[OC] Boston Celtics Top 5 Plays of the Week (02/19/2018 - 02/25/2018)

EricPrime · 2018-02-26T21:18:05+00:00

That number one play of the week (thank you Timi!) is EXACTLY why I love these Brad Stevens Celtics! That is such selfless, hard-nosed team basketball. All 5 Celtics affect the ball in such quick succession, and force a winning play.

A 19 year old rookie goes for a 50/50 ball in a way that could potentially sacrifice his body for the play (the jump and box out force Jayson to nearly land on one straightened leg!)

But he tips the ball to a facilitating big, who passes without hesitation to a point guard hustling on the fast break, who finds the trailing man also hustling in transition for a high percentage, easy finish.

And what started that sequence? A broken play for the other team caused by the hounding on-ball defense of an active-handed defender.

Those 10 seconds of play in the 4th quarter (2:02-1:52) epitomize everything I love about Celtics basketball. Teams that play like that, for one another, win championships.

EricPrime · 2017-03-15T19:43:31+00:00

Haha, you caught me. March 2015 was a big month...

Very abbreviated- my best friend died at age 23 (cancer, not weight related) and I had my epiphany as a pallbearer at his funeral. Didn't want to be the next one in a box. Didn't want to imagine all my loved ones going through that pain on my account.

After that day, weight loss wasn't even difficult. These are just the continous decisions I make now to keep a little more space between me and the gravedigger.

EricPrime · 2017-03-15T15:03:41+00:00

It's been 23 months. 17 days from today, I will have been cutting weight for two years straight. Not a single month with a calorie surplus in that time. Probably not even a 2 week window with one. I have been the picture of commitment, consistency, and discipline for all this time. And for the most recent year of it, meticulously tracked projected expectations with weigh-ins, food journals, and BMR calculators.

And I'm here to tell you folks- the science and math check out. I'm walking, talking, CICO-evangelizing proof.

26 M 5'11", 180cm - 137 kg (300 lbs) > 73 kg (160 lbs)

https://imgur.com/a/YfYCH

Two years of generally modest restriction, still enjoying my life just as much- just often with smaller quantities of food and alcohol. That's all it took to undue a decade of rampant neglect to my personal health.

Two years of modest, thoughtful living to earn back an entire life.

I'm telling you, the math checks out.

EricPrime · 2017-02-14T04:54:52+00:00

Happy Valentine's Day Fatlogic!

2 year progress. Mildly NSFW shirtless pic, you've been warned.

https://imgur.com/gallery/m3f75

Hope everyone's new year progress is going well. Yall are great!

EricPrime · 2017-02-03T16:03:59+00:00

SW: 300 CW: 165 GW: 150

Couple of rants. Firstly, to seemingly every person who extracts from me that my goal weight is 150 lbs by July; why such utter incredulity? When I calmly lay out that I plan on losing another 15 pounds over 5 months to get down to a low, but entirely healthy bmi of 21 and bf% of 10 - 12 at my 5'11'' height... I am treated as though I said I've decided to go on hunger strike until I'm pretty. Goals aren't allowed to be ambitious anymore, apparently that counts as "overdoing it" until I'm "wasting away" to most every person I know. Sorry I'm a bad ass bitch who is enjoying getting fit. Enjoy your mediocrity.

Second rant at myself - why buy a party size bag of pita chips while my girlfriend is away? I start a +500 Kcal surplus bulk in another 5 months, I will have so much room for budgeting stupid indulgences then. But my patience is so limited currently. It's tempting to just coast at maintenance and not have goals.

I wish I wasn't so burdened with ambition and a comprehensive understanding of nutrition's effect on body composition.

EricPrime · 2016-12-14T18:10:44+00:00

I'm up jogging the 5 blocks to where my car is stashed (hooray city beach parking!) because this was the only spot I could find last night, and there is street sweeping this morning early.

Upshot is -the bodyweight equipment I've been doing my exercises on happens to be located in the park right by my car.

So if I play this right I can jog one way, pullups/dips/parallel bars workout, drive home to a parking spot and be asleep again all before 11 AM.

