The Most Loathed

On 4/22/2024 at 9:04 AM, Snarkyfishguts said:

My hair is not working out. I called the Salon and spoke to the owner and scheduled another appointment with the woman who cuts my hair. It's just not laying evenly, and I said to him "I'm not sure what's happening but it's laying unevenly in the front and I'd like to come in and problem solve this with her."  because the right side looks very different from the left side. So they fit me in tomorrow morning. Wish me luck! I hope they can fix it. I'm going to a wedding May 11, and I'd like to not have my hair in a ponytail for it. LOL Or buy a wig. 

Hormones and eventually a razor has solved this problem for me .

Monday

BJJ

Training went well. We continued with back attacks. Straight jacket to the overhook, hip in to roll your opponent to their belly, dismount to the strangle/overhook side. Walk your body over their should then turn your belly up to strangle. 

I had a great roll with Stan, it was well over ten minutes and we were both gassed at the end. We started from standing and both times we were standing he tried to pul guard and I caught it and just stepped around. We had a variety of sweeps and passes but we both attempted to work our bottom kimura game which mean we both got to practice defending that as well. It made me got much deeper into it, having an opponent who was actively working the same mechanics. At one point I abandon the kimura and went for a baseball bat choke and it got close. I could feel that panicked fight come on. However he moved the correct way and it loosened up. 

The biggest thing he kept trying to work was his three attempts at back stepping my halfguard for the leg lock. The first time I shoulder clamped him and took top. The second time I scooted under and he turned to face me so we ended up neutral. The third time I just could not make my body react fast enough and he got to the leg lock and that was the end of the round. 

Monday night was Arkham Horror with a friend. It was a single worst game I think we've ever played. We had mediocre builds, bad tactics and a dose of bad luck and by about 4 turns in it was obvious that we weren't going to win. Two more turns later and Jeff was out so we called it. Ah well. We'll try again in a couple weeks

Tuesday

This morning was my practice run on the new schedule. I got up at the usual time. i didn't really need a pregym shower but given that I'll need one for BJJ next week, I took one. Headed over to the rec. It was busier than I expected

Leg Extension 60: 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 

Leg Curl 60: 19,18, 17, 16, 15

Sumo Squat 210: 10, 10, 9

Cable Curl 35: 17, 13, 11

Cable Tricep Extension 40: 22, 17, 13

I came home and had my oatmeal that I prepped in advance and have just been enjoyiung some downtime. Time to get to work those, eight straight hours.

If I'm not training I'm either sick or visiting family so I'm mostly wishing I could train

Weekend went well. I've had a good run of sleep lately. I wake up but I've not gotten up early since last weekend. That's a win.

As I was prepping my breakfast this morning my mind was very much on next week, and the schedule change. So that's on my mind a lot but it's not a huge deal. 

Last week I went out for dinner with a friend. I took him to my current favorite restaurant. It wasn't a good fit which is a bit of a bummer. The food was a a little over seasoned for him. He likes a pos place where the waiters are super attentive and you can nitpick the bartender on how to make a cocktail. There you do tend to have to flag your waiter down and the cocktails are prebatched. I can still enjoy it, I just have to remember he won't care. After dinner he wanted to go get another drink so  we went to his favorite bar/sushi place and had basically and entire second dinner out. I'm not going to complain, I love sushi. Then I had to drive him home after his four or five drinks. So I got to drive a BMW

Generally, the weekend was good recovery. We were light on obligations and long on chill time. We got to lounge on our comfy, new couch and watch Miller's Crossing as a part of our slow discory of the Cohen Brothers' back catalog.

Akagi was great but the best part was as I was waling in a guy I often train with stopped me to say that all the stuff I've been teaching him about escaping the kimura from top half guard, he used it in a tournament match this weekend and managed to win because of it.

I still haven't set up Notion but I started a paper to-do list last week. I did one thing off it now I've lost it. I guess I need to write a new one.

This week is looking "normal" but I'm toying with the idea of lifting at 6:30 instead of 10 to start adjust to my new schedule

• Monday
  • Training - BJJ
  • Evening - Arkham Horror LCG 
• Tuesday
  • Training - Lift and BJJ
• Wednesday
  • Training - BJJ
  • Evening - No activities
• Thursday
  • Training - Lift
  • Evening - Laura has a meeting, probably just chores but maybe some more learning stuff
• Friday
  • Training - BJJ
  • Evening - Relax
• Saturday
  • Training - Lift
  • Laura's Birthday Event - Laura is having some friends over to cook. I've been told to entertain myself and any male partners that attend. I need to send a text on this
• Sunday
  • Training - BJJ

Two future events

I've very much considering an iPad. I had one years and years ago and I didn't love it but I've got a decade old Macbook Air that could stand to be replaced. Not a done deal but on the radar

I need to sign up for the May tourney.

