The Care and Feeding Of Protein People

It’s weird how quickly things become your new normal. A year ago Rob hadn’t even started wrestling school. 6 months ago he wasn’t in any of the shows. Yet the Saturday night shows have been paused for a few weeks, and I still find myself trying to adjust to having Saturday nights free again.

Protein Pancakes

For a few weekends, Rob was completely off, which made for some lovely date nights. This past Saturday he was helping with a show out of town, so I had a Saturday to myself with no show to attend, and it felt odd. I didn’t realize how odd until I was doing my meal planning and realized oh yes, I could try out this new breakfast casserole recipe and have time to prep it Saturday night!

This worked out well because the newest update in our household is an obsession with protein, and this particular recipe packed in some extra protein with eggs & cottage cheese.

It might surprise you but I was actually the first one on the protein train. I started tracking my macros a few months ago, and since I’ve been adding in more strength training exercises I’ve been working to eat more protein. This was EXTREMELY hard for me at first, because apparently, even with eating a little better the last few years, I’ve lived most of my life on a diet of carbs & fat. Actually I don’t know why this is shocking, because off the top of my head some of my favorite foods are mac & cheese, $1 ramen packets, cheesy broccoli soup, bacon, and cheesy Red Lobster biscuits. Mmmm.

Protein Mini Muffins

It probably doesn’t help that I HATE touching raw meat, so I tend to go for recipes that don’t involve a lot of that. It took me a bit to figure out how to incorporate more protein into meals, but once I got that down it became much easier to hit my daily target.

But during this down period, Rob has been looking at other areas where he could improve, and one of those seems to be nutrition! Shockingly, the protein needs of a 6’3” wrestler-in-training are MUCH higher than a 5’4” semi-active girl. And full confession, my habit the last few months to up the calorie count for his meals has been to add more carbs & cheese. Carbs and cheese everywhere!

So here we are, potentially entering a world where we need to feed a beast in training over 200g of protein a day. My reaction to this?

PUT. PROTEIN. IN. EVERYTHING.

AND YES, Protein Mini Donuts

In the last week I discovered that while I’m pretty sure I don’t actually like cottage cheese, I can throw in a bunch of foods and just make them creamier and protein-y-er (yes, I’m making that a word). I’ve started baking more with my favorite protein powder. I’ve exploring new snacks with greek yogurt. I am all about that protein, ‘bout that protein, low-fat though.

And honestly I’m having so much fun! I got out of the habit of baking last year, and playing around with it more plus trying all sorts of new recipes I would have previously vetoed immediately has been a blast. It also continues to make it easier for me to meet my goals, which is always a nice benefit. If you have any good recipes or protein snack suggestions, let me know!

Because the Rules Are For Breaking

“Wait, is that even legal??”

This was a question posed over and over again by the drunken out-of-towners behind me at Rob’s last wrestling show. I refrained from answering, both because I’m not the type to randomly engage strangers in conversation and because I. DON’T. KNOW.

Wrestling has become my boyfriend’s new baseball in the sense that at any moment he can spout off an untold number of statistics, references, and names that I’ve never heard of. Our future children’s bedtime stories will probably be blow by blow descriptions of matches that happened more than a decade previously. While I’m always willing to listen, when it comes to actually remembering these many details I have hence taken the approach of asking myself “does this matter to me.”

Statistics are easy because as a dyslexic who can barely memorize her own address, I immediately mark them as information I will not be retaining and move on. Names are more challenging because while I like some of the story aspects of current (and maybe some former, undecided) wrestlers and am happy to keep a loose grasp of who’s who in memory, I tend to mix up names. I confuse Braun Strowman and Brock Lesnar so often my boyfriend has had to resort to calling them “BB” and “Beard” so I can keep them straight.

But I still can’t decide whether or not I really need to know and understand the rules of wrestling.

