I caved - it’ll be 4 shakes today, can’t see it having any meaningful impact, but the dinner was delayed so it seemed sensible… necessary
W2d4 FM (I think, I’m confused 3 hours of broken sleep has me scrambled).
Conditioning: emom Burpee wgpus: 6, 5 - pager goes off, 45 mins later - 6,5,6,5,6,6,5,6,5,6 I think counting got confused, but definitely no less that that.
Deads - change of plan here, never been a fan of high rep deads and honestly now I’m taking a long run from far back with 5/3/1 %s I’m not training very heavy, so taking a run at one of Pwns old suggestions for me, block pulls progressing range each week.
This week, 1 X bumper 1 x regular plate raise:
60, 80, 100, 120kg x 5, 140kg x 3, 160kg x 1, 180kg x 5
180kg for 5 was the target, but they weren’t great, not happy with them, my belt (lever) is loose due to dropping weight, so that felt off, form wasn’t great, but this is a weight I can pull easily off the floor, so going to go in the opposite direction next week and increase the elevation, start higher and make sure I dominate it and maybe increase the reps slightly, then work back down.
Gs1:
BB row: 60kg x 12 x 3 sets
DB Squeeze press: 27.5kg x 12 x 3 sets
Cable crunch: 80kg x 12 x 3 sets
Skull crusher: 28kg x 8 x 3 sets
Ended there, had a friend using the gym so worked in the rows with him, weight was light, kept the form immaculate and focused on MMC. Other stuff was good, ran out of time to do the final GS or finisher work, nevermind.
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W3 D1 FM - bench 531
Poundstones: 20kg x 100 - completely unbroken - pr
Came in with quite a lot of elbow pain (suspect yesterday’s Burpee pull-ups), wasn’t sure how this would go, still had elbow pain and was a little painful to curl by rep 30, thought about jacking it in between 30 and 50, then just kept going, much less elbow pain now (not completely gone) the weird tonic that is poundstones.
Conditioning:
Emom - Sandbag over bar 75kg x 4 x 5 minutes, x 3 x 4 minutes.
4 was hard, kept it up until I hit the bar (51 inches) then on rep 4 of set 5 hit the bar and had to grind/man handle it over and had such little rest leading into set 6 I had to drop. Still good, have to work upwards from here.
Lats were fried here.
Bench: 5/3/1
60, 70, 80kg x 5, 90kg x 3, 100kg x 13
I think that might be a PR, almost certainly at this BW, last rep did have little bit of butt off bench was a grinder, but every other rep was solid, dizzy and seeing stars at the end, I’d guess that’s lack of cals, hitting PRs in a steep deficit makes me pretty excited about this year.
Gs1:
DB Inc (middle): 35kg x 12, 12, 11 (slipped with footing on last set)
Lat pulldown: 80kg X 15 x 3 sets
Ab rollout: 10 X 3 sets
Pinwheels: 10kg x 15 x 3 sets
Gs2:
DB flyes: 10kg x 15 x 2 sets
Cable row: 80kg x 15 x 2 sets
Hand back raises: 12, 15
Inc DB curl (medium): 10kg x 10 x 2 sets
I’ve given DB flyes some time, I think they’re pointless (for me at least) they can get canned off get some dips back in there. Hand back raises were a last minute change took them from Jeff C’s website, love them, they can stay. Elbows didn’t like curls so kept it light.
Coming into every training session right now with only 50g of protein (one meal/shake) and then sipping 25h of hbcd (or blood), this is only for a short period, and looks like we’re cancelling the cruise, but since I’ve started I’ll finish this cut - looking forward to gaining again already!
Carrying fatigue from yesterdays session, no helped lack of food and significant sleep deprivation. My training schedule is messed up and shouldn’t have these sessions back to back, but hey life happens when you’re tired, underfed and injured, no point making training happen in some perfect vacuum. No excuses getting it done.
Weight this am 201, sub 200 isn’t a place I love to be, but hey I’m losing fat & glycogen almost certainly no muscle/extremely little, so not point fixating on scale weight if it’s not muscle I don’t want it.
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I’ve had good success doing that as well. When i’ve really struggled for hunger i’ve eaten a plain can of tuna or a chicken breast instead of a shake to feel more full but with equal calories really.
Makes life easier and still get to eat an evening meal with the family!
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It’s the first time I’ve tried it, don’t particularly need to - I could probably do something more sensible and maybe even get better results, but I like the misery (I typed mindset but this is what came out, seems appropriate) and want to keep the time scale to a minimum.
I’ve actually managed to keep to 3x shakes a day, turns out that I just needed an extra shake to bridge to evening meal but didn’t need the pre bed shake, the chicken/tuna would be necessary and probably sensible if I were going to do this longer though that’s for the suggestion. Currently day 5 (I think?) I’m generally pushing the first shake to 11am/noon, then going 3pm & 6pm then dinner.
Anyone here got any experience/knowledge of pulse pressure, mine is frequently 55+ my BP is regularly around 110-120/55-65, not sure if that’s particularly worrying or not, I’m happy that the BP is in a good range, but the PP just seems on the higher range, and can be associated with negatives, I know ultra fit people tend to have a higher PP but that doesn’t exactly describe me.
If I told you that I put $100 under a rock outside, would you stop looking after turning over 1 rock?
Or would you keep turning over rocks until you found the $100?
Woops! That was supposed to be part of another discussion, to motivate you to not give up on getting huge arms.
Ah yea I see the confusion, and I’m only joking(ish) about giving up, but with limited time and effort it won’t stay high on the priority list for long.
