Lo/Rez Training

Training Training Logs
701

Well, so much for calorie restriction.

We’re hosting our annual conference this week. I think I went something like 2800 calories over budget yesterday. And skipped HIIT.

This probably puts me more in line to where I should be anyway, calorie-wise. I’m finding it hard to believe that 1672 is an appropriate base number of calories for me to lose 1-1/2 lbs a week. Considering I was losing weight with a 2500 calorie diet, when I weighed 135 and a completely sedentary lifestyle.

Of course, I’m so used to eating calorie dense foods, so I need to find some stuff that’s filling but lacking in calories.

Might as well record here too.
Sunday: 1749 calories, 198g protein, 153.6 bw
Monday: 2256 calories, 232g protein, 153.0 bw
Tuesday: 4578 calories, 231g protein, 151.4 bw

Wed: 153.4 bw

Not necessarily a goal number, but all of the calculations in the app are targeting 145 by the first week of July.

I feel like that’s a completely ridiculous target to shoot for. Who cares about “chiseled” if I’m so skinny. Oh, right, some girls. Anyway, now’s not the time to 2nd guess myself. As long as I don’t crash my metabolism or lose much/any strength/muscle, this will give me a better base to gain from anyway.

But there’s a few good things from this:

  1. tracking my food to a degree I’ve never tracked it before
  2. learning a few things about myself, which I can then relay to my girlfriend. She’s been focused on seeing her abs but doesn’t know the first thing about dieting (she’s 5’5, 115, so she’s already thin… she just wants more definition).
  3. hopefully getting a better idea of my actual BMR than “if I eat this much, the scale goes up”, at least within the context of my current training
  4. I want some experiential knowledge, not just theoretical knowledge

If the app says I’m supposed to lose 1.5lbs a week at a base of 1700 calories a day, and I lose 2lbs a week at 2200 calories a day, that gives me a good amount of information to figure out where I should be for both bulking and cutting.

But in the grand scheme of things, I’m wasting 5-8 weeks of my training when I could be focused purely on building muscle. I’m aware of that.

I’m hoping for more “recomp” than “cutting”. I genuinely expect to continue progressing in my training, and I’ll adjust food accordingly. I think the pepto + leucine during cardio, and ~1.5xBW protein intake will be the key.

702

losing weight at 150lbs… kaz is crying somewhere right now

703

If anyone knows a better way to improve “definition” besides actually focusing on losing weight, I’m all ears. This is the only way I know for sure that things are moving in the right direction.

That being said, I’m exhausted. We hosted our conference this week, and I was pretty much busy from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to bed. Too much alcohol, too many drunken conversations, too little sleep. Usually there’s one, maybe two nights like this, but it was every night of the conference this time. I slept for a half hour in my desk chair at work today.

So, tonight is my 2nd training session this week.

Standing BTN Press
107.5 x 5, 5, 7

Weighted Chins
10 x 8, 7

7 Mat Pulls w/Chains
315 x 2

Fasted lifting is miserable. I won’t be doing that again. I didn’t do that by design.

Right elbow hurt during the BTN press still, but only during the lift itself. I did do plenty of band pushdowns, band pullaparts, band curls, band dislocates before doing them.

704

I live by fasted lifting. Its a free pre workout to me. Tho our schedules may differ…

705

I had these air head fruit berry bites things before I trained today I think like 51 grams of carbs and my arms were pumped/vascular/defined to the max lol

706

Is this really the cause? !!! Not the arm workout? Im not vascular. . So I have no experience. But u see my view?

707

[quote]barbedwired wrote:
Is this really the cause? !!! Not the arm workout? Im not vascular. . So I have no experience. But u see my view?[/quote]
Try it…any zero fat sugary candy…plus it tastes excellent

708

I think pump work was banned In my log. Along w. Counting macros. Lmao . Just have to take word !

709

[quote]barbedwired wrote:
I live by fasted lifting. Its a free pre workout to me. Tho our schedules may differ…[/quote]

Yeah… I seem to have shitty performance with rep work when I’m fasted.

I lifted at 7 or so last night, and hadn’t eaten anything for 24 hours or so by that point. And I was tired enough that I could fall asleep at any moment.

I don’t have a problem eating on a fairly empty stomach; but that was too much.

Feeling quite a bit more alive today.

710

[quote]chobbs wrote:

[quote]barbedwired wrote:
Is this really the cause? !!! Not the arm workout? Im not vascular. . So I have no experience. But u see my view?[/quote]
Try it…any zero fat sugary candy…plus it tastes excellent [/quote]

Sugars are awesome.

711

Ok, so redoing the mat pulls from yesterday.

TNG 7 Mat Pulls w/Chains (+~35lbs at top)
225 x 3, 3; 255 x 3, 1; 275, 295, 305 x 1 (maybe a couple singles at each)
315 x 6 + 45s break + 2

320 next time.

