at a different speed (with the differing length of the sample), creating an even more enveloping ‘phase in-out’ effect, but to not accentuate it too much to the point of being too overwhelming too quick, I reduced the attack on the amplitude envelope.

-       It’s here that I decide to use the ‘lock screen’ clicking sound effect to act as an indicator of a new section. The movement from A to B is to stay abrupt but this gives that little bit of needed cohesion/clarity, as to showcase a rapid fluctuation of mood (from starting the day feeling uneasy to feeling ‘connected’ and fine [at first]).

-       Addition of a subtle delay effect on the main charging synth – yet again attempting to thicken the texture a bit more and create a wider space.

-       Panning effects on the interspersed aux. sound effects (i.e. the typing sounds doing swooping movements from left to right).

-       Introduce the ‘music-box’ melodic motif from the 3rd section by fading it in in this section, adding to the noise. Also is alongside the second motif but it is repeated similarly on a constant loop (rather than spaced out).

 Decided to develop a new short transition section (abrupt moment of clarity), with the idea being to introduce the ‘Siri’ bell sound effect in its clean unaltered form and then cutting it up just before entering the 3rd section. Because of its association, I wanted to use a short snippet of Siri dialogue but struggled to find any phrases or samples that were suitable or thematically relevant. I discovered online that I could actually use MacOS to do text-to-speech with a similar Siri voice through the terminal, which was perfect. Here I settled on a recording of the voice saying:

 “I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that.”

 Being a common type of response, it is recontextualised and serves a different purpose given the emotions of helplessness and anxiety that I wanted to convey with the noisy cluttered section prior. To further delve into this, I used a ‘reverse reverb + delay’ effect, which serves as a good way here to make a spacey and uneasy texture whilst maintaining clarity of the voice, and by ending with no trail it leaves this uncanny silence afterwards. I double the last words, “with that” by pitching down the voice to further drive the creepiness home.

  Part 3 (C/Outro)

-       Doubling technique with bells applied here, where it plays along with the music-box synth, hitting same notes here and there, more frequent as it progresses with differing panning positions.

-       Have both music-box synths end their playing by leaving a long trail through increasing the release time on their respective amplitude envelopes. Creates a lingering effect for the bass motif to continue for a little longer before fading out naturally.

-       Don’t want to clutter this section up much but adding much more; currently like the minimalism in how it contrasts and lets the piece fade away.

Here is the piece!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11RjbLUFkewYpcrj35k5gz5T4f0JXCfgj/view?usp=sharing

[neilmillerne]

How to Start Powerlifting as a Female: Staci’s Story

Ladies, meet your new hero.

Men, prepare to be humbled.

My friend Staci, or Spezzy as she’s known around the Nerd Fitness community, has one of the best transformations I’ve ever seen:

Working a sedentary desk job, Staci slowly packed on weight and ate like a typical unhealthy American. She also smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

She tried to get in shape doing what many people start with: she ran a lot and essentially starved herself. She dropped to an incredibly low and unhealthy weight and developed an eating disorder.

She fell in love with barbell strength training and started lifting HEAVY weights.

She’s now in the best shape of her life, healthier and happier than ever before, regularly competing in powerlifting meets and deadlifting 430+ pounds!

Now in 2019, her journey continues to inspire MILLIONS around the world.

For the women out there who are scared about “getting too bulky when lifting weights,” this article is for you.

If you are intrigued about powerlifting and don’t know where to begin, this article is for you.

If you’re curious what happens to a gal who packs on 40+ lbs of muscle and starts lifting heavy weights, this article is for you.

Staci has transformed inside and out over the past 8+ years, and I want this story to inspire you to go pick up a barbell the next time you’re in a gym. It’s been a privilege to watch her journey day in and day out for those 8 years: Staci actually joined Team Nerd Fitness in a full-time capacity in 2012!

In fact, she’s now our lead female trainer in our 1-on-1 online NF Coaching Program!

Without further ado, here’s an interview/8-year-retrospective/how-to juggernaut of an article on my hero and yours, Staci Ardison!

Staci’s Origin Story: 170 Pounds and Unhappy

This is a picture of Staci back in 2009 before she decided to make some changes in her life.

Starting around age 16, she put on weight relatively steadily through high school, college, and beyond, when she reached her peak at 170 pounds in 2009 at the age of 25.

I asked her what a normal day was like before she tried to fix her health:

I’d get up at 7, go to work, have a Slim Fast shake because I never had time for breakfast. I wasn’t a big snacker but I ate a lot for my meals; I’d typically go out to eat for lunch every day and get a sub or something from D’Angelo’s or Subway, and it was never the 6″ one, it was the big one. And chips. Lots of chips. Or french fries. Getting home I’d either go out to eat with friends or plop in front of the TV playing video games for hours.

My favorite meal was tacos and nachos. I just asked my old roommate what I used to eat because I didn’t remember, and she said “You used to sit in front of the TV with a big plate of meat and cheese and go ‘Hm, I guess I should have some chips with this.'” On many occasions, we’d order pizza or takeout around 11PM too. On top of all of that, I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day!

And that’s when her doctor told her that she had high cholesterol and needed to lose some weight if she wanted to live a long healthy life.

Except that she wasn’t really sure how to lose weight, so she did what most people do when they want to lose weight:

Eat way less and run way more.

She joined a gym and started doing the elliptical as much as possible (“because that’s what you do when you want to get skinny, right?”).

STACI: At first I was only able to make it 10 minutes, but eventually got up to about an hour at a time on the elliptical.

I always thought that being super skinny would make me happy, like it was the one missing piece of my life. Everything would just magically be solved if I could just be skinny.

I bought countless exercise machines for my apartment, which all ended up sitting in the corner gathering dust. I bought DDR thinking that if I could exercise in a video game, that would do it. It didn’t.

I even tried “Sweatin to the Oldies” (which, for the record, everyone should do, because it at least gets you laughing and moving). Nothing stuck.

Until I was finally ready. I can’t say what it was, but I just got up one day and said: “OK, I’m going to do this now.” I didn’t set a date ahead of time, I just woke up knowing it was time.

Along with the elliptical workouts, I joined Weight Watchers. But as I started to feel the effects of the weight loss, I got obsessed. I’d weigh myself every day; I got a scale that measured every ounce so I’d know exactly what I lost. How my day went was always based on the number that was on the scale. If I had lost weight, it was a good day. If I had gained, I was worthless and didn’t deserve to have a good day, and had to do a second elliptical session to punish myself.

Following this unhealthy plan, Staci went from 170 pounds all the way down to 110 pounds over the course of a year. And then she started to open her eyes…

STACI: I did lose the weight that I needed to lose, but instead of “finding myself” and becoming comfortable in my own skin, I ended up being LESS comfortable. Everything I did was based on appearance. I couldn’t do certain things because either my body wasn’t “ready” or I was afraid I’d gain an OUNCE back.

I started looking in the mirror and seeing 30 things that needed to change; I developed severe body dysmorphic disorder. When the elliptical and calorie restriction stopped working, I became bulimic; I was just so desperate to be thin. I was tired all the time, I had no energy to do anything even when I was sleeping 10 hours a night. The bags under my eyes were insane. I simply wasn’t getting the nutrients I needed.

It was at this point that I was dating a bodybuilder who informed me I was doing it all wrong. This got the idea in my head that there was a better way, and I started to research nutrition and strength workouts. I got a set of 5lb dumbbells and a Jillian Michaels DVD and tried doing pushups.

I remember struggling to do chest presses with the 5lb dumbbells. And I wouldn’t use weights at the gym because I was so scared of looking like a fool in front of all of the guys on the weight floor. Seriously terrified.

As I found more info on nutrition, I started questioning Weight Watchers, and finally stopped going after I asked a question on how something was healthy and he pulled the line, “we’re not trying to get healthy here, we’re just trying to lose a little weight”[1]. I started doing more research and began my transition to eating more Paleo in April or May 2010. I upped my calorie intake to around 1,500 a day and immediately started to feel better.

Staci starts weight training, goes full Paleo, finds Nerd Fitness

On June 1st, 2010, Staci’s work office opened up a gym with free weights, and she started training. 

Because she was working out with coworkers and friends rather than random strangers, she felt comfortable giving strength training a try; she felt okay asking coworkers questions on different exercises and less self-conscious that she was doing everything wrong.

Over the next few months, from June until late August, she continued to educate herself on eating better and getting stronger:

STACI: I finished the Paleo transition in August or September, and stopped counting calories, which was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life; it’s a freedom I can’t even describe. I just ate when I was hungry. I gained weight, but I stayed the same size clothes, so what the scale said started to matter less and less. I went from 110 pounds at my lowest to around 130 pounds (both pictured above) and felt GREAT about it. My scale broke in May of that year, so I threw it away and only weigh myself probably once a month these days out of pure curiosity.

It was right around this time on her search for Paleo diet information that she stumbled across Nerd Fitness and saw an article about the Legend of Zelda (her favorite video game series too). She joined our community and continued to put her focus on strength training, and made sure she ate enough to fuel her workouts. She also sought out professional help for her eating disorder and body dysmorphic disorder.

After tons of encouragement from members of the Nerd Fitness community (including from Jon aka “KnightWatch,” now another NF coach) Staci began barbell training:

Deadlift

Squat

Overhead press

Bench press

And just focused on getting really strong with those movements!

For Staci, that first barbell encounter was electric: “When I say that the second I touched a barbell I fell in love, I’m not joking. People say to me, “Oh, it’s not healthy to lift that much….” Lifting to me is like going and playing basketball to someone else. It’s a hobby and a passion. I’m not doing it because I have to, I’m doing it because I want to. I’m simply happier on days that I deadlift.”

And that’s how Staci jumped headfirst into the world of powerlifting.

Over the following six months, she strength trained like her life depended on it, keeping track of her gains and making sure she ate enough to continue getting stronger. She learned the movements, took tips from others, and constantly checked in with the Nerd Fitness Community.

Here are her weight training stats for those first six months:

She raised her deadlift from 135 pounds to 315 pounds, added 50 pounds to her overhead press and 50 pounds to her bench press.

You’re probably wondering what happens to a woman’s figure when she goes through this transformation and puts on even more weight. Allow me to show you!

Download our comprehensive guide STRENGTH TRAINING 101!

Everything you need to know about getting strong.

Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.

How to find the right gym and train properly in one.

I identify as a:

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Man

Staci Builds Muscle and Loses Fat

Believe it or not, Staci is 11 pounds heavier (142 pounds) in the picture on the right (May 2011) compared to the picture on the left (131 pounds, October 2010).

So what the hell happened?

How the heck does she look like she weighs less even though she weighs more?

She packed on muscle while getting rid of fat.

Another 2 years go by and Staci gained yet ANOTHER 8 pounds.

(AUDIBLE GASP)

Clearly now she must have gotten too “bulky,” right?