Hear me out here. First of all, my understanding of the rules doesn’t change the fact that whether someone wins or loses seems to be 100% determined by the ref. This isn’t football where there’s a booth where someone’s reviewing key ref decisions in those final moments. The referee doesn’t see that your shoulder wasn’t fully on the mat? Doesn’t matter, you’re still out. 

I don’t even really have a problem with this piece of it. I think it allows other spectators to get more invested (remind me someday to tell you a story about my brother and soccer, and how this ties in with my views on wrestling). Also, they can do some really fun storytelling around it. Even without much background on Baron Corbin or current storylines (basically knowing just that he seems to be a dick), I CACKLED watching this match because the ref (whom Baron Corbin has apparently wronged in the past) purposely just turns away and messes with the ring so everyone can beat the crap out of Corbin. That’s fun/funny stuff. 

Kendo sticks are being illegally used FAR too often

The second thing to consider is that the rules of wrestling vary by match. I *think* there are some standard rules, but then sometimes they shout things like “Texas tornado!” or “last man standing” or “steel cage” or “viagra on a pole” and that completely changes what’s legal.

The third and probably most important thing, is that what matters more to me is not so much whether Rob wins or loses, but how beat up he’s getting. In theory, knowing the match rules and whether or not someone is allowed to say hit him with a chair would matter.

But here’s the biggest part of the dilemma - DOES it actually matter when half the time the heels go rogue, take advantage of the ref looking away or the match being over, and BEAT THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF HIM ANYWAYS?!

I do think the rules matter, but not necessarily to me. If anything, they’re more useful for identifying heels versus faces. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Come back next time for another fun journey into wrestling terms and what makes a good guy!

If It Looks Like a Trash Can, It's A Freaking Trash Can

Here’s the thing that’s been so weird for me so far with wrestling - the line between fact and fiction is really, really blurred. It’s so blurred, that wrestling has its own term for events/stories/personas that are fake but portrayed as real. This is known as kayfabe. Kayfabe in general (and the whole crazy wrestling world lexicon) will certainly be discussed more on this blog, but I’m currently focused on one specific aspect of it.

Injuries.

There are two important things to remember about professional wrestling:

1. It’s a dramatic story.
2. It involves very real and very intense feats of athleticism. 

Wrestling absolutely qualifies as a sport according to both the Google definition (an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment) and my personal definition as determined during college (an activity wherein it is possible for your nipples to bleed). Like any sport, injuries are possible. Unlike other sports, injuries are frequently faked.

I’m going to pull back for a minute and remind my charming audience that I am new to professional wrestling and still have very limited exposure, so forgive me (and let me know) if I say something that seems completely off the wall. But in my short time it seems to me that wrestling, at least when viewed by the general public, has the-boy-who-cried-wolf syndrome. ALL injuries are thought to be fake because they so often ARE fake. 

Yes, that's a real trash can that was crushed by sudden head impact.

Whether or not the injury is real or fake probably doesn’t matter to you personally when it’s some rando on the screen. This got super real though to me and family/friends as soon as Rob got in the ring. His first match ended with an injury, which meant I was getting flooded with texts asking “is he okay?” “was that real?” “is he actually hurt?” etc.

Rob loves the idea of kayfabe. He wants to preserve the story. So that jerk let us all stew for QUITE AWHILE in our worried state.

Initially, I figured he was fine. This was mainly because even before Rob started wrestling training, he started practicing fake injuries at home. I had been preconditioned by MONTHS of him writhing in agony but actually being totally fine. Then, he wouldn’t respond, and as more and more people reiterated to me just how bad it looked when he took the final hit, I started to doubt myself.

Luckily in this particular case, he was in fact fine. Unluckily, it now seems like many of these other observers have adopted the “oh it’s fake” mindframe in regards to injuries.

Meanwhile the more he wrestles the more maddening becomes the knowledge that although they are exaggerating/faking a lot of injuries every match, at the same exact time the wrestlers are downplaying/hiding all the real pain they’re dealing with. Because it’s an intense sport you have all the typical bad/sore knee/ankle/shoulder whatnot going on. Because it’s wrestling, you also have them hitting each other with REAL trash cans/kendo sticks/chairs on a fairly regular basis.

