Natty on Pennies

Training Training Logs
1042

Daily log:

Weight:
84.5kgs/186lbs

Down 1.8kgs from yesterday, today I was looking pretty damn crisp in terms of upper body, also I was decently full

Nutrition:
1470 Calories
220g Protein
80g Carbs
30g Fat

Training:
Lower body

Jump squats paired with front squat warm-ups
3x2
1 Front squat
2x3
increase weight
A double
increase weight
A single
decrease weight
A double
2 Front rack hold
150,200% of top weight
3a Good morning with pause on pins
2x8,25
3b Hanging leg raises w/fat grips
3x15
4a Leg press
3x15
4b Hamstring curl on exercise ball
3x25
4c Smith machine calf raise
3x12
5 Quad blast
2 rounds
quad stretch
10 minutes of cardio

Notes:
A solid session, although my hamstrings were still pretty sore from the stiff leg deads.

On front squats I’ve kind of shifted back to crossing hands instead of using front rack for my working sets, I still warm up with the front rack nd do the overloads with it, but for some reason crossed arms feel better to work with atm.

On good mornings there is no end to the progress being made. I’ve been adding weight and even reps every single time. That’s something that happens to me with pretty much every movement that mostly recruits the posterior chain.

Hanging leg raises with fat grips were fun, but I doubt they’ll do much for my abs. The traction of the lower back is a nice bonus though.

On assistance I added weight again and brought the volume down.

Ended with two quad blasts and 10 minutes of cardio, and let me tell you, I was sweating like a pig on Christmas eve. Maybe I’ll keep quad blasts in during the bulk as well, or impliment them at some point. Not sure yet.

That’s that, time to sleep.

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1043

Daily log:

Weight:
84.8kg/187lbs
Ate pretty late yesterday and it shows

Nutrition:
1200 Calories
190g Protein
40g Carbs
30g Fat

Training:
200 Calories worth of cardio
Some single arm hangs for fun

Next three days are looking quite hectic.

The day after tomorrow I have entrance exams for physical therapy.

Tomorrow I’ll have to wake up at 4AM to get training in, (I’m home at 11:30PM today at the very earliest) then straight to work for 10 hours, from there I’ll have togo and catch a train, and travel for three hours. I’ll be at my hotel at around 11:30PM.

Next morning I’ve got to get up at 6AM (thankfully) and find the place. Then it’s a day full of tests and whatnot. In the evening I hop back on the train, travel three hours back home and then I’ll go and hit legs. It’s gonna be midnight once I’m home.

And the day after that up again at 4AM to go back to work.

Even with a tight and demanding schedule like this I’ll still stay on the diet. I have made all the food already, it’s packed and ready to go. There will be no “oh it was such a hard day of exams and my train leaves half an hour late, so I’ll grab a burger to get some energy for the leg session” that’s not how this goes. Tunnel vision. Everything is planned, nothing is permitted.

I won’t be measuring my weight unless the hotel has a scale, but in the past diets and bulks I’ve actually brought a scale with me every time I went to a hotel/to someone else’s house to see if my weight was moving. Kinda silly really.

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1044

From certain viewpoints the vast majority of what we do looks extremely silly.

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1045

That’s true. Although eating healthy and lifting weights has become increasingly more popular and socially acceptable in the past few years there are still a few thing that are “sacred” to most of the people. (At least here in Finland)

For example, during the summer, if you do not want to eat when someone has grilled or you refuse ice cream they often get offended and seemingly worried about you. Now I know Finns well enough to know that what they are really irritated about is the fact that they couldn’t bring you down onto the same level with them when it comes to nutrition.

The thing here is that if you can’t be better, make everyone else worse, and it shows, a lot.

I’m not quite sure how this has anything to do with looking silly, I kinda drifted away here.

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1046

Daily log:

Weight:
84.5kg/186lbs

Going back down despite poor sleep

Nutrition:
1470 Calories
220g Protein
80g Carbs
30g Fat

Training:
Upper body

1a Clap pushups
3x3
1b Explosive sternum chins
3x3
2 Close grip bench
2x3
increase weight
A double
increase weight
A single (with accidental pause)
decrease weight
A triple
3a Bench holds
110,120,130% of top weight
3b Weighted pull ups w/fat grips
3x5
3c Alternating incline dumbbell press
3x7/side
3d Seal rows
3x10
4a Lying cable skullcrusher
3x10
4b Seated DB curl
3x8-12
4c Side laterals with back support
3x12-15
Two and a half minutes of cardio

Notes:
I wasn’t expecting too much from this session, but I still went at it with full speed.