You’re probably wondering, “Why is she getting leaner but somehow also gaining weight?”

The answer is simple:

Magic.

Okay, maybe not magic. It’s time to bust the worst and most pervasive of the myths relating to women and lifting.

YOU DON’T GET BULKY LIFTING WEIGHTS:

When you strength train with very heavy weights for low numbers of repetitions, you build incredibly DENSE, tight muscle. If you are eating at a caloric deficit, you are keeping the muscle you have and burning the fat on top of the muscle.

So how did Staci gain weight, then? BECAUSE SHE WAS TRYING TO. On top of super heavy strength training, Staci was eating 3,000-4,000+ calories per day (all healthy calories, mind you) to put on the extra weight.

YES, when you lift weights, your body shape WILL change. When you work out and lift, you’ll develop a body that looks more like an athlete – which may not be the super skinny Kate Moss look, but it’s a naturally healthy look.

Which brings me back to Staci.

Although she was training in CrossFit for 2+ years (you can read about our thoughts on CrossFit here), after hitting a goal of competing at Regionals in 2012, she decided that she just LOVED lifting heavy, and switched to training on her own, focusing mainly on strength, with some fun conditioning like swimming mixed in here and there.

For the next four years, Staci continued to pick up very heavy weights, eat more calories than most men, and really focus on getting stronger.

In those four years, Staci put on about another 10 pounds.

Surely by NOW she would get too “bulky,” right?

Surely this is when the whole “women who lift weights get bulky” myth gets proven correct…right?

Hmmmm……nope!

Staci’s Training in 2019

Okay so here we are another 5 years later! What is Staci doing these days?

Did she:

A) Did she become a yoga fanatic?

B) Did she keep powerlifting?

C) Did she fall in love with gymnastics?

D) All of the above?

Spoiler alert: all of the above. Duh.

Building a solid foundation of functional strength allowed Staci to work on other skills and pick them up quickly.

I asked Staci what her overall goals are these days:

My overall goal, sport-specific aside, is to be able to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to, without warning, without my body holding me back. And by that I mean if a friend calls me tomorrow and says, “I found a secret treehouse in the middle of the woods, but we need to hike a gigantic mountain and bike 50 miles to get there,” I want to be able to say “I’m in” without hesitation. So I always want to push my body’s limits. Plus, it’s fun!

I really enjoy competing sometimes, but my main goal isn’t to be the best at one sport – I have too many goals I’m working towards!

And rather than tell you about Staci, I’d rather share some recent training videos from her exploding Instagram page:

5 strict muscle ups in a row? No problem:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 29, 2017 at 10:21am PST

Deadlifting 325lbs for 8 reps? No big deal:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 28, 2017 at 5:44pm PST

Pull ups on a rope? Sure, why not:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 27, 2017 at 10:41am PST

Crazy yoga poses with her adorable dog Madi? But of course:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Oct 25, 2017 at 6:34pm PDT

Handstand practice for funsies? Hell yeah:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Oct 5, 2017 at 5:40pm PDT

Making a 405lb deadlift look super easy? Yup:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Sep 21, 2017 at 8:42am PDT

3 sets of 12 reps at 200lbs, no problem:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 5, 2017 at 5:42pm PST

HOW STACI IS ABLE TO DO ALL OF THESE THINGS:

Staci can do all of the above because she built a foundation of functional strength.

She got really strong at big movements like the squat and deadlift, and bodyweight movements like push-ups and pull-ups. She cut her body fat percentage so she wasn’t carrying around excess weight. She taught her body that being strong feels good, and learned that being strong makes her happy.

She also did a few other key things for each of these activities:

She slowwwwwly progressed with each exercise, and had a strong foundation to start with!

She followed very specific progressions when it comes to gymnastic rings.

She followed a progression when it comes to handstands.

She had a yoga routine to follow (we have a whole course starring Staci with fun yoga routines).

She also had help! Although she learned a lot on her own, Staci over the past 7 years has worked with different coaches and trainers to learn specific skills or improve her ability in certain movements or lifts, as well as help her with proper programming and periodization. After all, a coach can be a game changer and having somebody who can check your form and offer guidance is like turning on cheat codes for strength gains.

So that’s where she’s at now, but there’s a big question I haven’t answered yet: Just WHAT was she eating to fuel these workouts? After all, we know from Nerd Fitness that nutrition is 90% of the battle when it comes to strength gain and/or weight loss!

So here is her exact nutritional strategy!

Staci’s Exact Nutritional Strategy

Oh what’s that? You want to know EXACTLY how Staci eats too? Of course you do, you’re reading Nerd Fitness and you want all the nerdy specifics you can get your hands on.

Let’s start by taking a look at what Staci eat through the first few years of her transformation.

Here’s an exact week for her back in mid-2012:

Every Sunday (or whatever works, but usually it’s Sunday) I cook a few pounds of chicken. I then portion it out and keep them in Ziploc bags. If I don’t have time for that, you can get all-natural precooked sausage (both chicken and pork) that works just as well as a “bring to work” meat.

5AM pre-workout: (first thing in the morning): protein shake. (nothing special). It’s not Paleo, and I love every sip of it. Then I go and work out. If I go to the gym with a full stomach, I will not leave with a full stomach.  🙂

7:30AM on my way to work: apple or pear.

9:30AM sweet potato with cinnamon. I keep them at work, and cut them up, throw it in the microwave for 5 minutes with cinnamon. Comes out amazing.

Another protein shake somewhere in here between breakfast and lunch.

12PM lunch: two of the bags of chicken I precooked and a bag of the Steamfresh vegetables. The entire bag is about 3.5 servings of vegetables. My favorite is broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.

Lunch 2: spinach salad with shrimp, red peppers, green..

https://ift.tt/2GwMT3G

[albertcaldwellne]

How to Start Powerlifting as a Female: Staci’s Story

Ladies, meet your new hero.

Men, prepare to be humbled.

My friend Staci, or Spezzy as she’s known around the Nerd Fitness community, has one of the best transformations I’ve ever seen:

Working a sedentary desk job, Staci slowly packed on weight and ate like a typical unhealthy American. She also smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

She tried to get in shape doing what many people start with: she ran a lot and essentially starved herself. She dropped to an incredibly low and unhealthy weight and developed an eating disorder.

She fell in love with barbell strength training and started lifting HEAVY weights.

She’s now in the best shape of her life, healthier and happier than ever before, regularly competing in powerlifting meets and deadlifting 430+ pounds!

Now in 2019, her journey continues to inspire MILLIONS around the world.

For the women out there who are scared about “getting too bulky when lifting weights,” this article is for you.

If you are intrigued about powerlifting and don’t know where to begin, this article is for you.

If you’re curious what happens to a gal who packs on 40+ lbs of muscle and starts lifting heavy weights, this article is for you.

Staci has transformed inside and out over the past 8+ years, and I want this story to inspire you to go pick up a barbell the next time you’re in a gym. It’s been a privilege to watch her journey day in and day out for those 8 years: Staci actually joined Team Nerd Fitness in a full-time capacity in 2012!

In fact, she’s now our lead female trainer in our 1-on-1 online NF Coaching Program!

Without further ado, here’s an interview/8-year-retrospective/how-to juggernaut of an article on my hero and yours, Staci Ardison!

Staci’s Origin Story: 170 Pounds and Unhappy

This is a picture of Staci back in 2009 before she decided to make some changes in her life.

Starting around age 16, she put on weight relatively steadily through high school, college, and beyond, when she reached her peak at 170 pounds in 2009 at the age of 25.

I asked her what a normal day was like before she tried to fix her health:

I’d get up at 7, go to work, have a Slim Fast shake because I never had time for breakfast. I wasn’t a big snacker but I ate a lot for my meals; I’d typically go out to eat for lunch every day and get a sub or something from D’Angelo’s or Subway, and it was never the 6″ one, it was the big one. And chips. Lots of chips. Or french fries. Getting home I’d either go out to eat with friends or plop in front of the TV playing video games for hours.

My favorite meal was tacos and nachos. I just asked my old roommate what I used to eat because I didn’t remember, and she said “You used to sit in front of the TV with a big plate of meat and cheese and go ‘Hm, I guess I should have some chips with this.'” On many occasions, we’d order pizza or takeout around 11PM too. On top of all of that, I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day!

And that’s when her doctor told her that she had high cholesterol and needed to lose some weight if she wanted to live a long healthy life.

Except that she wasn’t really sure how to lose weight, so she did what most people do when they want to lose weight:

Eat way less and run way more.

She joined a gym and started doing the elliptical as much as possible (“because that’s what you do when you want to get skinny, right?”).

STACI: At first I was only able to make it 10 minutes, but eventually got up to about an hour at a time on the elliptical.

I always thought that being super skinny would make me happy, like it was the one missing piece of my life. Everything would just magically be solved if I could just be skinny.

I bought countless exercise machines for my apartment, which all ended up sitting in the corner gathering dust. I bought DDR thinking that if I could exercise in a video game, that would do it. It didn’t.

I even tried “Sweatin to the Oldies” (which, for the record, everyone should do, because it at least gets you laughing and moving). Nothing stuck.

Until I was finally ready. I can’t say what it was, but I just got up one day and said: “OK, I’m going to do this now.” I didn’t set a date ahead of time, I just woke up knowing it was time.

Along with the elliptical workouts, I joined Weight Watchers. But as I started to feel the effects of the weight loss, I got obsessed. I’d weigh myself every day; I got a scale that measured every ounce so I’d know exactly what I lost. How my day went was always based on the number that was on the scale. If I had lost weight, it was a good day. If I had gained, I was worthless and didn’t deserve to have a good day, and had to do a second elliptical session to punish myself.

Following this unhealthy plan, Staci went from 170 pounds all the way down to 110 pounds over the course of a year. And then she started to open her eyes…

STACI: I did lose the weight that I needed to lose, but instead of “finding myself” and becoming comfortable in my own skin, I ended up being LESS comfortable. Everything I did was based on appearance. I couldn’t do certain things because either my body wasn’t “ready” or I was afraid I’d gain an OUNCE back.

I started looking in the mirror and seeing 30 things that needed to change; I developed severe body dysmorphic disorder. When the elliptical and calorie restriction stopped working, I became bulimic; I was just so desperate to be thin. I was tired all the time, I had no energy to do anything even when I was sleeping 10 hours a night. The bags under my eyes were insane. I simply wasn’t getting the nutrients I needed.

It was at this point that I was dating a bodybuilder who informed me I was doing it all wrong. This got the idea in my head that there was a better way, and I started to research nutrition and strength workouts. I got a set of 5lb dumbbells and a Jillian Michaels DVD and tried doing pushups.

I remember struggling to do chest presses with the 5lb dumbbells. And I wouldn’t use weights at the gym because I was so scared of looking like a fool in front of all of the guys on the weight floor. Seriously terrified.

