You can call me ______

The past few nights at work nicknames have come up a little bit. Last night I had a cougar calling me Ashton. Tonight my nickname appeared to be Marky Mark, which was somewhat funny as I was just watching Ted during my morning treadmill session. If you haven’t seen the movie “Ted”, get on it; the film is hilarious while crude and obnoxious at some points. In the weeks leading up to now, as more people have discovered about my upcoming adventure, Fabio and Derek have also been tossed out there.

All these nicknames are based on celebrities. Reminding me of past conversation in which a few names were tossed out as my celebrity doppleganger.

Kevin and Fay both seem/seem to thing I am a Andy Samberg lookalike:

 

The cougar the other day as mentioned was calling me Ashton:

Tonight it appears I take on the Marky Mark look:

All my life, I have been presented with do I know you, or you look like someone I know. From time to time I joked about appearing in a magazine (this was before I ever actually ended up in magazines or TV), or blew it off and just said I have a familiar face.  I think part of the familiarity is my love to smile, which becomes very inviting and pleasant to be around.

In the end, no matter who you look like or whatever nicknames you pick up, we all have our own identities, they may change and grow, but we are all our own independent person.

sophia models international blog: Profiling International Model Zach W. of Sophia Mo...

sophia models international blog: Profiling International Model Zach W. of Sophia Mo...: Sophia Models' Zach recently returned from his first modeling trip overseas throughout Asia. We had the chance of asking him a few questions...

My Thai My Pride

 Look back, way back, okay maybe that far how about May. Do you remember that fateful day where I shared my love with a beautiful woman on a boat amongst an incredible backdrop? No? This may refresh your memory then Wedding in Phuket

Now a little controversy was created as my cousin and some family members thought I actually got married all of the sudden.  While I am all for “taking those shots”, I shy away from jumping into a relationship let alone marriage thoughts. That blog was all written with regards to a Thai Airways commercial I was filming. Well, it’s here!

In Calgary, the leaves are falling, frost is etching the windows of cars in the morning. Yikes every day that is gets colder becomes the coldest day I have seen since I packed away my winter jacket and headed for the tropical environment known as Singapore. Freezing cold and wearing gloves I willingly traded for sweating bullets and flip flops. I will be leaving Calgary one month earlier this time around, although Korea isn’t exactly the 40 plus degree environment in October that Singapore treated me too, I am equally excited if not more. 

Embrace your passion

We all have our passions; hopefully you have caught onto a few of mine over these past 10 months. Today I had the opportunity to share my cocktailing passion and desire for knowledge with members of the Canadian Professional Bartenders Association Alberta chapter Canadian Bartenders:Alberta Chapter.  I attended a seminar on Dilution: Shaking Vs Stirring, where we discussed and tested theories on the effects of each on a Belvedere Martini. Of course a big thanks to Belvedere for supplying the alcohol and swag. This event reminded me how much I truly love a well-crafted cocktail.

Digging through my memory banks I decided to share with you my cocktail. This was on the menu at the previous bar I worked at for sometime.

Reconstruction is a twist on the classic cocktail, an old fashioned.  Placing my own palate onto the drink I decided to heat things up.

2 oz Buffalo Trace Bourbon

2 oz ginger beer

10 dashes of angostura bitters

Sliver of red chili pepper

Orange Disc

In rocks glass, place sugar and bitters in the glass. Roll the mixture around the inside of glass coating the full glass. Use lighter to burn off alcohol and caramelize the sugar. Place chili in glass and muddle lightly. Build remainer in glass, bourbon, ice then ginger beer. Flame orange peel over drink and drop in.

                         

Enjoy!

On another note, I picked up one of my favourite healthy snacks the other day. This by and large is a better alternative than potato chips and at $7 for a bag, is not cheap either. Pizza snax! They are a sprouted sunflower and flax seed snack.

Bring out the dogs

Time and time again I remind myself to loosen up, relax. I take great pride in my ethic and the quality of my work, although sometimes the fun factor is sacrificed.

