@alex_uk You’ve nailed it. How goddamn delicious could a vending machine chicken samosa be that you’re willing to lose a foot over it? That you pick it over making weight for your wedding? This is what food addiction looks like, and it’d definitely be a place for those meds.
@antiquity Hah! Great minds. It gives me a disproportionate amount of joy.
Fasted through breakfast. We did a taco night tonight, with my in-laws in town. Treated myself to a for real taco, using a white corn tortilla. It was honestly just plain not worth it: I don’t miss tortillas. But I liked the ingredients at least. Had 2 taco bowls, composed of 93% lean beef, leftover scrambled eggs, crumbled bacon, sour cream, some avocado, and shredded cheese. An absolutely awesome single meal for the day.
AM WORKOUT (0400 wake up via alarm, rough night of sleep due to thunderstorms)
TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 2, Workout 5
MAIN CLUSTER
Buffalo bar squat
4x6x342
Axle strict press
4x6x166
SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER
(3) Incline DB bench
4x10x70s
DB row
4x10x135
GHRs
4x10x45
ASSISTANCE
GHR sit ups
3x10
Notes:
Crazy storms last night, woke me out of a sound sleep and woke up drenched in sweat from the high humidity. Less than ideal for training. It’s funny how I have weekly motivators to get me going. On Monday, it’s because it’s our 1 night of the week we get to relax, so I don’t want to put off training there. On Wed, it’s the deadlift day, and there’s no opportunity to slide the training to the evening. On Friday, I know getting this workout in on the morning punches my ticket to start the weekend when I get home. Whatever it takes.
Progress all around. Got through all the sets of strict press. 2 mins rest on the main cluster, 1 min on DB row and GHRs/sit ups, 60-90-120 on the DB bench.
Knee continues to be in a good way, to the point that I forget it was hurt. I’m just feeling very “normal” again.
Weighed 82.7kg this morning. Upped my breakfast intake a little by including some cheese and sour cream, but also just was thinking on my way to work that I’m not really training for anything in particular at the moment. I like where my physique is at, I’m getting stronger, I like fasting through 2 breakfasts per week, and I’m not hungry for more food. I may just let this training phase play out intuitively and see what happens. Room to manuever, if nothing else.
Breakfast was a whole bunch of stuff. 10.5 ounces of leg of lamb (the scraps from the week), a 5oz serving of canned tuna that I mixed with some sour cream, beef liver, 3 whole eggs and 5 whites with some shredded colby jack.
For dinner, I made pork tenderloin for the family, and while the cast iron was still hot I cooked up some pork breakfast sausage as well, to keep the pork theme going (continuing an anti-lent trend). Had my fair share, alongside my typical 3 whole eggs and 5 whites.
Had our belt test in Tang Soo Do today. Lasted 2 hours and 20 minutes. After physical testing requirements at the start (45 push ups, 45 sit ups and 45 jumping jacks), we did over an hour of basics: hand techniques, then foot, then combinations. Then it was open hand forms, then weapons forms, then one step self-defense, then sparring, and finally board breaking. Got both of my boards on the first attempt and impressed my instructor with my movement selection (a backfist for my hand break and a jump roundhouse for my foot). I was drenched in sweat, fatigued, and renewed my love for the martial art. That happens after every test.
For the nutrition recap, breakfast was 2 omelets with 3 eggs, some leftover tri tip, ghee, jarlsburg swiss, topped with some sour cream, alongside 3 strips of beef bacon, a grassfed beef hot dog, some beef liver, and some pork breakfast sausage.
Dinner was a full rack of ribs and some brisket, after the belt test. I inhaled it. It was incredible.
TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 3, Workout 1
MAIN CLUSTER
Buffalo Bar Squat
4x3x367
Axle strict press
4x3x176
SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER
(3) DB incline bench
4x8x75s
DB rows
4x8x145
GHRs
4x8x55
ASSISTANCE
GHR sit up
3x10
Notes:
Got a little less sleep than usual, since the in-laws are in town and we stayed up a little later, but it was deeper sleep. Felt energized and ready. My right elbow is a little tender from getting it cranked in belt testing, and my right knuckle is the same from the board break
As it was a backfist, and my instructor’s words were “They’re YOUR knuckles”. I said that, thankfully, I don’t have piano lessons any more.