As I found more info on nutrition, I started questioning Weight Watchers, and finally stopped going after I asked a question on how something was healthy and he pulled the line, “we’re not trying to get healthy here, we’re just trying to lose a little weight”[1]. I started doing more research and began my transition to eating more Paleo in April or May 2010. I upped my calorie intake to around 1,500 a day and immediately started to feel better.

Staci starts weight training, goes full Paleo, finds Nerd Fitness

On June 1st, 2010, Staci’s work office opened up a gym with free weights, and she started training. 

Because she was working out with coworkers and friends rather than random strangers, she felt comfortable giving strength training a try; she felt okay asking coworkers questions on different exercises and less self-conscious that she was doing everything wrong.

Over the next few months, from June until late August, she continued to educate herself on eating better and getting stronger:

STACI: I finished the Paleo transition in August or September, and stopped counting calories, which was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life; it’s a freedom I can’t even describe. I just ate when I was hungry. I gained weight, but I stayed the same size clothes, so what the scale said started to matter less and less. I went from 110 pounds at my lowest to around 130 pounds (both pictured above) and felt GREAT about it. My scale broke in May of that year, so I threw it away and only weigh myself probably once a month these days out of pure curiosity.

It was right around this time on her search for Paleo diet information that she stumbled across Nerd Fitness and saw an article about the Legend of Zelda (her favorite video game series too). She joined our community and continued to put her focus on strength training, and made sure she ate enough to fuel her workouts. She also sought out professional help for her eating disorder and body dysmorphic disorder.

After tons of encouragement from members of the Nerd Fitness community (including from Jon aka “KnightWatch,” now another NF coach) Staci began barbell training:

Deadlift

Squat

Overhead press

Bench press

And just focused on getting really strong with those movements!

For Staci, that first barbell encounter was electric: “When I say that the second I touched a barbell I fell in love, I’m not joking. People say to me, “Oh, it’s not healthy to lift that much….” Lifting to me is like going and playing basketball to someone else. It’s a hobby and a passion. I’m not doing it because I have to, I’m doing it because I want to. I’m simply happier on days that I deadlift.”

And that’s how Staci jumped headfirst into the world of powerlifting.

Over the following six months, she strength trained like her life depended on it, keeping track of her gains and making sure she ate enough to continue getting stronger. She learned the movements, took tips from others, and constantly checked in with the Nerd Fitness Community.

Here are her weight training stats for those first six months:

She raised her deadlift from 135 pounds to 315 pounds, added 50 pounds to her overhead press and 50 pounds to her bench press.

You’re probably wondering what happens to a woman’s figure when she goes through this transformation and puts on even more weight. Allow me to show you!

Download our comprehensive guide STRENGTH TRAINING 101!

Everything you need to know about getting strong.

Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.

How to find the right gym and train properly in one.

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Staci Builds Muscle and Loses Fat

Believe it or not, Staci is 11 pounds heavier (142 pounds) in the picture on the right (May 2011) compared to the picture on the left (131 pounds, October 2010).

So what the hell happened?

How the heck does she look like she weighs less even though she weighs more?

She packed on muscle while getting rid of fat.

Another 2 years go by and Staci gained yet ANOTHER 8 pounds.

(AUDIBLE GASP)

Clearly now she must have gotten too “bulky,” right?

You’re probably wondering, “Why is she getting leaner but somehow also gaining weight?”

The answer is simple:

Magic.

Okay, maybe not magic. It’s time to bust the worst and most pervasive of the myths relating to women and lifting.

YOU DON’T GET BULKY LIFTING WEIGHTS:

When you strength train with very heavy weights for low numbers of repetitions, you build incredibly DENSE, tight muscle. If you are eating at a caloric deficit, you are keeping the muscle you have and burning the fat on top of the muscle.

So how did Staci gain weight, then? BECAUSE SHE WAS TRYING TO. On top of super heavy strength training, Staci was eating 3,000-4,000+ calories per day (all healthy calories, mind you) to put on the extra weight.

YES, when you lift weights, your body shape WILL change. When you work out and lift, you’ll develop a body that looks more like an athlete – which may not be the super skinny Kate Moss look, but it’s a naturally healthy look.

Which brings me back to Staci.

Although she was training in CrossFit for 2+ years (you can read about our thoughts on CrossFit here), after hitting a goal of competing at Regionals in 2012, she decided that she just LOVED lifting heavy, and switched to training on her own, focusing mainly on strength, with some fun conditioning like swimming mixed in here and there.

For the next four years, Staci continued to pick up very heavy weights, eat more calories than most men, and really focus on getting stronger.

In those four years, Staci put on about another 10 pounds.

Surely by NOW she would get too “bulky,” right?

Surely this is when the whole “women who lift weights get bulky” myth gets proven correct…right?

Hmmmm……nope!

Staci’s Training in 2019

Okay so here we are another 5 years later! What is Staci doing these days?

Did she:

A) Did she become a yoga fanatic?

B) Did she keep powerlifting?

C) Did she fall in love with gymnastics?

D) All of the above?

Spoiler alert: all of the above. Duh.

Building a solid foundation of functional strength allowed Staci to work on other skills and pick them up quickly.

I asked Staci what her overall goals are these days:

My overall goal, sport-specific aside, is to be able to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to, without warning, without my body holding me back. And by that I mean if a friend calls me tomorrow and says, “I found a secret treehouse in the middle of the woods, but we need to hike a gigantic mountain and bike 50 miles to get there,” I want to be able to say “I’m in” without hesitation. So I always want to push my body’s limits. Plus, it’s fun!

I really enjoy competing sometimes, but my main goal isn’t to be the best at one sport – I have too many goals I’m working towards!

And rather than tell you about Staci, I’d rather share some recent training videos from her exploding Instagram page:

5 strict muscle ups in a row? No problem:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 29, 2017 at 10:21am PST

Deadlifting 325lbs for 8 reps? No big deal:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 28, 2017 at 5:44pm PST

Pull ups on a rope? Sure, why not:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 27, 2017 at 10:41am PST

Crazy yoga poses with her adorable dog Madi? But of course:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Oct 25, 2017 at 6:34pm PDT

Handstand practice for funsies? Hell yeah:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Oct 5, 2017 at 5:40pm PDT

Making a 405lb deadlift look super easy? Yup:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Sep 21, 2017 at 8:42am PDT

3 sets of 12 reps at 200lbs, no problem:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 5, 2017 at 5:42pm PST

HOW STACI IS ABLE TO DO ALL OF THESE THINGS:

Staci can do all of the above because she built a foundation of functional strength.

She got really strong at big movements like the squat and deadlift, and bodyweight movements like push-ups and pull-ups. She cut her body fat percentage so she wasn’t carrying around excess weight. She taught her body that being strong feels good, and learned that being strong makes her happy.

She also did a few other key things for each of these activities:

She slowwwwwly progressed with each exercise, and had a strong foundation to start with!

She followed very specific progressions when it comes to gymnastic rings.

She followed a progression when it comes to handstands.

She had a yoga routine to follow (we have a whole course starring Staci with fun yoga routines).

She also had help! Although she learned a lot on her own, Staci over the past 7 years has worked with different coaches and trainers to learn specific skills or improve her ability in certain movements or lifts, as well as help her with proper programming and periodization. After all, a coach can be a game changer and having somebody who can check your form and offer guidance is like turning on cheat codes for strength gains.

So that’s where she’s at now, but there’s a big question I haven’t answered yet: Just WHAT was she eating to fuel these workouts? After all, we know from Nerd Fitness that nutrition is 90% of the battle when it comes to strength gain and/or weight loss!

So here is her exact nutritional strategy!

Staci’s Exact Nutritional Strategy

Oh what’s that? You want to know EXACTLY how Staci eats too? Of course you do, you’re reading Nerd Fitness and you want all the nerdy specifics you can get your hands on.

Let’s start by taking a look at what Staci eat through the first few years of her transformation.

Here’s an exact week for her back in mid-2012:

Every Sunday (or whatever works, but usually it’s Sunday) I cook a few pounds of chicken. I then portion it out and keep them in Ziploc bags. If I don’t have time for that, you can get all-natural precooked sausage (both chicken and pork) that works just as well as a “bring to work” meat.

5AM pre-workout: (first thing in the morning): protein shake. (nothing special). It’s not Paleo, and I love every sip of it. Then I go and work out. If I go to the gym with a full stomach, I will not leave with a full stomach.  🙂

7:30AM on my way to work: apple or pear.

9:30AM sweet potato with cinnamon. I keep them at work, and cut them up, throw it in the microwave for 5 minutes with cinnamon. Comes out amazing.

Another protein shake somewhere in here between breakfast and lunch.

12PM lunch: two of the bags of chicken I precooked and a bag of the Steamfresh vegetables. The entire bag is about 3.5 servings of vegetables. My favorite is broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.

Lunch 2: spinach salad with shrimp, red peppers, green..

https://ift.tt/2GwMT3G

[ruthellisneda]

How to Start Powerlifting as a Female: Staci’s Story

Ladies, meet your new hero.

Men, prepare to be humbled.

My friend Staci, or Spezzy as she’s known around the Nerd Fitness community, has one of the best transformations I’ve ever seen:

Working a sedentary desk job, Staci slowly packed on weight and ate like a typical unhealthy American. She also smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

She tried to get in shape doing what many people start with: she ran a lot and essentially starved herself. She dropped to an incredibly low and unhealthy weight and developed an eating disorder.

She fell in love with barbell strength training and started lifting HEAVY weights.

She’s now in the best shape of her life, healthier and happier than ever before, regularly competing in powerlifting meets and deadlifting 430+ pounds!

Now in 2019, her journey continues to inspire MILLIONS around the world.

For the women out there who are scared about “getting too bulky when lifting weights,” this article is for you.

If you are intrigued about powerlifting and don’t know where to begin, this article is for you.

If you’re curious what happens to a gal who packs on 40+ lbs of muscle and starts lifting heavy weights, this article is for you.

Staci has transformed inside and out over the past 8+ years, and I want this story to inspire you to go pick up a barbell the next time you’re in a gym. It’s been a privilege to watch her journey day in and day out for those 8 years: Staci actually joined Team Nerd Fitness in a full-time capacity in 2012!

In fact, she’s now our lead female trainer in our 1-on-1 online NF Coaching Program!

Without further ado, here’s an interview/8-year-retrospective/how-to juggernaut of an article on my hero and yours, Staci Ardison!

Staci’s Origin Story: 170 Pounds and Unhappy

This is a picture of Staci back in 2009 before she decided to make some changes in her life.

Starting around age 16, she put on weight relatively steadily through high school, college, and beyond, when she reached her peak at 170 pounds in 2009 at the age of 25.

