Its funny you should mention salt, that is one of my main reasons I eat the Jimmy deans. Good source of sodium.
January 21 2025 W9D3 OHP/Deadlift/S2 day
Today’s food plan: No Jimmy deans. If I need salt, I will either put salt on food, or eat some dill pickles.
Excited for today’s workout.
Time to do knee exercises, never did them yesterday.
This is the way! Lately I have been craving Ben & Jerry each evening… why? My 2 kids under 2 years old where keeping me awake all night because of some virus and I had no time to eat during the day so I was just starving some calorie dense food to give me some kind of energy at the end of the day when the stress got lower. Solution… if I don’t have much time to eat during the day, I can at least have some protein shake, fruit and some almonds on the go. So protein, carbs, fat, fiber to keep my energy more steady.
In the past, I was always craving really salty food: pizza, chips, pop corn. I must miss salt in my diet. So I started taking in electrolytes. Salt craving disappear. I have way less migraine and they are way less intense too. Look at that!
Doughnuts kick my ass. If there is one “food” that leaves me with my head on my keyboard, it is the doughnut. Avoid them like fins cutting through the surf.
Good source of sodium.
I’d swap “good” with “large” and concur. I’ve shared this story before, but I was a total fast food addict, to the point that I ate it in some form at LEAST once a day. Well, during a health scare, I cut it out cold turkey. And as I continued training hard…I kept waking up on my gym floor. I’d black out, legs would spasm, etc. Eventually I went to one of those drug store blood pressure machines and discovered I had the blood pressure of an anemic 80 year old bingo player. The issue was: I have a bland palette and would NEVER salt my food, not out of a concern for health but simply because I didn’t feel like the food needed it. However, but no longer eating fast food, I wasn’t taking in near the sodium I used to, and as a hard training athlete, my electrolytes were all jacked up. Once I started AGGRESSIVELY salting my food, the situation resolved. We see this same issue with low carb athletes: without carbs to hold in the electrolytes, they need to supplement aggressively to maintain levels.
And as @Hugo_Fillion pointed out, our bodies WILL crave these things, and they’ll find a way to get them, and quite often it manifests as a late night binge. Our body (allegedly, specifically, our gut biomes) will send the signals to the brain that we NEED nutrients, and the most convenient way to get them is through readily accessible shelf stable hyper processed and palatable junk food, because the companies that make this food KNOW this about our brains. We crave salt and are conditioned to know that “sweet” and “savory” mean energy dense, so a Snickers bar packed with salty peanuts totally answers the mail.
The pickles you mention are an excellent solution. I’ve taken to drinking the brine at times as well to get in those electrolytes. For the sweet treat, Stan Efferding talks about fat free greek yogurt with berries, and I myself am a big fan of my full fat greek yogurt with Metabolic Drive. There are lots of ways to satisfy these cravings while also making them nutritional wins. Nature has TONS of delicious food out there: we just managed to bypass them with human inventions.
Yeah, I fall for donuts real easily. I can pass off raised ring/ super synthetic looking donuts, but a good cake donut with a bit of vanilla icing is nearly impossible to resist. We normally only get one when we get a dozen, so that’s the only one I eat.
_
I used Good instead of large, more so for the joke in my head. A lot of times, a food package will say “good source of such vitamin” or “good source of protein” or what not. So I always think of a terribly great marketing ploy I’ve never seen, “Good source of Sodium!” “Excellent source of Sucrose!”. Probably illegal I would assume.
I love nonfat Greek yogurt. It can go with sweet and savory, so it is very versatile. I find it similar to sour cream in flavor and texture. I’ve had whole fat Greek yogurt, but it makes me gag most of the time, so I avoid it. Too thin and viscous (I am aware of my opposing word combination, this is NOT a typo).
Berries are good, but I find I can’t have them with Greek yogurt. Something with the combination of textures, it isn’t nice. I can have them seperate of course, I love good berries.
There is supposed to be up to 20-25 inches of snow over the weekend (Or up to 5-9, there’s not a great consistency in the weather sources, it seems. Changes a lot). Not looking forward to shoveling the sidewalk, and the patio, and up front, and in the stone alleyway, in all that snow. Oh well. It will count as conditioning.
Will update food stuff later.
I gotta get homework done so cutting tracking short
Total: 3716 Kcal, 172g fat, 277g carbs, 255g protein
Uhh… A little much. Oh well.
I think it will be a bit beneficial to focus a little bit on cutting some weight during operator. Not really much though, just like 5-10 lbs or so. Im 11lbs from being obese (not saying Its a bad thing, as Im not fat, just higher weight) so might be beneficial to cut down a little.
Only 6 and a half weeks of bulking… man If I don’t watch my calories I’ll be above 180 soon enough. Weighing in after dinner I’m 179 (I drank a bunch of water in the last few hours
Workout wasn’t the best. I had to skip deadlift, as my lower back was acting up. We had to start testing some maxes… So I did Pushups, Situps, and overhead press. 50 pushups in a row, 31 situps in a minute, and…
115 x 1 on OHP! Im happy with that! That’s +15lbs in 8 weeks! It was a grinder though.