I’ve watched like all of 4-5 live matches so far and there has been to my knowledge at least 2 real injuries already. Probably more. While wrestlers are quick to play up kayfabe they’re a freaking tight-lipped group on everything else.

I think what this all boils down to is that if you come up to me and try in any way to downplay the very real toll wrestling is taking on my boyfriend’s body, I will be forced to hit you with one of those “fake” chairs they use and see how your butt deals with it.

I am bad at pictures and lighting, but there are at least 4 bruised areas here.

 

The Most Important Difference Between Hockey and Wrestling

While there has certainly been a number of changes in our day to day since Rob started wrestling school, the first and most obvious difference was laundry.

I don’t know if you know this, but wrestlers get all up close and personal with each other. Apparently smelling fresh and clean is a really big deal. I mean this makes sense, but prior to Rob wrestling my only other significant experience with someone’s athletic interests was my brother & hockey. According to my brother and his friends, never washing your gear and smelling utterly disgusting is a crucial part of the sport. I’ve been in the front seat of their car with the gear way back in the trunk, and still, regretfully, would catch whiffs of sweaty men.

So while it’s good that this is not the same attitude for wrestlers, the washing needs of wrestling gear that should smell sparkling fresh despite ~3 hours of hard sweating is more intense than what we were previously doing. The pads in particular weren’t quite cutting it with the normal laundry process. Rob did some googling, and we now wash workout clothes separate with vinegar. Yes, vinegar. Vinegar saves lives, people (or at least noses).

The tools of the wrestling-laundry trade

Before wrestling school started, I was working out almost every day of the week and Rob was working out every weekday, so we already had a decent amount of workout-based laundry. When wrestling school started, it added workouts (and the need for more fresh clothes) every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night. It also spurred on my motivation to keep up with my ever-more-fit boyfriend and kept me consistent with now-daily workouts. As you can imagine, our workout laundry bin was soon overflowing.

It also meant being cognizant of when it was wrestling school night to make sure there were clean clothes available. I was not particularly diligent about workout clothes laundry prior to this because I am… lazy? Efficient? A shopaholic? I’m not sure what word best describes the state of my wardrobe, by which I mean to say that I overbuy clothes. I’ve recently cut down on extra clothing, and I think I still have at least 15 sports bras. Actually I changed my mind, lazy probably is the best word for this scenario. If the impossible DID happen and I ran out of clean workout clothes that was a completely viable reason for me to skip a workout.

I would be mortified though if ring o’clock rolled around and we suddenly remembered there wasn’t any fresh gear.

It’s not that trying to plan around clean laundry is a big deal, but it was a change in mindset, and for me, it marked the first big mental shift where I started to prioritize wrestling.

I suppose it would have been less work if Rob had suddenly developed an interest in hockey, but every time I think about car rides with my brother I SUPER appreciate that wrestlers seem to be the more cleanly athletes of the two groups.

It Starts Somewhere

Scarcely a year ago, I only knew 3 things about wrestling.

1. It existed.
2. It was somehow distinct from other fight-y things because it was “fake.”
3. The Rock, Hulk Hogan, and some guy from Predator were all former wrestlers turned actors according to my family & friends.

It’s hard to say what’s more astonishing to me a year later - that my boyfriend is training to be a wrestler and I KNOW STUFF about it, or that when I talk to people about my boyfriend training to be a wrestler, more often than not they respond with something along the lines of “I used to watch wrestling when I was a kid!”

Where was I as a child? How did I miss out on this phenomenon? Why did these people stop watching when they got older?

All questions I ponder, but can’t answer.

But there is a question these people keep asking me in return - “what’s that like, having your boyfriend doing wrestling all of a sudden?”

Ah friends, now that I CAN answer, but it will take some time. So stay tuned if you’re interested in the tale of a wrestler’s road to the ring, as told from those ringside. It starts with… laundry.