Posted: April 6th, 2011 | Author: ERIC | Filed under: Body | Tags: bagel, blood glucose, blood sugar, chin assist, cool story bro, cottage cheese, deadlift, dieting, drop set, fast, fasting, fiber, german sugar, incline bench, intermittent fasting, lateral raise, peanut butter, photo, photos, programming, psyllium husk, setup, smoothie, tea | No Comments »
The first two weeks of dieting always suck.
The first day doesn’t, but it’ll never be perfect. Can’t let it get to me. Gotta stay loose.
At exactly the same time yesterday as I’m writing this, I took the photos for this:
I didn’t have all the data yet (weight and lifts were measured the same day, just five hours later) but I made a flattened version just to get an idea of what the final image might look like. Then my .psd got corrupted so I just filled in the information on top of it. That’s why there’s a discrepancy in the font even though the font is technically the same.
Cool story, I know.
My goal is to be doing daily fasts, from 9PM to 1PM the following day. This was fucked by a hypoglycemic episode (80mg/dL), so I had a bagel around 7:20AM and took 50mg/200mg ephedrine/caffeine at 8AM. Both pre-workout.
I tested immediately pre-workout at 219mg/dL, and I stayed pretty high (I’m talking 400 range) until just an hour before I began my fast.
Pre-workout: Bagel with peanut butter
Post-workout: Cup of tea at Teavana (Zingiber Ginger + Strawberry Lemonade + 4tsp German Rock Sugar); followed immediately by a Strawberry Hulk from Smoothie King (made skinny, sub ice cream with fat free yogurt.)
Dinner: Bowl of chicken with rice. It was crap. I was disappoint.
Last Meal: 238g 2% expired cottage cheese (I actually weigh everything I eat at home, but this was specific to make up my protein requirement for today); 5 Babe Ruth minis (just had a taste for it.)
After the fast started I took some psyllium husk fiber. I wanna poop.
A Workout
All sets are singles unless noted; I’m testing rough 1RM to set up the rest of the workout. Pretty much just adding 5lbs. to the top sets and calculating downward from there.
Body Weight: 169lbs.
Start: 9:08AM
Deadlift
- 150lbs. (double-overhand)
- 175 (d-o)
- 195 (d-o)
- 220 (d-o)
- 245 (left hand-over; started using straps)
- 250 (l-u)
- 255 – FAILED, passed ankles (l-o)
- 225 (l-u)
Time Check: 10AM
Incline Bench
- 50lbs. x 3
- 60 x 2
- 75
- 85
- 100
- 110
- 115
- 120
- 105 x 3
Chin Assist (total weight: 180lbs.)
- 30lbs. x 5
- 40 x 3
- 50 x 3
- 60
- 70
- 80
- 90
- 95
- 100
- 105
- 110
- 125
- 140
- 155 – FAILED
Time Check: Noon
Lateral Raise
- 20lbs. x 2
- 25
- 30
- 35
- 40
- 45
- 50
- 55 (5 minute rest after this, started doing tri-sets)
- 60
- 65
- 70 (rest)
- 75
- 80
- 85 (rest)
- 90
- 95 – FAILED (about half-way)
Stop: 12:53PM
For the next ‘A Workout’:
Deadlift: estimate 3RM based on 1RM = 255lbs.
Incline Bench: estimate 5RM based on 1RM = 125lbs.
Chin Assist: estimate 5RM based on 1RM = 145
Lateral Raise: estimate 8RM based on 1RM = 90
Rep ranges for each exercise, respectively: 1-3; 3-5; 3-5; 5-8
Just going to do a basic progressive overload style workout for the next eight weeks, at which point I’ll test 1RM based on estimates from the most recent relevant workout. I don’t know if I will include drop sets in future workouts, it might just be a feel thing: today it was easy to include them due to lack of fatigue and sufficient, em, “fed-ness,” having been eating at maintenance and such.
So I’m probably looking at, for next time:
Deadlift (1-3) @ 230lbs.
Incline Bench (3-5) @ 105lbs.
Chin Assist (3-5) @ 125lbs.
Lateral Raise (5-8) @ 70lbs.
If I get to the top of the rep range, bump it five pounds next workout. Fairly basic.
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Posted: May 21st, 2010 | Author: ERIC | Filed under: Body | Tags: bench press, benchmark, break, deadlift, dieting, fail, fast, goal, goals, great success, planning, pulldown, strategy, success, Thanksgiving | No Comments »
I’m setting a goal for Thanksgiving.
