I understand obsessing over the nutrition. I’m finally not tracking everything I eat. It’s been nice to finally let it go. I’ll probably go back to weighing and tracking when I decide to cut some fat but until then I’m just eating. It’s provided some much needed freedom. It can drive you crazy trying to log your food when you’re eating a homemade meal with family and you don’t know the recipe!
If this is what works for you then keep it up. The dangerous thing about being an all-or-nothing guy is that a little bit of “failure” can lead to a big mistake—quitting. We’ve all seen people get off track and just say “Ah crap, I failed. I might as well quit.” Make mistakes, learn from them, but never stop. It doesn’t matter if you’re bulking, cutting, or striving for maintenance—never give up on your plans because you have an off day or week.
Hey man
You are looking good and to second Mr. Maier you are being a bit harsh to yourself.
You obviously know your calories and you count the banana and the grape wich to be honest is very little calories. As long as you don’t eat 20 bananas extra everyday you’re fine.
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There is an article from the start of the year about eating in a deficit for 2 weeks and then 2 weeks maintenance. Something about the body adapts to the deficit and burns less calories. So the two weeks maintenance is letting the body begin to burn extra calories when going to a deficit again.
It sounds okay if it is I don’t know.
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You look great man, keep up the good work and remember an extra banana or grape won’t do you any bad.
Indeed, social events do become a stressor under this madness. Fortunately, our family dinners have evolved to everyone brings what they want to eat (siblings are vegetarian & vegan) so those events, in particular, haven’t been bad at all. After-work events are another story.
Wise words. I’ll remember to revisit them should I find myself in that situation.
Like the other guys said, don’t be too hard on yourself. The fact that you get anywhere close to hitting your macros is impressive to me–I try to track my macros and calories and end up just forgetting. I estimate protein and that’s it.
Anyways, there’s no point in obsessing over it. In the long run, if you slip up for one night and consume 1,000 extra calories (which could be one ice cream dessert or too much pizza or something), it’ll take maybe a week, maximum, to earn that deficit back. I know if it were me, I’d much rather go out with the boys and crush beers/eat a bunch of food and have to do an extra week of dieting than just not having fun.
Unless you’re aiming for a Mr. Olympia title, you’ll be perfectly fine. You’re doing all the right things. You’re doing everything you can to make your life better in this regard, but don’t forget to live a little!!
Still sick, unfortunately. It’s down in the lungs. Want to get well ASAP to not miss out on any more work days. My plan yesterday night was to go in and do some squats and overhead presses, not do the whole planned training session, just some low volume stuff, kind of in line with this The Vital Whole Human - T NATION But, this morning I felt that was going to be a no-go, so I called in sick and went back to sleep and got a total of 12h of sleep. Going to be having extra amounts of fruits today and see if I can’t polyphenol this away.
Meal prep on Sundays help. And an app, Lifesum. It has a barcode scanner so adding things in is super easy, it remembers what you use frequently and so on. If you have certain pairings that you want to group together you can do that too by making it into a “meal”. It also has some amazing looking recipes but I’m not really using that feature yet (after the diet though).
I’m with you in this one, as I am the same way in terms of personality.
If a banana is something you didn’t plan to eat it’s off track - now of course if you’re going hypoglycemic it’s a different thing. But anything you can’t really justify is eating off in my book
Today, I can justify my eating. Sick, need nutrients. Might have gone too big on the fruit though, when I realised that after the liver fills up all that fructose will have nowhere to go than to fill up my fat cells. Either way, it will nevertheless help my immune system more than say pasta would have. Tried to mitigate the damage with apple cider vinegar, omega-3s and cinnamon though.
Will come in on 2445 calories, which is about 600 calories above my target on a non-workout day, and most of that is carbs. So, with that, I’d be surprised if I don’t come in heavier tomorrow. Fingers crossed that I’ll be well enough to train and go to work.
Especially considering this came in the mail, and tomorrow contains rack pulls…
Maybe, you think they are elevated from low carbs or from the sickness? I’ve actually been feeling immensely relaxed the last two days. I’ve been trying Rhodiola and re-included passionflower tea pre-bed. And, when my ZMA ran out I got a different blend that also contains camomille, lemon balm, theanine, and some other stuff. It’s called “Deep Sleep”.
With that said, I also feel as if I could chew threw a barbell; that’s just from wanting to train.
Both really. The most important thing right now for you would be to get healthy so you can continue dieting with full speed. (That’s not a licence to splurge though)
Looking blurry, especially around the ribs, in the mirror.
Still sick, but I can’t imagine I’ll be unwell tomorrow still. There isn’t a scheduled workout tomorrow and I don’t think it’s wise to add one in (even though I want to). The immediate goal is to get healthy and stay healthy.
With that said I’ve missed almost an entire week so maybe I’ll have to stay on diet an extra week, we’ll see. I want to finish as lean as possible so that I can focus on putting on muscle afterwards for some time and not hop back and forth between phases and get nowhere. Another option of course would be to up my activity level in the final 2-3 weeks. Maybe do a tabata in the morning The Vital Whole Human - T NATION before my walks on my rest days (I’ll make sure to take some HMB to reduce the catabolism), see if I can skip rope for 20 minutes here and there in the PM or add in some kettlebell snatches The Vital Whole Human - T NATION
But before I add things I want to do one full week of the scheduled training.
Obviously, I’m not climbing today either. On that note, I was invited to join the climber’s association that I joined after my certification course for burgers on Saturday. It’s an outdoor outing, so we’re not hitting up a burger joint but making our own on the grill. I think I’ll go and count it as 5-600 calories. Would be good to meet some new people.
1k was just an arbitrary number. When I’m drunk, I can’t keep track, and when I’m sober, I don’t care. Lol. The point remains the same though, it’ll all work out in the end.
I really want to try the 60 hour fast that Paul Carter does on occasion. Seems like that could be pretty cool. I know there’s nothing magical (at least in the long-term) about fasting, but not eating for 2.5 days and just hydrating and taking vitamins would be a great way to reduce my overall caloric intake for the week, or month. Depending on how I structure it.
That’s cool. I use an app called “Evolve.” It’s got a barcode scanner and voice recognition so you can just tell it what you ate (although it almost always gets the wrong brand or amount of food smh).
Back at work at least. Will hit the gym tomorrow but still not a 100%. Hope that I can hit the scheduled workout, but either way, I’m going to do something in the gym.
Feels strange having missed a week, it will be weird to do any sort of progression next week - I haven’t really earned it, and I’m not sure my body can provide that output.
I considered basically restarting 6WTS from scratch next week but, I’m so sick of dieting. I’ll have to come in looking really shitty at my targeted end-date to continue dieting. I need a break (with that said I’m not abandoning the diet, I just mean to finish it on the same target-date still). If I gain 10 pounds of muscle it’ll be so much easier to lose 10 pounds of fat.
Also, the week after my diet is supposed to end my best friend is visiting me from abroad so I’d rather not run a deficit then.
But, as I’ve written before. I’ll be re-evaluating this line of thinking as the weeks pass but these are my thoughts currently.