Savickas Press (from pins)
45 x a few; 95 x a few

These were interesting. Can’t do this with a wide grip, but didn’t seem to bother my shoulders. May add these in my BTN press days.

Chin ladder
1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 2 = 15

4s break per rep in between.

–

EDIT: did a few normal DLs later.

I wanted to see if I could do 365 from the floor, since that’s what all the cool kids are doing.

225, 275, 315, 335, each for a single or two
365 x 0, 0

Got it about two inches off the ground, but no dice. Took some video though, so that was insightful. I’m still too far over the bar, and need to do more pulling “back”. Hadn’t pulled from the floor for a few weeks.

Also realized that my middle back doesn’t round nearly as much when I lean over, like it did in my earlier deadlift video and in some embarrassing photos taken by my family over the holidays. So that’s good.

But I also realized my right-left upperback/shoulder/trap imbalance is worse than I thought. I sent an email to get an appointment with the Colt’s chiropractor so hopefully they can do something about that.

712

Fasted Walking, 400mg caffeine, 20g peptopro, 5g leucine
20 minutes, 6 degrees, 3.1mph

Heart rate in the 125-130 range. I’m going to increase the incline next time.

–

I was talking to some girl at a club this week. She started massaging my back while I was sitting at the bar, and commented on my upper back and shoulder definition. Turns out she’s an NPC Bikini Competitor. This was the first time outside of this site that I’ve actually heard someone talking about retaining sodium. The whole conversation caught me by surprise.

713

Just spent the last while playing with numbers in Excel that I entered from the Lose It! app. Not really going to go into detail about the calculations themselves.

At this point, with 8 days of data, I’m averaging right around 1.7 lbs/wk weight loss, and my actual BMR seems to be somewhere in the window of 2450-2650 calories a day via moving average based calculations. On the other hand, based on the regression, it seems my BMR is more like 2850.

Basically I need more data, since calculating 5 day averages isn’t much when you only have 8 data points.

EDIT:
I suppose I could actually provide more numbers.

Rate of weight loss is 1.68 lbs per week, with an average net intake of 2011.7 calories per day. This is after factoring in exercise, hence “net”. Daily averages for the week are 77.3g fat, 168.3g carbs, 153.5g protein, working out to 35% fat, 34% carbs, 31% protein.

Protein’s a little low, IMO.

714

[quote]LoRez wrote:
Diet
Base Calories: 1687
MWF Calories: 2133
TR Calories: 1882

(These are per the “Lose It!” iPhone app. Seems low to me, but I’ll give it a shot.)[/quote]

So, given what I just calculated, this is now:

Diet
Base Calories: 2091
MWF Calories: 2537
TR Calories: 2286

… ish.

This is a lot more realistic number IMO. This is calculated on actual weight loss and actual daily calories, rather than the formulas in the apps.

715

[quote]LoRez wrote:
If anyone knows a better way to improve “definition” besides actually focusing on losing weight, I’m all ears. [/quote]

gaining muscle and maintaining the same amout of bodyfat results in lower bodyfat percentage. this can be accomplished at a minimal caloric surplus. At your size, I believe this is a better approach to improving definition. I guess that takes longer though, so if you want the definition for hot summer abs this summer, then perhaps that approach won’t work for you.

716

Fasted Incline Walking
20 minutes, 6 degrees, 3.2 mph
400mg caffeine, 20g peptopro, 5g l-leucine

Heart rate averaged around 145. This is too high. Might go back to 3.1 next time and/or drop the caffeine a bit.

I used some iChill sleep aid picked up at the grocery store next door. Definitely relaxed me, but I woke up after only about 6 hours of sleep, and woke up a few times in the middle of the night. On the other hand, for a small period of time, I felt the most “alive” I have in years. Basically I’ve been zoned out for a few years; depression or whatever it is. So… I don’t know what to make of that.

Sinuses are bad today though. Had to stop walking a few times to cough and blow my nose. Feel pretty nauseous. This is a pretty normal morning really… I’m just not usually up and going this early. I have to account for about 30 minutes a day dealing with this.

Weight loss is on track though. The regression put my weight at 151.7 this morning… and the scale measured 151.7.

717

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:
If anyone knows a better way to improve “definition” besides actually focusing on losing weight, I’m all ears. [/quote]

gaining muscle and maintaining the same amout of bodyfat results in lower bodyfat percentage. this can be accomplished at a minimal caloric surplus. At your size, I believe this is a better approach to improving definition. I guess that takes longer though, so if you want the definition for hot summer abs this summer, then perhaps that approach won’t work for you.[/quote]

Yeah, I understand what you’re saying. That was the approach I’d basically been using, focusing on slowly gaining and trying to minimize fat gain. For whatever reason (actually, I have lots of ideas), it wasn’t working quite as well as I’d hoped.

