B Variant

My back is still a little tingly-tender from deadlifts, so I skipped the squats I was initially planning to front-load. I considered doing leg presses or calf raises, but when I got to cardio I was much relieved to have not done any of those three. I thought my back was going to be irritated by the rows, but I must have actually activated the correct muscles for once, because no such problem was had.

B Workout

START: 11AM
Weight: 167lbs.

Flat Bench

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 45 x 5
3. 50 x 5
4. 70 x 3
5. 90 x 2
6. 100 x 8 (+)
7. 90 x 9 (+)
8. 80 x 10 (+)

The (+) is going to be my shorthand that these sets need to be increased next workout. The rep range, respectively, for these sets are: 5-8; 6-9; 7-10

Row

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 45 x 5
3. 60 x 5
4. 75 x 3
5. 105 x 2
6. 120 x 8 (+)
7. 105 x 9 (+)
8. 90 x 10 (+)

Same rep set-up as the bench. I used a different sort of handle today: close-grip, smooth handles. Black. Didn’t agitate my calluses any, will be using it again.

Lateral Raise

1. 35lbs. x 5
2. 45 x 3
3. 55 x 2
4. 65 x 10 (+)
5. 55 x 11 (+)
6. 50 x 12 (+)

Rep set-up: 8-10; 9-11; 10-12

STOP: 1:30PM
Weight: 173.5lbs.

Cardio

1. Treadmill warm-up: 5 minutes of 2.0 mph/ 2.0 incline for the first two minutes, then 3.0 for the rest.
2. Treadmill intervals: 1′ walk / 1′ run, so that I got off the treadmill immediately after a run. 3.0 incline.
   1. x2 @ 2.0mph/6.0mph
   2. x3 @ 2.0mph/4.0mph
3. 6 minute rest in the locker room.
4. Stationary cycle: 5.52 miles in 37 minutes

Notes:

• I want to replace at least one of the 4.0mph runs with a 6.0, until they’re all 2.0/6.0mph. Then I’ll work on increasing the sprinting speed.
• The slow-and-steady cycling at the end will be increased in terms of duration only.
  • I don’t really have any idea as to how much to increase cardio duration by. I’m tentatively just saying “anything that is more, even just one minute.”
  • Another idea is mileage: I’d like to log 42 miles a week, as in real life I tend to have gone distances of about 20 miles and back.

Diet

Stuff I have to remember:

Maintenance Intake

At Body Weight 169lbs. = 2800kcal.

I’d really like my weigh-ins to be three consecutive days, but that probably isn’t going to happen.

I’m going to recalculate maintenance (for proper deficit purposes) weekly.

I would like to achieve a 1000kcal deficit on rest days, training days are allowed to be at maintenance/slightly over.

Fasting Period

Fast starts: 8-10PM
Feeding begins: 1PM on rest days; as soon as I can after training otherwise.

Protein Multiplier

• Lean Body Mass x 0.9 = Protein on rest days
• LBM x 1.1 = Protein on cardio-only days (not sure if I’m going to have these or not, yet)
• LBM x 1.5 = Protein on weight-training days (if cardio is done after weight training, still use this number)

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First Day Fast

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 ¹ 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

1. 150lbs. (double-overhand)
2. 175 (d-o)
3. 195 (d-o)
4. 220 (d-o)
5. 245 (left hand-over; started using straps)
6. 250 (l-u)
7. 255 – FAILED, passed ankles (l-o)
8. 225 (l-u)

Time Check: 10AM

Incline Bench

1. 50lbs. x 3
2. 60 x 2
3. 75
4. 85
5. 100
6. 110
7. 115
8. 120
9. 105 x 3

Chin Assist (total weight: 180lbs.)

1. 30lbs. x 5
2. 40 x 3
3. 50 x 3
4. 60
5. 70
6. 80
7. 90
8. 95
9. 100
10. 105
11. 110
12. 125
13. 140
14. 155 – FAILED

Time Check: Noon

Lateral Raise

1. 20lbs. x 2
2. 25
3. 30
4. 35
5. 40
6. 45
7. 50
8. 55 (5 minute rest after this, started doing tri-sets)
9. 60
10. 65
11. 70 (rest)
12. 75
13. 80
14. 85 (rest)
15. 90
16. 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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Pretty Fast (P1C1WB1)

Yeah, I settled on the silly notation.