I asked her what a normal day was like before she tried to fix her health:

I’d get up at 7, go to work, have a Slim Fast shake because I never had time for breakfast. I wasn’t a big snacker but I ate a lot for my meals; I’d typically go out to eat for lunch every day and get a sub or something from D’Angelo’s or Subway, and it was never the 6″ one, it was the big one. And chips. Lots of chips. Or french fries. Getting home I’d either go out to eat with friends or plop in front of the TV playing video games for hours.

My favorite meal was tacos and nachos. I just asked my old roommate what I used to eat because I didn’t remember, and she said “You used to sit in front of the TV with a big plate of meat and cheese and go ‘Hm, I guess I should have some chips with this.'” On many occasions, we’d order pizza or takeout around 11PM too. On top of all of that, I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day!

And that’s when her doctor told her that she had high cholesterol and needed to lose some weight if she wanted to live a long healthy life.

Except that she wasn’t really sure how to lose weight, so she did what most people do when they want to lose weight:

Eat way less and run way more.

She joined a gym and started doing the elliptical as much as possible (“because that’s what you do when you want to get skinny, right?”).

STACI: At first I was only able to make it 10 minutes, but eventually got up to about an hour at a time on the elliptical.

I always thought that being super skinny would make me happy, like it was the one missing piece of my life. Everything would just magically be solved if I could just be skinny.

I bought countless exercise machines for my apartment, which all ended up sitting in the corner gathering dust. I bought DDR thinking that if I could exercise in a video game, that would do it. It didn’t.

I even tried “Sweatin to the Oldies” (which, for the record, everyone should do, because it at least gets you laughing and moving). Nothing stuck.

Until I was finally ready. I can’t say what it was, but I just got up one day and said: “OK, I’m going to do this now.” I didn’t set a date ahead of time, I just woke up knowing it was time.

Along with the elliptical workouts, I joined Weight Watchers. But as I started to feel the effects of the weight loss, I got obsessed. I’d weigh myself every day; I got a scale that measured every ounce so I’d know exactly what I lost. How my day went was always based on the number that was on the scale. If I had lost weight, it was a good day. If I had gained, I was worthless and didn’t deserve to have a good day, and had to do a second elliptical session to punish myself.

Following this unhealthy plan, Staci went from 170 pounds all the way down to 110 pounds over the course of a year. And then she started to open her eyes…

STACI: I did lose the weight that I needed to lose, but instead of “finding myself” and becoming comfortable in my own skin, I ended up being LESS comfortable. Everything I did was based on appearance. I couldn’t do certain things because either my body wasn’t “ready” or I was afraid I’d gain an OUNCE back.

I started looking in the mirror and seeing 30 things that needed to change; I developed severe body dysmorphic disorder. When the elliptical and calorie restriction stopped working, I became bulimic; I was just so desperate to be thin. I was tired all the time, I had no energy to do anything even when I was sleeping 10 hours a night. The bags under my eyes were insane. I simply wasn’t getting the nutrients I needed.

It was at this point that I was dating a bodybuilder who informed me I was doing it all wrong. This got the idea in my head that there was a better way, and I started to research nutrition and strength workouts. I got a set of 5lb dumbbells and a Jillian Michaels DVD and tried doing pushups.

I remember struggling to do chest presses with the 5lb dumbbells. And I wouldn’t use weights at the gym because I was so scared of looking like a fool in front of all of the guys on the weight floor. Seriously terrified.

As I found more info on nutrition, I started questioning Weight Watchers, and finally stopped going after I asked a question on how something was healthy and he pulled the line, “we’re not trying to get healthy here, we’re just trying to lose a little weight”[1]. I started doing more research and began my transition to eating more Paleo in April or May 2010. I upped my calorie intake to around 1,500 a day and immediately started to feel better.

Staci starts weight training, goes full Paleo, finds Nerd Fitness

On June 1st, 2010, Staci’s work office opened up a gym with free weights, and she started training. 

Because she was working out with coworkers and friends rather than random strangers, she felt comfortable giving strength training a try; she felt okay asking coworkers questions on different exercises and less self-conscious that she was doing everything wrong.

Over the next few months, from June until late August, she continued to educate herself on eating better and getting stronger:

STACI: I finished the Paleo transition in August or September, and stopped counting calories, which was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life; it’s a freedom I can’t even describe. I just ate when I was hungry. I gained weight, but I stayed the same size clothes, so what the scale said started to matter less and less. I went from 110 pounds at my lowest to around 130 pounds (both pictured above) and felt GREAT about it. My scale broke in May of that year, so I threw it away and only weigh myself probably once a month these days out of pure curiosity.

It was right around this time on her search for Paleo diet information that she stumbled across Nerd Fitness and saw an article about the Legend of Zelda (her favorite video game series too). She joined our community and continued to put her focus on strength training, and made sure she ate enough to fuel her workouts. She also sought out professional help for her eating disorder and body dysmorphic disorder.

After tons of encouragement from members of the Nerd Fitness community (including from Jon aka “KnightWatch,” now another NF coach) Staci began barbell training:

Deadlift

Squat

Overhead press

Bench press

And just focused on getting really strong with those movements!

For Staci, that first barbell encounter was electric: “When I say that the second I touched a barbell I fell in love, I’m not joking. People say to me, “Oh, it’s not healthy to lift that much….” Lifting to me is like going and playing basketball to someone else. It’s a hobby and a passion. I’m not doing it because I have to, I’m doing it because I want to. I’m simply happier on days that I deadlift.”

And that’s how Staci jumped headfirst into the world of powerlifting.

Over the following six months, she strength trained like her life depended on it, keeping track of her gains and making sure she ate enough to continue getting stronger. She learned the movements, took tips from others, and constantly checked in with the Nerd Fitness Community.

Here are her weight training stats for those first six months:

She raised her deadlift from 135 pounds to 315 pounds, added 50 pounds to her overhead press and 50 pounds to her bench press.

You’re probably wondering what happens to a woman’s figure when she goes through this transformation and puts on even more weight. Allow me to show you!

Download our comprehensive guide STRENGTH TRAINING 101!

Everything you need to know about getting strong.

Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.

How to find the right gym and train properly in one.

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Staci Builds Muscle and Loses Fat

Believe it or not, Staci is 11 pounds heavier (142 pounds) in the picture on the right (May 2011) compared to the picture on the left (131 pounds, October 2010).

So what the hell happened?

How the heck does she look like she weighs less even though she weighs more?

She packed on muscle while getting rid of fat.

Another 2 years go by and Staci gained yet ANOTHER 8 pounds.

(AUDIBLE GASP)

Clearly now she must have gotten too “bulky,” right?

You’re probably wondering, “Why is she getting leaner but somehow also gaining weight?”

The answer is simple:

Magic.

Okay, maybe not magic. It’s time to bust the worst and most pervasive of the myths relating to women and lifting.

YOU DON’T GET BULKY LIFTING WEIGHTS:

When you strength train with very heavy weights for low numbers of repetitions, you build incredibly DENSE, tight muscle. If you are eating at a caloric deficit, you are keeping the muscle you have and burning the fat on top of the muscle.

So how did Staci gain weight, then? BECAUSE SHE WAS TRYING TO. On top of super heavy strength training, Staci was eating 3,000-4,000+ calories per day (all healthy calories, mind you) to put on the extra weight.

YES, when you lift weights, your body shape WILL change. When you work out and lift, you’ll develop a body that looks more like an athlete – which may not be the super skinny Kate Moss look, but it’s a naturally healthy look.

Which brings me back to Staci.

Although she was training in CrossFit for 2+ years (you can read about our thoughts on CrossFit here), after hitting a goal of competing at Regionals in 2012, she decided that she just LOVED lifting heavy, and switched to training on her own, focusing mainly on strength, with some fun conditioning like swimming mixed in here and there.

For the next four years, Staci continued to pick up very heavy weights, eat more calories than most men, and really focus on getting stronger.

In those four years, Staci put on about another 10 pounds.

Surely by NOW she would get too “bulky,” right?

Surely this is when the whole “women who lift weights get bulky” myth gets proven correct…right?

Hmmmm……nope!

Staci’s Training in 2019

Okay so here we are another 5 years later! What is Staci doing these days?

Did she:

A) Did she become a yoga fanatic?

B) Did she keep powerlifting?

C) Did she fall in love with gymnastics?

D) All of the above?

Spoiler alert: all of the above. Duh.

Building a solid foundation of functional strength allowed Staci to work on other skills and pick them up quickly.

I asked Staci what her overall goals are these days:

My overall goal, sport-specific aside, is to be able to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to, without warning, without my body holding me back. And by that I mean if a friend calls me tomorrow and says, “I found a secret treehouse in the middle of the woods, but we need to hike a gigantic mountain and bike 50 miles to get there,” I want to be able to say “I’m in” without hesitation. So I always want to push my body’s limits. Plus, it’s fun!

I really enjoy competing sometimes, but my main goal isn’t to be the best at one sport – I have too many goals I’m working towards!

And rather than tell you about Staci, I’d rather share some recent training videos from her exploding Instagram page:

5 strict muscle ups in a row? No problem:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 29, 2017 at 10:21am PST

Deadlifting 325lbs for 8 reps? No big deal:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 28, 2017 at 5:44pm PST

Pull ups on a rope? Sure, why not:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 27, 2017 at 10:41am PST

Crazy yoga poses with her adorable dog Madi? But of course:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Oct 25, 2017 at 6:34pm PDT

Handstand practice for funsies? Hell yeah:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Oct 5, 2017 at 5:40pm PDT

Making a 405lb deadlift look super easy? Yup:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Sep 21, 2017 at 8:42am PDT

3 sets of 12 reps at 200lbs, no problem:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 5, 2017 at 5:42pm PST

HOW STACI IS ABLE TO DO ALL OF THESE THINGS:

Staci can do all of the above because she built a foundation of functional strength.

She got really strong at big movements like the squat and deadlift, and bodyweight movements like push-ups and pull-ups. She cut her body fat percentage so she wasn’t carrying around excess weight. She taught her body that being strong feels good, and learned that being strong makes her happy.

She also did a few other key things for each of these activities:

She slowwwwwly progressed with each exercise, and had a strong foundation to start with!

She followed very specific progressions when it comes to gymnastic rings.

She followed a progression when it comes to handstands.

She had a yoga routine to follow (we have a whole course starring Staci with fun yoga routines).

She also had help! Although she learned a lot on her own, Staci over the past 7 years has worked with different coaches and trainers to learn specific skills or improve her ability in certain movements or lifts, as well as help her with proper programming and periodization. After all, a coach can be a game changer and having somebody who can check your form and offer guidance is like turning on cheat codes for strength gains.

So that’s where she’s at now, but there’s a big question I haven’t answered yet: Just WHAT was she eating to fuel these workouts? After all, we know from Nerd Fitness that nutrition is 90% of the battle when it comes to strength gain and/or weight loss!

So here is her exact nutritional strategy!

