What Do YOU Tell Them?

When I am not knocking around the archives at my brand-new Internet home, T-Nation, or rockin’ it old-school down in the basement gym, I am sometimes found making the rent money at a boring desk job somewhere in Cubicle Nation.

My office consists of a motley collection of dull individuals, young and old, male and female, thin and fat, but no one (besides me) even remotely qualifies as ‘jacked’. This is perhaps not too surprising, given the nature of the business (software engineering). What IS surprising, however, is that occasionally one or another of my geeky coworkers summons the gonadal fortitude to inquire of me exactly “what I do” to maintain my (comparatively) larger-than-life physique. Its usually one of the young turks, scrawny paps whom I can comfortably arm-curl during my summertime “Lawn Guyland/Joisey Shore” pre-beach workouts (Bench 'n Curls, Pecs 'n Bi’s, you know the drill). So how do I respond?

If I honestly believed that any of them were serious about an interest in bodybuilding, or merely intrigued by the notion of adding enough bodyweight to avoid attaining flight in a stiff breeze, I might direct them here to the repository of all things iron and manly. But I think they just want to hear me tell lurid tales of gobbling steroids, lifting buildings and biting the heads off of whippets.

So I fuck with them.

“How do I do it, bro’? Simple, really. Bagels and naps. Oh, and Flintstones vitamins, twice a day. Bam! Bam!”

Some nod their heads slowly, not knowing if I am playing square with them or not. Others quickly excuse themselves and hide under their desks.

So tell me, T-Nation, how do YOU handle the stupid workplace questions about your participation in The Life from the nosy and terminally uninformed?

Edit: For the more tender types who may take offense with my frivolous joshing, please re-read the above post (yes, I know, its a lot of words). At no point did I state that anyone has ever come to me seeking ADVICE, for no one has. Rather, I’ve been quizzed by curiosity-seekers, much like those annoying people who gather at trainwrecks in the hopes of glimpsing a little blood. I am certain that most merely wish to have their “suspicions” confirmed about raw meat, unholy rituals and chemical enhancement.

As for the young turks I mentioned, they are hardly padawans kneeling humbly at the master’s feet, begging enlightenment. They are, in fact, half a dozen brash young geniuses who collectively refer to themselves as the “Merry Pranksters” and who spend most of their workday, near as I can tell, emailing one another racy Internet pictures and scoffing at those of us who do not get their humor. Please don’t feel sorry if I tweaked a few of them.

Am I the only one who toils at a dull job in a small office, where teasing, taunting, pranking and general shitheadedness is the order of the day? It may humor some of you to learn that one of the Merry Pranksters thought it would be an absolute scream if he turned me in to HR for allegedly taking “illegal drugs” when he spied me popping fish oil pills one day at my desk after lunch. This sparked a comical ‘intervention’ by some personnel weenie who actually seemed crestfallen when she learned that my ‘stash’ consisted of nothing more than a Kirkland bottle full of big, oily geltabs. I offered to belch a little fish for her, if that would ease her mind, but she demurred. I was subsequently released on my own recognizance but sternly warned to take my “nasty pills” home where they would not offend the natives.

Would YOU give a straight answer to someone such as I have described?

Golf.

Taco Bell Party Box. All day every day.

Tell them to do body for life. They do that for twelve weeks take the time to tell them what you do.

Damn double post.

Oh yeah also saying I diet hella strict and work out eight times a week causes inquirees to flee.

I just tell people that enjoy going to the gym and being active.

I was asked twice in the past week if I was a football player. I just say, “I used to be, bow I just enjoy lifting weights.”

I never really get too specific because try generally won’t really care but there is no reason to he a dick to someone for asking about your fitness. Seems like it’s become the “cool” thing to shit on people that ask about fitness that aren’t into it. I think that’s counter productive.

Just my .2 cents

“I dont workout…i just throw up my food after I eat it.”

It’s not too terribly taxing to summon some respect for my fellow humans to reply with a simple, “I lift weights and run”. That usually does the trick too. Every once in a while I’ll get asked for specifics. Rare though.

*edit to include a pivotal “not” in the post.

[quote]Hallowed wrote:
Damn double post.

Oh yeah also saying I diet hella strict and work out eight times a week causes inquirees to flee.[/quote]

Eight times a week? I’m inclined to flee now myself.

You sound like a fucking asshole. Chances are out of all of your coworkers that have asked you what you do to get that big…which is another way of getting advice from someone who has already done it…some of them actually want to know.

Who the fuck are you to think you’re better than anyone else?

I eat alot.

It really depends, because a lot of the times when people will specifics, it just goes in one ear and out the other and they’re back to complaining how they don’t get big/can’t lose weight/blahblah, so I learned to keep it short for the first answer, if I see that there’s potentially a chance they will go to the gym then I’m more interested myself in telling them how to get started at the gym.

[quote]Glass Diamonds wrote:

[quote]Hallowed wrote:
Damn double post.

Oh yeah also saying I diet hella strict and work out eight times a week causes inquirees to flee.[/quote]

Eight times a week? I’m inclined to flee now myself.[/quote]

LOL
Just four lifting
Two longish steady state
Two short HIIT

I’m dieting. Eternally.

[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
You sound like a fucking asshole. Chances are out of all of your coworkers that have asked you what you do to get that big…which is another way of getting advice from someone who has already done it…some of them actually want to know.

Who the fuck are you to think you’re better than anyone else?[/quote]

I don’t. If you knew my coworkers, I think you’d understand. They mess with me. I mess with them.

[quote]Glass Diamonds wrote:

[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
You sound like a fucking asshole. Chances are out of all of your coworkers that have asked you what you do to get that big…which is another way of getting advice from someone who has already done it…some of them actually want to know.

Who the fuck are you to think you’re better than anyone else?[/quote]

I don’t. If you knew my coworkers, I think you’d understand. They mess with me. I mess with them. [/quote]

Ok well that’s different, but when people ask you how you do something usually the right thing to do would be to tell them how you do it.
Not to sound gay but don’t judge a book by its cover, sometimes there are people who are genuinly interested in what they ask.

But if youre just fucking with people like the usual shannigans that go on in the office, then why even post?

How come so many new people here seem to have terrible problems with how much muscle they have and all the myriad social problems that those muscles seem to create?

Yeahhhhhh buddyyyyyyyyyy, light weight.

[quote]Nards wrote:
How come so many new people here seem to have terrible problems with how much muscle they have and all the myriad social problems that those muscles seem to create?[/quote]

Cause everyone new on here is the next Ronnie Coleman.

OP - shadows and lighting

I don’t mind telling people and actually mentoring them but no one where I work actually wants to listen or follow through. I had one female co-worker start working out at the gym I go to. I worked with her on a few days and showed her some exercises to do. Went to the gym for about 2 weeks, haven’t seen since. Talked to her brother, who goes regularly, he said she stopped going.
Got another guy who wants to lose weight all the time. I tell him how to do it, he keeps eating garbage and not going to the gym.
Wife keeps saying she needs to lose weight and go to the gym, meanwhile she’s eating Doritos in bed at 3 am.

People will do what they want. Take care of yourself. It’s the only thing you can control.

[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:

Not to sound gay but don’t judge a book by its cover [/quote]

When did that quote come out of the closet?