The war continues: nutrition recap
Fasted through breakfast. Had lunch at the Valkyrie’s favorite Hawaiian BBQ place. Had a loco moco, some kalbi ribs and BBQ chicken. Dinner at Texas Roadhouse: full rack of ribs with a sidekick of ribs: no sauce.
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Gotta love those overnight unexplained tweaks 
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@wiseman83 I know exactly what I did too: just turned over in my sleep. Too aggressively I suppose.
Nutrition recap
Breakfast was 2 omeltes with 3 eggs, Amish butter, ham and gouda alongside breakfast sausage and bacon. Dinner was 3 whole eggs, 5 whites, leftover priscotto and the rest of the Christmas ham.
Travel day tomorrow and cruise starts Monday. Eased off training today and let my back heal.
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Have a wonderful trip!!!
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Speaking of cruises, we’ve been looking at the next Disney cruise out of Sydney after your earlier recommendation…and it’s looking like ending this February. At least for a time.
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Feeling better. Not 100%, but did 6x12 chins this morning and 80 pull aparts. Fasting through breakfast, just coffee, with some ketobricks and a bag of biltong packed.
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Travel nutrition recap
Fasted until 1300, Ketobrick in flight and then around half a bag of that biltong 3 hours later. I want to note that I ate that while reading “The Vertical Diet” by Stan Efferding, demonstrating duality and Irony.
But seriously, as far as travel macros go, that’s pretty legit, and still costs less than airport food ($25 for a cheeseburger in the Austin airport). And eating only HALF the bag of biltong means getting only 100% of my RDA for sodium.
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Enjoy that cruise!
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Last nutrition update for a bit. Made it aboard and got to lunch after fasting through breakfast
Had 2 plates like that. 4 lamb chops, a turkey leg, 2 steaks, 2 slices of roast and some salmon. Bring on the feasting
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I am back in Port between my first and second cruise. Uploading a breakfast photo with my limited time online: longer write up in a few days.
Salmon, half a dozen poached eggs, bunch of french style scrambled eggs, bacon and 2 steaks. Also got 4 eggs sunny side up with this.
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The poached eggs look for all the world like vanilla ice cream. I stared at it for the longest time, trying to figure out what it was. When I gave up and continued scrolling, I of course got to the list tucked handily beneath the pic.
Mostly I was shocked that you’d have the ice cream on the same plate as the warm stuff. Which gives you a window into my own vacation choices, haha.
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@EmilyQ There’s no room for ice cream with all the meat and eggs aboard! Speaking of…
Last food porn photo of the 28oz porterhouse I had at the private Italian restaurant on board along with the Valkyrie. The server was convinced I was ordering it to share…little did she know.
I am traveling today, back online fully tomorrow, and thus begins leaning out and strongman training. Way forward is Operator, 3x week lifting with SSB front squats and axle strict/push press, with mat pulls on the middle workout. My sandbag is awaiting me at home; just gotta fill it. From there, carry medley will be the majority of my HICs. Weekly Axle Grace on weekends to round out. Daily fat gripz hold to improve grip, and maybe some front holds to build that up. Comp is in 7 weeks on 21 Feb, so 6 weeks training and a bridge week. Thinking 3 more weeks of Operator after that, then back to Mass.
The diet is going to be too easy, because I am SO over eating at this point. 10 weeks of feasting is a lot, and, in truth, I probably at the least on this cruise than I have on any other, to include skipping a few meals (gasp!) so I could actually ENJOY the good food at others. My plan is to use a semi-alternate day fasting approach. On conditioning days, I will fast through breakfast and eat a meal in the evening and a Metabolic Drive shake before bed. Use of black coffee between meals. On lifting days, I will have breakfast post training. I will also most likely bring the portion sizes down and prioritize leaner proteins. I don’t need to get peeled, but I would like to get a little less fluffy so my weight belt fits better and I have more room to grow in my next gaining phase.
Because this is honestly the healthiest I have felt in a LONG time, and it correlates with finally letting my bodyfat come up some. I had so many moments of feeling just genuinely absolutely happy and excited for what was to come, and zero compulsion to train. I didn’t need to cram in exercise snacks along the way: I was active, got in a bunch of steps, did some open ocean swimming, and got in one workout on the last day when the Valkryie and Kiddo played bingo. I did the 100 rep clean and press workout from ABF with 50lb DBs, doing 2-3-5-2 chins alongside, along with some cable curls, lateral raises, and a 60 rep set on the leg press to get in a quad pump while taking care of my knee. Knee is feeling better, and that back pain is almost fully resolved: this was good for healing.
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I enjoy your log. Its become one of my online “stops”. I am just curious, do you ever have to count calories or measure foods? You seem so good at gaining/leaning. I despise counting calories as it sucks all the joy out of eating for me but I know it can be a really useful tool in reaching goals. Do you have any suggestions or recommendations for someone looking to lean/gain without having to measure every morsel of food?
I am currently at a tad higher BF% then I would like to be in the next few months. My training right now is really higher rep bodybuilding type stuff as I am recovering from a shoulder surgery 6 months ago and trying to rebuild the strength and mobility I lost.