Staci’s Exact Nutritional Strategy

Oh what’s that? You want to know EXACTLY how Staci eats too? Of course you do, you’re reading Nerd Fitness and you want all the nerdy specifics you can get your hands on.

Let’s start by taking a look at what Staci eat through the first few years of her transformation.

Here’s an exact week for her back in mid-2012:

Every Sunday (or whatever works, but usually it’s Sunday) I cook a few pounds of chicken. I then portion it out and keep them in Ziploc bags. If I don’t have time for that, you can get all-natural precooked sausage (both chicken and pork) that works just as well as a “bring to work” meat.

5AM pre-workout: (first thing in the morning): protein shake. (nothing special). It’s not Paleo, and I love every sip of it. Then I go and work out. If I go to the gym with a full stomach, I will not leave with a full stomach.  🙂

7:30AM on my way to work: apple or pear.

9:30AM sweet potato with cinnamon. I keep them at work, and cut them up, throw it in the microwave for 5 minutes with cinnamon. Comes out amazing.

Another protein shake somewhere in here between breakfast and lunch.

12PM lunch: two of the bags of chicken I precooked and a bag of the Steamfresh vegetables. The entire bag is about 3.5 servings of vegetables. My favorite is broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.

Lunch 2: spinach salad with shrimp, red peppers, green..

https://ift.tt/2GwMT3G

[joshuabradleyn]

How to Start Powerlifting as a Female: Staci’s Story

Ladies, meet your new hero.

Men, prepare to be humbled.

My friend Staci, or Spezzy as she’s known around the Nerd Fitness community, has one of the best transformations I’ve ever seen:

Working a sedentary desk job, Staci slowly packed on weight and ate like a typical unhealthy American. She also smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

She tried to get in shape doing what many people start with: she ran a lot and essentially starved herself. She dropped to an incredibly low and unhealthy weight and developed an eating disorder.

She fell in love with barbell strength training and started lifting HEAVY weights.

She’s now in the best shape of her life, healthier and happier than ever before, regularly competing in powerlifting meets and deadlifting 430+ pounds!

Now in 2019, her journey continues to inspire MILLIONS around the world.

For the women out there who are scared about “getting too bulky when lifting weights,” this article is for you.

If you are intrigued about powerlifting and don’t know where to begin, this article is for you.

If you’re curious what happens to a gal who packs on 40+ lbs of muscle and starts lifting heavy weights, this article is for you.

Staci has transformed inside and out over the past 8+ years, and I want this story to inspire you to go pick up a barbell the next time you’re in a gym. It’s been a privilege to watch her journey day in and day out for those 8 years: Staci actually joined Team Nerd Fitness in a full-time capacity in 2012!

In fact, she’s now our lead female trainer in our 1-on-1 online NF Coaching Program!

Without further ado, here’s an interview/8-year-retrospective/how-to juggernaut of an article on my hero and yours, Staci Ardison!

Staci’s Origin Story: 170 Pounds and Unhappy

This is a picture of Staci back in 2009 before she decided to make some changes in her life.

Starting around age 16, she put on weight relatively steadily through high school, college, and beyond, when she reached her peak at 170 pounds in 2009 at the age of 25.

I asked her what a normal day was like before she tried to fix her health:

I’d get up at 7, go to work, have a Slim Fast shake because I never had time for breakfast. I wasn’t a big snacker but I ate a lot for my meals; I’d typically go out to eat for lunch every day and get a sub or something from D’Angelo’s or Subway, and it was never the 6″ one, it was the big one. And chips. Lots of chips. Or french fries. Getting home I’d either go out to eat with friends or plop in front of the TV playing video games for hours.

My favorite meal was tacos and nachos. I just asked my old roommate what I used to eat because I didn’t remember, and she said “You used to sit in front of the TV with a big plate of meat and cheese and go ‘Hm, I guess I should have some chips with this.'” On many occasions, we’d order pizza or takeout around 11PM too. On top of all of that, I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day!

And that’s when her doctor told her that she had high cholesterol and needed to lose some weight if she wanted to live a long healthy life.

Except that she wasn’t really sure how to lose weight, so she did what most people do when they want to lose weight:

Eat way less and run way more.

She joined a gym and started doing the elliptical as much as possible (“because that’s what you do when you want to get skinny, right?”).

STACI: At first I was only able to make it 10 minutes, but eventually got up to about an hour at a time on the elliptical.

I always thought that being super skinny would make me happy, like it was the one missing piece of my life. Everything would just magically be solved if I could just be skinny.

I bought countless exercise machines for my apartment, which all ended up sitting in the corner gathering dust. I bought DDR thinking that if I could exercise in a video game, that would do it. It didn’t.

I even tried “Sweatin to the Oldies” (which, for the record, everyone should do, because it at least gets you laughing and moving). Nothing stuck.

Until I was finally ready. I can’t say what it was, but I just got up one day and said: “OK, I’m going to do this now.” I didn’t set a date ahead of time, I just woke up knowing it was time.

Along with the elliptical workouts, I joined Weight Watchers. But as I started to feel the effects of the weight loss, I got obsessed. I’d weigh myself every day; I got a scale that measured every ounce so I’d know exactly what I lost. How my day went was always based on the number that was on the scale. If I had lost weight, it was a good day. If I had gained, I was worthless and didn’t deserve to have a good day, and had to do a second elliptical session to punish myself.

Following this unhealthy plan, Staci went from 170 pounds all the way down to 110 pounds over the course of a year. And then she started to open her eyes…

STACI: I did lose the weight that I needed to lose, but instead of “finding myself” and becoming comfortable in my own skin, I ended up being LESS comfortable. Everything I did was based on appearance. I couldn’t do certain things because either my body wasn’t “ready” or I was afraid I’d gain an OUNCE back.

I started looking in the mirror and seeing 30 things that needed to change; I developed severe body dysmorphic disorder. When the elliptical and calorie restriction stopped working, I became bulimic; I was just so desperate to be thin. I was tired all the time, I had no energy to do anything even when I was sleeping 10 hours a night. The bags under my eyes were insane. I simply wasn’t getting the nutrients I needed.

It was at this point that I was dating a bodybuilder who informed me I was doing it all wrong. This got the idea in my head that there was a better way, and I started to research nutrition and strength workouts. I got a set of 5lb dumbbells and a Jillian Michaels DVD and tried doing pushups.

I remember struggling to do chest presses with the 5lb dumbbells. And I wouldn’t use weights at the gym because I was so scared of looking like a fool in front of all of the guys on the weight floor. Seriously terrified.

As I found more info on nutrition, I started questioning Weight Watchers, and finally stopped going after I asked a question on how something was healthy and he pulled the line, “we’re not trying to get healthy here, we’re just trying to lose a little weight”[1]. I started doing more research and began my transition to eating more Paleo in April or May 2010. I upped my calorie intake to around 1,500 a day and immediately started to feel better.

Staci starts weight training, goes full Paleo, finds Nerd Fitness

On June 1st, 2010, Staci’s work office opened up a gym with free weights, and she started training. 

Because she was working out with coworkers and friends rather than random strangers, she felt comfortable giving strength training a try; she felt okay asking coworkers questions on different exercises and less self-conscious that she was doing everything wrong.

Over the next few months, from June until late August, she continued to educate herself on eating better and getting stronger:

STACI: I finished the Paleo transition in August or September, and stopped counting calories, which was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life; it’s a freedom I can’t even describe. I just ate when I was hungry. I gained weight, but I stayed the same size clothes, so what the scale said started to matter less and less. I went from 110 pounds at my lowest to around 130 pounds (both pictured above) and felt GREAT about it. My scale broke in May of that year, so I threw it away and only weigh myself probably once a month these days out of pure curiosity.

It was right around this time on her search for Paleo diet information that she stumbled across Nerd Fitness and saw an article about the Legend of Zelda (her favorite video game series too). She joined our community and continued to put her focus on strength training, and made sure she ate enough to fuel her workouts. She also sought out professional help for her eating disorder and body dysmorphic disorder.

After tons of encouragement from members of the Nerd Fitness community (including from Jon aka “KnightWatch,” now another NF coach) Staci began barbell training:

Deadlift

Squat

Overhead press

Bench press

And just focused on getting really strong with those movements!

For Staci, that first barbell encounter was electric: “When I say that the second I touched a barbell I fell in love, I’m not joking. People say to me, “Oh, it’s not healthy to lift that much….” Lifting to me is like going and playing basketball to someone else. It’s a hobby and a passion. I’m not doing it because I have to, I’m doing it because I want to. I’m simply happier on days that I deadlift.”

And that’s how Staci jumped headfirst into the world of powerlifting.

Over the following six months, she strength trained like her life depended on it, keeping track of her gains and making sure she ate enough to continue getting stronger. She learned the movements, took tips from others, and constantly checked in with the Nerd Fitness Community.

Here are her weight training stats for those first six months:

She raised her deadlift from 135 pounds to 315 pounds, added 50 pounds to her overhead press and 50 pounds to her bench press.

You’re probably wondering what happens to a woman’s figure when she goes through this transformation and puts on even more weight. Allow me to show you!

Download our comprehensive guide STRENGTH TRAINING 101!

Everything you need to know about getting strong.

Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.

How to find the right gym and train properly in one.

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Staci Builds Muscle and Loses Fat

Believe it or not, Staci is 11 pounds heavier (142 pounds) in the picture on the right (May 2011) compared to the picture on the left (131 pounds, October 2010).

So what the hell happened?

How the heck does she look like she weighs less even though she weighs more?

She packed on muscle while getting rid of fat.

Another 2 years go by and Staci gained yet ANOTHER 8 pounds.

(AUDIBLE GASP)

Clearly now she must have gotten too “bulky,” right?

You’re probably wondering, “Why is she getting leaner but somehow also gaining weight?”

The answer is simple:

Magic.

Okay, maybe not magic. It’s time to bust the worst and most pervasive of the myths relating to women and lifting.

YOU DON’T GET BULKY LIFTING WEIGHTS:

When you strength train with very heavy weights for low numbers of repetitions, you build incredibly DENSE, tight muscle. If you are eating at a caloric deficit, you are keeping the muscle you have and burning the fat on top of the muscle.

So how did Staci gain weight, then? BECAUSE SHE WAS TRYING TO. On top of super heavy strength training, Staci was eating 3,000-4,000+ calories per day (all healthy calories, mind you) to put on the extra weight.

YES, when you lift weights, your body shape WILL change. When you work out and lift, you’ll develop a body that looks more like an athlete – which may not be the super skinny Kate Moss look, but it’s a naturally healthy look.

Which brings me back to Staci.

Although she was training in CrossFit for 2+ years (you can read about our thoughts on CrossFit here), after hitting a goal of competing at Regionals in 2012, she decided that she just LOVED lifting heavy, and switched to training on her own, focusing mainly on strength, with some fun conditioning like swimming mixed in here and there.

