C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

A.K.A: The Wildest and Craziest Muscle-Building, Fat-Burning Diet the World has Ever Seen! That's Right—EVER! Off and on, over the course of the past decade or so, I have thought repeatedly about writing what you are now staring at on your computer (or phone) screen.  But for some reason, I could just never bring myself to do it.  Maybe if I would have decided to write it as a sort of "museum piece," an essay from my favorite decade of bodybuilding (that I personally trained during) where I looked at Stewart's dietary principles from a more critical angle, well, perhaps then I would  have written this several years ago.  For the longest time, my "It Came from the '90s" essays were the most popular posts on this blog, only recently overtaken by all of my "Classic Bodybuilding" articles.  But the thing is this : I actually agree with most of what Stewart says here, and I agreed with it the first time I read this bit of (what others would call) in

From the Ashes of Misfortune Emerges a Monster Forged in the Flames of Hardship. by Jared Smith There are times lately when circumstances in life have left me feeling a bit bedraggled, broken, and beat up.  A combination of people in my life that lacked integrity and the unwillingness of people to act with decency had left me broken and miserable, with a heap of stress that felt almost crippling. Having to leave a place I called home, and wondering how my family would eat the next week has a way of bringing out the best and the worst in people. For myself, the best was not within reach just yet... With just enough money in my pocket to get my family fed for a few more days, I took a new job that paid next to nothing.  This new job - however low-paying - had one decidedly bad-ass advantage going for it: I got to lift and tote some heavy shit. With no wiggle-room in the budget, I had no money for a gym membership. To make matters worse, the owner of the gym I had trained at fo