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Appreciate you swinging by dude! I have never counted a calorie or macro in my life, aside from some random one offs as a curiosity. Never as a tool.
I let training drive the bus and make the method the goal, and that goes a long way. For gaining, I picked hard training programs designed for gaining (Super Squats, Mass Made Simple, DoggCrapp, Building the Monolith, BBB, Deep Water or Tactical Barbell Mass Protocol) and eat to survive the programs. Whenever I lean out, it’s because the training is easier, so I don’t need as much food to recover. My upcoming strongman prep is a great example: Tactical Barbell Operator with High Intensity Conditioning.
Alongside that, I only eat carbs for one meal a week. When you only have 2 macros to worry about, it’s pretty simple to figure out nutrition. I can eat leaner when I want to be leaner and fattier when I want to be bigger. Its also incredibly easy to fast eating in such a manner, which is another helpful tool in that regard.
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AM WORKOUT (0510 wake up via Valkyrie’s alarm)
TACTICAL BARBELL OPERATOR Week 1, Workout 1
“INDOOR POWER INTERVALS”
5 rounds on rower
1 min max effort
2 min rest
Notes:
- Back on the program. Since I flew home on a Monday, we’re starting off with conditioning, and then will get in 2 lifting workouts this week before getting fully on 3x a week lifting with Operator. This is like a Fighter break in.
- Absolutely did NOT want to get up and train, after such a wonderful bridge week of recovery, but with my competition coming up on 21 Feb, I have something to work toward. I definitely need to get back into shape as well, because this was the easier version of indoor power intervals and it was totally gassing me.
- Weighed in at 89.1kg. As Kroc once said “If I was a soup, I’d be labeled ‘chunky.”. This is pretty awesome, as this is about 6kg gained in 10 weeks and 10kg gained from my most recent lowest weight. Doing this while eating in a manner that people SWEAR you can’t gain weight with (the carb eaters claiming it’s impossible to put on muscle without carbs and the carnivore zealots claiming it’s impossible to put on fat eating carnivore) is always a fun “so there”.
- Today is my first day of experimenting with coffee fasting. No breakfast after training, just allowing myself black coffee until dinner. Which, during my bridge week, I discovered that I REALLY like coffee, but I’m also not addicted to it, because I had one morning where I poured myself a big cup of it with breakfast, looked at it, said “I don’t want this” and dumped it right out. I realized I had just done it out of habit, but really wasn’t in the mood for a warm bitter beverage at that point. I also switched to decaf in the evenings and still just enjoyed the beverage. I like how it forces me to slow down to drink it. I also still seem pretty immune to the effects of caffeine, and part of me wonders if it really is just treating an undiagnosed form of ADD.
- Knee is feeling the best it’s felt in a long time. I can sit for prolonged periods without agony and walk without pain. Once I start training hard and heavy again, I’ll see how it feels, but if nothing else it’s a sign that nothing is irreparably damaged. Back is almost 100% as well, but I’ll see how training treats it. If nothing else, the rowing didn’t bug it.
- I’ll write a full up review at some point, but I read Stan Efferding’s Vertical Diet 3.0 (I know 4.0 is out there, but not on amazon) over the trip. I enjoyed the book, and as I read it was thinking that it’s definitely something I could do. It seems plenty sustainable and workable and balanced. About the only thing stopping me is the fact that what I’m doing right now is already working really well. I like being in ketosis/fat adapated, I like how I can effortlessly fast, and I like how simple this approach is. But I understand the value in dietary flexibility that something like the Vertical Diet provides by opening up the avenue for more food choices. I’m considering an experiment with it, as I feel like eating the foods that Stan includes would allow me to consume carbs without the normal terrible feeling I had when I ate them regularly. I’ve also considered implementing it in a seasonal approach, alternating between carnivore and Vertical. A consideration, if nothing else.
- Back to Tang Soo Do tonight.
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This wonderfully describes me. I enjoy coffee, but get no benefit. I’m far too picky on the coffee I like, however. I also really don’t like hot drinks, so stick to cold brew year ‘round.
Glad to see you’re back. Feels weird to not wake up to see your food pics or workouts every day.
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@dchris Always appreciate you following along dude! The food pics will be a little reduced now, haha. I’m a bit less picky about coffee, but I can tell which ones I like more than others. The stuff on the Disney ship was honestly just passable: a bit too weak in flavor. I do enjoy cold brew as well, but the heat slowing me down really seems to be what settles it for me, as I also seem to prefer to have this during the colder seasons.
Meant to log that I had another keto brick on the way home on our travel day. They’re really just an awesome travel meal. Considering they were charging $20 for a cheeseburger in the Chicago airport, I had no issues skipping out and eating 1000 calories in 5 oz.
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Its crazy the prices in air ports
Upsettingly so. I’m not allowed to bring water, but you’ll gladly charge me $4 for a bottle of it. It pays to be prepared: quite literally. A keto brick is $15 when purchased singularly (cheaper in bulk), and it’s way more nutrition than what I’d get at that price. Same with the $20 bag of biltong I brought.
We always pack/bring food. My dad was a trip though: when they started banning peanuts on planes due to allergies, he’d pack his own, and make a show of opening up the bag when the flight attendants walked by, haha.
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This made me laugh
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