Fun! Isn’t that why we bust ass at work, so we can have money for fun? Some of us stress the entire time while we are at work, others love every moment of their job. I have been fortunate to hold a number of jobs that I have loved and created challenge. Challenge is always the key for me, be it nutrition consulting, personal training, modeling, acting or even rickshaw running. Each job has always presented a challenge for me, each challenge unique to their industries. 

Fun for me comes from these challenges. This is what has fed my passion to learn and fed my love of exercise. The challenge of hitting the summit brings a rush. My workouts that push me to the edge create an exhilaration second to only the next workout. And that’s where this buddy comes in:

The prowler, or the sled, is an amazing piece of gym equipment I share a love hate relationship with. Panting and struggling, I feel no different than my dog Diesel when he pulled me on my rollerblades.

Here is a sample of my recent workout:

15 minute dynamic warmup

80 ft sled drags

-       Immediately followed by 80 ft hamstring drags

Repeated 2-4 times with 30 sec rests

40 ft lateral drags (repeat for other side)

-       Immediately followed by 40 ft sled pull throughs

-       Immediately followed by 40 ft alternating one arm sled row

Repeat full circuit after 60 second rest

Today my hamstrings are gassed, my thighs feel full, and my ass feels like it will fall off, but I love it. I feel like I had fun with it after all and that’s the most important thing you should choose about your method of exercise. Give it a shot, did you have fun? 

An interesting composition

Huge thanks to Derek @2110 Fitness, for taking the time to help me last week with the Bod Pod. For those of you that don’t know what a Bod Pod is; here is a link. Essentially this is another tool for anthropometric measurements. Without going into detail as the link explains well, it helps you calculate your Fat mass, lean mass, BMR (calories necessary if you were to sleep on the couch all day), and EEE (estimated energy expenditure). So serious. 

I did this as a means of tracking progress. As I have said so many times to so many clients, muscle weighs more than fat, and there is so much more to life than the scale. Albeit, sometimes the scale is necessary, we shouldn’t live or die by it. Use of the bod pod, my notes and the scale are to track my progression. While another way to track is the physical changes in appearance,  I haven’t had an opportunity to get a picture taken to see the changes versus my return from Thailand and Singapore.

My first bod pod results:

Body fat: 10.9%

Fat mass: 18.7 lbs

Fat Free Mass: 153.3 lbs

Total Mass: 172 lbs

BMR: 1872 calories

EEE: 3257 calories

Over my next few posts, I think I may go into depth on dietary stuff like what I eat for breakfast and explain the necessity of calories, maybe how people unnecessarily restrict too much and don’t get the results they are looking for. 

Well 10.9 is pretty much on par where I expected to be. It puts me into the lean category which is essential for a long and healthy life. Of course, my goal is to push myself dropping into the 8% range, there is something about elite athlete fat % that excites me, to be along the lines of Calvin Johnson or Sydney Crosby in terms of athleticism is  an exciting thought. While I will never compare to the prowess on the field or ice, just one thing that makes me on their level is exhilarating. 

My goals? Wait lets review the previous ones I set not to far back.. Remember these?

• Gain about 7 more lbs of muscle (just over 3 kg) – I have added 7 lbs of mass since returning

• Develop my chest more evenly – It’s coming along nicely, still work to go though

• Get on no less than 4 more hikes this season -  2 down 2 more to go

• Restart my professional career (aiming for pharmaceutical sales, nutraceutical, or agricultural and still thinking a bit about nursing) – Still pursuing this, applying whenever a suitable opportunity arises

• If the right contract comes head to Tokyo, Seoul or Hong Kong or Potentially Europe – Signed my contract for Seoul

•  Climb some of the highest peaks in the world (learn more of mountaineering) – This is longer term, but a friend and I have been discussing Killmanjaro or Mont Blanc

·   Lets Check out some of the new goals 

     Drop fat mass by 3 lbs (1 kg)

·      Increase lean mass by 5 lbs (roughly 2.5 kg)

·      Get body fat into the 8-9% range