I just wish the steroids would transfer to me once I eat the meat!
5 Likes
Ha! 
8.9.17
So it’s happening. I’m slowly but surely loosening my standards for eating now that I’m not tracking my food. So far my weight is the same but I don’t like what I see in the mirror. I made two trips to the crunchy peanut butter jar with a spoon yesterday… no bueno.
On the plus side, I actually worked out a little today.
Recumbent Bike:
30 minute interval @ level 7, 8.53 miles… while reading a book lol
Hammer Strength Incline:
90 x 10
110 x 10
130 x 10
150 x 8
170 x 5
superset with:
Hammer Strength Pull-Down:
90 x 10
140 x 10
160 x 10
180 x 10
200 x 7
Machine Seated OHP (Neutral Grip):
3 x 10 @ 80 lbs
Neutral Pull-Ups:
8, 6 , 5-2-2 (double rest/pause)
Cable Curl:
3 x 10 @ 50 ea
superset with:
Ab Coaster:
3 x 10 @ 60 lbs
Reverse Press-Down:
3 x 10 @ 60 ea
superset with:
45 Deg Back Extension:
2 x 15 @ BW
A couple of kids stole my apparatus after two sets. I waited a moment assuming they’d do one set each and move on, but they were still struggling to pull out the pin to adjust it so I just called it a day.
It’s only been two weeks since I started my break and I’ve mixed in three half-assed body weight workouts during that time. I feel pathetic. I hate it. My new chiropractor suggested I get an MRI on my hip based on where I was able to pinpoint my pain. She thinks there could be inflammation in the joint capsule at the very least. I still have a lot of angry muscles on the left side of my body. I’m not really sure where to go from here.
I’m going to try to get back into some sort of routine; I’m just not sure what. It’s funny how I went from one of the best phases of my training in recent history (good conditioning, deadlift PR) to a two week shutdown and feeling like crap. The less I do, the worse I feel. By not training and trying to rest my back, my back feels worse. Go figure. I’m also very lazy right now. Well, I’m usually lazy when I’m off work, but at least I put in some work at the gym. Now I don’t even do that–and I don’t want to. I’d rather sit on my ass and read a book.
And on that note… I’ve been reading a lot of real estate books lately. We have one rental property by chance but we’re going to buy more. I’ve been reading everything I can regarding that topic as well as flips and other real estate investment opportunities. We’re going to start slow and try to build our rental income so I (or we) can retire a little earlier than most folks. The way it stands now, I can’t get my work retirement benefits until I’m 55 and I can’t touch my Roth IRA investments until I’m 59 and a half. Technically I can withdraw from my principal contributions but I can’t touch my earnings or gains. My plan from the start was to spend 20 years with my current department and then retire. I’ll give 50% of my final pay and be 50 years old. Each year that I stay after that would add 2.5% and it maxes out at 75% in 30 years.
The better I do with real estate, the earlier I’ll retire. My new goal is to retire at the first opportunity which is at the 10 year and 6 month mark. I’ll get 25% of my pay. They average the three highest paying years of your last five years of employment to determine how much you get. So if I’m making $60,000 a year for three years when I leave then I’ll be getting $15,000 a year to not come to work. That’s not much but it’d be a nice supplement to my rental and real estate income.
The goal is to have passive income. Once I get enough passive income then I can be my own boss and set my own schedule. My wife enjoys her teaching job so I’m sure she’ll do that longer than I stay with police work. I’ll just jump on her insurance if necessary to cover the health insurance benefits I’d lose by retiring early.
2 Likes
I’ve also watched a bunch of those vegan documentaries and the minute I turn them off, I’ve sworn myself vegan…but then I start thinking for myself, and while there is some correlation with their quoted studies, some of their arguments fall short with me.
Does the ‘average’ person consume too much meat? Probably.
Would North America be much healthier if they ate a more plant-based diet? Most likely.
I think for most T-Nation’ers, we are purposefully consuming large amounts of meat for the protein and athletic benefits associated with recovery, and the building of muscle. If I wasn’t pushing my body to the limits on a regular basis, I’d give a much more plant-based diet a try (I still consider it from time to time).
