This is a guest post from John Doe over at John Doe Bodybuilding.
I am not a huge fan of marijuana.
I currently do not smoke marijuana due to drug testing at my job and the ramifications of getting caught for using it.
Unfortunately marijuana is not legal where I live.
But there was a time back when I used marijuana.
However, I used marijuana like a tool to get 2 things accomplished: STAYING HUNGRY IN ORDER TO EAT MORE FOOD TO GROW LARGER, AND HITTING IT BEFORE BEDTIME TO HELP ME FALL ASLEEP!
Aside from using marijuana for those 2 things, I just didn’t use it at any other time of the day outside of the evenings.
I wasn’t smoking it during my work hours and I wasn’t just smoking to get high.
Actually, I do not like the feeling of being high.
A little high is fine with me, but when I feel out of my head I don’t like how it feels. I’m not a productive person when I’m stoned.
But that is just my reaction to it, I’ve seen plenty of people who can get in the zone on the stuff and just focus on things in a strange sort of way that I never could.
I know a tattoo artist who is like that: every bit of ink he put on me is top notch and he was high as hell when he did it all.
I would see the quality of the art and it would blow my mind that he was so good at it, yet was high as a kite all the time!
As for myself, I was more in the zone when microdosing LSD and mushrooms, but marijuana just wasn’t my thing outside of helping me eat more and helping me sleep better.
I think some of the simplest things can be the most effective things for people bodybuilding.
It was no secret that marijuana made me hungry so I knew if I ate a post workout meal and then smoked, an hour later I was going to be hitting up a drive-thru window for a couple value meals and eating those also.
Despite what the fitness industry tells you, growing larger isn’t always about eating clean.
Calories are king, and some people have a difficult time consuming the amount of calories necessary to grow larger!
So in my case, back when I was weighing 230+ lbs of mostly muscle mass (still not fat despite pounding about 6,000-8,000 calories a day) I found marijuana as a beneficial tool to stimulate my appetite and sleep better in order to recover from my workouts.
I have a difficult time sleeping without the assistance of some drug right now.
As we get older our sleep seems to get worse. Much of this is due to stress and also low levels of growth hormone in our bodies.
This is why kids sleep great and as adults we sleep like shit; the levels of human growth hormone are basically non-existent as we age.
So now, because I can’t use a couple hits of weed as a tool to help me sleep, I’m prescribed xanax.
I started with 1/2 mg script and it quickly increased to 1 mg. I felt nothing on 1/2 mg.
I began taking 1 mg before bed, and my script allotted me 2 mg on some days, but I couldn’t take 2 mg everyday or I would run out of it before my next refill.
Over the course of the year following my prescription for xanax, the dosage increased to 2 mg xanax bars and I had enough to use 2 mg twice a day.
If I took 4 mg at one time it would knock me out so hard that I would often fall asleep hunched over at my computer.
I’ll admit it, I’m hooked on xanax. Xanax has me by the fucking balls and the biggest side effects are when I DO NOT HAVE IT. I DREAD NOT HAVING IT!
If I do not take xanax at night I simply won’t fall asleep. I’ll literally be awake for 2-3 days straight, have black circles under my eyes, and feel like absolute shit.
Marijuana doesn’t do this to people. It’s not like if you don’t have weed you won’t get tired still.
It just helps people fall asleep a little easier, but nothing to the degree of xanax in my opinion.
Now I’m a little older and gaining muscle isn’t a priority. Hey, I like being a big guy, but health is #1 now.
Carrying around a lot of mass and body-weight just isn’t something I want my heart to have to do my entire life.
But when I was going through the process of trying to gain muscle and size I used to use cannabis as STRICTLY A TOOL FOR HUNGER STIMULATION AND SLEEP!
So I cannot say it doesn’t have it’s benefits when it’s used as a tool for growth.
I was never what you’d call a “pot-head” or someone who purchased all sorts of crazy paraphernalia to smoke with.
I just had a basic pipe and a few hits an evening was all it took. Hell, I can remember dime bags lasting me a week or more!
So take this for what it’s worth, but as a bodybuilder marijuana did have its place in the size and recovery game.
If building your body is something you’re interested, then check out my blog where I talk about all different aspects of working out and life in general.
