Fasted until dinner, then did a 12oz cut of beef round tip (cut from that Costco roast). Cooked it in the sous vide for 3.5 hours at 134, then pan seared in wagyu tallow and butter basted. It really turns a cheap cut into something magical. Had it alongside 3 whole eggs and 5 whites (poured the garlic butter on top of it), and the Valkyrie shared some of the fat off her filet mignon with me. Also had 1 deviled egg (or 2 halves, depending on how you look at it)
Also took photos of all the finished steaks. Really getting a handle on getting a good crust.
@BethB Thanks so much! 19 years. I finally gained the courage to sign up in college after having finished up my run of Super Squats. I remember my first post too. It was a topic asking how much milk we were drinking a day, and I was so proud to report my answer was āA gallonā. Felt like it gave me cred, haha.
The bridge week continues. I actually got in a 2.5 mile walk with my 20.4lb tac carrier after dinner last night. Tang Soo Do was low activity. I slept in today, and think Iām just going to do that all week and heal up. Took the pug puppy for a 20ish minute walk first thing in the morning and did another coffee fast, just because Iām not training and my appetite is reduced.
That said, I weighed 82.8kg, which is another reflection of 1kg lower than last weekās weigh in on Wed, and is again an all time low post carb up. Which is also making me lean (pun!) more toward going to Mass protocol post comp. As much as Iād like to be ārazor sharpā again before I start gaining, I know my strength is on borrowed time as my bodweight declines, and if I get myself too scrawny Iām just going to undo damage instead of climb upward. 9 weeks of gaining and 6 weeks of Operating is a pretty solid ops tempo, and I can chase the leanness dragon in the summer if I really want to.
Valkyrie is a tracker, unlike me, and she shared her macros with me the other day. Sheās taking in 130g of protein a day. Thatās just awesome.
They say you have two births in life. 1. When you are born. 2. When you join T-Nation in the early 2000s and subject yourself to the scrutiny and lambasting of Bonez, Prof X and others.
So true! Also, ironically, I had an account in 2006 (I was 16) and posted dumb things. Took me 4 years to get courage to create a new account and post again.
Edit: dumb things had to do with steroids. I was serious about sports and everyone was using pro hormones back then.
Oh my goodness, the Andro wild west! It was everywhere. I remember a dude approaching me about it in the gym at college. āYeah, I was taking andro. I got really jacked, but then I started developing boobs and would just cry for no reason. I have to buy some more!ā
lmao! So true! My buddy gave me a bottle of āThe Incredible Bulkā, which I believe was basically anadrol or superdrol. I never took it partially because of this site and because my buddy ended up with terrible gyno that he later had surgery on. Although, in his defense, it was likely worth it because he is only one of my close group of friends who had a good MLB career (played for 10 years, including in a WS game where he got 2nd)
I am not sure I knew this was here until the Dave Draper forums shut down. I spent probably 20+ years there. I would embarrass myself, disappear, and then go back at it.
@Friedrich Itās been great having you here. As forums dwindle, the āold guardā that remains tends to be high caliber.
@dchris Itās so wild to think how, chronologically, it doesnāt seem like that long ago, but culturally it was FOREVER ago. You could just walk into GNC and buy designer steroids. Which meant our parents saying āstay away from protein powder: itās drugsā werenāt all that far off, haha. And, of course, as me and @TrainForPain and @simo74 will bemoan: it was ābetterā that way. Having limited choices and limited avenues of information made us MORE focused. There werenāt as many shiny objects to distract us. And you were hardcore for drinking protein powder, because that stuff tasted awful! Haha. Whereas today, thatās my reward/treat. And I remember all the awful Costco protein bars I went through before I finally found ones that were tolerable. If I could only have gone back in time and just convinced myself to eat some eggs instead. Although I guess back in the aughts, eggs were going to kill usā¦
There I go rambling again.
