Are we becoming the Huffington Post or what? My friend Dean Lorey, a Hollywood writer and producer, once again has penned a blog post for us to enjoy.
-Vinnie
It’s pretty well known how much I hate to lift weights but, just for the sake of clarity, imagine the cutest yellow duckling you ever saw being crushed under a 40 pound barbell. It’s going to die unless someone lifts that weight off its fragile body. If I’m the “someone,” then I guess you and I know what we’re having for dinner that evening. That said, after losing a bunch of pounds and getting into decent shape, I decided to try and put on some muscle. Why? Two reasons. I heard something about having more muscle and less body fat increases your metabolism and helps you stay thin and I also thought I might look better. So sue me. So I lifted weights on my own for a couple weeks and then I broke down and booked Vinnie to come to my house and help me figure out a routine. You can do that too, by the way, at least if you live in the LA area. I think you just have to send him an email or something. His address is vinnietortorich@msn.com. Anyway, Vinnie shows up and asks some questions about what I want to do and I tell him I’m only going to commit 20 minutes a day to this, three days a week. So he gives me some exercises that he says will give me “bang for my buck.” By the way, if he comes to your house you’re going to have to suffer through a lot of Vinnie-isms. The next time I hear him say “I told you that to tell you this,” I’m going to go on a killing rampage at a Wal-Mart. Which reminds me, half the time he says “I told you that to tell you this” I don’t see any connection between the two thoughts. Truth be told, I think he uses that sentence in place of paragraphs, which seem to mystify him. So anyway, I do his exercises. For the record, they are bench presses, lat pulls (I don’t know if I’m remembering the name right) and squats, along with a few arm curls. And, as I do them, here’s what I realize — he’s flat, fucking wrong. I know these are going to be useless because I can do them easily and with no pain. What I don’t realize is that, the next day, I am going to be brutally sore and wishing for death. But, eventually, the soreness subsides and now I’m just kind of into the routine. Actually, I’ll go further. This is something probably all of you experience all the time, but it’s new to me. I’ve gotten to the point where I actually look forward to the days when I’m going to lift weights. Hell, I’ll go further than that (God hates a coward, right?) I even get disappointed on the days when I can’t. Gotta take every other day off — something about giving your muscles time to recover. I read that somewhere. I should probably ask Vinnie. By the way, I just now realized that I never got around to the point of this blog, which was going to be about how I discovered my heart problems. So since I’ve completely boned it, I’ll go ahead and mention one last useless thing. Since Vinnie mentioned that my buddy Damon Wayans told me “I’m going on the Dean Diet” I now feel like I’m now on the verge of untold riches and superstardom as the planet’s newest diet guru — I mean, that Atkins guy did pretty good, right? — except I can’t quite figure out how to turn it into an entire book, because it can be summed up in just one sentence: “Eat two vegetarian meals a day and one with chicken or fish.” If I can just figure out how to sell that for $12.95 a pop, dinner’s on me. And I can tell you what we’ll be eating. Duckling. But only for the protein. Gotta feed those muscles. Oh, and don’t forget to e-mail Vinnie at vinnietortorich@msn.com if you are in need of a trainer.
