No way. Just more svelte, with a bigger bench!
3/28/2025
Back/Biceps
Heavy Trap Bar Rows
Heavy Pulldowns
Enough curls to keep me honest
As @FlatsFarmer said, my core has gone to shit (he may not have said those exact words), I’ve lost a lot of bracing power and could feel it on the rows especially. Biceps tend to take a back seat to everything, they’re in the same category as calves for me 
I do just enough to say I did them and keep things healthy. Off to training and a hotel for two weeks, it’s got dumbbells, but was hoping for a pull up bar, hoping I can cobble something together.
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3/30/2025
Weight: 231
Bench
4 x 5 x 275
Planned on 5 x 5, but went to unrack the 5th set and apparently just mentally checked out haha last lift before I head to KC and am banished to a hotel gym for two weeks, looking at it as a less than voluntary de-load period. Get to expense all my food, so am going to try and focus on better dietary choices and portion control the next two weeks, along with mustache development (cuz priorities, and no matter how awful my wife says it is… I know deep, deep down… she digs it )
Would like to see low 220s on the scale by April 11, but if you’ve read my log at all, then you know my dietary discipline is like a fart in the wind.
3/31/25
Hotel Gym Diaries: Day 1
Legs
Superset: 4 x 25 x 50lb DB
Zercher Squats
RDL
Calves
4 x 25-30
Biceps
Incline Treadmill
20 minutes
Jesus, the superset got my heart rate up farther than I expected operation ‘Go Home Less Fat’ should be a resounding success with the bar set this low
4/1/2025
Hotel Gym Diaries: Day 2
Morning lift:
Incline DB Bench
4 x 25 x 50
Rolling Triceps
100 reps
Treadmill
20 minutes
Afternoon Lift
Bent Over DB Row
100 reps x 50lb
Biceps
Treadmill
None, because the mufucka on the damn thing was apparently running a marathon.
Literally just doing 2 a days to kill time. They aren’t exactly workouts, but they aren’t exactly not workouts haha just gonna do a single body part (biceps and triceps don’t count) morning/afternoon plus some cardio and hope for the best. Keep the gears greased
4/2/25
Morning:
Shoulders
5 x 15 x 50lb DB
All the fun accessory lifts
Triceps
15 minutes treadmill
Afternoon:
20 minutes treadmill
Cossack Squats
Lunges
Box squats
Calves
Quick and dirty for both. But I feel better working up a sweat twice a day while my brain turns to pudding in classes. Got some extra veins through my quads (Greek god loading). With what I’m dealing with, I’m happy with what I’m doing, consider it a high activity de loaf #sciencebasedlifting
4/3/25
Morning:
Chest
DB Flat Bench
100 reps
Triceps
20 minutes treadmill
Afternoon:
Chest Supported Row
100 reps x 50lb Dabs
Shrugs
100 reps
Biceps
4/9/2025
Haven’t missed a day during training. Hit a real gym Saturday for a good back workout. Been doing sets of 100 for everything else still. Fat and sassy, fairly certain nobody at this training center has seen anyone that lifts before, have gotten a ton of comments but I don’t set the bar very high. My nickname has been Mongo since classes started. Like I said, great ego boost, but it is a discomfort
Still at it, got some good lifts in since being back, primary highlight is 2 x 275 on incline bench.
5/3/25
Chest
Incline Bench
3 x 275
Three solid reps, 315 is on the horizon, everything feels good and solid. Reps moved well, back down sets were paused 5 x 225
5/11/25
Legs
Worked up to a good single at 385, felt good, solid groove. Physically back to over 400 I’m sure, but mentally 405 feels like a huge barrier again, after not going into that range for a long time.
5/12/25
Shoulders
A good pump, felt good in my skin, which is a struggle at the moment, ha. Haven’t pushed any real weight since I body bagged myself awhile back.
Weighed 228 on 5/9. Not a great feeling, but I had touched 235 the previous month and REALLY felt like shit, keep telling myself I need to get my shit together doing it by force during the work week by packing the bare minimum for meals, weekends are a little tougher. But excuses are like assholes.
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These may not be excuses though: they may be causes. If you’re doing it by force/white knuckling it, the end reaction tends to be a compensatory binge. The harder we push a diet, the harder the body pushes back, which is why we so often see yo-yo dieting.
It may be worth taking the time to sort out what you need/want out of a diet and work from there. As Stan Efferding says “Compliance is the science”. Finding something you can comply with that is less than optimal is going to be far more effective than an optimal approach that makes the weekends tough.
I like Peter Attia’s observation that successful nutritional interventions employ some manner of 3 types of restriction: energy, nutrient, or time. We either simply eat less food in total, we reduce/eliminate a macronutrient (carbs, fats or protein), or we restrict WHEN we eat food (fasting, interimittent or otherwise).
They all work, but they don’t all work for all people.
This is all too true, I tend to eat more richly at home, better home cooked meals a couple beers. I look at it as trying to front load my caloric restrictions haha it doesn’t feel too much like white knuckling, I just know I’m a snacky son of a bitch, if I have it, I’ll eat it, so I pack what I need to be full and not a bunch of extra, I may have been a bit dramatic haha
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5/19/2025
Shoulders
2 x 3 x 195
Heaviest I’ve gone on OHP since giving myself a concussion haha it felt good, moved smooth, we may be back for heavy OHP.
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5/5/25
Chest
Flat bench
3 x 315 top set. Even filmed it. But I forgot how much of a pain it is gettin it on here
5/31/25
Weight: 226
I now get to start training for a half marathon with my wife, she’s been training for two months, the race is one month away and she goes, “I need someone to run with me, can you please do it?” So today (first time in years and years) put a bit over 3 miles in, 10 minute pace, then went and hit chest, top sets were 2 x 3 x 315 (metal plates are different). Am I an athlete again?
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6/17
Weight: 223
Still lifting, tweaked my pec on my top sets on bench two weeks ago, so that’s been annoying, but feeling good, doing a half marathon at the end of the month so I’ve been putting miles in, running sucks, but for me it makes it easier to make better dietary decisions, so I’ve trimmed down and am feeling good and a bit tighter, and it does feel good to be getting back “in shape”
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6/26
Weight (end of normal eating day) yesterday: 218.5
Feeling good, running sucks, but for me it definitely makes a difference. Guess I should do this shit more ha
Pec is dicked, can’t go heavy on over head or chest press movements, can’t do much at all weight wise. Lots of back, been very gentle on legs the last couple weeks with all the mileage.
Still kickin, still liftin, and apparently we’re runners now
6/30/25
Did the half yesterday. 2 hours 24 minutes. It was surprisingly fun, hard, but I get why people do it. It’s a different kind of “suck” than a hard workout and I honestly enjoyed the mental aspect of it. Hurtin unit today, but I’m in a much better spot physically and recovery wise than I feel like I should be.
7/13
Pec seems to be healed up, did a light bench day yesterday and nothing tried to cramp or felt pissed off, so that’s good. Runnin like an idiot, even got STRAVA 2-3 miles is feeling good again, doing that a couple times a week and consistently under 220 again, feeling good. 216.7 this morning, which is a recent low. I make such better nutrition decisions when I’m running regularly, helps me mentally a ton in that regard. Not missing any of my lifts, still lifting 4 days a week minimum (legs have been significantly reduced haha) and I’m going to add trap bar deads in on my back days to help compensate a bit. But life is good, lifting is ok (it’s in the ebb phase, rather than the flow phase) which is fine, and running has taken a 1b priority since my wife likes it (am I an athlete again?!)