Welcome to Budapest

It would be a lie to deny that I brought back a good few thousand calories from Barcelona, which perfectly reinforces the fact I described in the post "you still have 20 days", namely that summer is unsuitable for completing any serious lifestyle-changing program. Everyone works their ass off, and I don't think that in those 2-3 weeks of vacation, we should really expect ourselves to portion out chicken and run on the beach. Firstly, it won't work, and secondly, it's completely unnecessary, because you shouldn't suddenly realize 3 minutes before checking in that "damn, I look like a messed-up walrus." Well, yes, that's when the happiness chocolates shoved in your face and the evening food ordering hassles come back to haunt you. Even maintaining your current weight is difficult in the summer, not to mention that you should arrive in shape for summer, not start working on it then. You can't expect to get a six-pack and toned muscles in 1 week if you have a 5-centimeter layer of fat that takes months to shed. You can do 4 million sit-ups a day before you even start, but it won't show. That's like me trying to show off how big my dick is under a duvet...

Let me explain this hopeless summer dieting thing with my own example. I started my second strict diet on June 3rd, so to speak, jumping on the official start date which would have been June 13th, but as you know, instead I went to jerk off on the Iberian Peninsula. There's a saying, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, well I followed that philosophy in Barca too. There's no point in sugarcoating it, 8 days after starting my program, I consumed at least 13 thousand calories in 3 days, and it felt damn good. I wallowed sensuously in this state, and I haven't even mentioned the constant drinking. I was on vacation and didn't give a shit. I'm not saying I'm the gold standard, but I'm sure that I have more willpower than 98% of the blog readers, whether we're talking about dieting or working out, and if I slipped up, there's no chance you'll stick to everything, but as I said, that can't be expected from anyone.

In Rome, I already hit the brakes, but of course, two pizzas still went down there too. I'm writing this part of the post on the plane and right now the machine is shaking terribly, I'm genuinely scared, but when I land in Ferihegy (Liszt Ferenc Airport), I will resume my diet and my 6 weekly workouts without any effort. I'm afraid this kind of attitude can't be said for everyone, and for the majority, a calorie-laden vacation will be followed by equally shitty Budapest everyday life, which is not really effective, especially if one is facing their first big program in life.

I'm getting letters asking me to put together a workout plan and diet for the next 8-10 weeks, but they're going to Turkey, Italy, and God knows where else to visit relatives in America for 2 weeks, and we should include those few days, and a little festival too... Oh, sure, we'll include it, why not. As I mentioned, it's pointless to start before September. Even without summer, this diet and exercise thing is hard enough, let alone when we're full of programs where the last thing we want to think about is a regulated, disciplined life. At a festival or during a foreign vacation, let everyone drink themselves into oblivion, and if they get hungry, let them eat whatever they like best. It would be a pain in the ass if I had to eat apples with puffed wheat before an Alex Gaudino party, washed down with plain water. For that kind of misery, there's autumn, winter, and spring. Of course, this lifestyle will have consequences, oh yes, it will, but it's not the same if you start the summer at 52 kilos and gain up to 58 by the end of the summer, or if you start as a huge piece of crap at 65 kilos and arrive in September at 77 kilos.

A few words about the trip, in the nature of a public service announcement. When I wrote that I really needed this trip because I was minutes away from killing everyone around me, there was a serious basis for that. This trip perfectly reset me, and I had to realize a few things again that I had already realized at home and alluded to, but these thoughts took on a whole new meaning 3,000 kilometers from Budapest. Experiencing the feeling of freedom is one of the coolest things in this world. Leaving everything and everyone behind, turning off my phone (I left the charger), not giving a shit about emails, going to a strange city where no one knows you, no one knows, and of course no one cares who you are, and where you can be whoever you want, without having to account for anything to anyone.

Walking on La Rambla, I realized a few things that I would like to write down here. This will be a bit difficult now, but pay attention and understand what I want to say. Everyone has a life, which will now be embodied by a backpack. A backpack that we carry for a lifetime and into which we put the people we interact with throughout our lives. Start with distant acquaintances, friends of friends, and your colleagues. Then come those to whom you entrust guarded secrets. Relatives, aunts, uncles, then siblings, parents, finally husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends. Put them in the bag and then pick up the bag and feel its weight. Feel its weight and start walking. The bag is quite heavy, isn't it? This is exactly what we do on a daily basis, and you only realize and face it when you break out of the environment you currently live in. We chain ourselves and carry the weight of people on our shoulders, because of whom we are unable to move forward in life. There's no denying it, human relationships are the most difficult components of our lives. Do you feel the strap cutting into your shoulders? Because of all the controversial situations, arguments, secrets, compromises, and coercion... You don't have to carry their weight. Why don't you put down the bag and move on? Some animals carry each other and live in symbiosis, dependent on each other for a lifetime. Doomed lovers and monogamous swans. But we are quite different. If we move slowly, we die quickly because we are not swans. We are sharks, ruthless predators, and there's no point in sugarcoating that. Carrying heavy burdens, you might reach the foot of the mountain, but you certainly won't be able to climb it. How much you want to achieve in life is entirely up to you. You take the weight of other people off your shoulders and climb the mountain, or you stay at its foot and picnic for a lifetime. You know, the higher you drink from the mountain stream, the less chance there is that someone has already pissed in it above you. Everyone should interpret these thoughts as they wish and fit them into their own little world in the way that is most favorable to them, just as they have done with everything so far. Man is a social being, but there are huge differences in the quality of companions.

I have a few more observations I'd like to write down before I brutally tell Petra off for still messing around with the last pictures. Western European cities have been overrun by rats, whom I only call Pakistani and the most wretched Asian immigrants. These filthy parasites are suffocating the city and swarming around tourist centers, but unfortunately not only there. In Barcelona, this means that if you lie on the beach, an Asian prostitute comes every 2-3 minutes who wants to massage you for 5 euros. Of course, this whole thing is not about the massage, but about checking out what you have on you. It's not even worth falling asleep on the beach, because if you fall asleep, they immediately steal what's next to you. On the beach, there are not only Asians but also the already mentioned Pakistanis who sell beer, hats, tattoos, coconuts, scarves, sunglasses, and all sorts of crap. Of course, these are cover stories, because in reality, they all want to sell you drugs. Hashish, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, but I think if you tell them you need blood, they'll ask what blood type. The best is when a police patrol comes because it's quite a ridiculous sight as the beach moves and all the scum start running at once. The city is no better, especially at night, because the same people are there too. It can be quite annoying if within 1 minute they ask you twice "senor cold beer, cocaine, girls, hotel or anything else?" It's the same in Rome, only there, due to the stronger police presence, they spend more time hiding in the sewers.

That's all for now, and we'll continue from here until July 6th, when Zamárdi will swallow me for 4 days, but until then, Petra's closing, Dani's x-th day (I won't say which), basics of bulking, and now I'm slowly but surely getting around to writing the home workout post too... I think I'll go to the dermatologist now because I managed to spend a day on the beach without sunscreen, crawling around like an insect...