Today was the first day during the prep that I felt pretty low energy all day, not “suffering” by any means yet, but felt like I was running on fumes. Fortunately it was a pretty light working day, didn’t have to be “on” very much outside of a couple zoom calls. My amazing wife also picked me up a coffee with a shot of espresso late morning which really helped get through the afternoon and the workout.
We’re about to complete week 7 and I’ve lost 10 pounds so far. I was listening to a podcast of Cliff’s recently where he was talking about the physical amount of fat cells someone has in their body, and how it can relate to how people feel while cutting. He compared two guys of equal weight and conditioning, but one grew up as a skinny, hard gainer, and the other grew up fat and lost weight (like me). The previously-fatter person has more fat cells in their body than the faster metabolism guy, so the previously-fatter guy will likely feel more hungry and run down at the same weight as the hard gainer. He then elaborated on how to make sure those people can still come in conditioned.
I definitely have experienced that. One of my fellow competitors back in 2017 became a good buddy, he competed 20 pounds lighter than me but was eating more calories and doing less cardio, had a fast metabolism.
So based on previous experience, I think I’m approaching that body fat set point that my body does want to go below. Fortunately tomorrow is a re-feed and within a week or two we should be going on a diet break and hanging at maintenance for a bit before resuming the cut.
In hard times I visualize the end goal, the look I’m going for, and continue to remind myself it’s part of the process and it’s supposed to feel this way to do it right.
Tonight I went back and re-read some of my 2017 Prep log: Rob's 2017 Contest Prep Thread
Reading through the journey of that season brings back a lot of memories, and also helps remind me I’ve been here before and to just keep pushing.