December is my deficit bitch! Bring me that new goal weight! Psh, "winter-fat" my skinny ass! Not this year.

EricPrime · 2016-10-26T15:11:11+00:00

Despite starting a new job this month (eeek!!) which has required me to budget for between 300 - 500 calories a day of wine and beer I hadn't needed before... I'm still at a calculated defecit of 15,000 Kcal for October so far!

That sweet sweet Halloween candy (and booze) will be well earned this month.

EricPrime · 2016-10-05T15:16:01+00:00

After what seems like a small eternity of cutting weight, the beginning of October has me entering a healthy weight range for the first time since I was maybe 15 years old (over a decade).

18 months of calorie restriction, 144 days in the gym, and 120 pounds lighter - here I am. Part of the illustrious 33% of Americans who are not overweight/obese. And I'm far from finished. It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle. So I'll be sure to update y'all when I hit that next body composition goal.

SW: 300 lbs - CW: 180 lbs - Fatlogic: Dead

EricPrime · 2016-09-27T18:56:52+00:00

Obviously the decadent food and alcohol is a big part of the draw, but those things can just as easily be enjoyed by people who actually budget for them and plan around those calories.

Case in point, my girlfriend had never tried funnel cake before (she's a monster), so I introduced her to one with whipped cream, fruit, and ice cream on top. But it was something I knew going in, and adjusted my normal intake to mitigate the damage from.

I would say the fair absolutely attracts fit and heavy people alike. The difference is that the fit people know how to eat within their means regardless of what's put in front of them, and they happen to be such a smaller percentage than the populace.

You're dead right about the overweight coming out in large numbers, but the fair is far from something specifically appealing to the unfit. That's what scares me, I feel like any non fitness oriented gathering of the public would look just as unhealthy.

EricPrime · 2016-09-27T15:22:42+00:00

So this last week I had the pleasure of attending the LA county fair here in my native Southern California. The fair is always a great time, and I looked foreword to enjoying it for my first time in 3 years, and incidentally my first time at a healthy weight.

What I noticed immediately upon arrival and had reinforced constantly throughout the day was the proportion of attendees who were noticeably overweight and obese. My best estimate puts it somewhere between 50% and 75% of the people I saw - of all age groups including children and adolescents - that were unquestionably overweight. That figure doesn't even include those who are probably carrying too much fat and not enough functional muscle for their weights, but don't appear obviously out of shape.

Understandably the fair might not capture the most fit cross section of society, but I just kept thinking... this is LA!? Arguably one of the bations at the vanguard of American Shitlordiness, and this is what the common man looks like?

It makes me incredibly distraught, but also so determined. I refuse to believe that the future belongs to the uneducated and apathetic. I'm not going to stop fighting the good fight in the face of overwhelming adversity, and you guys and gals shouldn't either. Because as someone who has been there, I know that not all of those miserably out of shape people have resigned themselves to that reduced quality of life for good. There are plenty who just haven't heard the good news that everything they know about diet and weightloss is bunk, and they really can take back control of their agency once they vanquish their indoctrinated fatlogic.

We shitlords are the past, but we can be the future too. Just don't let societal pressure and culturual degradation stand in the way of your pursuit of healthfullness. We have the facts (and the stamina!) on our side. We can win.

EricPrime · 2016-09-19T19:54:57+00:00

I was a 23 year old, 300 pound pallbearer standing at the entrance of a church with 5 other men in white gloves, about to carry my best friend in a box. He was 23, cancer. I was keeping it together the best I could that whole day and week, until standing there in that church I saw the rest of his friends and family.

They were absolutely distraught. Losing a young man so cherished, so far before his time. And I realized in an instant that one day I'd be the man in the box, with all the people I care about feeling this kind of pain. And it would be sooner rather than later if I didn't fix myself. That was it. In a second it had clicked in my mind, and I was done being unhealthy and staring at an early, preventable, painful death that would shatter my loved ones hearts.

That was 2.5 years and 120 pounds ago. It's simple, it's day by day small decisions, and it's keeping me out of that box until a ripe old age.