Slept in really late (for me on a weekday) to 0540, because my kiddo had a snow day due to impending weather. Did zero activity, weighed 82.4kg, continuing this weekās trend of āwhooshā, most likely a result of reduced inflammation and the coffee fasting. The āeat less/do lessā approach absolutely works, and itās a little funny that I have no issues making 181 this weekend despite the fact Iām competing in the open category. But Iām happy that this will set me up for a gaining block, and that I discovered a really simple and sustainable fat loss protocol for the future. Really I just keep combining all the stuff that works, and I think Iām going to keep 1 coffee fasting day per week in the gaining block as a result.
Tang Soo Do was a decent workout last night. 90 minute class, first 60 minutes workout focused, like 30 board break focused.
Depending on how hard the snow hits, activity may be a little light today. Iām in a weird place of champing at the bit to get to training again but also REALLY enjoying all this sleep Iāve been getting. My 4 day weekend rolled into this bridge week, and itās pretty much exactly as Stan Efferding has mentioned regarding the significance of sleep for physical transformation.
Donāt forget you could also get DMAA, in the form of a pre workout - Jack3d. Itās really no wonder why my parents didnāt want me taking creatine.
Looks like itās going to miss us down here but the temps are dropping and the wind has been quite the nuisance lately.
I think I joined the forum in 2007 and I canāt remember how or why I found it. I do remember sitting at the computer in the weight room of the Lake Place Olympic Training Center reading. I took a different route to get here. I never had magazines or any of the āold schoolā stuff. I just started lifting in high school when I could take it as a class (like I teach now) and then joined brother for a bit (heās 4.5 years older) at the end of my junior year. He was on a bit of something and showed me his six day per week bodybuilding split. Chest/Tris, Back/Shoulders/Biceps, Legs, repeat. We did pyramid sets on most things like 10/8/6/4/2 just adding weight every set and pushing to failure. It turns out I was lucky because itās not a bad way to train and it worked.
I discovered the Exercise Science degree in college and started learning more about this stuff from the educational side of things. I also got a job as an intern and eventually personal trainer at a local gym. I had to go to trainings and Iāll never forget their āspecialistā teaching me about biomechanics and mind-muscle connection. For example, think of squeezing your pecs together during a fly instead of thinking about what your hands are doing. Drive your elbows back or down on pulls instead of thinking about āpullingā the bar to you. I really didnāt like the guy as a person, but he taught me a lot. I was even fortunate enough to escape the āfunctional fitnessā trend of things like standing on one leg on a bosu ball while doing a cable row. I must admit it got me for a bit because thatās what they were teaching us, but it didnāt stick.
I canāt remember my first posts, but luckily I didnāt create a thread asking for advice or help. I think I started by responding to beginner questions based on what Iād learned in college and from the National Strength & Conditioning Association text books.
Class of 2006 here. I was trying to find the name of a piece of gym equipment because I was writing a book and wanted to build a temporary gym in a barn. Google brought me to TN, where I did find the equipment name I was looking for (canāt remember what it was now). I was already heavily into message boards/forums, and so read the yellow thread titles on the lefthand side of the screen, where I saw āSex and the Male Animal.ā Being a curious sort, I of course clicked. Iāve been clicking here ever since.
I was a runner, and the first thread I started asked what would be a reasonable run for a non-runner fit weightlifter, so I could have my male protagonist run with the female protagonist. Then I wondered how many times an approximately 30 year old man could have sex in a single night. And of course in both cases got the answers I needed.
Youāve been on here for 19 years eh? I was reading the articles on here 15ish years ago myself but I never did get involved very much with forums back then. I read them a bit here and there. Thatās pretty cool though man!
@EmilyQ SAMA was the source of so much entertainmentā¦and new rules and policies, haha.
@whiplash1 This was always where the ābad boysā of the internet hung out, haha. Itās changed for the better, but I canāt say I donāt miss it.
Iāve decided to learn into the Heracles angle of my upcoming comp āTrial of Heraclesā by continuing to subsist off lamb. I had it for breakfast today, and my next 2 breakfasts will be lamb chops with eggs. Iāve also got my Heracles shirt picked out for the comp as well. Just going to keep living out those fantasies.
