6’ even. 190 lbs right now
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Still firmly entrenched in the zone.
I did some blood work recently after dropping alcohol completely for 30 days.
Triglycerides and LDL both went from high to within range on 12/30 compared to the baseline on 12/1. Back on 12/1, I had been eating clean for 6 weeks, so I knew that it probably wasn’t dietary fats or anything else to change other than alcohol.
Weight loss has really slowed, but it’s still moving down. Today was a new low at 190. My average weight over the past two weeks has been about 192.
My lose it app tells me I’m still losing at a rate of 1.1 lbs/week. Not sure how it calculates that, because it seems like my rate is totally flat right now, but okay.
The progress has really been more in the visual department. Lower ab veins starting to creep up higher into the abs every day, new ones in the shoulders and legs coming in. I’m not a super vascular guy, so these are super easy and obvious signs for me when it starts to happen.
If I can get the lower back fat and the lower ab fat to go away without dropping under 185-187 ish, I’ll look awesome. Not going for any kind of competition/stage type of look. It’s pretty simple for me, shredded abs that cause jaws to drop and shoulders/arms/upper back that can create the illusion of that jacked look under the right conditions.
Calorie goal right now is 2600, but if a low day happens, I’m okay with that.
Macros are 185gP, 300C, 60g F.
If protein is higher, I’ll adjust carbs.
When I have a chance to throw in a super-low fat day, like 40 grams, I will.
I look at macros like a jenga puzzle, I just work through the day with an eye towards landing on my goals. I tend to keep fats to an absolute minimum until dinner, which allows me to eat whatever my wife cooks without her needing to adjust or worry about my crazy bullshit.
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I haven’t really been “logging”, more just popping in with updates on my progress through these last ten weeks. Here are some specifics going back a few days:
1/1: 3750 calories. Workout time: 100 minutes. Calories burned: 632
1/2: 3082 calories. 75 minutes, 690 burned
1/3: 2323 calories. 70 minutes, 700 burned
1/4: 1807 calories. 60 minutes, 500 burned
1/5: 2031 calories. 47 minutes, 500 burned
For the few weeks prior to 1/1, I was on vacation doing two workouts/day. So my average time was closer to 2 hours, and calories burned was averaging 1200 or so.
I am a big believer that you should NOT included calories burned in your equations as you make adjustments to your diet and training. For me, it doesn’t correlate with anything. If the math worked like a closed system, I’d weight about 120 pounds. My weekly deficit when you subtract exercise calories is about 10,000 calories. I can gain or loose weight at that “deficit” and that “net” calories number seems to have no bearing on anything.
I try to workout for at least an hour a day, I’ll log more on the workouts as I start logging more details here. I do a mix of “cardio”, lifting, and bodyweight acro/strength moves every day. When I have more time, I might do second sessions or longer workouts. That’s pretty much it. I usually lift 1-2 body parts each session, and if my arms and shoulders feel fresh enough or receptive to a pump, I’ll hit them, even if it means 3-4 times/week. My priority with muscle building is to just get my shoulders and arms to look impressive. I’ve got more of an ecto build, I was a super super skinny kid, then a long-armed volleyball player, so, yeah…arms and shoulders.
Isolation and single-arm stuff is better for me than heavy compound lifts. I have super lax ligaments, have had minor AC joint separations on both shoulders/clavicles. Going heavy isn’t worth the trade-offs for me. If I can hit my 7 iron and get the same result as you get with a driver, I’m winning because I won’t have to worry about finding my ball in the woods and you will. That’s how I look at it.
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Friday AM Weight 189.9
Thursday Nutrition
2031 calories
50g Fat
233g C
207g P
Nailed it. My upper limit/goal for calories is 2600, but I am trying not to force it. If I am full after dinner and I’ve hit my protein goal, I am fine at shutting down the intake at whatever calorie level I’m at. (It doesn’t happen often)
Current structure of my day of eating:
Wake - 10:30 am: Try to keep it below 500 calories. The lower the better, but I rarely go below 400 because my standard morning “meal” is protein powder and oatmeal, usually with some honey or PB2 mixed in. Standard is 2 scoops of protein powder and 45 grams of oats, so it adds up. I try to keep fat to an absolute minimum.
10:30 - 3:00: This is the window that seems to really make the difference and where there are equal opportunities to set myself up for success, or derail the day. Appetite is at its highest, stress usually peaks during this time (work), I’m not always home or in a situation where I have all my handy food hacks and tricks available, etc.
I try to keep this window to about 800-1000 calories. So by 3:00, I’m usually at about 1200-1500 calories, which leaves room for a dinner of 1100-1400 calories.
Tracking tightly to my macros early in the day keeps my head in a good place. If I blow things early, I tend to obsess about macros and how I’m going to rescue the jenga puzzle of my macros by the end of the day.