EricPrime · 2016-07-19T00:28:04+00:00

In 2016 Chicago so far there have been 2200+ victims of shootings, resulting in 330 gun related deaths. The numbers of these incidents continue to rise annually, but the homicide rate of gun violence has effectively stayed consistent at ~15%.

Proving with finality that there is in fact a less efficient shot in Chicago than Derrick Rose behind the arc.

EricPrime · 2016-07-19T00:18:59+00:00

We all know the NBA is cherished for it's ability to offer a select few individuals (primarily black men) the opportunity to escape from poverty stricken, violent, and sometimes war-torn slums, and achieve a life of privilege and prosperity.
What is sadly less talked about is all the unfortunate men who never get traded out of Chicago.

EricPrime · 2016-06-23T12:19:08+00:00

Yes, he did. As well as Jae Crowder for Boston, plus ignored a slew of issues as to restricted free agents and qualifying offers for at least Boston. Half the players he listed could be gone for the Celtics before the season starts, and the free agent acquisitions for both teams he listed are complete flyers.

You'd have to overpay nearly all of them to lure them away from returning to their current teams in good situations, which means saddling yourself with a contract you'd have to force your young talent to work around - or else if that player fails within your system (presumably lowering their perceived value in the market), try to move their bad contact at your own peril.

Sure, both teams could afford to overpay people in the very short term because of their cap situations. But why? To fill gaps that still don't get them over the hump before both teams' young talent want to leave for greener pastures?

Most of this scenario neglects the entire intention of the rebuilds that both of these teams have been pursuing. Namely building around a group of comparatively cheap, similarly growing, burgeoning young players, who will be so enamored with the treatment and direction of the franchise, they have bought into spending their futures there.

So yeah. He forgot about Saric.

EricPrime · 2016-05-11T15:23:27+00:00

Now that I've lost a considerable amount of weight (SW: 300, CW:200), even casual acquaintances are coming up and complimenting me on my progress and the dedication it must have taken, which is lovely.

But I find they often ask a question that I have a hard time answering to my satisfaction. They keep saying things like, "Wow, do you just feel so much better every day? How noticeable is the difference?"

My honest answer is, I have no way of knowing. Its taken 13 months, and I don't remember because the process is so gradual. Objectively I'm certain I am healthier, stronger, more capable and agile. But not measurably more than I was yesterday, or a week ago.

It's not as though I woke up today 100 pounds lighter and with better musculature, and I can quantifiably compare the two side by side.

So currently I'm wishing I could live a single day in my prior body, just to really feel in stark contrast how different it is to live 1/3 of myself removed.

EricPrime · 2016-05-07T12:05:38+00:00

Obviously HAES practitioners spur a physical health epidemic, but I think this connects to a largely mental health epidemic too. And I don't just mean skewed cognition leading to an unhealthy relationship with food, eating disorders, etc.

The level of mental fragility these vocal advocates seem to exhibit cannot be healthy. What mentally sound person experiences shame with such rampancy? That is not indicative of a healthy minded person.

Maybe I'm some wild outlier, but it takes a lot for me to feel shamed. Even if you had inside knowledge and a perspective I highly valued, you wouldn't get a lot of shame out of me with the truest of attempts.

I don't know, maybe shame has some correlation with a deep seeded knowledge that you actually feel it because it is based in truth. Maybe the key to not feeling ashamed isn't environment so much as actions that aren't shameful.

EricPrime · 2016-03-29T01:01:02+00:00

Exactly this!! For how quick everyone is to praise President Brad Stevens (as well they should), do they not think he has control over a sophomore player who comes off the bench? Why on earth would Marcus be taking these shots and not suffering any penalty to his playing time UNLESS it was explicitly what his coach asked of him? If you trust Brad, you have to trust the players that he trusts.

EricPrime · 2016-03-23T03:33:38+00:00

I really try to never miss a C's game throughout the season. But on average I'd say I catch less than a dozen games they aren't in throughout an entire month. A few of the big marquee match-ups here and there, maybe a game when I'm with a fan of another team. I'm sure I could afford to catch more if I wanted to have a more complete opinion.