For the next four years, Staci continued to pick up very heavy weights, eat more calories than most men, and really focus on getting stronger.

In those four years, Staci put on about another 10 pounds.

Surely by NOW she would get too “bulky,” right?

Surely this is when the whole “women who lift weights get bulky” myth gets proven correct…right?

Hmmmm……nope!

Staci’s Training in 2019

Okay so here we are another 5 years later! What is Staci doing these days?

Did she:

A) Did she become a yoga fanatic?

B) Did she keep powerlifting?

C) Did she fall in love with gymnastics?

D) All of the above?

Spoiler alert: all of the above. Duh.

Building a solid foundation of functional strength allowed Staci to work on other skills and pick them up quickly.

I asked Staci what her overall goals are these days:

My overall goal, sport-specific aside, is to be able to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to, without warning, without my body holding me back. And by that I mean if a friend calls me tomorrow and says, “I found a secret treehouse in the middle of the woods, but we need to hike a gigantic mountain and bike 50 miles to get there,” I want to be able to say “I’m in” without hesitation. So I always want to push my body’s limits. Plus, it’s fun!

I really enjoy competing sometimes, but my main goal isn’t to be the best at one sport – I have too many goals I’m working towards!

And rather than tell you about Staci, I’d rather share some recent training videos from her exploding Instagram page:

5 strict muscle ups in a row? No problem:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 29, 2017 at 10:21am PST

Deadlifting 325lbs for 8 reps? No big deal:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 28, 2017 at 5:44pm PST

Pull ups on a rope? Sure, why not:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 27, 2017 at 10:41am PST

Crazy yoga poses with her adorable dog Madi? But of course:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Oct 25, 2017 at 6:34pm PDT

Handstand practice for funsies? Hell yeah:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Oct 5, 2017 at 5:40pm PDT

Making a 405lb deadlift look super easy? Yup:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Sep 21, 2017 at 8:42am PDT

3 sets of 12 reps at 200lbs, no problem:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 5, 2017 at 5:42pm PST

HOW STACI IS ABLE TO DO ALL OF THESE THINGS:

Staci can do all of the above because she built a foundation of functional strength.

She got really strong at big movements like the squat and deadlift, and bodyweight movements like push-ups and pull-ups. She cut her body fat percentage so she wasn’t carrying around excess weight. She taught her body that being strong feels good, and learned that being strong makes her happy.

She also did a few other key things for each of these activities:

She slowwwwwly progressed with each exercise, and had a strong foundation to start with!

She followed very specific progressions when it comes to gymnastic rings.

She followed a progression when it comes to handstands.

She had a yoga routine to follow (we have a whole course starring Staci with fun yoga routines).

She also had help! Although she learned a lot on her own, Staci over the past 7 years has worked with different coaches and trainers to learn specific skills or improve her ability in certain movements or lifts, as well as help her with proper programming and periodization. After all, a coach can be a game changer and having somebody who can check your form and offer guidance is like turning on cheat codes for strength gains.

So that’s where she’s at now, but there’s a big question I haven’t answered yet: Just WHAT was she eating to fuel these workouts? After all, we know from Nerd Fitness that nutrition is 90% of the battle when it comes to strength gain and/or weight loss!

So here is her exact nutritional strategy!

Staci’s Exact Nutritional Strategy

Oh what’s that? You want to know EXACTLY how Staci eats too? Of course you do, you’re reading Nerd Fitness and you want all the nerdy specifics you can get your hands on.

Let’s start by taking a look at what Staci eat through the first few years of her transformation.

Here’s an exact week for her back in mid-2012:

Every Sunday (or whatever works, but usually it’s Sunday) I cook a few pounds of chicken. I then portion it out and keep them in Ziploc bags. If I don’t have time for that, you can get all-natural precooked sausage (both chicken and pork) that works just as well as a “bring to work” meat.

5AM pre-workout: (first thing in the morning): protein shake. (nothing special). It’s not Paleo, and I love every sip of it. Then I go and work out. If I go to the gym with a full stomach, I will not leave with a full stomach.  🙂

7:30AM on my way to work: apple or pear.

9:30AM sweet potato with cinnamon. I keep them at work, and cut them up, throw it in the microwave for 5 minutes with cinnamon. Comes out amazing.

Another protein shake somewhere in here between breakfast and lunch.

12PM lunch: two of the bags of chicken I precooked and a bag of the Steamfresh vegetables. The entire bag is about 3.5 servings of vegetables. My favorite is broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.

Lunch 2: spinach salad with shrimp, red peppers, green..

https://ift.tt/2GwMT3G

[johnclapperne]

How to Start Powerlifting as a Female: Staci’s Story

Ladies, meet your new hero.

Men, prepare to be humbled.

My friend Staci, or Spezzy as she’s known around the Nerd Fitness community, has one of the best transformations I’ve ever seen:

Working a sedentary desk job, Staci slowly packed on weight and ate like a typical unhealthy American. She also smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

She tried to get in shape doing what many people start with: she ran a lot and essentially starved herself. She dropped to an incredibly low and unhealthy weight and developed an eating disorder.

She fell in love with barbell strength training and started lifting HEAVY weights.

She’s now in the best shape of her life, healthier and happier than ever before, regularly competing in powerlifting meets and deadlifting 430+ pounds!

Now in 2019, her journey continues to inspire MILLIONS around the world.

For the women out there who are scared about “getting too bulky when lifting weights,” this article is for you.

If you are intrigued about powerlifting and don’t know where to begin, this article is for you.

If you’re curious what happens to a gal who packs on 40+ lbs of muscle and starts lifting heavy weights, this article is for you.

Staci has transformed inside and out over the past 8+ years, and I want this story to inspire you to go pick up a barbell the next time you’re in a gym. It’s been a privilege to watch her journey day in and day out for those 8 years: Staci actually joined Team Nerd Fitness in a full-time capacity in 2012!

In fact, she’s now our lead female trainer in our 1-on-1 online NF Coaching Program!

Without further ado, here’s an interview/8-year-retrospective/how-to juggernaut of an article on my hero and yours, Staci Ardison!

Staci’s Origin Story: 170 Pounds and Unhappy

This is a picture of Staci back in 2009 before she decided to make some changes in her life.

Starting around age 16, she put on weight relatively steadily through high school, college, and beyond, when she reached her peak at 170 pounds in 2009 at the age of 25.

I asked her what a normal day was like before she tried to fix her health:

I’d get up at 7, go to work, have a Slim Fast shake because I never had time for breakfast. I wasn’t a big snacker but I ate a lot for my meals; I’d typically go out to eat for lunch every day and get a sub or something from D’Angelo’s or Subway, and it was never the 6″ one, it was the big one. And chips. Lots of chips. Or french fries. Getting home I’d either go out to eat with friends or plop in front of the TV playing video games for hours.

My favorite meal was tacos and nachos. I just asked my old roommate what I used to eat because I didn’t remember, and she said “You used to sit in front of the TV with a big plate of meat and cheese and go ‘Hm, I guess I should have some chips with this.'” On many occasions, we’d order pizza or takeout around 11PM too. On top of all of that, I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day!

And that’s when her doctor told her that she had high cholesterol and needed to lose some weight if she wanted to live a long healthy life.

Except that she wasn’t really sure how to lose weight, so she did what most people do when they want to lose weight:

Eat way less and run way more.

She joined a gym and started doing the elliptical as much as possible (“because that’s what you do when you want to get skinny, right?”).

STACI: At first I was only able to make it 10 minutes, but eventually got up to about an hour at a time on the elliptical.

I always thought that being super skinny would make me happy, like it was the one missing piece of my life. Everything would just magically be solved if I could just be skinny.

I bought countless exercise machines for my apartment, which all ended up sitting in the corner gathering dust. I bought DDR thinking that if I could exercise in a video game, that would do it. It didn’t.

I even tried “Sweatin to the Oldies” (which, for the record, everyone should do, because it at least gets you laughing and moving). Nothing stuck.

Until I was finally ready. I can’t say what it was, but I just got up one day and said: “OK, I’m going to do this now.” I didn’t set a date ahead of time, I just woke up knowing it was time.

Along with the elliptical workouts, I joined Weight Watchers. But as I started to feel the effects of the weight loss, I got obsessed. I’d weigh myself every day; I got a scale that measured every ounce so I’d know exactly what I lost. How my day went was always based on the number that was on the scale. If I had lost weight, it was a good day. If I had gained, I was worthless and didn’t deserve to have a good day, and had to do a second elliptical session to punish myself.

Following this unhealthy plan, Staci went from 170 pounds all the way down to 110 pounds over the course of a year. And then she started to open her eyes…

STACI: I did lose the weight that I needed to lose, but instead of “finding myself” and becoming comfortable in my own skin, I ended up being LESS comfortable. Everything I did was based on appearance. I couldn’t do certain things because either my body wasn’t “ready” or I was afraid I’d gain an OUNCE back.

I started looking in the mirror and seeing 30 things that needed to change; I developed severe body dysmorphic disorder. When the elliptical and calorie restriction stopped working, I became bulimic; I was just so desperate to be thin. I was tired all the time, I had no energy to do anything even when I was sleeping 10 hours a night. The bags under my eyes were insane. I simply wasn’t getting the nutrients I needed.

It was at this point that I was dating a bodybuilder who informed me I was doing it all wrong. This got the idea in my head that there was a better way, and I started to research nutrition and strength workouts. I got a set of 5lb dumbbells and a Jillian Michaels DVD and tried doing pushups.

I remember struggling to do chest presses with the 5lb dumbbells. And I wouldn’t use weights at the gym because I was so scared of looking like a fool in front of all of the guys on the weight floor. Seriously terrified.

As I found more info on nutrition, I started questioning Weight Watchers, and finally stopped going after I asked a question on how something was healthy and he pulled the line, “we’re not trying to get healthy here, we’re just trying to lose a little weight”[1]. I started doing more research and began my transition to eating more Paleo in April or May 2010. I upped my calorie intake to around 1,500 a day and immediately started to feel better.

Staci starts weight training, goes full Paleo, finds Nerd Fitness

On June 1st, 2010, Staci’s work office opened up a gym with free weights, and she started training. 

Because she was working out with coworkers and friends rather than random strangers, she felt comfortable giving strength training a try; she felt okay asking coworkers questions on different exercises and less self-conscious that she was doing everything wrong.

Over the next few months, from June until late August, she continued to educate herself on eating better and getting stronger:

STACI: I finished the Paleo transition in August or September, and stopped counting calories, which was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life; it’s a freedom I can’t even describe. I just ate when I was hungry. I gained weight, but I stayed the same size clothes, so what the scale said started to matter less and less. I went from 110 pounds at my lowest to around 130 pounds (both pictured above) and felt GREAT about it. My scale broke in May of that year, so I threw it away and only weigh myself probably once a month these days out of pure curiosity.

