I've always had a problem with steroids.
Not taking them, obviously; my kidneys still work and my testicles are as full and lustrous as ever, but I've always thought that taking any sort of supplement was kind of pussying out.
I was always of the opinion that the only real way to get in shape was through working hard, and if that didn't pay off, through working harder.
Then I got really out of shape and thought "fuck it, let's get on the Pro-Gain."
I should probably explain this a bit further. Having lost close to a stone in muscle since my physical peak a few years back, I decided to start working out again, and this time, to start working out in the smart way, rather than bumbling through like I did when I was 20.
Despite my misgivings, I decided that some sort of supplement would help. I have two honest justifications on this one: firstly, there's a very noticeable difference between starting in the gym at 20 and starting in the gym at two months shy of 26, having been smoking since the age of 22. Secondly, and more importantly, I decided to stop being naive. Every model, every actor, every person you see who is in really great shape is taking some sort of protein shake or muscle formula. Some people are clearly taking more than others. The only plausible deniers are people who have nothing to do with their time except work out, and are therefore up at 6am to run. This pretty much means soldiers and professional athletes only, and I stone-cold garauntee you that you won't see my ass up and awake before ten a.m. unless the bed catches fire at nine.
So I bit the bullet and bought some protein-shake powder, because I wanted to see what the best I could look was while I was still young enough to look it.
Also, it was on sale.
Mostly the sale part, actually.
Tonight, after a heavy workout, I went back to my car and took my tub of chemical goodness out. Hiding like a junkie in the front seat, hunched over my stash, I realised two things of great profundity.
1. We're all addicts of some kind, be it cigarettes or alcohol or whatever. Even if it's just in little ways, most of us know what it's like to be dealing with a monkey on our backs that we're each ashamed of.
2. Maximuscle are a pile of chiselling bastards.
This second one occurred to me when I realised that you can't mix their formula into a normal water bottle because the scoop is too big; you'd spill most of it. The only water bottle with a big enough spout to accommodate the large-sized scoop is the one produced by their own fucking company.
Clever.
I decided not to stand for this, and dug out an old pocket knife from under my seat. I used this to slice the top third off my water bottle, making a wide neck.
Then I realised I could have just used a bit of paper to make a spout and poured the powder into that, instead of slicing the top off the bottle, and that I was a fucktard.
Having briefly wondered if I had another bottle (no) I decided to make the best of a bad job, dumped a spoonful of powder in and spent the next ten minutes stirring it irritably with a pen I stole from a Holiday Inn somewhere. Ten minutes into my first experience of sports supplements and my mood could best be described as a mixture of "grumpy" and "worried about ink poisoning."
I got the powder as stirred-in as it was going to get, and, careful not to cut my lip on the jagged edge of the sliced-up bottle (paper spout, Christ I'm dumb) I decided to go for it.
Let me tell you this: Protein shakes taste awful. Really, really bad. They smell okay; the chocolate one smelled a lot like chocolate, but it tasted like watery chemical nothing. I kept trying not to think of "Two Girls One Cup" as I chugged brown sludge, with about all the success you just had not-thinking-about-it, too.
It made me wonder if body-builders make those noises because they're flexing, or because of nausea.
"Urrrrgh!" they go, gutterally, as they struggle to get the taste out of their mouths.
"Gaaaaah!" they snarl, angrily, as they remember how much the mulch they just drank costs.
No wonder they're all pissed off. Some meatheads feel so cheated by it all that they need to find a violent outlet, and that's where doormen come from.
Smelling like milkshake and tasting like ass just doesn't make sense. Someone really needs to have a quiet word with whoever is in charge of flavours at protein shake companies.
"Stan, can we talk to you?"
"Sure, what's up?!"
"Well, don't take this the wrong way, but can you... taste... anything? At all?"
"Honestly, no, but I have a pretty good sense of smell..."
"That's... That's not the same thing, Stan..."
"Well, I don't know. 80% of taste is in the nose!"
"And a hundred percent of you is an idiot. Go home."
Anyway, it's three hours later and all I can report so far is the desperate need to piss like a race horse every twenty minutes as my kidneys try to filter out the the massive protein dump my system had to absorb.
And speaking of massive protein dumps, it should be entertaining tomorrow when I have to take... well, you get where I was going with that.
Still, I'm going to keep at this for a while. I've already learned some valuable stuff. Like the fact that we're all junkies in our way, that the CEOs of Maximuscle would sell their own mothers to gypsies, and that Holiday Inn pens won't write if you get them wet.
