It's good to be the king

..or at least to eat like one.  Recap time:

• Weight - 243.6 (no change)
• Steps - 14,251
• Gym - Strength Training
• Calories - 2,727
• Protein - 260g
• Carbs - 189g
• Fats - 101g
• Sleep - 7:14  "meh"

Today was a sluggish 16 mins on the Cosgrove Complexes, followed by the standard neighborhood walk.

As I've noticed, I am pretty damn hungry by the time I get to breakfast at my desk at 8 am.  I'm going to try to get my second meal in as soon as I digest this one, and see if I can't nip this in the bud.  I do NOT want to go to a birthday party hungry. (My buddy's birthday tonight will stand in for Thirsty Thursday.)

As is my normal practice, I have a planned "Off" day on Friday.  I'll walk if the muse strikes me, but generally I rest.  Saturday I'll return to the gym for my third Strength session of the week.

Bottom line: Three text book days and a strong start to a fourth.  

The nut I need to crack, as always, is the balance between my goals in the gym, and my "life balance" time with friends out in the world.  It's all good until I drink 4,000 calories of craft beer and need until Sunday to really feel like myself again.  I sure as HELL dont want to finish this Maintenance Phase having gained weight that I'll spend precious Deficit Phase time cutting.

The two weeks starting Sunday are a sprint to maximum weight loss.  I'll be suffering in the gym, I'll be slower on my walks etc.  236 lbs is my goal on May 21.  The better I hold the line now, the better that will go.

Can't overemphasize this

Developing a solid walking habit is key to my well being and comfort while strength training.

Sure it burns some calories and gets me away from my desk and out in the world, but the therapeutic value of using my sore muscles to do something as fundamental as walking simply cannot be overstated.

I'm squatting heavy sets of 5, three days a week, and until recently was ALSO dead lifting on each of those days as well (I'm alternating power cleans on an ABA BAB schedule now).  I have had ZERO DOMS.  I am absolutely stiff and slow to get moving almost every time I get up, but 50 yards later I'm ready to stretch out and see the world.

Secondarily, I think hitting these muscles MORE often is a big part of it too.  Everything I've read says that some hair of the dog is the best cure for sore muscles, i.e., squatting helps sore legs. I simply wont have enough time to be sore between now and Saturday when I lift heavy again, especially with a round of complexes on Thursday morning.

Anyway, I'm pushing it hard enough to see stars three days a week and I'm never sore.  I'm doing something right and those two things are my theory.

PS - everything we think we know about DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) is crap.  It's not lactic acid, it's not worse with eccentric contraction.

https://www.t-nation.com/supplements/tip-doms-isnt-caused-by-what-you-think

Your body isnt a spreadsheet

Well I really can't explain yesterday.  Sure, I walked a lot but I shed 3 lbs on the scale.  Let's run it down:

• Workout - Cosgrove "Evil Eight" barbell complexes
• Walking - 21,424 steps
• Calories - 2560 - 252 Protein, 158 Carbs, 100 Fat
• Weight - 243.6 (down 3.0 lbs)

I do want to call out a Non-Scale Victory though.  My lifting belt is a Velcro through a buckle and back onto itself sort of thing.  When I first started using it on my dead lifts (a week ago?) I could only wear it cinched, and barely at that.  If I loosened it, there wasn't any Velcro to attach it to.

Now, I can comfortably but snugly wear it fastened, then cinch it down tight when I go to lift.  That means more to me than a 3lb swing in water weight for sure.

Sleep was shit at 6:34 and very low quality.  Lots of people on very different schedules coming and going and I just couldn't settle back down.

Today was a deadlift day, and I can say this, they sure do make me look forward to power clean days.  ugh.

• Squat - 3x5 210
• Press - 3x5 90
• Dead lift - 1x5 255  ( I got horizontal after these.  I was wiped out)

I can say with certainty that I'll need every walk I take today just to keep my body from going full Tin Man.  Upper back, Hamstrings, Glutes are all smoked.  My shoulders are pretty worn out too.

Since we're doing a record of events, let's just say that I'm packed and ready for the standard day

• 8 am Breakfast - eggs, chicken, rice, spinach, coconut oil
• 10 am Snack - Bar and Shake
• 12 pm Lunch - chicken, stir fry veg, rice, olive oil
• 2 pm Snack - yogurt, whey & creatine, PBFit, oat bran

That's 1955 Cal, 210 Protein, 122 Carb, 68 Fat and pretty well baked in at this point.  I rarely vary, other than to pull out the rice and added fats on Deficit weeks.

Dinner is where things can swing around a little, but generally there's just a final 600 calories and the same sort of macro split to get me to the sorts of totals I listed above.

Finally, I'll walk on the snacks, lunch, and after work before dinner and come in around 15k steps.

If every day was like today and yesterday, I'd be golden.  I just need to adhere to the above as much as possible for the rest of the week, keep it real Thursday night, and I've got a GOOD shot at starting my Deficit phase at a low body weight and not needing to go back over the same territory again.  The 240-245 zone is getting a little old.  Time for the 230's.

Cardio and Appetite

I'm sticking to the plan today and so far have walked on all three opportunities.  Even with added carbs running about 150g per day, I am definitely looking for food about 75% of the way between meals.  I'm going to say that HIIT followed by a 40 minute walk, all fasted, put me "behind" the appetite curve today and I'm just going to be hungry all day.