On bench I increased weight on every set apart from my top set, where I accidentally paused it. Just plain forgot to press back up. Luckily my pause pressing strength is pretty much equal to my regular presses. But still, that was a pause PR.

After that I did a giant set with the big movements I had left to save some time.

“But man, you can’t do rows and pull ups in the same circuit! Your biceps and forearms will be fatigued!”

Tell me about it. With the wonders of high work capacity and putting a press between them I was able to recover from both back movements before I had to hit the other one. And I did not take a single break during those three rounds. Yeah, my forearms and biceps got a but fatigued but I still hit all my reps and progressed with every movement.

Finished the lifting portion with arms and side delts done as a circuit, again to save some time.

After that I just did a pretty intense rower sprint thing.

I have a bit over three weeks of the diet left, then it’s time to gain again. Oh yeah.

Tomorrow I’ll attend the entrance exams to physical therapy, hopefully all goes well. I wouldn’t say I’m nervous, it’s just something I want to get over with. Also, getting into a school is pretty much on the top of my list at the moment.

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1047

Good luck mate!

Edit: plz remember to read the questions thoroughly. It would be a shame for the industry if you didn’t get qualified.

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1048

Best of luck. You’ll do fine.

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1049

Thanks guys, as long as it doesn’t come down to dancing again I think I’ll manage

Yeah, after the sports science mess I think I’ll remember to do just that.

1050

Finally got to the hotel

Having your phone die on you in a city that you haven’t ever been in is always a treat. Luckily I had checked the map beforehand so I kinda had a general idea of where to head, although I did go the wrong way a couple of times.

Oh well, time to sleep, it’s 11:20PM and I’ve got to get up early.

1051

It’s about midday now. In the morning we had a written exam, basically it tested your motivation and English skills. I feel like that went pretty well.

After that, physical tests (I suppose it’s coordination stuff and whatnot again) in groups. My group isn’t going in for a couple more hours, so after the written exam I decided to hit the gym.

Now I didn’t have my peri-workout supplements, post workout meal or any gym gear with me, but I did have my amino acid drink, my chicken and one serving of whey.

So I went to the store to get my daily orange, salt rice cakes to substitute for the rice I’ll miss.

The cheapest salt package they had was this kilo bag of rough sea salt, so of course I went for it. Later on you could see me doing my session carrying my bottle in one hand and a bag of salt in the other and every now and then I’d just throw some salt down the hatch. (That’s because I use salt with my intra-workout drinks and the stuff was so strong I figured it would be easier to just eat it instead of putting it in the drink.

Although I had to substitutesome food to another one I’ll be able to hit my macros or at least be pretty close, because essentially I just moved my rice around and ate some more of it instead of intra-workout carbs.

Two hours until the physical tests.

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1052

Daily log: Training twice a day and doing a physical test on top of that with sub - 1.5K Calories - edition

Let’s start with the part you want to hear, the tests.

So, the written exam was all good. 30 points total, 10 coming from English and 20 from motivation.
English was really easy, I feel that I aced it. (Which also means a lot of the other people got good points)
The motivation part is kind of a mix. Like, as I wrote it I felt pretentious even though I was only telling the truth. I even considered watering it down at one point but I didn’t. We’ll see how that went.

After written exam I went and did lower body.

The physical exam was a lot more comfortable to do than last time. It had a lot of the same elements - we had to show each other warm up exercises, move to the rhythm of music (last time this was 10 minutes long, now it was 4 minutes split in two, thank god) then there were some jumps, coordination and memory stuff plus mixes of those. Overall, the exam felt a lot better than last time, but it’s hard to say how it went.

Also, I managed to break a tooth while doing a backwards somersault, whoops. (It’s not a big deal, the part that broke off is rather small)

But now, back to the regular schedule:

Weight:
Unknown

Nutrition
1413 Calories
195g Protein
88g Carbs
29g Fat

As I said, I had to do some substitutions, nd as I trained in the gym twice today I wanted to have carbs after both of those session, hence the massive 8 grams of carbs over the usual.