I spent most of the day extremely pissed off because I was without a ride to the gym. Typically, when my mom goes to work, I go with because my gym is literally across the street from where she works. I had taken my now-typical preworkout power nap… and she left without me. It wasn’t a matter of fatigue, though. While I did sleep two hours past when I was supposed to be awake, I was ready to workout when I laid down. There was certainly no lack of motivation… just a lack of communication.

Anyway, she made up for it (kinda) by taking me to the gym an hour and a half before close.

This meant two things:

1. I hadn’t eaten since roughly 7AM by the time I got to the gym. I don’t know how long I have to go without eating to become fasted (makes me want to re-read Eat Stop Eat, though) but it’s been at least 12 hours since my last meal. (Had I been there on time, this meal would have been just about three hours prior to workout.)
2. I didn’t get to enjoy gratuitous amounts of rest between sets. In this whole workout, I essentially skipped rest for warm-ups (taking only time to change the weight or catch my breath) and only took a full 5 minutes of rest in preparation for deadlifts. I lingered a bit on the last warm-up and work set of pulldowns, just because I wasn’t in any danger of missing a lift due to closure. (Just gimme one more set, bro!) That also turned out to be, as expected, the hardest lift, and the only one I didn’t meet my rep goal for.

Workout B1 for Friday, May 27, 2010

Romanian Deadlift

1. 60lbs x 5
2. 90 x 3
3. 120 x 2

Deadlift (overhand grip)

1. 150lbs x 3
2. 150 x 3 (If one thing made me happy this workout, it was this.)

This exercise took me 33 minutes (remember that I use RDL as warm-up for DL.)

Lateral Raise Machine

1. 35lbs x 5
2. 50 x 3
3. 70 x 2
4. 85 x 6 (Had to really grit my teeth and push for the last couple reps.)

This exercise took 8 minutes.

Leg Curl

1. 25lbs. x 5
2. 40 x 3
3. 50 x 2
4. 65 x 10

8 minutes again.

Leg Extension

1. 30lbs x 5
2. 45 x 3
3. 60 x 2
4. 75 x 10

10 minutes.

Pulldown

1. 45lbs x 5
2. 65 x 3
3. 85 x 2
4. 110 x 7 (FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF)

Missed a rep. 16 minutes for this exercise. I zoned out before the third set. Wasn’t TIRED, just had trouble SEEING THINGS.

Nevertheless, I’m going to increase all lifts for next B1. I had no reason to miss that 8th rep and I was very close, but very close doesn’t count.

Workout Time: 75 minutes (budgeted for 90, so I was happy with this)

Body Weight: 164.5lbs
Body Fat Percentage: Didn’t have time.

Condition: B-. Smoldering, smoldering rage.

Timing of Stuff
7AM – Last meal. PB&J sammich (and a peanut butter one on one slice), some organic corn chips and salsa.
12:40PM – EC1
5:20PM – EC2
7:50PM – EC3
8:27PM – Workout
10:30PM – 2 scoops EAS Premium Protein (in water)
11:45PM – 2 scoops EAS Premium Protein (in water)

I just really do not feel like stuffing myself full of carbs… yet.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Thanksgoal

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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Almost-Fast Training

I have restructured my eating habits once again after an irritating set of circumstances led me to a wasted refeed.

Thursday I refed, Friday I missed my workout, Saturday I fasted, Sunday I worked out and refed again.

Refeeding before a workout has been my intention as I am always strongest the day after a refeed. Furthermore, since I spend most of the day not eating following a workout while I wait to be picked up, I just integrate that as the beginning of my fast. However, this has not proven to be the most flexible way of working things. If I miss a workout, I wind up in caloric excess, as I’ll wind up redoing the refeed. I could just pay better attention (thus solving a variety of problems at once) but I’m trying to condition responses so that I can automate/habitualize this nonsense so I don’t have to think about what I’m doing as often.

I think I’m just going to cut out refeeds from my plan, they are too much of a hassle.

I’ll just re-evaluate my maintenance needs and configure them so that they are more satisfying, and be more vigilant with my dedicated fasting days.

Workout for Sunday, February 7th, 2010

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Beat of the Rhythym of the Night

Not a great workout, but I’m not too ashamed of it.