Boy I love this week. Triples are such a treat after 8s and 6s. Workouts go faster too. Felt strong, took the squats deep, knee is feeling solid. Managed to tweak something in my right trap putting the plates away overhead, so there’s a reason why you shouldn’t clean up after yourself.
Incline DB benching felt the best yet.
Weighed 82.8kg this morning, which means all those squats were over double bodyweight. That’s pretty cool. It’s been difficult for me to calibrate sub 400 to have any sort of significance, but those little reminders help.
I picked today’s soundtrack because yesterday was the 32nd Anniversary of “The Downward Spiral”…and also the 33rd Anniversary of “Bevis and Butthead”
Last week, I went all 7 days getting in 3x15 chins. I opened up today with a set of 16. We’ll see where this goes.
Ok, so the food pictures. Yesterday, we went into Lincoln and had my Valkyrie’s favorite Hawaiian BBQ place for lunch, but when we got to their Costco, I discovered they sell beef plate short ribs, and at $6.99 per pound. It’s practically stealing, so I got as many as they sold. And the Valkyrie has also been experimenting with sourdough, and finally got it in a good enough place for us to make it into pizza dough. I bought some legit pizza sauce, shredded a combination of mozzarella and cheddar, and then some pineapple, black olives and pachetta from a local Italian deli. I had 4 slices, along with 4 cookies with some raw local honey. Probably my first real “pizza night” in a decade or so, and I’m excited for us to make it a regular thing.
Breakfast was 14oz of beef rib fingers, air fried, alongside some pork sausage, beef liver, 3 whole eggs and 5 whites.
Dinner was 3 whole eggs, 5 whites, and about 3 pork chops. I had 2 for myself, and finished off what was leftover on the Valkyrie and Kiddo’s plates. Proud of the color I got on those pork chops. Still a tragedy to cook them without any pink, but compromises.
TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 3, Workout 2
“VIKING RAID”
15 minutes
100m row
150lb sandbag carry
Add 100m each round, max rounds in 15 minutes
Notes:
Finished the 6th round this time and was starting the second when time expired. Further than last week, not as far as the first week.
My elbows are a little achy: a telltale sign I’m pushing the daily chins too hard. I am notoriously stupid for always upping my chin volume at the same time that I reintroduce low bar squats into the equation. It made the bag picks a little more tender than usual.
I came up with an idea to make this even MORE “viking raid-y”: I could incorporate some heavy bag/Body Action System work into the workout. Row, get off the rower and hit the bag, then do the carry. It would fit the story of rowing to the shore, fighting the locals, and stealing their stuff. I’d have to come up with a specific combo or something like that, since I don’t have a round timer going, but it could be a fun way to work even more variety into this, and I have all this gear in my basement. Another approach would be to include a bag over shoulder first, to simulate throwing an opponent.
Tang Soo Do is tonight. It’s one-step week, which is low activity, but we should get the results of our belt test back.
I think Stan Efferding and others have been on point regarding the value of sleeping vs training, as these shorter training days will more sleep seem to be doing me some positives. I also just plain like this training day in general because it includes the coffee fast post workout. This has been one of my better nutritional experiments. The every other day intermittent fasting gives my guts a rest from the food, the mornings that I coffee fast are excellent “high speed/low drag” mornings where I don’t have to do a bunch of dishes before I go to work, whereas the mornings that I DO have breakfast are mornings where I just plain look forward to getting to have breakfast. With it being every other day, I look forward to each day due to the unique reward it brings. On my fasting days I go to bed thinking “Oh good: I get breakfast tomorrow”, and on my fed days I go to bed thinking “Oh good, I have an easy morning tomorrow”.
On the above, woke up at 82.8kg again this morning. I am thinking to just let this training cycle play out a bit more naturally and see where I fall.
