A tale of two photos. 2 days apart. The start of me thinking about leaning up a bit.
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W5D1 - Medium Volume
Press (85%): 105# x 5 x 5
17” Axle Rack Pulls (76%): 320# x 4 x 5
Backbend Situps: 50# x 5 ← notable PR
H2H KB Swings: 80# x 26 (13 each hand)
Upper-back Meadows Rows: 45# x 9 (each side)
Leaning Cable Overhead Extensions: 15# x 8 (right then left)
Pushdowns: 15# x 9 (right then left)
Notes:
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started this week on a Tuesday because guests.
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105 was certainly easier than last time. Seems like progress.
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50# on these backbend situps! Heavier setting up for it than actually doing it. Head touched the ground on every rep. Still mentally hard to believe this was even possible. Body didn’t think much of it.
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W5D2 - Low Volume
Press (89%): 110# x 5, 4, 3.5 ← 5 lb PR
17” Axle Rack Pulls (79%): 335# x 3 x 5
Backbend Situps: 50# x 6
H2H KB Swings: 80# x 28 (14 each hand)
Upper-back Meadows Rows: 45# x 10 (each side)
Leaning Cable Overhead Extensions: 15# x 9 (right then left)
Pushdowns: 15# x 10 (right then left)
Notes:
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will finish the accessory stuff later -
true-ish 5RM today. Resetting the cycle. Couldn’t squeeze any more out on sets 2 and 3
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Went to Olympia for the weekend. This was lunch. Most of these are pretty local. About a third were really good.
Kids got steamed clams and grilled cheese.
Dinner was mostly sashimi, but barely photos. Hamachi, shima aji, chutoro, maguro, sake (salmon), madai, hirame. Also a roll that was basically shime saba nigiri (marinated mackerel).
Kids got a roll that was basically fried lobster on California roll. One kid loves miso soup. The other loves raw salmon and daikon. 
I also learned clams have more protein than oysters per weight.
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W5D3 - High Volume DL
17” Axle Rack Pulls (83%): 350# x 3 x 5
Press (62%): 80# x 5 x 5
17” Axle Rack Pulls: 350# x 3 x 5
Backbend Situps: 50# x 7
H2H KB Swings: 80# x 30 (15 each hand)
Upper-back Meadows Rows: 45# x 11 (each side)
Leaning Cable Overhead Extensions: 15# x 10 (right then left)
Pushdowns: 15# x 11 (right then left)
Wide-grip Upright Rows: 80# x 10
Notes:
- went fine I guess. Pulls starting to be a bit heavy. Presses didn’t feel super great until set 3, and even then not super. Probably still need a session or two to fully deload from the heaviness.
Pain/stretching/mobility:
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I still have a thing by my right lowest rib. Not sure if the rib or abs or diaphragm or something else altogether. Feels bad on a few pulls. Felt bad at the beginning of swings.
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on that note, I’m still twisted. I think it’s a tight left psoas though now. Stretched between sets.
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other pain things. Right rhomboid or lower trap. Goes away, comes back, goes away, etc. Sometimes left low back.
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warmups currently consist of band pullaparts and dislocates. Bird dogs before pulls.
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somewhat less consistently I’m stretching the right gracilis and left psoas. And a thing where I lay on the ground with my lower legs on a chair (there’s an article that calls this “static back”.) While doing that I use 2.5 lb plates in my hands and stretch external rotation and do “wall slides”. This seems to be helping shoulder positioning. Getting better at the start each time I do this.
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oh. Also a new thing. Slight cramping in my feet during the pulls. Kind of weird.
EDIT:
Just realized this was the highest tonnage day yet.
Presses: 2,000
Pulls: 10,500
Total: 12,500
Used Surge. Didn’t seem too hard though. 6-ish minute rests between pull sets, 2-ish between press sets.
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Lol. Famous last words. Today was rough. Tired and even an unplanned nap. Not excessively sore, just sleepy, slow and lethargic.
So I’m looking at leaning up a bit. Now is as good a time as any. This cycling to the first failure on a set of five should autoregulate fine.
That said, today was definitely not the day to cut calories… I corrected that mistake about halfway through the day.
I bought some MD because my general strategy is still to increase protein while cutting. I’m not a huge fan of the vanilla and my throat does have some slight reaction to something in it.
I cross referenced the Velocity Diet. A flameout with each shake is doable, and I already was trying out the curcumin (it seems to work well for me as an analgesic). Basically if I just swap out my whole milk shakers with 1.5 scoop MD shakes, this will probably work for me.
Weights. 7-day averages.
Jan 10: 152.7
Feb 1: 154.9
Mar 1: 158.3
Apr 1: 159.8
Apr 7: 160.9
I mean this was a good trend. But if I want to lean up by June it’s about the same whether I do it now and go back to gaining or wait.
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Everyone else is at work/school today but me. Lots of random thoughts, more negative than positive. Mostly I feel like it’s slow progress all around with every goal. But I’m also pretty certain my food/sleep/recovery is affecting thought patterns strongly right now.