For now, I’m just going to target ~1.5lbs fat loss per week. The cutoff is July 3rd, but if I get to a point I like before then, I’ll stop. 3lbs might be enough. 4.5 might be enough. I’ll just have to see. There is some improvement already.

And then, going forward, I’ll just focus on a slight surplus over maintenance. It should be much easier now that I’m getting a better idea of my REAL maintenance calories and I’ve found a way to get a much more precise measure of my actual calorie intake.

The main benefit of all of this might just be better discipline over my diet. All things considered, I think that’s probably worth the 4-5 week investment.

718

The basic math.

Measure bodyweight daily. Measure net calories daily.

Calculate the rate of change in bodyweight per day (i.e., the slope of a linear regression). Calculate average net calories.

Using the rate of change in bodyweight, multiply by 3500. So, for instance, -.24 lb/day * 3500 calories/lb = 840 calories/day. This is the actual calorie deficit that’s contributing to the weight loss.

(This assumes that the weight loss is predominantly fat and that it takes a total deficit of 3500 calories to burn a pound of fat. This assumption is highly questioned… if I understand correctly, 3550 seems to be the real number to burn a pound of fat, and 600 seems to be the real number to burn a pound of muscle. So, 3500 is fine for estimates I think. 3500 is basically assuming 98% of what’s burned is fat, and 2% is muscle.)

Take the deficit and add it to the average daily calories. In my case, 840 + 2010 = 2850. That number should be pretty close to the ACTUAL BMR to maintain bodyweight.

–

The not-so-basic math.

You can then perform those calculations using a sliding window of X number of days – e.g., calculate the BMR for the last 5 days by using the slope of the last 5 days of bodyweight data and the average net calories of those same days. If you average those calculated BMRs, it should be close to the calculated BMR above. It may or may not be more accurate.

Depending on daily fluctuations in hydration and caloric intake, each X day calculation could be very different than the prior, so you’ll need some smoothing (like an average or even moving average) to get a realistic idea.

However, you can then monitor the rate of change of the calculated BMR to monitor “metabolic slowdown”. Metabolism is also a function of lean body mass, so as you lose LBM, your BMR is going to drop somewhat. This at least gives you an idea of whether you’re crashing your metabolism or not.

–

All that said, averaging the 5 day window BMR calculations gives me a value of 2735 calories a day. And the calculation based on the whole dataset gives me 2834 calories a day. These values will likely converge even more as I go on.

719

Moderate Incline Bench from Pins
warmup
180 x 5, 5, 3
135 x 10

Pullaparts. Pushdowns. Overhead Extensions.

Curls
(bar + 50) x 10, 6

Squats
45, 95, 135, 155, 185
210 x 3; 210 x 1

Bleh on squats. Early reps felt really really good. Later reps were all lost due to positioning. When I was grinding rep 3 on the first set, I knew something was up. Just low on energy (really, in a deficit, whodathunk?). Kneecaps seem to finally be traveling right though, so yeah, progress in many respects, just not in poundage.

Bench hit the point where it’s time to deload. I knew it was pretty near. Elbow is still giving me shit.

Curls are giving me issues in my forearms again. Seems to get bad right when I increase the weight, then it adapts over the next few times. At least there’s adaptation, unlike my elbow.

I have an appointment scheduled with a chiropractor next week. Initial visit… but shoulders, right elbow, and trap/upper-back imbalance are the main topics. I’ve read this guy is good. Never been to a chiro though, so no idea what to expect.

720

Ok, there must have been something seriously wrong with my sleep because for the 2nd day in years, I actually woke up feeling kind of “awake”. I’m pretty sure taking a sleep aid nightly isn’t the right solution, no matter how “natural” it is, but huh.

Also learned something interesting. A brain with insufficient sleep apparently is still just as capable of problem solving as a fully awake brain, but focus, attention and memory suffer. Obviously I knew the last part, but I didn’t realize problem solving skill didn’t decline, just the “support infrastructure” for it. Which has me hypothesizing that to at least some degree, my “depression” and “adhd” may be primarily sleep related. OTOH, I’ve had two sleep studies though which have been inconclusive.

Three main things changed recently. 1) this sleep aid, 2) taking a double dosage of a greens supplement for the last several days, 3) 20m AM cardio. In general, food choices, time I go to sleep, other activities have stayed the same.

Sleep Aid Ingredients: B vitamins, Rose Hips (so C), Valerian and Melatonin. Based on previous experiments with the other ingredients, I’m going to guess that it’s actually the Valerian that’s making the difference (and/or the combination of the 4).

AM Fasted Incline Walking
20 mins, 6 degrees, 3.2 mph
20g peptopro, 5g l-leucine; [only] 300mg caffeine today

Dropped the caffeine by 100mg, plus I was actually awake and out of bed. No caffeine nap today.

Heart rate was around 125 the whole time, so the speed is going up tomorrow.

Walking 20 minutes is incredibly easy when watching ridiculous kung fu TV shows on my phone.