Over evening coffee with Brick Mouse and Crack Pot...

BM: James, I recall you being overweight when we started training together [June 2018] and encouraging you to lose some weight, maybe switch from Ramen noodles to whole foods. But I don't now how much you weighed.

CP: I didn't either, not until I got on the scale at my girl's house two miles from here August 1 2019 and I scaled 231! Oh, hell no. My fight weight was 143 and now I'm a heavyweight!

BM: So what made you change your lifestyle?

CP: You and Sean had both told me that the fact that I had gotten so fat and was still sparring for an hour or more, made you nervous that I was going to croak on you, that Sean would tap me with a jab or you would ding me with a stick, and then I'd die. I felt really bad about that possibility, once thinking on it, so decided to starve, just stop eating.

BM: Most people approach lief changes as tweaking this and altering that, and replacing this—you just said, “I'm doing a 180 and damn the consequences?”

CP: Yep.

BM: I ate to gain weight. Now that I'm trimming specifically for a fight, I find that eating to slim down some is actually easier. Where does Rick come into this—you just eat off of Rick's list, right?

CP: He comes in right there, ran into him a day into my fast. We boxed and body builded together in the 70s. In the 80s and 90s he got into heavy body building, went from 180 to 250, using huge weight loads while I boxed at about 150. I moved to Maryland, him to Nevada.

When he found out what I was boxing at he snorted over the phone, “I fuck girls that wiegh more than that.” Well, I said, “So do I and burn less glycogen doing it!”

By 2000 Rick couldn't stand all of the eating you had to do to stay big. He just ate enormous amounts of food. So he switched to cliff climbing and slimmed down and got really shredded. We hardly saw each other for 30 years. Then, I visit him in Pittsburgh after that torn hip rotator in 2016 that caused me to blow up like a tick.

BM: So what did he say specifically—because you made a huge life change?

CP: We are in his land rover, a former teen welterweight and light heavyweight and he is a light heavy still and I'm a heavy. I look at him in his wife beater, smoking his blunt, his parrot on his shoulder and say, “Bro, you look great.”

He looks down at me over that shredded shoulder and says, “I never figured you for an eater.”

Knife, right in the gut.

[laughter]

I start to make excuses and he stops me with an open hand, “I love you Brother. And, granted, our grain-based civilization does select for your DAD body type.”

The knife was twisted. I had just written a series of articles on this very thing, why the barley eating men of The Iliad were weaklings compared to their forefathers.

[laughter]

“Okay Rick, what don't I eat?”

He said, “It's easier to remember what you can eat, because it's not much.”

BM: And the immediate results?

CP: 231 to 194 in 60 days, then 194 to 185 over the next 6 months. So, since spring 2020 I have bounced between 184 and 168. I even held at a steady 170 in winter in the Cascades while drinking a lot of beer. For the winter and spring of 2022 I have ranged from 174 down to 167, mostly at 170. I'm aiming to drop 10 pounds this summer and stay between 150 and 160 mainly to save my knees, which got really tore up in 2016 and 2017 when I worked as a fat man loading and unloading shelves, pallets and trucks and had to do everything in a squat because if the torn hip.

BM: I've been keto lately and I like it. It really works. Some older family members with health problems are having real weight issues and have asked me what to do. Rick seems like a great guru to invoke—now what is on Rick's list?”

CP: As few carbs as possible. Per serving carbs should net 7 grams or less after deducting grams of fiber. Total daily carbs under 30. I can stay in ketosis eating up to 60 carbs a day.

BM: How do you know?

CP: I get hungry. When in keto I never get hungry and have to remember to eat. It is not like that for most people. This diet drives most people insane. It was easy for me. I had a big sweet tooth. Now I never crave sweets. That stopped three days in.

BM: [gets out pen and paper] Foods?

CP: This is my version. Rick eats bison and salmon and chickens with names. I still eat out of a can. He calls it dirty keto, what I do, but I'm still his disciple, like Peter trying to walk on water. Meat, the fat being more important than the flesh, bacon being the best for vitamins and cooking grease.

Coconut, walnut and avocado oil for cooking.

Nuts, best to worse: Macadamea, Walnuts, Pecans, almonds, Coco [baking chocolate 85% to 100% coco] cashews, Brazil, filberts, pistachio, peanuts

Fruits, avocados, strawberry and blueberry

Dairy, best to worse: eggs [the best food according to Rick] gee [gay butter, I think], butter, sour cream, heavy cream, cheese, cream cheese, whole milk ricotta and cottage cheese, plain Greek yogurt, half and half only sparingly

Drinks: coffee is the perfect keto drink, coconut milk and coconut water and keffir, 35% or more proof liquor, higher proof the better, light beer with least carbs [1 to 5 is the range]

Vegetables: mushrooms, greens, cabbage, celery, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, broccoli, green beans, egg plant, squash [careful some carbs], tomatoes [some carbs]

Roots, best to worse: garlic, radish, horseradish, shallot, spring onion [tops too], turnip, rootabega [can't spell], white onion, red onion, yellow onion, sweet onion [some carbs], potatoes [a half or a small doesn't kick me out], carrots are too sweet but I can eat a small one without going out and try to only eat these to be polite.

Legumes: lentils, pintos and peanuts I have been able to eat without going out. But, more than a cup of lentils or pintos will kick me out. Peanuts and limas have worked good for me as have Lupini beans. I expect, once I hit my target weight, to use beans as a regular energy source, cheap and easy to cook.

That is all I can recall other than that salt is good, and I eat salt straight-up, especially when I drink. Potassium is a problem so I travel with cream of tartar mixed with salt for cramps.

BM: Thank you, James, just like that—just dove right in?

CP: I was fat for 2 years of 57, that was enough to get me in touch with American Land Whale Metaphysics. I can now write from the perspective of a fat man.

BM: Here's to Rick!

CP: Yes, coffee. Rick says coffee is good!

BM: James, in the spirit of experimentation, try three of these. They are a dietary supplement with magnesium and zinc that is supposed to increase testosterone. Warning, this is supposed to cause more vivid dreams and morning wood.

CP: What is morning wood?

BM: An erection, absent predictive stimulation, like your favorite squaw for instance, sleeping next to you.

Next morning, after being startled awake by a dream and heading down for some coffee while The Brick Mouse readied for work...

BM: So, James, how did you sleep?

CP: Well, I was running a bull dozer to clear your wife's flowerbed on the shoulder of a Utah mountain. Then, I stopped it and jumped down to see what kind of critter was in the way. It was looking out over the vista and looked like a chicken, a tan chicken. Then it turned around and looked up at me, and then looked down at my groin. I then realized that the chicken was a hen, made from rubber, and I had been running the bulldozer naked, and it said, in this severe academic Karen tone, “Could you please stop looking at me while you're in that state!” and waddled away in a huff.

BM: Wow! It works!