I’ve been trying to increase my meal frequency and volume the past few days but I’m still finding myself hungry pretty often. During yesterday’s workout my stomach was growling pretty much the whole time… I’m wondering if I’m still not eating quite enough for the work being done, as I weighed 207lb before bed last night.
I’m finding it a little bit difficult to justify the cost of the food and amount of preparation time to eat the way I want to eat and gain weight.
This is why I think buying, say, half a cow from a local farmer is a great option. If you have freezer space, you can save tons of money and get even higher quality meat.
I don’t know what your prep looks like, but cooking protein in bulk every couple of weeks and then refrigerating and freezing it works well for me.
You’ve gone through a VERY intense growth cycle and your metabolism is on fire right now. Some time on maintenance or even fat loss may have some benefits. You can actually use it to drop your metabolic rate a touch and make it so that you get a greater impact out of less food. Justin Harris talks about doing this in reverse (building your metabolism during growing phases so you can lose fat on higher cals).
This is something I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t pulled the trigger on just yet. I have a few relatives that are getting a whole cow within the next month or two and will have a ton of lean ground to sell so I was going to pick some up… until then I’m kind of stuck I think.
I normally cook dinners daily, and lunches are done every few days. I’ll cook up a few lbs of ground Monday and Wednesday and take what I need for lunch. My main issue at this point is eating while at home… I eat some stuff when I get home from work, lift, eat dinner and then I feel like I should add another meal in after dinner. Maybe adding more to breakfast would be the easiest way to add cals in.
Interesting, I’ll check out what justin harris has written on the subject in the next day or two, that’s a pretty cool concept.
I feel as though I’m kind of hanging around maintenance right now as I’m back to eating how I was before I cut calories though. I don’t think I’ve actually gained any weight at all throughout this entire deepwater run haha. I’ve definitely put on muscle, but I think after all is said and done I’m down a few lbs.
I honestly think a week or two off from high intensity lifting is just what I need to give myself a sort of reset. Let my body relax, absorb some nutrients and actually repair myself after these past 14-15 weeks of torture.
You’re eating your way through hell, once you get out of hell things will normalize a bit.
Do you ever do chicken thighs? They’re usually pretty cheap, easy to toss on a grill, and have a decent amount more fat than breasts.
Cheap +1
Yeah I do every once and a while. I have been buying whole pre marinated chickens lately just because they taste good and are a nice pallette changer from all the beef I’m eating. I used to eat a ton of thighs but stopped for whatever reason, good call I’ll probably pick some up after vaca
Deepwater Advanced
W3D2
Pull up 13, 11, 9, 3 min rest
Strict press 5x10 at 105lb 4 min rest
BB curl (slow and controlled, zero body english) 5x10 at 65lb, 2 min rest
Abs
I am definitely losing that spark I had when I first started deepwater haha. I really am not looking forward to lifting whatsoever this weekend. I think I’m already checked out and in vacation mode, work wise and life wise. Gotta push through the last few days though.
My shoulders are still giving me some issues, specifically on the strict presses. Very uncomfortable but not in a muscular/pump way. I have to do arm circles after the sets and I’m noticing lots of popping going on in my ankles, knees, shoulders and wrists right now.
Oh man that sucks!
Good thing you can take some time away for the wedding…
Deepwater Advanced
W3D3
Flat bench, 4 min rest at 180lb, 2x10, 1x9.5
CGBP, 2 min rest at 155lb 2x10, 4 min rest 1x10
Incline, 2 min rest 1x5 at 135lb, 350 set at 95lb- 22, 18, 12
Push up, 2 min rest, 13, 10.5, 8
Abs
I was So. Damn. Close. To getting that last rep of 180. It was stuck halfway and my triceps just gave out after fighting it for what felt like forever.
Took an extra couple minutes of rest on CGBP last set to eat a little bit.
Incline press at 135 was putting my shoulders in some serious pain, I decided to drop weight back and just do a 350 set.
Overall pretty pleased with today.
So you should be my man. You’re a fucking killing machine
What kind of safety setup do you have for bench? I am sorry to say I’ve never benched to true failure… fear of getting pinned (or embarrassed, more accurately).
Which would explain why my bench is so weak lol.
The rack has a couple adjustable arms that you can set to whatever height you want. They’re not tall enough for squats unfortunately. I’ve had a few close calls forgetting to set the safety arms a while back… had to do the roll, which is incredibly uncomfortable and honestly scary because I lift alone. Luckily my bench was/is garbage so it wasn’t that heavy, but scraping 170lbs of metal down your body absolutely sucks.
I try to be sure to set the safety arms before I sit on my bench for the first warm up sets… but I forget sometimes. There have been a few times after racking the second 180 DW set and I realize I didn’t set them up, which would really be terrible if I failed.
Also, I wouldn’t be embarrassed dude! If you’re going to legitimate failure, you’re likely trying harder than every other person in the gym.
Thanks dude, still trying to give it 100%. Advanced has been rough on me haha
I have yet another instance of poor planning on my part. Just went through my calendar to put in PTO for my vacation in July. I’ll have 6 or 7 weeks that I’ll be able to train between the wedding and my vacation. That means (if I choose to finish DW) 3 weeks of deepwater and then 3 weeks of fuckarounditis…
I’m not sure how I feel about that. If I were to cut DW advanced short, I’d have a 6 week block where I’d be able to tackle a short program. Thinking back to a previous post…
I’m not sure that doing 3 weeks of DW advanced is going to get me any closer to my goals. Might be cool to hit some PRs but again… is that really what I need to do at this point? I should also mention my infatuation with the program has all but fizzled out these past few weeks. I think I need a change up. Anything that is not deepwater.
Not sure what the.point of this post is other than to just brain vomit. I have a few ideas of some short programs I’d like to do, but not sure if I want to commit to any at this point without gauging how I feel/time issues after I get back.
You could try and finish deep water, then jump into 1 cycle of some 5/3/1 program
Or if you had 4 weeks, maybe even something like the 10k swing challenge might be a nice way to change things up ??
I also think that you should use this time after the wedding to do something else. A short program with a different mentality than Deep Water, a bit more enjoyable and less extreme perhaps ahah (who screamed MountainDog???). Honestl’y I’d think opposite training, so perhaps “Crossfit for Meatheads”, some CT stuff or something
You could just fuck about for 3 weeks, hit some heavy lifts, have fun, then start a new programme mentally fresh.
Stop Deep Water. You got what you need out of it.
You could do Super Squats for 6 weeks to keep up the insanity or do 2 cycles of a 5/3/1 program.
531 was actually along the lines of what I was thinking…
I don’t have a kettlebell unfortunately and have never used one, or seen one in person for that matter. I’d have no idea what to do with it haha.
I haven’t checked out any of john meadows stuff but I definitely will, I’ve seen his stuff mentioned a lot on here. Never read through a CT program either… I’m fairly limited on equipment too, not sure if that matters.
This was also on my radar… just hit the weight room when I feel like it and do whatever I want. I haven’t ever done that before.
I’ve never read through super squats but I will. From what I’ve seen of @zeptrey running it, it looks pretty intense… kind of right up my alley.
I honestly do want to keep the insanity up, just not with DW. It’s kicking me while I’m down at this point.
My initial and knee jerk thought this morning when seeing 6 free weeks was BtM. If I do it, I need to be sure my diet is 110% on point, though. I’m also not sure what my body “needs” at this point, or after a week off. I know for a fact I’m going to be itching to lift when I get back.