So, I keep it tight and then I know, no matter what my wife makes for dinner, OR, if I’m at a work event and we go out, I don’t really need to stress about having to restrict myself at dinner. This is a pattern that kind of worked it’s way out for me over time, and it has been super super successful for me.
Training Friday AM
20 minutes - robot moves, pistol squats, hand stands, stretches, acro yoga poses, pushups, and whole-body vibration cycles. And two songs of jump rope.
40 minutes - chest. Super-duper dangerously wide grip flat DB fly-and-press. A bunch of sets of a bunch of reps, some slow stuff, lots of time spent in the deep stretch, and then some different styles of rep speeds and contractions
Band d-Roy raise move - tons of reps
Machine seated horizontal press - tons of reps with a very deep stretch and mostly partial range (nowhere close to full extension)
15 minutes: more jump rope and wicked handstand tricks
I was feeling VERY VERY strong and fresh today. That, combined with waking up at an all-time (current plan) low weight of 189.9 had me ready to try to push the boundaries just a bit with the rope and the tricks, so I threw this work in at the end of the lift.
With the rope, I think I did 2 of my 140 BPM songs, and then another song at about 160 BPM. I jump to the beat, so the higher the BPM, the higher the heart rate.
I also did a few sets of 100 double-unders.
Double-unders get my HR up to the mid 160s (after 100 reps)
140 BPM songs, I can stay as low as 118ish if I’m using a very efficient style, or up into the 130’s if I’m dancing and sliding and throwing in lots of footwork.
160 BPM songs can get me into the 140-150 range.
I also did some extremely strict entries into handstands. This is where I just push up from a plank type of position straight into a handstand without using any momentum. The slower and stricter, the harder.
But the real boundary-pusher was the descent from the handstand to where my nose is hovering about a centimeter over the ground and I just hold it there. From there, I exit into a caterpillar-type of move (from the breakdance arsenal).
The other variation is to descend from a handstand into a “freeze” type of position (another breakdance move). I’ll get some video of these…I actually have some video, but I feel like I need to re-do it because the last time I was able to do this shit with this much strict form was when I was in my 30’s. I think I’m even better at it now.
That was the workout.
Fueled by one packet of LMNT (1,000 mg of sodium plus a few other electrolytes) and 1/4 scoop of Surge Workout Fuel. I’ve been exploring all kinds of dose ranges with this stuff and have enough half-baked theories to write a full article on it. Let’s just say that I’m finding benefits across a wide range of doses and more benefit than I’d expect from small doses.
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Friday Macros
2380 Calories
325g C
232g P
32g F
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That’s not a lot of fat, and that is possible when I nail the first 2/3 of my day and the protein we eat for dinner is chicken breast. We also do a decent amount of turkey breast and red meat, so those dinners are way higher in fat.
If you have never used super-low fat days as a lever to pull in a fat-loss phase, you are seriously missing out, in my opinion. I think people just never consider it because the carb/insulin model is so engrained. Look at contest prep diets, and it seems like it’s all about manipulating carbs. But many of those diets are really low in fat at baseline. Also, Mark Dugdale mentioned it in an article here on T-mag…it was a round table about how a few of the different main T-mag writers would approach peaking if they only had three weeks to play with. Fat intake was one of the levers he recommended pulling.
Friday PM Workout
45 Minutes avg HR 110, Max 153, 443 calories burned
This was a second session because it’s Friday and I had extra time.
It was just more body weight flow stuff and a few sets of jump rope. I had no plan going in, I just started moving, and kept moving, until I felt like it was time to stop moving. I did throw some band work in there just to stimulate some muscle.
Side note, I picked up some Quest bars this week and had a few yesterday and a few today. They are causing some serious GI disturbance for me, it seems like they may have changed the ingredients quite a bit since the last time I had these.
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Pretty common to see the discrepancies add up over the course of the day like that when you’re using these tracking apps. I don’t really sweat those details.
Here’s the full day:
EDIT - I was going to post my log, but I didn’t realize that I mention specific brand names in there, so I removed it.
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Serratus are starting to sharpen up nicely!
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Here’s my goal for the level of leanness I’m looking for. No fat, no water, hell, I’m going to keep going until the skin is gone.
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Saturday Macros
5,000 calories
195g F
330g C
345g P
Sunday AM Weight: 190.1
Another example of just how hard it is to predict what the scale will do. Saturday was my highest calorie day in 11 weeks, and my lowest output day (only 400 calories burned).
Wake up on Sunday - zero change on the scale.
One of the tools I’m trying to refine in my quest to achieve and maintain a low body fat: knowing when to throw in a “high” day of eating.
Yesterday, I was just feeling like it was time. I think I’ll need these more frequently now that I’m starting to get pretty lean. I feel like maintaining a very slight deficit 80% of the time and then throwing in a massive feast about once every week or two is a better way to stay super lean than trying to just maintain a constant deficit or even a consistent “maintenance” amount of calories.