Instead, I’ve made the decision to include meat in my diet that has much less of an impact on the mistreatment of animals (as this would be the biggest argument for me going animal-free). I’ve made up my mind that if I couldn’t kill the animal myself the way it died, than I shouldn’t eat it. Pre-packaged burgers, ribs from the grocery store, etc have all left my grocery list unfortunately (I’ll still eat it if served at a friend’s place) because I wouldn’t be able to borderline torture animals prior to their death. I hunt, I fish, and I help out on a few pal’s farms during animal harvesting times where I see and participate in the humane harvesting of meat. This is what I’m comfortable with supporting with my purchasing, and diet. I know what the animals ate, where they lived, how they were treated and how they died.
That being said, I don’t pass judgement on those who fall into the vegan crowd OR the crowd that doesn’t give a shit about where their meat comes from.
I really don’t see why one would eliminate local eggs from their diet. Sure, I can see if someone can’t get around the idea of killing an animal…but what reason would one have for not eating eggs? We aren’t forcing them to lay eggs. Our chickens get treated better than our dog does. They get all sorts of table scraps (none for the dog, we don’t want no beggin’ dog), they run around the yard free all day eating whatever they can forage and then get closed in at night with their rooster and get some sweet lovin’.
If I tried out the vegetarian lifestyle, I’d be upping my egg consumption.
3 Likes
That’s kind of where I’m at too. I haven’t bought chicken in two weeks because I know how awful Tyson treats the animals. It’s a business product; not a living, breathing, feeling animal.
The egg producing conditions aren’t good either. One bit of info my wife read is that 1 day old male chick’s are thrown into a grinder because they have no value. I don’t really understand that; that’s a potential meal to be.
But I also feel wasteful on occasion when I’m eating eggs. I think to myself, “This could’ve grown up into a chicken and been a much bigger meal (for me) if it had been allowed to incubate and hatch.”
1 Like
Growing up we always had chickens and they were the dumbest, most stupid, waste of space animal I’ve ever seen. Once, one died because it’s leg was underneath a bow of water that was empty. Another time, one pecked another one to death out of nowhere. When it was time to feed them with extra feed (we usually just let them eat the bugs and worms) they would almost kill each other for food because some were more glutinous than others. There’s very minimal thought process going on in their heads. I used to be sad when I saw the trucks wth them, and I still do to some extent, but then I remember that I don’t cry when I squish flies or roaches, and I don’t even eat those.
I do, however, understand this, but all eggs are not fertilized and would not become a chicken, so there’s that.
1 Like
I never accused them of being smart LOL! I just like to let them roam around, eat their food, and be stupid until it’s time to eat them compared to confining them to a small cage for the entirety of their life.
1 Like
i guess what i’m getting at, is that they wouldn’t know any different.It’s kind of like how fish forget everything in like 5 seconds. It doesn’t matter their circumstance because they know no different, and even if they lived like a king for a week and went back to the cage after, they probably wouldn’t notice.
1 Like
As a vegetarian (if not for the occasional bit of cheese or chocolate I guess I’d be vegan?) what the health was a piece of propaganda bs. There are some good points in there but it’s totally overshadowed by the doom and gloom. Really if meat was going to kill us we would have died out years ago. Same with carbs and gluten. Same with saturated fat.
3 Likes
Don’t Call it a Comeback
Woke at 220.2 lbs. Still not logging my food!
Deadlift
2 x 5 @ 135
2 x 5 @ 165
2 x 5 @ 195
2 x 5 @ 225
superset with:
Neutral Pull-ups
8 x 5
I decided to do two sets of deads at each weight and take it slow since I’ve been sitting out for two weeks. These were my old 3-5 rep sets in my Training Maximally template. My back is definitely weaker or at the very least out of shape. I also felt more pulling/tightness/fatigue in my left side at the top of my pelvis (right in the bottom of the QL). I did 5 pull-up within 10 seconds of each set and then rested 1 min.
1 Like
Well, we officially own our second rental property! Actually, we’ll own it in about two weeks.