W6D1 - Low Volume
Press (66%): 85# x 3 x 5
17" Axle Rack Pulls (86%): 365# x 3 x 5
Backbend Situps: 50# x 8
H2H KB Swings: 80# x 32 (16 each hand)
Upper-back Meadows Rows: 45# x 12 (each side)
High Cable Overhead Extensions: 15# x 12 (right then left)
Pushdowns: 15# x 12 (right then left)
Wide-grip Upright Rows: 85# x 9
Workout Notes:
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Despite any negativity above and below, the pressing and pulling went well.
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Had a massage this morning, and the rib thing is some bound up connective tissue from my abs. She fixed that up pretty well. It didn’t bug me at all during this workout.
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Mood was much improved after this session.
Diet Notes:
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Morning was 2x 200mg caffeine pills, 2x curcumin, 1x flameout, 1.5 scoop MD shake. Not super agreeable. Going to drop the caffeine to 1x.
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I’ve been reliant on a beverage in the mornings to quell nausea for years. I get excess mucous and coughing. Water only makes it worse. When I was younger this was OJ (or milk). In the previous decade it’s typically been some energy drink, preferably a juice based one. I only need a few sips, probably not even an ounce. Never made sense of it. Anyway, this morning wasn’t great since I didn’t have that.
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This once again reminds me my body is odd.
I actually have a soda stream for the carbonated water because the carbonation settles my stomach. As do carbonated energy drinks.
Over time (years) my body has finally gotten used to flat water in most situations except the morning.
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Every body is definitely different and non-caffeinated carbonation in easier to tolerate than the high octane stuff, so that may have something to do with it too.
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I was looking back at when @alex_uk ran his “v-diet adjacent” diet earlier this year. I wasn’t paying close attention to the details at the time.
While there, I ran across this:
Not because of that, but oddly coincidental, I had Thai Boat Noodles for lunch.
Beef, pork meatballs, gai lan, rice noodles, in a broth. The menu was deliberately vague, but wikipedia elaborates.
Boat noodles (Thai: ก๋วยเตี๋ยวเรือ, RTGS: kuaitiao ruea, pronounced [[kǔa̯j.tǐa̯w rɯ̄a̯]]) is a Thai style noodle dish with a strong flavor.
The soup is seasoned with pig or cow blood mixed with salt and spices (เลือดหมูสด (lueat mu sot) or เลือดเนื้อสด (lueat nuea sot)). The colour of the soup is similar to beef noodle soup (ก๋วยเตี๋ยวเนื้อ (kuaitiao nuea pueai)) but considerably thicker due to the blood added.
It’s a good soup.
Plus, this:
Blood consists predominantly of protein and water, and is sometimes called “liquid meat” because its composition is similar to that of lean meat.
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A more typical meal.
Pork chops brined for a couple hours in a 3:1 salt:sugar mix. Dried, cooked in some bacon fat and oil in a smoking hot pan. Removed the meat, cooked some sliced shallots for a bit while the pan was still searing, then deglazed with white vermouth and apple cider vinegar. Added the drippings from the resting meat. Reduced that down quite a bit, then coated the meat in it.
For the cauliflower. Preheated the oven to 375. Chopped it, put it in a bowl, coated with oil, salt, pepper, and a bit of paprika. Poured that onto a foil-lined tray and roasted it until it was tender and slightly browned. 45 minutes maybe?
I’m not a fan of thin cut chops, but the flavor and texture was good.
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My own v-diet-ish experiment and discussions of hunger signals has been interesting.
So a year ago, I used to be able to go pretty much until lunch time on a single energy drink. Not sugarfree. They say the brain needs glucose to function. I’ve done it both ways, and mine definitely needs it to function well. But no other food, no other calories. Wasn’t hungry for anything more.
In the more recent past, I’ve been drinking a shaker bottle of whole milk in the morning, along with the energy drink. Sometimes two shaker bottles of milk. Usually no solid food at all until lunch. On the weekends, sometimes a bit of bacon, or fried eggs, or scrambled eggs. Wasn’t hungry for anything more.
Now I’ve made two changes.
- whole milk → 1.5 scoop MD vanilla shake + flameout
- sugared energy drink → 200 mg caffeine pill
It’s been 3 days.
I’ve been somewhere between pretty hungry and very hungry.
Energy levels have been fine. Focus is decent. I have had some headaches.
It could be because of the drastic change in calories. 520 from the milk + 260 from the energy drink. From 780 to 165.
It could be carb intake. 41g from the milk + 62g from the energy drink. From 103 to 6.
But if this were about insulin, the milk + energy drink should leave me hungrier, right? Because of the super high spike?
It could be fat intake. 28g in the milk to 1.5g.
I suppose the fats would slow down digestion, so there’d be a constant drip of the sugars rather than a spike.
Or maybe something different altogether. Maybe my body is just used to extracting calories from liquids in the morning, and now it ramps up to do that and there’s nothing there.