It just goes to show that there's a very fine line when your activity levels are this high, and I"m not even doing any serious endurance work or really intense cardio. 

This is a typical Tuesday for me:

• in the gym by 5:40am - 15 minutes HIIT doing barbell complexes
• hit the streets for 40 minute walk ~2.4miles
• Cook, pack, shower work by 8am (half mile walk from parking to office)
• Eat breakfast - 8:01 and dont get in my way.
• Mid morning Walk - about 15-20 mins and just under a mile.  This includes stairs from the 9th floor.
• Protein shake and bar by 10am latest, after my walk usually
• Lunch hour - 40 min, 2.2mile walk.  Eat lunch.
• Mid afternoon walk - same as mid morning
• PM snack - yogurt, whey, PBFit, oat bran.  3pm
• half mile walk to the car, then after work walk as soon as I'm home, usually right around 5pm.  40 mins, 2.4 miles

I'll repeat most of this on Thursdays as well, although I have my night out with my friend and skip the after work walk.

MWF all start the day with a full hour in the gym and no morning walk..but run about the same with everything else.  Fridays I'm usually doing something social and skip the afternoon walk too.

Weekends I back off and just get a walk in once or twice...with Sundays often being a complete lay around and rest kind of day.

Testing...1..2..

Is this thing on?

It's not as good as an email chain with buddies, but this does serve to document and maintain a chronological record of this journey.

I do find that a daily accountability to "the record" helps to keep me on track, in the same way that my Apple Watch and it's goofy fitness widgets keeps me in the game throughout the day.  That is to say, I havent been good about updates, and so performance has suffered as well.

Bottom line...I'm right at or slightly above my upper bound for my Maintenance Phase at 246.6 lbs.  I'd prefer that to be 245.5 or lower but given the 18th birthday shenanigans this weekend and come celebratory drinking among the adults for 5 kids raised, I'll excuse it.

Today is Tuesday in Week 2 of Maintenance.  Starting Sunday night, I'll switch back to Deficit and begin the march down to 235lbs.  I'll be in a 900 calorie deficit, week 7 of the Novice Linear Progression (getting tough), and I'll be adding dips and chins as assistance work.  As long as protein stays high, I expect good things over the next two weeks.

Yesterday was a good day having returned to form on the diet front, if not as much on the exercise front.

• Calories - 2541, 243 Protein, 147 Carbs, 117 Fat
• Steps - 10,106 but I only really deliberately walked once yesterday vs my normal 5x.  Life happened.
• Workout - Squat, Bench, Power Clean.  Everything is starting to require a substantial effort on reps 4 and 5, even in the first set.  Still, I manage to perform best in the 3rd set.

I decided to revert to the empty bar with power cleans, and I think it's going to pay off.  It's a technical lift when done correctly, and the 135lbs I was attempting makes sense mathematically, ASSUMING form is solid.  Form is NOT solid.

I'll simply progress up 5lbs per session and be patient.  I'll top out soon enough anyway.  If at some point I've added enough practice and weight to the bar to where I simply decide to add a chunk of weight and get to work, so be it.  I'm not there yet.

Sleep wasnt what it should be, even with Nichol having an early wake up this morning.  I really need to seize the opportunity for a 9 hour rest on Monday/Tuesdays.  Eventually my body will demand it.

This morning was Barbell Complexes and my standard neighborhood walk.  I'm at 70lbs now and I think I'm going to hold steady here for a bit.  Not only is the aforementioned Power Clean one of the exercises on the circuit, but I'm adding volume to my Presses at non trivial weights, and doing Good Mornings while relatively exhausted which isnt super smart.

Note on Performance Metrics: I think I'm going to switch to my Wahoo chest band for Hear Rate measurements vs the Apple Watch.  I'm sorry but I'm KILLING it by the 3rd set and gulping air like a gold fish.  No way in hell is the 122 bpm measurement I got this morning accurate.

Additionally, I'm at the point where I need to think about wrist wraps on my heavy work sets on Press and Bench Press and the watch gets in the way.  I'll need to dig it out and probably get a new battery for it.  Hopefully there isnt too much technical overhead getting it to sync up with the Apple Health suite.

Standing Desk - Update

Folks, I'm a week into it and I'm declaring this little experiment/lifestyle change a success. I spend enough time in meetings and in short visits with co-workers to combat any soreness that might come up during a long day.

I might add also, that I am doing this in a pair of Vivobarefoot shoes, my feet are really supporting me all day without any assistance from shoes.

Standing Desk

Lots of new initiatives on deck for 2011, and as is typical for me I've started on several of them already in 2010. Nothing magical about January 1st right?

So what's with the standing desk then? Well I've always had a thing for the ethic. It just seems more productive to stand. I've also been battling with plantar fasciitis for years and find that the more I use my feet..the better they feel.

The last straw though was this article in the NYT about how sitting all day is really impacting people's health.

So there you go. 2/3 standing height, with 1/3 at the original height in case I just have to sit for some reason.

Update 12/6 - Half day in and no serious fatigue. LOTS of teasing though. That's the price of progress I guess.