It also keeps me in the game, mentally. Doing the same exact thing day after day gets super old.
Sunday Training
20 minutes of pop-locking cardio with a bunch of vibration/wave stuff. Handstands, pistols, etc.
60 minutes of arms, mostly just hammering the absolute shit out of biceps
Average HR 114, Max 166, calories burned 875.
Arms looked absolutely massive. Definitely felt a boost from those extra calories yesterday.
Those included a full creme brûlée dessert that I didn’t even have to share with my wife, a 12 ounce NY strip, some amazing grilled octopus with legit chorizo sausage, and little gnocchi that she was nice enough to share with me. So good. Mentally it felt great to know that the discipline and planning I’ve put into my diet has put me in a place where I can crush meals like this and enjoy it without stressing that it will screw up my progress.
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Sunday Macros
2400 calories
Absolutely NAILING it with my macros and reaping the rewards. Today marks the end of week 11.
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Monday AM Workout
20 minutes of warming up with stupid human tricks, pop-lockin’, jump rope, hand stands, pistols, etc.
30 minutes on the spin bike - average HR 131 at an average power output of 240 Watts.
20 minutes of strict pull-ups alternating with strict low-cable tricep kickbacks.
Weight 192
Goal this week is to be patient and be willing to accept that my goal leanness, even though it’s literally within pinching distance (a pinch of fat left to burn through on that lower ab area), it’s not a matter of extreme tactics or tweaks that will get me there. It’s just time, and not much of it. Ride it out.
Max calorie goal is 2600. Macro target anwhere from 40/40/20 CPF to 50/30/20. Minimum protein goal is 185g. Keep fat to a super-minimum until dinner. Carbs is a free-for all as long as the other goals are met. Keep alcohol out of the equation until the goal is met, and then I can revisit.
Keep doing what I’m doing in the gym. Once I hit my goal and start to refine and sculpt, I’ll be a real-live walking-around example that you can build a pretty impressive physique without following a lot of the standard advice. A few examples of that for me:
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I don’t squat. I don’t even train legs except for the bodyweight stuff I do (lots of pistols and bodyweight squat-based movements, crazy amounts of jump rope, bike work, incline treadmill, etc. Once in a while, I’ll hit some leg extensions, but I’ll admit, it’s just because I like it look at my quads when they’re nice and pumped and flexed, okay?
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I don’t focus my lifting around compound exercises. I do the opposite…my foundation is really isolation work, usually single-arm. I do plenty of machine and even some DB pressing, but not your typical style at all. I use lower weights and focus on contraction types and ranges of motion.
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I don’t go to failure in a traditional sense, although I’m always pushing the boundaries on some element of the rep or set. I do not seek pain and I don’t train for “the burn”. I use rep quality as an indication of when it’s time to switch arms.
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I don’t focus on increasing the load over time. I focus more on improving the quality. I really hardly ever pick up anything heavier than a 30 lb dumbbell.
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I don’t take any planned rest days and I don’t limit workouts to a certain amount of time.
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I don’t separate cardio from lifting, and I’ll do either one first, depending on how I feel.
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I don’t have a pre-planned “split”. I won’t train something two days in a row, but if my arms, shoulders, or chest feel ready for a workout, I’ll hit them.
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I don’t do abs
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Even though I hang out here, I am not really engaged in a “relentless pursuit of muscle”. I’m using the tools of people who are, but my goals:
1.keep improving my health
2. keep improving the quality of my diet and my ability to maintain that quality over long periods of time, and ideally forever
3.Retain and keep improving my skills with the bodyweight tricks and breakdancing moves
4.Refine my shoulders, upper back, chest, and arms in a way where I get the most visual bang for my efforts, and I don’t have to take any kinds of risks or trade-off the enjoyment factor of my workouts to get there.
5.Get and stay “holy shit, look at the f*&#ing abs on that guy” lean
Quick note, credit to Dani Shugart and her post in the Training log section for inspiring some of my thoughts here on non-traditional elements to my approach.
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Big fan of your non-traditional workouts! I may need to start doing some of the things you’re doing so that I can attempt some of those pistols, human tricks, and pop-lockin! I’m super jealous of your knee health. 
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Monday Macros
47g F
285g C
235g P
2500 calories
Nailed the shit out of that day.
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Oatmeal, vanilla protein powder, pb2, and honey. It’s my go-to breakfast #1 and sometimes I’ll have it for breakfast #2.
Even when I don’t mix protein powder with oatmeal, I don’t drink it as a shake. I mix it with the minimum amount of 2%milk to turn it into a cookie dough consistency. (This is only possible with certain protein blends)
Also pictured: a plate of rotisserie chicken breast. I ate it plain. Part of how I make my eating style work is that I have conditioned myself to not need to combine things or dress them up. (Above example excluded). I find that the food is more filling when I just eat it plain.