Training:
AM:
Lower body:
1a Safety squat bar squat
2x3
increase weight
A double
increase weight
A single
increase weight
A single
decrease weight
A triple
1b Lying leg curl
5x6
2a SLDL with chains
2x5,7
2b Hanging leg raise
3x15
3a Reverse hyper
3x15
3b Seated calf raise
3x12
After that I did a total of about 15 sets of 15-30 reps on machine hack squat, and leg press variations, testing out the gyms equipment as I may come and train there after summer. Nothing super hard but it adds up and the quad pump was pretty sweet afterwards.

PM:
Metabolic/conditioning stuff
1a Quad blast
3 rounds
1b Leg curl with exercise ball
3x15
2a Walking short+low-stride lunge
2x50/side
2b Hanging leg curl
2x30
Crunch
2x30
200 Calories worth of cardio

Notes:
The gym was super cool. The SSB bar was great. Squatting with it was at least as natural as front squatting is, very upright, very easy to engage the quads. Only downside is that someone had removed the pad from it and I didn’t put it back, and as the bar sits very high on your neck it was a bit rough.

Apart from that, nothing really interesting happened during the morning session. The machines were good and I liked the gym a lot.

In the evening I got back to the gym to do my metabolic/conditioning stuff that I didn’t do in the am session to avoid damaging my performance in the tests.

I had absolutely no rest during this session and man, it was pretty tough.

A quad blast for those who don’t know is:
25 Squats
12 Lunges/side
12 Jump lunges/side
15 Squat jumps
done with bodyweight and your hands behind your head.

That was paired with exercise ball ham curls to get it a bit more balanced.

After that, lunges for 50 reps per side, that’s a hundred reps total per set!
Combined that with hanging leg curls and crunches.

Finished up with 200 Calories worth of cardio, sweaty as hell. It was a decent conditioning session.

Today was not half as bad as I anticipated, I must say. But I’m still glad it’s over.

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1053

You just can’t stick to a diet can you!? Haha

Good job on the big day mate. Hopefully the testing will work out in your favour. Are you having a break anytime soon? I’m tired just reading your log!

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1054

It’s hard with all this good food around me man!

Thanks man, yeah I actually do have two days off from work this week. On one of them I’ll take a rest day and I’ll have a “refeed” (a cheat day really, I wanna see how that works) with all the stuff going around that is the only possible day to use if I want to try this out.

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1055

Good job on those exams, you’ll pass for sure!

How did you manage that?

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1056

Thanks man, I sure hope so!

I didn’t have my teeth completely together as I began the movement and being the acrobat that I am the impact of hitting the floor made me hit my upper teeth with my lower ones.

The one that broke has been broken before, so the bottom half of the whole teeth is a fake, which is probably why it broke now too. The piece missing is just a cosmetic thing, it’s not hurting or anything.

1057

I’m gonna shed some light on why I’ll try a cheat day: (Feel free to use this to assess for yourself)

  1. I’m not filling up completely with just carb loads even if I eat north of 3 pounds of pure carbohydrates
  2. My weight hasn’t come down as swiftly after my latest refeed which tells me that we are quite a bit under my bodyfat setpoint range which in turn means that metabolism is slowing down to combat that
  3. Linked to the point above, carb loads don’t offer nearly the same metabolic benefits as cheat meals do, so this is the only good way to get humming again
  4. On a diet like mine where both carbs and fat are very limited, you deplete not only your muscles’ glycogen stores but also your intra-muscular fat stores, and in order to have optimal performance and fat loss you don’t want either of those too depleted

And why am I having it on a set day?
Because a week afterwards is my girlfriend’s graduation party, and I know that if I try to push the refeed there my performance will suffer and nobody else will get to eat at the party. That day I’ll have some extra food, but ill try to stay around maintenance at the very highest (think 2.5-3K)

1058

Daily log:

Weight:
83.9kgs/184.5lbs
Probably will hit a new low as soon as I get a decent sleep. Objectively I’m already leaner than at my lowest weight on this diet (I’m seeing more detail now) it’s just bloat from not sleeping.

Nutrition:
1200 Calories
190g Protein
40g Carbs
30g Fat

Training:
200 Calories worth of cardio
Stretching

Gonna deplete for two more days and then I’ll have a full on cheat day, as I mentioned before.

