[quote]furo wrote:
How many calories were you on again?[/quote]
I had to do some digging, but it looked like I was around 1800-1900 net calories (total - expended via exercise). It fluctuated a bit week to week, based on the rate of actual weight loss. As far as the expenditure, I just used one number for the 20m of walking, and another for 30m of heavy lifting. I don’t even know what they were; I just plugged it into the Lose It app on my iPhone and used those values.
I think mentally it just helped to focus on the trends and the averages, and make decisions around that, rather than letting the day to day fluctuations get to me.
Rest Day
Today I went swimming and spent some time in the sauna, but I wasn’t very energetic in my swimming lol so I’ll count today as a rest day. I feel really good today - I have a decent amount of DOMS all over, especially my arms, back and hamstrings. Feels like everything is working well. I think the push-pull split with a combination of heavy weights and high reps is going to do the trick. I weighed myself this morning (I pinched the battery from my food scale) and I was 96.9kg (fasted). I think that is a decent starting point.
Tomorrow I have the afternoon off so I think I’ll do a full-body day, as I’m working long shifts from Friday to Monday and I might not get the chance to train much.
EDIT: I hope I’m not annoying people by referring to the 40kg kettlebell as a heavy weight lol. It does sound pretty pathetic when I think about it.
[quote]furo wrote:
EDIT: I hope I’m not annoying people by referring to the 40kg kettlebell as a heavy weight lol. It does sound pretty pathetic when I think about it.[/quote]
Lol, I think unless you’ve actually used kettlebells you don’t really have a good basis to judge how heavy or not they are. My 24kg one still feels pretty heavy to me (not that I use it right now).
Kettlebell Row
28kg: 4x10 It felt good to go lighter and for higher reps today.
Floor Press
28kg: 3x10 This felt ok, but not amazing.
I finished off with more mobility work because my hips didn’t feel ideal (stretching, goblet squats and foam rolling). I find it interesting that these days I automatically gravitate to doing more lower body work than upper body work. It’s not because I enjoy it more, but the opposite I think - I feel guilty and the most obliged to do it!
I hadn’t really thought this through but I’m in a tricky situation for my meals over the next 3 days - I’m going to be working 9am-9:30pm which leaves me little time to prepare food and not enough containers for all three meals. What I’m thinking of doing is heading to the supermarket this evening and picking up ingredients for making protein bars to snack on and making three meals worth tonight. The problem with protein bar recipes is that they all seem to focus too much on making it taste good and not enough on the macro content. I’m thinking of basing my bars on dates, protein powder and a little almond butter.
EDIT: I’ve sorted my meal dilemma for on-calls: I’ve made a simple plan of sandwiches rammed with a tonne of ham lol, and a protein shake a smoothie when I get home. It’s definitely not ideal but it works out much better than I thought:
Calories: 2,386 Protein: 229 Carbs: 199 Fat: 71
It’s marginally higher total calories than my normal days (lower carbs but higher fats) but overall I think it works out pretty well for such convenient and cheap food sources. I even get 4 portions of fruit per day thanks to the smoothie.
Rest Day
Today I did a long shift and didn’t train. My diet seemed to work quite well (although it was quite boring lol). My hips feel a little rough this evening so I’m typing this midway through some mobility work. I’ve been doing some squat holds which I haven’t done in ages, and they feel really hard - I should probably do them regularly. I’ve finally got round to buying a new scale battery.
IF makes things easier as you don’t have to worry about food until 12, and the time you usually spend on breakfast can be spent on preparation.
I don’t know if you have access to a fridge, but I like to prepare 4-5 boiled eggs for my first meal of the day with some salad from dinner the night before. Im a fan of Quest bars, which is probably one of the better bars out there. Ive also purchased a cheap blender to keep at work, as protein shakes are so much easier to drink when blended with ice. I usually have a protein shake with my second meal of the day which is usually some chicken rice paper rolls, or some salmon sashimi from the local Japanese sushi shop. I have my pre-work out meal just before I leave work, which is one those quick rice cup warmed up in the microwave, mixed with a can on tuna.
Rest Day
I took today as a rest day as I was working another long shift. Made it through the first week without cheating on the diet plan :P. Those sandwiches got so boring by the end - having 2 of the exact same sandwiches for every meal for 3 days was a little tedious. I’m looking forward to my chicken and sweet potato tomorrow lol.
This session felt really good despite work. Day off tomorrow though! The new diet is going really well - I’m consistently losing weight but I don’t feel any difference at all in my energy or lifting performance. Huge thanks to Rattlehead for helping me out with it!
And I find comfort in that lol. How’s it going bud?[/quote]
Pretty good actually. Just finished a series of interviews. Very positive feedback all throughout. It’s for a decent paying job in my field that caters to my goals and experience. Should start work in a week or so I’m assuming.
And I find comfort in that lol. How’s it going bud?[/quote]
Pretty good actually. Just finished a series of interviews. Very positive feedback all throughout. It’s for a decent paying job in my field that caters to my goals and experience. Should start work in a week or so I’m assuming.[/quote]
Reverse Lunges
10kg: 10
28kg: 10
40kg: 10-10-10 These felt tough, but more from a conditioning point of view. Strength and technique was ok.
Push-Ups
BW: 3x20
Crunches (max in 2min)
BW: 55
Bodyweight: 94.9kg
Feels good to be in the 94s again! I’ve been here a fair bit before but I feel like I’m coming in with some momentum and I’m looking forward to getting consistently into the 93s, which will be new. I tried 40kg push presses today but kept failing on the left, so did push-ups instead.
Kettlebell Row
28kg: 5x10 Dropped the weight and hit higher volume today - felt really good.
Band Pull-Aparts
Blue Band: 4x25
Bodyweight: 95.2kg
Well that put’s an end to my linear weight loss haha! I wasn’t expecting it to last long. I’m going to start calculating weekly averages and go by that, but that information won’t be that useful until I’ve got another couple of weeks under my belt.
Strength-wise today felt good, I’m really enjoying this routine. I still haven’t found a good upper body pushing exercise though. I think KB rows feel much more natural than DB rows, but I can’t do nearly as much weight: a 28kg KB is pretty much equal to a 40kg DB for me on this exercise.
Rest Day
I didn’t manage to train today, and won’t again until Monday. I think I’ve done enough for this week to be productive though: 2 pull sessions and 1 pull session.
My bodyweight continues to head in the right direction (hopefully I can stay under 95kg all of this week) and I think I can begin to see some noticeable visual differences. This session felt decent: the lunges felt good, but the push-ups felt off. My local gym re-opens soon - I think a good routine would be KB push; KB pull and gym full-body (front squats, DB chest, pull-ups).
[quote]theBird wrote:
Sorry if I missed it somewhere, but what weight are you shooting for??
What is your waist size? Are you going to measure that as well?
tweet[/quote]
The rough plan is to cut as far as I can on my current diet and then drop some more carbs until I hit 90kg. Once I hit 90kg I’ll gradually add calories back in and reverse diet until I’m taking in 2,800kcal or so. But that is subject to change.
I think my waist size before I started cutting was 35" but I’m not really going to monitor it - I find it too difficult to measure consistently.