And Honey. In this case, super local. I don’t know or care about fructose metabolism or liver glycogen vs muscle glycogen. Honey is amazing and I eat at least 40 grams (two servings) a day.
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Weight 190.0
AM Workout
(Fueled by a double espresso,1/3 scoop of Surge Workout Fuel, and a packet of LMNT)
Like every day, I had no idea what I was going to do when I walked in, other than follow my current template of 20 minutes body movement/nervous system activation/body weight strength stuff, about 30 minutes of lifting, and then 10 minutes of jump rope.
20 minutes of pop-lockin’, shivering/vibrating, hand stands, pistols, squat holds, pushups, backspins, windmills, etc.
30 minutes of biceps and shoulders. 1-arm dumbbell curls with 30lb and 1-arm front/lateral raises with 15lbs. Many many “sets” of many “reps”, but it’s not really like sets and reps. It’s more like getting a lap dance (or what I would imagine that might be like) from a dumbbell. Go for the length of a song and build up some intensity peaks throughout, and then get convinced to go for just one more song right as it’s ending.
10 minutes of jump rope ( 3 songs at 140bpm)
Average HR 109, Max 147, calories burned 523
The reduced bodyweight has me feeling like a floating ninja during the Stupid Human Tricks element of my workouts. It is insane.
Goal Progress: the lower abs are so, so, so close. I’m starting to get a feel for how the thickness of the remaining fat layer measures in units of time. Right now, I’m pinching about 2-3 more weeks of a fat layer, I think.
I was going to post a picture and ask, “how many abs do you think I will have,” but the last guy who did that got flamed pretty bad 
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Tuesday Macros
50g F
320g C
230g P
2500 calories.
Nailed. It.
I am on fire.
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A little example of the stuff I do every day.
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Wednesday AM Training
15 minutes of stupid human tricks to warm up and activate the systems.
30 minutes of chest because, ugh, I guess to balance out the overall look? Not a fan of chest. As in, not a fan of my chest, not a fan of trying to build it beyond what it naturally want to look like. But I also don’t want it to be some kind of glaring weakness, so yeah.
20 minutes of jump rope and then attempting to record a reel for my three Instagram followers and all the grandmas on Facebook.
Weight 189.6 NEW LOW
I love to see a low weight on the scale in the morning.
My current rate of weight loss is 1.1lbs/week. My 10 day average weight is 191.1.
My prediction going into this about 12 weeks ago was that I’d probably need to get down to 187 ish to see those abs get to where I’d like them to get and stay. I think I was right on the money, I’m only about 1.5 pounds from there and that matches up to what I’m seeing in the mirror.
I put a dress shirt on that I haven’t worn in a few months and it was super super tight in the chest and shoulders, so the scale and the bodyfat measurements, and what I’m feeling and seeing are all matching up - there was quite a good bit of recomp happening in these last few months. Muscle memory is one of the coolest things in the world, isn’t it? I also have to credit, probably, the replacement of alcohol calories with ones that are serving more of an anabolic purpose.
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Wednesday Macros - way off the mark.
We had an occasion come up and it was just not a normal day. BUT - the first rule about not hitting your macros - at least don’t blow your calorie intake, which I did not.
1780 calories total.
Yesterday is a good example of using a new tactic in my arsenal of tactics to get and stay pretty lean: ETRF.
Early time-restricted eating.
It’s a fancy way of saying “stop shoving shit down your pie hole as early in the afternoon/evening ad possible.”
Before I started trying it, I always thought that it was hard to control my appetite after dinner. I thought if dinner wasn’t big enough, I might be setting myself up for a cereal binge later. Or, if dinner was too early, I’d need another meal later.
After playing around with not eating after dinner, especially not eating after an early dinner - 4 pmish - I have realized that after dinner is actually one of the EASIEST times to ignore appetite and just shut it down. I can’t believe it took me this long to figure that out.
The more tools, the better. I am getting close to that phase where my goals don’t have that same magnitude of pull as the initial one of just getting super lean. Staying lean is different.
I usually get here and get bored and then - poof- I go back to another reinvention of myself as tennis player version 4.5 or cyclist v. 3.0 again. Which can and should be able to coexist with maintaining a super lean look, but for me, they just don’t. I need to be “in the game” with a lifting/nutrition mindset in order to stay on-point.
Weight today 189.8. I don’t think it would be a bad thing to make 190 a ceiling weight for me. Even if I squeezed every ounce of recomp out of this, I’d still be fine with no more size than what a super lean 190 would be.
That’s why I can’t really ever cross the threshold into adopting a “bodybuilder” mindset. For that, I do think you need to have an innate desire to take up more space as a human.
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