Picked up an older house that’s a mess for $25,000. We’ve got a lot of work to do but it should be a 3 bedroom and 2 bath home (maybe 1.5 baths) with a living room and dining room. I’m not sure of the total square footage because it used to be a duplex. Once we fix it up a bit I’m hoping to rent it for $850-1000 a month… at least.
The plan is to retire from the police department by December 31, 2023. That will give me 10 years and I’ll get 25% of my pay in retirement but that won’t start paying until I’m 55. Between now and then we’re going to acquire rental properties and try to replace my income with rental income. We have some ambitious goals, but I’m hoping to be bringing in $10,000 a month in rental income by then. That will definitely replace my paycheck and then some.
8 Likes
You got a lot of work to do 
I mean working as a Police Officer AND working on your rental propertys.
Good luck, I hope it pays of in the end.
2 Likes
My girlfriend watched it too… the issue when you listen to all these documentaries is that you can’t do anything anymore.
I’m a student and barely eat meat ever so I eat a lot of eggs. Some people say it’s good, some other say it’s bad… At one point you need to make a decision and eat!
Stan Efferding has a good rant on youtube saying that you can basically argue anything with a back up from science because studies show benefits and fallbacks of ANYTHING. So in the end the truth is harder to get…
2 Likes
I think the REAL problem with our food in America is the demand. We demand convenience. Foods have been modified to increase shelf life. Foods are modified so that we can microwave them and have a meal. Add preservatives. Add hormones to livestock to increase the yield. Add, add, add.
Then end result is a happy meal from McDonald’s that won’t mold or decay after sitting in the pantry at room temperature for a year.
If consumers would put more effort into cooking meals and increasing vegetable consumption then maybe we could afford to slow down and raise our foods the right way.
The debate on eggs is like riding a roller coaster. The saturated fat is bad. Wait, it’s good. The cholesterol is bad…or not.
At least I recently learned that you can only have about a 10% effect on your cholesterol through diet. The real reason it goes up or down has to do with how much your body produces. And that is largely affected by your weight.
3 Likes
Thanks! I’ve got a plan.
Time is money so I’ll hire out some of the work. My dad happens to be getting his contractor’s license soon so I’ll have him to help. He’s struggling to find work with his landscaping business. And apparently no one wants to hire a 60 year old. I think we might’ve found the perfect fit for him. He’s a jack of all trades and I can trust the quality of his work.
He grew up in the period where they built an entire house in shop class and then sold it at the end of the year. Wish they did that when I was in school.
2 Likes
Jack of all trades, one of my favorite Springsteen songs. From Wrecking Ball album. One of his best. And Yeah they don’t make them like that anymore
1 Like
With you one hundred per cent on that. I feel lucky here in Australia we don’t quite have that issue yet.
8.14.17
Conditioning
Went to the Y and the track is 6 laps per mile. I did a 2 lap dynamic warm-up followed by 4 laps of running the straightaways and walking the curves.
This is my go to workout and I ran at about 70% today.
Bench
135 x 10 x 2
165 x 5 x 2
185 x 5 x 2
205 x 3
225 x 2 x 5
Lateral Cable Raise
20 x 10 x 3
Cable Press-Down
140 x 6 x 2
140 x 15-5-3 double rest/pause
I need to come up with a new plan because I’m lost right now. I do much better when I have a structured plan. For one, I’m out of shape so I’m holding back. I don’t like holding back; I like to push myself whether it’s Jokers or just volume. I’m in that terrible phase of crawling back into my training without overdoing it. I’m also still on the DL with my hip pain so I can’t just go back to one of my usual programs.
I’m thinking of going to a traditional 5/3/1 split but leaving out the squat day. I’ll probably deadlift twice a week instead.
3 Likes
Why not have that fourth day a weak point day? Sounds more productive to me, really. Or a bodybuilding day.
Why not do 3 day SVR? Get a nice mix of PRs, heavier singles and speed work? Whatever you choose in sure you’ll crush! How’s the diet side of things? Still eating less meat?
1 Like