All that said, my local grocery store was selling corned beef points for $3.85 a pound, so of course I bought a ridiculous amount of them so I know what I’ll be having for breakfast until May.
EDIT: While I’m bloviating, it dawned on me that the coffee fasting only “works” BECAUSE of the follow on carnivore approach. Specifically, eating meals of only meat and eggs+ that greek yogurt/metabolic drive pre-bedtime meal ensures that I’m getting in adequate protein to not run into muscle wasting issues. Ketones are also protein sparing. And the absence of insulin spikes/blood sugar crashes prevents me from experiencing hypoglycemia or just plain hangriness. I’d be curious if it could be replicated with a mixed diet. Carbs are protein sparing as well, so the idea could be to consume enough carbs to obviate the protein shortage, but then I’d be curious if the compensatory hunger would be an issue.
This is my favorite time of year. Corned beef is one of my favorite meals. Added benefit that it’s usually inexpensive and my family hates it. More for me!
I’ve probably done less than 20 in last six months for this reason. Pushed way too hard.
That’s awesome! What belt did you test for? I can’t recall, but did your kiddo catch up to you and wife?
Yeah, I’m hoping I can hoodwink the Valkyrie and kiddo into some corned beef dinners, but if it’s a no go, I’m eating good for a while. So many fun ways to cook it.
And thanks! The kiddo is still 1 belt behind us, but we may be able to afford them an opportunity to catch up. They tested for 2nd Gup, and we tested for 1st Gup, which puts me and the Valkyrie at 2 belts away from black (our next belt is “Cho Dan Bo”, which is “black belt candidate”, and then after that is “Cho Dan”, 1st degree black belt), and then kiddo would be 3 away.
I really had no clue which way to go with the corned beef brisket I picked up last week, so I just threw it in the slow cooker for eight hours with two cans of beef broth. The bit I sampled before putting it away was exactly what I wanted - moist and tender beef. I like the extra saltiness from the curing process, too.
Pretty much any way you can have a brisket is a good way, haha. I’ve taken to cutting them into kabob sizes and air frying them, and even that is incredible.
Messaged my wife after reading this thread this morning. I didn’t know that she had already bought me a corned beef and put in slow cooker, shortly after I left for work this morning. When I asked, she just responded with a picture of it cooking.
@dchris It’s funny how the dirty photos during work change a little as we get older, but the sentiment is still the same, haha. I actually just threw one in the sous vide on my lunch break for dinner tomorrow.
@BethB Hey, don’t blame me for how history went: I’m just role playing, haha. Reminds me of this awesome piece of trivia from Jamie Lewis though. Because the vikings were so prolific in their raiding, we actually have records to corroborate how long it took them to row from one location to the other, which meant we could figure out the speed that they rowed. According to Jamie, they tried to replicate these feat with either collegiate or olympic level rowers (I forget specifically). The athletes DID manage to complete the time and distance of the vikings, simply to exit the boat and immediately vomit from the sheer effort required to maintain that intensity for that duration. They were DONE. Meanwhile, these vikings would row this hard, exit the boat, slaughter everyone they encountered, take their stuff, load it BACK on the boat and row back home.
Coffee fast until dinner, and boy was it worth it.
Ok, legit, the best chuck roast I’ve ever had in my life, completely patting myself on the back. Sous vide at 153 for around 24 hours with some Amish butter and a cup of the stock that was leftover from when I made American Wagyu short ribs, took it out and seared it in the Instant Pot rather than the cast iron. The higher walls were able to get a more even sear around it. Seared it in tallow with some garlic, went 1 minute per side, developed a beautiful color, then threw in some Amish butter to baste it. Poured the drippings on top to serve. It sliced and ate like a brisket, and was cooked to a wonderful medium color. Valkyrie and kiddo approved. Served alongside 3 whole eggs and 5 whites. I threw some extra meat on the plate, just in case, but ended up eating all that was left of the roast after the rest of the family had their share and was more than content.
Chuck roast is one of my favorite foods, and this is the best way I’ve ever had it. This was a keeper.