I was mulling over my dieting strategy throughout my fast today, trying to decide at what point in my strength-gain quest I should chase after fat loss once again. It got annoyingly abstract as I do not really know what to expect as far as strength gains. I said, initially, that when I could do eight bodyweight chin-ups, then I would be strong enough to consider strength-retention a worthwhile effort while dieting. I’m not that strong now, why bother maintaining strength if I can regain what I’ve got in four weeks anyway?
So I stopped for a moment and decided to look at the “after this, then that” part, then-that-being fat loss. It was my decision that I would initiate the resumption of the fat loss goal by introducing a slight, 10% deficit, while building my present lifts not to a greater weight, but simply to the ceiling of the rep range (or maybe one more) of the present weight. If I lost strength on lifts much to the point of hitting the floor of the range or necessitating less weight used, I’d do a refeed and hope I wouldn’t miss a lift on the next workout in the cycle. Two missed lifts would immediately result in a diet break (it’s possible to lose reps for lack of focus, which is common for me on a deficit, so I would allow myself a small margin for this type of error.)
I determined that I’d pick a key lift for each workout (except B2) to monitor, just to keep sane. Less than 2 x 6 on Bench for A1, less than 2 x 3 on Deadlift for B1, and Chins (I presently cannot even do any, and I was planning to build up to at least eight before cutting, but the floor would be 1 x 6.)
But then I looked at how much weight I have to lose right now.
My body weight ceiling is 170lbs. At last check I was 169 (165.5lbs after sauna) and that’s dangerously close to where I don’t want to be. I could foresee a lot of “mini-fix” weeks to drop a pound in the likely event of lean gains. That’s a lot of back-and-forth and, ultimately, probably good for composition-revision purposes… but not that predictable and thusly not that interesting to me.
So I decided to look at how much I have to lose. It will have to be revised somewhat on Monday, as today (Friday) I’m fasting, and the weekend will be decidedly low-carb and may result in below-maintenance eating as well. Will I lose fat? Probably not. But I’m going to try and get as dry a weight measure post-workout (that means sauna) to truly understand where I’m starting from. However, I’m in a fast-induced-frenzy of productivity and so I’m planning it out with what I’ve got.
May 18th: 169lbs. @ 17%; 28.73lbs. fat, 140.27lbs. lean.
I decided on phase-length of dieting on two points: the fact that I don’t trust myself to last through six weeks of dieting as I get leaner, and Independence Day overlap. Fireworks Day isn’t a huge holiday in casual-binge world, but it is a day that I’d be comfortable feasting on if the opportunity arises. I’d rather not risk a nervous breakdown weighing risk vs. reward and just eat some goddamn barbecue.
Phases are thusly: four weeks of dieting, two weeks of eating at (new) maintenance. With 26 weeks to play with (May 24 – November 24) I am going to shoot for 14lbs. of fat loss. While this initially sounds like 14lbs. / 26 weeks (and so about a half a pound a week), it is important to note that there are only 18 weeks of specific dieting. That brings me to about 0.78lbs. per week of dieting, not accounting for any kickass magical losses during my diet breaks.
Lifting goals will slow, of course. I’m going to remain with my benchmark idea stated earlier, in that I won’t worry so much if I CANNOT INCREASE weight, but I will be concerned if I lose reps.
A1 Bench Press: 2 x 6 @ 80lbs.
B1 Deadlift: 2 x 3 @ 135lbs.
Any workout except B2, Pulldown: 1 x 6 @ 105lbs.
However, that being the GOAL isn’t going to be my marker for diet FAILURE. For me there are three levels: GREAT SUCCESS (getting or surpassing what I want), SUCCESS (doing well), and FAIL (fucking up.)
GREAT SUCCESS, as I’ve just delineated, will be 14+lbs. of fat loss with no strength loss.
SUCCESS, however, is a bit less. Striking a balance between losing weight and not feeling like a subhuman puddle usually means about a half a pound of weight loss per week. Therefore, success will be set at a minimum of 9lbs. of fat loss. Strength loss on bench is acceptable, but not on anything else.
FAIL is anything less than that and/or becoming an even weaker pathetic bitch. Or gaining fat, which I guess is EPIC FAIL, but I don’t really consider my options for failure in great detail anyhow. I prefer spending my time on success.
According to that, my end stats should look something like:
GREAT SUCCESS: 155lbs. @ 9.5% fat
SUCCESS: 160lbs. @ 12.3% fat
FAIL: gross.
I’ll express my specific dieting APPROACH in another post. This is just to outline the goal and time frame.
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