My cognitive functions are at an all time low, today I’ve fallen asleep twice after work and I forgot my keys in my locker door, also remembering which ingredients I’ve put into my intra-workout drink for tomorrow is a chore.

Definitely need a calorie load, or sleep, preferably both. I’d chalk most of this up to simply sleeping too little in the past few days.

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1059

When you get a chance (preferably after a nap and some food) can you explain a bit how this works. All I can think is that it’s related to cortisol levels…?

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1060

You’re right with that thinking.

Being deprived of sleep, especially for a longer period of time increases your cortisol levels. (That’s because cortisol is a hormone that increases in times of stress and sleep is a anti-stressor) This alone makes you retain water, but in addition to that, your digestive system suffers. That is a big reason for bloating. You know, how you get a bit bloated after a big meal? If you can’t sleep your digestive system will have a hard time doing it’s job digesting all those meals you’ve had and thus you’ll be stuck with that bloated look. Delayed bowel movements are a good indicator of this happening.

Also, when you sleep you are not consuming any food, but you are still sweating and, as mentioned before, digesting your meals. The longer this goes on the more water and bloat you lose just because you’re not drinking or eating anything but you’re still sweating and breathing. Now, I don’t know if there is scientific literature about this, but you ever notice how you may retain a bit more water if you sleep, say 12 hours instead of 7-9 hours? My thinking here is that because it’s such a long time your body must start retaining water to avoid extreme dehydration, and so, even when your cortisol levels are not that elevated and your digestive system is working you may look soft.

So get your sleep in, but don’t go too much overboard.

Edit.
As I told you, once I get a good night’s sleep I’ll be at a new low. Last night I got seven hours in, so not really good, but decent still and today I weighted in at 82.9kgs, which is 0.4kgs under my previous lowest weight.

I’m playing with the idea of trying to get my weight down to 80kgs and benching 140kg on the close grip then because that’d be 175% of BW for close grip bench which would be pretty cool. Also if I managed to get my incline up a bit I could then do 120 at 80 for 150% there.

Oh, and if you haven’t noticed, I’m also going to compete in the world championships of rambling and going off-topic

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1061

Daily log:

Weight:
82.9kgs/182.5lbs

A new low, looked really dry and depleted in the morning. Coincidentally, I don’t think I’ve ever looked this good as a whole. I’m leaner than ever before and even though I’ve been bigger at a bit higher bf%, I think I’m more balanced now in terms of upper body. My arms and delts look like they are nearly the same caliber as my chest and back for the first time ever, I think. I am, however missing some leg mass I used to have that creates a slight imbalance between my upper and lower body BUT at the moment my legs alone look more balanced as well. (Because it’s not just tiny calves and big thighs now)

Nutrition:
1470 Calories
220g Protein
80g Carbs
30g Fat

Training:
Upper body
1a Clap pushups
3x3
1b Explosive sternum chins
3x3
2a Incline bench
2x3
increase weight
A double
increase weight
A miss
decrease weight
A single
2b Weighted pull ups w/fat grips
5x6
3a CG Board press
3x6
3b Smith machine rows
3x12
4a EZ-Bar curls w/fat grips
3x12
4b Standing cable skullcrusher
3x10
5a Rear laterals w/head support
3x12-20
5b Side delt burns
3x12-15
5c Face pull
3x10-15
5 minutes of cardio

Notes:

The depletion got me. I tried to increase my top single on inclines, got it halfway up and just tanked there. Decreased weight and tried to get a double but I was shot. Oh well.

Board presses felt heavy too, no surprises there. Decided to lower the volume a tad but for the day to save my nervous system a bit.

Apart from those two, however everything went really well and progressed.

The calorie load coming on Sunday is not a single day too early, I’m really feeling the diet at the moment. Mentally it’s a bit hard to go and do such load because I feel that my conditioning (as in physical appearance) will suffer for a few days afterwards and just now I’m at the peak of my aesthetics, but I value long term progress and performance over a couple of days of less bloat.

My left calf has been a bit fucky for two days now, I think I won’t be doing anything heavy for calves today just so I don’t actually hurt it. Maybe some bodyweight stuff but that’s about it.

Also, my tooth has apparently broken up a bit more. I didn’t notice anything but my girlfriend told me this morning that the piece missing us bigger than yesterday. So probably I should go and see a dentist. I’m not particularly excited about losing more of it.

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