My carb-up last night didn’t go great. It did the job, I guess, but there was way too much fructose/sucrose going on. I should have just made some pasta but I just wanted to eat and go to bed. It was a stressful fast. It’s working great for getting my numbers back up but I don’t know if I want to keep periodizing my eating in this way if I can’t be sure I’ll have the food sources I’ll need to make it work.

Especially since my protein powder is running low.

Numbers:

Body Weight: 159lbs.

Flat Bench:

1. 1×1 @ 100lbs. (failed halfway through second rep and barely made it to the low pins)
2. 1×4 @ 90lbs. (aw.)

This is the first workout this year that I didn’t get a text message. Holy crap I can start wearing a watch.

Incline Bench:

1. 1×5 @ 75lbs.
2. 1×5 @ 60lbs.

Looks like both of my sets on incline bench are going up next workout. They’re going to catch up to my flat bench quick if this keeps up.

Incline Flys

1. 1×5 @ 20lbs.
2. 1×4 @ 20lbs.
3. 1×5 @ 20lbs.

Not sure what to make of this. First set came easy, second set felt like my eyes were going to fall out, and the third set was a “just right” challenge. I don’t know if I want to wait until all three sets come easy or if this was just a mental thing and I should just bump it up another five pounds.

—

Made a pretty nice friend though. Lynn saw me screw myself on the second rep of the top set of flat benching and offered to spot me on my next one. I declined (making me sort-of wish I did more sets at a weight I wasn’t sure I could handle), but I really appreciated the offer. Turns out she went to my old Bally’s, only before I was born, haha! She was really fit though, turned out she used to be an aerobics (spin?) instructor. She was working back/bi’s in no particular fashion, unless she can keep meticulous records in her head.

I think I’m going to try dumbbells next workout though. I’m not feeling any activation in my chest on flat benches, it’s all arms it feels like. Which is probably why I’m stalling, the weak suckas! They’re also looking a lot better than my chest, in no small part to their relatively lower fattiness. I used to hate dieting down because of how small I’d feel in my arms and calves. When I first started training with dad, forearms and calves got beaten like crazy. Dad had me training them and abs every workout.

Now I’m doing two work sets per exercise and I’m smaller than I’ve ever been since I started weight training.

I should just have him train me again, what am I screwing around by myself for? :P

(Just kidding.)

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That’s Intense, Bro

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Raisin Bran Bench

I ate so much Raisin Bran and other carby shit yesterday that I completely negated the fast I did on Wednesday. I’m really pissed with myself. I let boredom and nerves get to me, control me, and overfeed me considerably. Today’s fast it to 5AM Saturday. I wanted to fast throughout Saturday since I’m not really there, mentally, to soldier through another day of no food so early on.

But it’s the last day of the week, so whatever. Doing it.

Here is yesterday’s workout:

Bench Press

1. 100lbs. x 2 (my right middle finger was infected when I worked out, I think my lack of right hand grip and just losing focus cost me the third rep)
2. 90lbs. x 3
3. 80lbs. x 4

Incline Bench

1. 65lbs. x 8
2. 55lbs. x 9
3. 45lbs. x 10 (how fortunate I am that my bottom set is the empty bar, haha!)

I had a much more difficult time with these sets than I was anticipating.

Incline Fly, 3 x 5 @ 15lbs.

Cardio: 30 minutes of 90s walk / 30s jog on the treadmill. 2 and 4 mph, respectively.

I really didn’t feel like doing cardio, but I was already in the gym, already sweaty, and figured I less didn’t-want-to-do-it-now that I would…n’t… want to… in the future. “Do it now so less need be done at a later date,” I felt.

I’m going lay out my workout for next week so I’m not in a rush to figure it out before I leave the house in the morning.

Bench Press

1. 100lbs. x 3-5
2. 90lbs. x +1 previous set
3. 80lbs. x +1 previous set

Incline Bench

1. 70lbs. x 5-8
2. 60lbs. x +1 previous set
3. 55lbs. x +1 previous set

Incline Fly

3 x 5 @ 20lbs. dumbbells

Gym Radio Tracks I enjoyed: “Hip to be Square” (Huey Lewis and the News); “Working My Way Back to You” (The Spinners); “The One I Love” (R.E.M.); “Just Can’t Get Enough” (The Saturdays)

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