It was right around this time on her search for Paleo diet information that she stumbled across Nerd Fitness and saw an article about the Legend of Zelda (her favorite video game series too). She joined our community and continued to put her focus on strength training, and made sure she ate enough to fuel her workouts. She also sought out professional help for her eating disorder and body dysmorphic disorder.

After tons of encouragement from members of the Nerd Fitness community (including from Jon aka “KnightWatch,” now another NF coach) Staci began barbell training:

Deadlift

Squat

Overhead press

Bench press

And just focused on getting really strong with those movements!

For Staci, that first barbell encounter was electric: “When I say that the second I touched a barbell I fell in love, I’m not joking. People say to me, “Oh, it’s not healthy to lift that much….” Lifting to me is like going and playing basketball to someone else. It’s a hobby and a passion. I’m not doing it because I have to, I’m doing it because I want to. I’m simply happier on days that I deadlift.”

And that’s how Staci jumped headfirst into the world of powerlifting.

Over the following six months, she strength trained like her life depended on it, keeping track of her gains and making sure she ate enough to continue getting stronger. She learned the movements, took tips from others, and constantly checked in with the Nerd Fitness Community.

Here are her weight training stats for those first six months:

She raised her deadlift from 135 pounds to 315 pounds, added 50 pounds to her overhead press and 50 pounds to her bench press.

You’re probably wondering what happens to a woman’s figure when she goes through this transformation and puts on even more weight. Allow me to show you!

Download our comprehensive guide STRENGTH TRAINING 101!

Everything you need to know about getting strong.

Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.

How to find the right gym and train properly in one.

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

Staci Builds Muscle and Loses Fat

Believe it or not, Staci is 11 pounds heavier (142 pounds) in the picture on the right (May 2011) compared to the picture on the left (131 pounds, October 2010).

So what the hell happened?

How the heck does she look like she weighs less even though she weighs more?

She packed on muscle while getting rid of fat.

Another 2 years go by and Staci gained yet ANOTHER 8 pounds.

(AUDIBLE GASP)

Clearly now she must have gotten too “bulky,” right?

You’re probably wondering, “Why is she getting leaner but somehow also gaining weight?”

The answer is simple:

Magic.

Okay, maybe not magic. It’s time to bust the worst and most pervasive of the myths relating to women and lifting.

YOU DON’T GET BULKY LIFTING WEIGHTS:

When you strength train with very heavy weights for low numbers of repetitions, you build incredibly DENSE, tight muscle. If you are eating at a caloric deficit, you are keeping the muscle you have and burning the fat on top of the muscle.

So how did Staci gain weight, then? BECAUSE SHE WAS TRYING TO. On top of super heavy strength training, Staci was eating 3,000-4,000+ calories per day (all healthy calories, mind you) to put on the extra weight.

YES, when you lift weights, your body shape WILL change. When you work out and lift, you’ll develop a body that looks more like an athlete – which may not be the super skinny Kate Moss look, but it’s a naturally healthy look.

Which brings me back to Staci.

Although she was training in CrossFit for 2+ years (you can read about our thoughts on CrossFit here), after hitting a goal of competing at Regionals in 2012, she decided that she just LOVED lifting heavy, and switched to training on her own, focusing mainly on strength, with some fun conditioning like swimming mixed in here and there.

For the next four years, Staci continued to pick up very heavy weights, eat more calories than most men, and really focus on getting stronger.

In those four years, Staci put on about another 10 pounds.

Surely by NOW she would get too “bulky,” right?

Surely this is when the whole “women who lift weights get bulky” myth gets proven correct…right?

Hmmmm……nope!

Staci’s Training in 2019

Okay so here we are another 5 years later! What is Staci doing these days?

Did she:

A) Did she become a yoga fanatic?

B) Did she keep powerlifting?

C) Did she fall in love with gymnastics?

D) All of the above?

Spoiler alert: all of the above. Duh.

Building a solid foundation of functional strength allowed Staci to work on other skills and pick them up quickly.

I asked Staci what her overall goals are these days:

My overall goal, sport-specific aside, is to be able to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to, without warning, without my body holding me back. And by that I mean if a friend calls me tomorrow and says, “I found a secret treehouse in the middle of the woods, but we need to hike a gigantic mountain and bike 50 miles to get there,” I want to be able to say “I’m in” without hesitation. So I always want to push my body’s limits. Plus, it’s fun!

I really enjoy competing sometimes, but my main goal isn’t to be the best at one sport – I have too many goals I’m working towards!

And rather than tell you about Staci, I’d rather share some recent training videos from her exploding Instagram page:

5 strict muscle ups in a row? No problem:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 29, 2017 at 10:21am PST

Deadlifting 325lbs for 8 reps? No big deal:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 28, 2017 at 5:44pm PST

Pull ups on a rope? Sure, why not:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 27, 2017 at 10:41am PST

Crazy yoga poses with her adorable dog Madi? But of course:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Oct 25, 2017 at 6:34pm PDT

Handstand practice for funsies? Hell yeah:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Oct 5, 2017 at 5:40pm PDT

Making a 405lb deadlift look super easy? Yup:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Sep 21, 2017 at 8:42am PDT

3 sets of 12 reps at 200lbs, no problem:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 5, 2017 at 5:42pm PST

HOW STACI IS ABLE TO DO ALL OF THESE THINGS:

Staci can do all of the above because she built a foundation of functional strength.

She got really strong at big movements like the squat and deadlift, and bodyweight movements like push-ups and pull-ups. She cut her body fat percentage so she wasn’t carrying around excess weight. She taught her body that being strong feels good, and learned that being strong makes her happy.

She also did a few other key things for each of these activities:

She slowwwwwly progressed with each exercise, and had a strong foundation to start with!

She followed very specific progressions when it comes to gymnastic rings.

She followed a progression when it comes to handstands.

She had a yoga routine to follow (we have a whole course starring Staci with fun yoga routines).

She also had help! Although she learned a lot on her own, Staci over the past 7 years has worked with different coaches and trainers to learn specific skills or improve her ability in certain movements or lifts, as well as help her with proper programming and periodization. After all, a coach can be a game changer and having somebody who can check your form and offer guidance is like turning on cheat codes for strength gains.

So that’s where she’s at now, but there’s a big question I haven’t answered yet: Just WHAT was she eating to fuel these workouts? After all, we know from Nerd Fitness that nutrition is 90% of the battle when it comes to strength gain and/or weight loss!

So here is her exact nutritional strategy!

Staci’s Exact Nutritional Strategy

Oh what’s that? You want to know EXACTLY how Staci eats too? Of course you do, you’re reading Nerd Fitness and you want all the nerdy specifics you can get your hands on.

Let’s start by taking a look at what Staci eat through the first few years of her transformation.

Here’s an exact week for her back in mid-2012:

Every Sunday (or whatever works, but usually it’s Sunday) I cook a few pounds of chicken. I then portion it out and keep them in Ziploc bags. If I don’t have time for that, you can get all-natural precooked sausage (both chicken and pork) that works just as well as a “bring to work” meat.

5AM pre-workout: (first thing in the morning): protein shake. (nothing special). It’s not Paleo, and I love every sip of it. Then I go and work out. If I go to the gym with a full stomach, I will not leave with a full stomach.  🙂

7:30AM on my way to work: apple or pear.

9:30AM sweet potato with cinnamon. I keep them at work, and cut them up, throw it in the microwave for 5 minutes with cinnamon. Comes out amazing.

Another protein shake somewhere in here between breakfast and lunch.

12PM lunch: two of the bags of chicken I precooked and a bag of the Steamfresh vegetables. The entire bag is about 3.5 servings of vegetables. My favorite is broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.

Lunch 2: spinach salad with shrimp, red peppers, green..

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[almajonesnjna]

How to Start Powerlifting as a Female: Staci’s Story

Ladies, meet your new hero.

Men, prepare to be humbled.

My friend Staci, or Spezzy as she’s known around the Nerd Fitness community, has one of the best transformations I’ve ever seen:

Working a sedentary desk job, Staci slowly packed on weight and ate like a typical unhealthy American. She also smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

She tried to get in shape doing what many people start with: she ran a lot and essentially starved herself. She dropped to an incredibly low and unhealthy weight and developed an eating disorder.

She fell in love with barbell strength training and started lifting HEAVY weights.

She’s now in the best shape of her life, healthier and happier than ever before, regularly competing in powerlifting meets and deadlifting 430+ pounds!

Now in 2019, her journey continues to inspire MILLIONS around the world.

For the women out there who are scared about “getting too bulky when lifting weights,” this article is for you.

If you are intrigued about powerlifting and don’t know where to begin, this article is for you.

If you’re curious what happens to a gal who packs on 40+ lbs of muscle and starts lifting heavy weights, this article is for you.

Staci has transformed inside and out over the past 8+ years, and I want this story to inspire you to go pick up a barbell the next time you’re in a gym. It’s been a privilege to watch her journey day in and day out for those 8 years: Staci actually joined Team Nerd Fitness in a full-time capacity in 2012!

In fact, she’s now our lead female trainer in our 1-on-1 online NF Coaching Program!

Without further ado, here’s an interview/8-year-retrospective/how-to juggernaut of an article on my hero and yours, Staci Ardison!

Staci’s Origin Story: 170 Pounds and Unhappy

This is a picture of Staci back in 2009 before she decided to make some changes in her life.

Starting around age 16, she put on weight relatively steadily through high school, college, and beyond, when she reached her peak at 170 pounds in 2009 at the age of 25.

I asked her what a normal day was like before she tried to fix her health:

I’d get up at 7, go to work, have a Slim Fast shake because I never had time for breakfast. I wasn’t a big snacker but I ate a lot for my meals; I’d typically go out to eat for lunch every day and get a sub or something from D’Angelo’s or Subway, and it was never the 6″ one, it was the big one. And chips. Lots of chips. Or french fries. Getting home I’d either go out to eat with friends or plop in front of the TV playing video games for hours.

My favorite meal was tacos and nachos. I just asked my old roommate what I used to eat because I didn’t remember, and she said “You used to sit in front of the TV with a big plate of meat and cheese and go ‘Hm, I guess I should have some chips with this.'” On many occasions, we’d order pizza or takeout around 11PM too. On top of all of that, I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day!

And that’s when her doctor told her that she had high cholesterol and needed to lose some weight if she wanted to live a long healthy life.

Except that she wasn’t really sure how to lose weight, so she did what most people do when they want to lose weight:

Eat way less and run way more.

She joined a gym and started doing the elliptical as much as possible (“because that’s what you do when you want to get skinny, right?”).

STACI: At first I was only able to make it 10 minutes, but eventually got up to about an hour at a time on the elliptical.

I always thought that being super skinny would make me happy, like it was the one missing piece of my life. Everything would just magically be solved if I could just be skinny.

I bought countless exercise machines for my apartment, which all ended up sitting in the corner gathering dust. I bought DDR thinking that if I could exercise in a video game, that would do it. It didn’t.