@QuadQueen was about to tag you in another thread but thought I’d best check, it’s in the pharma section but about cholesterol - the poster is always a nice guy, but I know if you post about Sat Fat and cholesterol in that section it might end up a little nutty…are you up for that or shall I leave your name out?
I’m down! Thanks for asking first though!! 
Awesome!
Tagged!
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How much down time are you getting on these. Pretty sure 4 reps would leave me Zero !!
I was getting about 25/30 seconds, which stayed around the same when the reps dropped (I’d started slowing by then), I wasn’t lapping the bag, just one motion most of the way through.
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I don’t have a bar so I do these to the shoulder, takes a little longer.
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Well that settles it, next sandbag session will be to shoulder!
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Had a fairly busy morning, lots of moving around (chasing after a walking baby at a party, cleaning and clearing and taking stuff to the dump) had my first shake at 1200, second at 1430, definitely feel the lack of energy today, first time really noticing it, my usual days (m-f desk job) are more sedentary. Will probably have 4 shakes today (as I did yesterday as well) but that’s all good. Alongside the shakes I’m taking a greens style powder (well more brown than green but you know what I mean) and electrolytes once a day, trying to make sure I cover the nutritional bases, lots of green tea (probably got near 40 cups since I started 6 days ago) and omega 3s post evening meal.
Definitely learning my body and it’s responses right now, probably pushing a little hard today given the potential for front line emergency responses, I’ll grab a banana if the alerter goes off!
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First full week v-diet adjacent thing update:
Start with the headline, lost around 4/5lbs this week, I weigh in daily and so obviously there is fluctuations (and I didn’t really have a start weight just on average sit between 207 - 210) - weight 201 as of this morning.
Most of this will be the usual glycogen and water, there is almost no visible difference right now, maybe very slightly tighter I’m the midriff. #disappointedimnotstagereadyyet.
The hunger is real, at several points this week I’ve known I was pushing too far, I carried on regardless because I see this as a brief experiment, I’m definitely doing the rest of this week, I shall see if I’ll bother beyond that at the end, I know the v-diet was 28 days, not sure if the juice would be worth the squeeze at that point, we’ll see how my body goes this week.
Lessons:
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I do not love black coffee (when I drank coffee with milk I’d drink somewhere around 5-8 cups a day, down from 10+ when I implemented a 2pm cut off and also added a no coffee for 90-120 mins from waking). I can drink absurd amounts of green tea - I generally drink 2 cups of black coffee first then switch to green tea (and decaf green tea from 2pm).
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I can still perform well in a pretty extreme deficit… For a short period of time, I am hoping this can continue throughout the experiment. Hit what I think is a bench PR and kept up with the rest of the training as per schedule and no drop off.
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Having said the above, I’m pretty confident recovery is impaired - I have bicep DOMs (not something I even get that often) that’s lasted for days, when my training hasn’t even been different from standard - squats today, will be interesting to see if that has a similar effect (don’t normally suffer here either).
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I think I’m more tired than normal, hard to tell with a fairly chaotic lifestyle (baby wake ups, emergency call outs etc).
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I definitely have less energy than normal, I got tired doing regular stuff over the weekend, it’s a weird feeling.
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I do not enjoy this process. I don’t love feeling hungry for most of the waking day. I’d become well adjusted to eating 3+ times a day, eating very large meals and topping up with protein shakes as needed, I rarely of ever felt actually hungry, but I had become so well adapted I never struggled to eat the next meal.
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As the week progresses I feel more feint/famished more often, wondering if this will continue to get worse or level off.
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The family meal time has shifted to around 1730/1800 (It varies from 1830 - 2100 normally with the average probably being 1930) this is actually a real positive because the family as a whole get into bed earlier (I have my final shake of the day around 2130).
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I’ve upped my supplement game to hopefully cover the nutritional voids and expedite fat loss, some of this will help some of it will be snake oil, I don’t much care - I’ll take the placebo, morning first thing: Electrolytes + tyrosine (hoping to keep my brain firing a bit!), green tea caps and berberine (fat loss and blood sugar), with my first protein shake: a super foods style supplement (would be all biotest if I lived in the US) and forskolin (for fat loss - with food to ensure no digestive issues), if I’m training 25g of HBCD during, evening: omega 3s (4-6g with the evening meal because that’s the only meal with any fat and apparently having it with other fat is important) zma about 30-45 mins before the final shake. I have never really noticed anything from supplements, and this is no exception - so could all be a waste of money, but it’s a short period of time so happy to experiment, will ditch green tea, super foods and forskolin at the end off this, will keep the berberine up until my next hbac1 which I’ll probably run in a few months time and if it works keep it, the zma and omegas will stay (tend to keep omegas all the time, zma if I remember). My supplements are definitely majoring in the minors, I recognise that.
That’s all the TLDR: I’m losing weight, it’s interesting.
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Not trying to be too cheeky here, but what are you even trying to accomplish? 90% of what I get from your logging is that you are mainly focused on the aesthetics, and yet you are miserable when doing so. Have I got it wrong?
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Who knows, maybe I just enjoy the misery!
I am wanting to look good, I also need to be able to move reasonably well and probably still need to have a better base of CV fitness than I do, I also want to be strong.
Current idea is to get lean (like 10-12%, yes BF is a nigh on pointless measure but gives you the visual idea) and then go back to gaining, this was primarily with the idea that I was going to be on a cruise in May, that’s not happening now, but I’ve started so I’ll finish.
Training is evolving but keeps my all my general aims on the table.
To be frank I’d much rather do none of this, eat absolute junk, not have to get sweaty or out of breath or have to lift heavy things, but I’d also rather not have a full time job, but I need to pay the bills and the same principle applies to training and eating, might not like it, but I like the alternative less.
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