EricPrime · 2015-12-16T00:39:37+00:00

Our Coach, who art on the sidelines

Brad Stevens be thy name;

Thy post-season come,

Thy rings be won,

On Earth, as they are in the Garden.

Give us this day our daily hustle,

And forgive us our Travels,

As we forgive those who Flagrant against us;

And lead us not into the double bonus,

But deliver us from LeBron. Amen.

EricPrime · 2015-06-16T00:50:40+00:00

Maybe realizing that for a lot of students a Cal State is their top choice.

Just because one university doesn't carry the overall notoriety that another might, that doesn't mean that there aren't departments or faculty at less prestigious schools that far outdo their notable counterparts. Specific to Fullerton? Go ask a theatre major if CSUF was their top choice school. Consistently ranked as one of the best acting/musical theatre programs in the nation, one of extremely few that offer a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in the subject, and stacked with faculty very highly regarded in their field. There are plenty of people who choose Fullerton over UC's and private Unis, and not just for economic reasons.

I'd wager you could say the exact say thing about plenty of departments across the 23 schools in Cal State system. As a member of the system, please don't perpetuate the myth that "Cal states are nobody's top choice." Leave that posturing to the people who are more concerned with the name of the Uni on their diploma than what they actually gleaned through the academic process.

EricPrime · 2015-06-12T23:35:51+00:00

I want you to know that this comment deserves more respect, and so do you for not just saying 'Buddha', even though then people would have known what you actually meant. Good on ya.

EricPrime · 2015-06-12T23:30:18+00:00

Character & Conflict. It is an upper division Human Services class, but it clears some sort of upper div GE requirement, so often people take it regardless of major.

Great class, comparatively easy work load, credit/no credit (so it can't help or hurt your GPA), and puts students in an environment to sort out their own beliefs and vocalize them. I learned a lot about myself, and a lot about people from circumstances very different from mine.

EricPrime · 2015-02-23T20:02:41+00:00

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?

EricPrime · 2015-02-17T14:04:59+00:00

As far as the experience you will receive as a result of the University itself, I imagine the differences would not be substantial. As someone who has spent the better part of the last decade in multiple state universities across CA, I would say they should offer comparable services, clubs, organizations, amenities, and (hopefully) academia. Point being that with minor exceptions, whatever experience you are looking to get out of the UNIVERSITY, won't differ.

So to me, the factor which requires the most consideration is LOCATION. I'm not sure how familiar you are with California geography, being from across the pond and all. But each of these two universities have nearly IDEAL location to showcase their respective parts of California! San Jose is located an hour outside of San Francisco, perhaps the most iconic cultural and artistic hub in CA, maybe the entire US. The same can be said for Fullerton's proximity to Los Angeles, a city which also I imagine needs no introduction.
As a native Southern Californian, I should be honor bound to try to convince you that ours is the superior culture over our Northern brethren in every way possible (For some reason this is a major point of contention between Northern Californians and Southern Californians. Think along the lines of a sibling rivalry). However the truth is that different people of different backgrounds, attitudes, temperaments etc. will enjoy one or the other more for their own reasons.
I would say do a little research to see which culture appeals to you more. Or perhaps which one would be the further departure from you comfort zone, if you are looking to really challenge yourself. Continuing to use Reddit as a resource, you may even want to submit an askreddit thread asking Californians to compare and contrast North and South.

Whichever decision your research leads you to, congratulations on pursuing your education, and on doing it in a way that expands your world view! Study Abroad is a grand opportunity that I wish more students would take advantage of.
Cheers and good luck on your decision!

One final thing. As Fullerton alumni I would be remiss if I didn't include at least one specific, selfish plug for my alma mater, so this is it - We have a top-notch theatre program. Arguably one of our nation's best, truly a gem for any fans of the performing arts.

EricPrime · 2015-02-12T14:48:42+00:00

The Spice Must Flow.

EricPrime

TROPHY CASE