What I think is interesting is the number of people who apparently don’t seem to be hungry with the MD shakes, that I’ve seen in logs and other reviews. Some of these people were actually eating a lot for breakfast before.
What time of day are you consuming your shakes in comparison to when you wake up and when you train?
The first is started within 15 minutes of waking up. I can’t drink it very fast. The vanilla is sickly sweet first thing in the morning. So it’s drunk over the next hour while wrangling kids, getting them into school, and getting my workday started.
The second is about 3 hours after waking.
Then Surge around training, which has been roughly 4-5 hours after waking up. Lunch is around the same time.
An hour or so later, another MD shake, and then one after dinner.
EDIT: this pattern with the shakes is what I was doing with the milk. I just swapped one for the other.
I can definitely see that having an impact. A slow drip of an already supposed to be slower digesting shake doesn’t really give you a solid bolus to digest.
You write lunch and dinner. Are these solid meals? If so, I see something of a bottleneck with the shakes and the meals. When I ran it with 2 meals a day, I wouldn’t have a shake after lunch: I’d go from lunch to dinner, and then have a shake after dinner.
Right now, it looks like you’re taking in 4 shakes, 1 serving of surge, and 2 meals per day. The most recent velocity diet was 4 shakes and one HSM, and, if using Surge, my understanding is that it was meant to replace one of the shakes. It may honestly be a situation where food is being consumed too frequently and causing the insulin spikes/blood sugar rise and falls that creates hunger.
For the early morning shake, I’d consider just skipping it if it’s a too do, or adding salt/cinnamon to take away some of the sweetness. Or nutmeg or the like. OR mix it with hot water and eat it like an oatmeal vs drinking it like a shake.
If having a HSM around training, I don’t see a need to drink a shake within an hour of the training. I’d truthfully cut the HSM out and stick with the surge and shake. Can always bankroll those calories later in the day to the dinner.
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My guess is it’s a wicked combo of a lower caloric load, and much lower amount of carbs and fat. Add to that, you’re hitting 200 mg of straight up caffeine which can increase appetite. Before you were buffering that load with the sugar in the drink and the higher overall carbs and fat.
Something you could try as a middle ground for a week is make your morning MD shake with 1 cup of whole milk. You’d be adding 150 calories and 8 grams of fat - so not a HUGE amount, but maybe just enough to take the edge off a little. Or you could do the shake as you are and take the caffeine pill with the milk. After a week, you can again try pulling that milk. Take more of a taper approach rather than a quick yank.
You just took a super major cut and fast - so, it’s gonna hurt. If you want to avoid that, slow and steady is probably going to be a better approach. We can definitely delve deeper into this, but those are my first thoughts!
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@T3hPwnisher and @QuadQueen thank you.
Once upon a time, I did actually lean up.
Reading my old logs, it appears like I kind of knew what I was doing. The actual food choices were pretty bad, but the methods weren’t.
(I did it mostly with fast food because I was a workaholic, my girlfriend had moved across the country, and nutrition info and consistency was easy.)
Averaged 1lb loss a week, tracked calories, scale weight, and managed based on trends not daily fluctuations. Did it for 5 weeks. Strength went up, scale weight went down.
Don’t remember being hungry or anything else being negatively affected. Didn’t log it if I was.
This time, crash diet! significant hunger! headaches!
Yeah, I know better.
What I should have done (and still can do) is swap out a single serving of milk with a shake. Let that settle for some days. Then another, etc. Keep everything else the same.
Maybe even kept the energy drink in.
What I will probably do is the first morning shake with milk (or a mix of water/milk), as suggested. No other milk.
I’m not tracking it but my gut feeling says I won’t be getting enough protein in without the milk. Sure, my lunches and dinner are predominately protein, but I doubt it’s enough to limit muscle loss. That’s why MD seemed like a good swap. Same volume of liquid intake, same habits, but higher protein and lower calories.
As far as the V diet, I was trying to meet somewhere in the middle. Some resemblance on the surface, but a different thing altogether. 2 solid meals, comparable morning caffeine but without the sugar, and shakes mainly for the protein-sparing effect.
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Keep us posted on how you proceed and if you ever want to really dig into this or anything, let me know. I’d be happy to chat with you!
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W6D2 - Medium Volume
Press (70%): 90# x 5 x 5
17" Axle Rack Pulls (90%): 380# x 4 x 5 ← new PR
Backbend Situps: 50# x 9
H2H KB Swings: 80# x 34 (17 each hand)
Upper-back Meadows Rows: 50# x 6 (each side)
High Cable Overhead Extensions: 17.5# x 6 (right then left)
Pushdowns: 17.5# x 6 (right then left)
Wide-grip Upright Rows: 85# x 10
Notes:
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Presses did not feel good. Moved slow, body hurt. Probably underfed, believe it or not!
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Pulls were good though. Heavy but moved. A bit of pulls/strains in some new places, left midback and sides under the ribs, but that was kind of expected and should feel fine in a day or two. Figured this cycle would top out here. Not yet I guess.
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congrats
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