I even tried “Sweatin to the Oldies” (which, for the record, everyone should do, because it at least gets you laughing and moving). Nothing stuck.

Until I was finally ready. I can’t say what it was, but I just got up one day and said: “OK, I’m going to do this now.” I didn’t set a date ahead of time, I just woke up knowing it was time.

Along with the elliptical workouts, I joined Weight Watchers. But as I started to feel the effects of the weight loss, I got obsessed. I’d weigh myself every day; I got a scale that measured every ounce so I’d know exactly what I lost. How my day went was always based on the number that was on the scale. If I had lost weight, it was a good day. If I had gained, I was worthless and didn’t deserve to have a good day, and had to do a second elliptical session to punish myself.

Following this unhealthy plan, Staci went from 170 pounds all the way down to 110 pounds over the course of a year. And then she started to open her eyes…

STACI: I did lose the weight that I needed to lose, but instead of “finding myself” and becoming comfortable in my own skin, I ended up being LESS comfortable. Everything I did was based on appearance. I couldn’t do certain things because either my body wasn’t “ready” or I was afraid I’d gain an OUNCE back.

I started looking in the mirror and seeing 30 things that needed to change; I developed severe body dysmorphic disorder. When the elliptical and calorie restriction stopped working, I became bulimic; I was just so desperate to be thin. I was tired all the time, I had no energy to do anything even when I was sleeping 10 hours a night. The bags under my eyes were insane. I simply wasn’t getting the nutrients I needed.

It was at this point that I was dating a bodybuilder who informed me I was doing it all wrong. This got the idea in my head that there was a better way, and I started to research nutrition and strength workouts. I got a set of 5lb dumbbells and a Jillian Michaels DVD and tried doing pushups.

I remember struggling to do chest presses with the 5lb dumbbells. And I wouldn’t use weights at the gym because I was so scared of looking like a fool in front of all of the guys on the weight floor. Seriously terrified.

As I found more info on nutrition, I started questioning Weight Watchers, and finally stopped going after I asked a question on how something was healthy and he pulled the line, “we’re not trying to get healthy here, we’re just trying to lose a little weight”[1]. I started doing more research and began my transition to eating more Paleo in April or May 2010. I upped my calorie intake to around 1,500 a day and immediately started to feel better.

Staci starts weight training, goes full Paleo, finds Nerd Fitness

On June 1st, 2010, Staci’s work office opened up a gym with free weights, and she started training. 

Because she was working out with coworkers and friends rather than random strangers, she felt comfortable giving strength training a try; she felt okay asking coworkers questions on different exercises and less self-conscious that she was doing everything wrong.

Over the next few months, from June until late August, she continued to educate herself on eating better and getting stronger:

STACI: I finished the Paleo transition in August or September, and stopped counting calories, which was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life; it’s a freedom I can’t even describe. I just ate when I was hungry. I gained weight, but I stayed the same size clothes, so what the scale said started to matter less and less. I went from 110 pounds at my lowest to around 130 pounds (both pictured above) and felt GREAT about it. My scale broke in May of that year, so I threw it away and only weigh myself probably once a month these days out of pure curiosity.

It was right around this time on her search for Paleo diet information that she stumbled across Nerd Fitness and saw an article about the Legend of Zelda (her favorite video game series too). She joined our community and continued to put her focus on strength training, and made sure she ate enough to fuel her workouts. She also sought out professional help for her eating disorder and body dysmorphic disorder.

After tons of encouragement from members of the Nerd Fitness community (including from Jon aka “KnightWatch,” now another NF coach) Staci began barbell training:

Deadlift

Squat

Overhead press

Bench press

And just focused on getting really strong with those movements!

For Staci, that first barbell encounter was electric: “When I say that the second I touched a barbell I fell in love, I’m not joking. People say to me, “Oh, it’s not healthy to lift that much….” Lifting to me is like going and playing basketball to someone else. It’s a hobby and a passion. I’m not doing it because I have to, I’m doing it because I want to. I’m simply happier on days that I deadlift.”

And that’s how Staci jumped headfirst into the world of powerlifting.

Over the following six months, she strength trained like her life depended on it, keeping track of her gains and making sure she ate enough to continue getting stronger. She learned the movements, took tips from others, and constantly checked in with the Nerd Fitness Community.

Here are her weight training stats for those first six months:

She raised her deadlift from 135 pounds to 315 pounds, added 50 pounds to her overhead press and 50 pounds to her bench press.

You’re probably wondering what happens to a woman’s figure when she goes through this transformation and puts on even more weight. Allow me to show you!

Download our comprehensive guide STRENGTH TRAINING 101!

Everything you need to know about getting strong.

Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.

How to find the right gym and train properly in one.

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Staci Builds Muscle and Loses Fat

Believe it or not, Staci is 11 pounds heavier (142 pounds) in the picture on the right (May 2011) compared to the picture on the left (131 pounds, October 2010).

So what the hell happened?

How the heck does she look like she weighs less even though she weighs more?

She packed on muscle while getting rid of fat.

Another 2 years go by and Staci gained yet ANOTHER 8 pounds.

(AUDIBLE GASP)

Clearly now she must have gotten too “bulky,” right?

You’re probably wondering, “Why is she getting leaner but somehow also gaining weight?”

The answer is simple:

Magic.

Okay, maybe not magic. It’s time to bust the worst and most pervasive of the myths relating to women and lifting.

YOU DON’T GET BULKY LIFTING WEIGHTS:

When you strength train with very heavy weights for low numbers of repetitions, you build incredibly DENSE, tight muscle. If you are eating at a caloric deficit, you are keeping the muscle you have and burning the fat on top of the muscle.

So how did Staci gain weight, then? BECAUSE SHE WAS TRYING TO. On top of super heavy strength training, Staci was eating 3,000-4,000+ calories per day (all healthy calories, mind you) to put on the extra weight.

YES, when you lift weights, your body shape WILL change. When you work out and lift, you’ll develop a body that looks more like an athlete – which may not be the super skinny Kate Moss look, but it’s a naturally healthy look.

Which brings me back to Staci.

Although she was training in CrossFit for 2+ years (you can read about our thoughts on CrossFit here), after hitting a goal of competing at Regionals in 2012, she decided that she just LOVED lifting heavy, and switched to training on her own, focusing mainly on strength, with some fun conditioning like swimming mixed in here and there.

For the next four years, Staci continued to pick up very heavy weights, eat more calories than most men, and really focus on getting stronger.

In those four years, Staci put on about another 10 pounds.

Surely by NOW she would get too “bulky,” right?

Surely this is when the whole “women who lift weights get bulky” myth gets proven correct…right?

Hmmmm……nope!

Staci’s Training in 2019

Okay so here we are another 5 years later! What is Staci doing these days?

Did she:

A) Did she become a yoga fanatic?

B) Did she keep powerlifting?

C) Did she fall in love with gymnastics?

D) All of the above?

Spoiler alert: all of the above. Duh.

Building a solid foundation of functional strength allowed Staci to work on other skills and pick them up quickly.

I asked Staci what her overall goals are these days:

My overall goal, sport-specific aside, is to be able to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to, without warning, without my body holding me back. And by that I mean if a friend calls me tomorrow and says, “I found a secret treehouse in the middle of the woods, but we need to hike a gigantic mountain and bike 50 miles to get there,” I want to be able to say “I’m in” without hesitation. So I always want to push my body’s limits. Plus, it’s fun!

I really enjoy competing sometimes, but my main goal isn’t to be the best at one sport – I have too many goals I’m working towards!

And rather than tell you about Staci, I’d rather share some recent training videos from her exploding Instagram page:

5 strict muscle ups in a row? No problem:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 29, 2017 at 10:21am PST

Deadlifting 325lbs for 8 reps? No big deal:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 28, 2017 at 5:44pm PST

Pull ups on a rope? Sure, why not:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 27, 2017 at 10:41am PST

Crazy yoga poses with her adorable dog Madi? But of course:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Oct 25, 2017 at 6:34pm PDT

Handstand practice for funsies? Hell yeah:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Oct 5, 2017 at 5:40pm PDT

Making a 405lb deadlift look super easy? Yup:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Sep 21, 2017 at 8:42am PDT

3 sets of 12 reps at 200lbs, no problem:

A post shared by Staci Ardison (@staciardison) on Dec 5, 2017 at 5:42pm PST

HOW STACI IS ABLE TO DO ALL OF THESE THINGS:

Staci can do all of the above because she built a foundation of functional strength.

She got really strong at big movements like the squat and deadlift, and bodyweight movements like push-ups and pull-ups. She cut her body fat percentage so she wasn’t carrying around excess weight. She taught her body that being strong feels good, and learned that being strong makes her happy.

She also did a few other key things for each of these activities:

She slowwwwwly progressed with each exercise, and had a strong foundation to start with!

She followed very specific progressions when it comes to gymnastic rings.

She followed a progression when it comes to handstands.

She had a yoga routine to follow (we have a whole course starring Staci with fun yoga routines).

She also had help! Although she learned a lot on her own, Staci over the past 7 years has worked with different coaches and trainers to learn specific skills or improve her ability in certain movements or lifts, as well as help her with proper programming and periodization. After all, a coach can be a game changer and having somebody who can check your form and offer guidance is like turning on cheat codes for strength gains.

So that’s where she’s at now, but there’s a big question I haven’t answered yet: Just WHAT was she eating to fuel these workouts? After all, we know from Nerd Fitness that nutrition is 90% of the battle when it comes to strength gain and/or weight loss!

So here is her exact nutritional strategy!

Staci’s Exact Nutritional Strategy

Oh what’s that? You want to know EXACTLY how Staci eats too? Of course you do, you’re reading Nerd Fitness and you want all the nerdy specifics you can get your hands on.

Let’s start by taking a look at what Staci eat through the first few years of her transformation.

Here’s an exact week for her back in mid-2012:

Every Sunday (or whatever works, but usually it’s Sunday) I cook a few pounds of chicken. I then portion it out and keep them in Ziploc bags. If I don’t have time for that, you can get all-natural precooked sausage (both chicken and pork) that works just as well as a “bring to work” meat.

5AM pre-workout: (first thing in the morning): protein shake. (nothing special). It’s not Paleo, and I love every sip of it. Then I go and work out. If I go to the gym with a full stomach, I will not leave with a full stomach.  🙂

7:30AM on my way to work: apple or pear.

9:30AM sweet potato with cinnamon. I keep them at work, and cut them up, throw it in the microwave for 5 minutes with cinnamon. Comes out amazing.

Another protein shake somewhere in here between breakfast and lunch.

12PM lunch: two of the bags of chicken I precooked and a bag of the Steamfresh vegetables. The entire bag is about 3.5 servings of vegetables. My favorite is broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.

Lunch 2: spinach salad with shrimp, red peppers, green..

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