Im starting to become more like a “lifter” if that makes sense. When I was grinding out 115, I was sorta growling I think, my face was all red and I looked mad (I guess I was, I suppose). So that’s nice. A little scary/concerning, but nice. Did the supp. stuff as planned. Lunges with 50s are tough but manageable.
I better start thinking about Specificity I suppose. only 3.5 weeks left.
Time for homework
Time for homework
Jan 22 2025 W9D4 Conditioning day
Sore today. Back is a bit tight. I can really feel the situps I did yesterday. I should do some more core work.
Time to do stretches and knee exercises.
Today I will work on the book a bit, if I do.
I have a bit of a headache, and feel a sickness coming on… C’mon wait until after I lift tomorrow I want to get my maxes for bench and squat in…
I’ll be done eating for the day. Don’t want to focus to much energy from my body to digesting food when it should focus on healing sickness.
Days food: awful.
Crap.
I’m sick, as I predicted…
I suppose training will take a bit of a rest? I might try to do some maxes today as its not too bad yet, but, after that I’m taking it easy. Thankfully its the weekend coming up.
Hit a few PRS.
Bench Endurance: 135 x 18
Squat: 275 x 1
Bench… 225 x 1 (15 seconds atleast)
225on bench was an absolute grinder. I made some noises I didn’t think I would be able to make (mentally, not in my standard mental state would I make that tone of voice seriously…) It had to have been atleast 15 seconds of fighting the bar. But I got it up. Back was hurting after,but, I got it! That’s great
This effected squat, I might have been able to do more (though maybe not). Im still happy with 275! It makes sense the jump wasn’t as great proportionally, as I missed 3 weeks of squat/deadlift.
Quite happy about this.
Didn’t track my food today. Not concerned with it today, just need to let my body rest. Not doing anything tomorrow. Back hurts a lot.
Jan 24 2025 W9D6
Resting good today/ next few days. Back hurts (I sort of regret doing 225, but, oh well), and feeling sick (not too bad though). Gonna lay down and stay hydrated. Will do some back mobility stuff like cat cows, to get some blood flowing.
I keep putting the year as 2025… No. Its 2026!
Good luck to all of us who are gonna be affected by fern… Hope the ice doesn’t impact us too much were just north of the zone as I saw. So… Not hopeful. Im getting everything charged that I can get so I can last some time. If I need to call/text I can.
Jan 25 2026 W9D7
Today would be a measurement day, but the data would be too skewed from being sick.
Its snowing pretty good out.
Another rest day for me.
I think that, for me, it will be beneficial to not really use this site any longer.
I want to:
I will be writing in a physical log from now on, similar to what is on here. I will even give myself questions, that I can think about or search up if I need to.
So, I’ll be going soon.
I’ve enjoyed talking with everyone here and interacting. I think, however, I will go forth now. I have spent good time on this stepping stone, so I think it is time for me to move on and progress.
I’ll miss y’all, but, I must be going.
Bye everyone. Christ be with all of you.
Appreciate you logging as long as you did dude. You upheld your end of the bargain here, and this will be a good reference for those looking to get started.
Hey everyone.
Im back, I guess
I don’t need this website, but, I do like it and its quite useful.
An Update (if I didn’t put any of this in before)
I am currently 172ish pounds (will do my official weigh in tomorrow)
I will be starting operator+black in 2 weeks (once testing for strength class is done)
I think a goal that I want to accomplish is getting my abs back. Operator+Black is going to be useful with this. My goal is to lose a little weight each week. 0.5 lb per week is a good target I think. I don’t need it to be fast.
Also, I will be doing operator for longer than 12 weeks. I want to focus on getting really strong. Im thinking at least until the end of the school year.
Since finishing mass (not ideal but life (weather) circumstances have prevented me from going to the gym), I’ve been… pretty lazy. I lifted once this week, testing maxes. Not great but… I think my body needed it. This coming week I will do more cardio and bodyweight stuff, so I can work on strengthening tendons more. They are pretty important. Then after that operator+black really begins.
Il post my current physique pics in a bit, as a marking stone. Its not my usual lighting, I will get some pics from the garage some day soon. Weather has been… cold, to say the least. The other day is was -1F in the morning. So Im excited to see what I look like in better lighting. Or not excited, one of the two, or both, or neither. Depends on the moment.
Im fine with my body at the moment, its sustainable, and its fine. But, I want to get leaner because It makes me feel a bit more comfortable in my clothing. Plus abs are nice too.
I was looking at an old video of my physique. DAMN I was a lot leaner. Oh well.
Im excited to get strong and get my cardio back up. Lord knows I haven’t been doing much of that.
I’ve come to realize chatgpt isn’t all bad, I just can’t rely on it.
Its told me this will work in terms of diet
Calorie target
Protein
Carbohydrates
Fats
Food pattern advice
Hydration
General goal
Can someone fact check this / confirm/correct what chatgpt said? It sounds reasonable, but most things it says do.