21 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

I just want to complain that I didn’t lose 50 pounds last night after one day of good choices

booo, human bodies. Can't they tell god intent.

On 4/15/2024 at 11:29 AM, RaveOnOn said:

Jiu Jitsu (Japanese, not BJJ)

I'm curious if you have any insights on the difference. It's not something I've put any time into thinking or learning about. I know BJJ was an outgrowth of, I guess, JJJ but I assume some things were emphasized and de-emphasized in translation. 

Well this battle log certainly hasn't been daily. I'll have to work on that

I've been a little busy with life. I had a visit from my parents last weekend with just blows up my whole week as I then spend my week trying to catch back up to my usual prep work from the weekend. 

On 4/11/2024 at 9:17 AM, Snarkyfishguts said:

Well, howdy! Following along! I love the battle log set up for the same reason you said, the lack of disruption with constantly starting anew each challenge. 
 

Did you try Notion? I’ve never heard of it, so I’m interested in your thoughts. 

I have failed so far to get Notion running how I would like. That's primarily because I've had 0 spare bandwidth for it. For the moment I settled for an index card. It's currently got 6 items on it with one of them crossed off. It doesn't do most of what I want from my fantasy version of a to-do list but it's good enough to make sure a handful of things don't fall off my radar. So I'll limp along on that for a while.  I'll update when I have more.

A couple loose updates:

I finally got a date for the gym schedule change. April 29th we're starting the 6:30 class. The plan was (foreshadowing) that I would back up the instructor for that class. If he was sick or life happened, I'd unlock the gym and sub for him. He backed out the day before the new schedule was announced. Knowing him, it almost feels inevitable. This put the gym owner in a tizzy as he had already had a bunch of students commit to the class time so he didn't want to cancel. He's not a mornings guy and does not want to be at the gym that early so he's not going to do it. 

So The Professor approached me. I told him I don't specifically want to teach at this time but I'm willing to teach. So, I'm being added to the instructor pool. He promises he's going to rotate other instructors through and I'll only have to cover here and there. He and I are both hopeful that some other instructor will fall in love with that time slot but I think we both feel like, it may fall to me long term, eventually. 

Regardless, whole new schedule starts in a week and a half-ish. It will look something like this:

5:30 Wake up (same time as current)

5:30 - 6:30 Shower, dress, get to the gym (BJJ on Tuesday and Thursday, rec on MWF)

6:30 - 7:30 Train

7:30 - 8:00 Bonus Training (I'm planning to keep the gym open and stay on the mats for a half an hour after class ends)

8:00 - 9:00 get home, shower, make a quick breakfast (I may also take a Skratch supplement to the gym so I can delay my first prepared meal)

9:00 - 10:00 work: meetings (current schedule)

10:00 - 12:00 work

12:00 - 1:00 make lunch, try to get a walk in or some bonus movement

1:00 - 3:30 work

3:30 - 4:00 snack

4:00 - 5:00 work

5:00 - 6:00 guitar & french (same as current schedule)

6:00 - 8:00 dinner prep, dinner, hang out with Laura (times are really fuzzy at this point but just kind of laying out a template

8:00 - 9:00 light house chores

9:00 - 10:00 Bed, read, unwind

10:00 if I made it this far without falling asleep, lights out

So, I'm basically taking my training block at the end of the day and pushing it to first thing.

They also moved Marathon Roll later and to Mondays, which I'm not a fan of, at all. I will try to do a few but I'm open to the idea that I may have to drop this from my schedule. 

I will plan on still attending Friday's midday class. This will shorted my Friday work day a bit but people can get over it. It's my chance to get in some no-gi and get in a weekly battle with Stan. 

Jumping topics

I was concerned this week when my body weight seemed to be holding slightly higher than I want, I was weighing in at 196. I decided to remove some calories and push it back down. It almost immediately dropped below 195, to 193 this morning. So I think it was just water weight from my parents visiting. I'm going out for dinner with a friend tonight so I'm going to leave them alone but if I slide into Monday without a weigh in about 195, I'll go back up. to 2300. 

Obviously other stuff has gone on since my last update but nothing I'm going to worry about at the moment. I'll work on my consistency with logging but this is all for now. 

Monday

I had plans for gaming with a friend Friday night so there was a time crunch. I did my french but not my guitar time. Gaming got cancelled in the end but I decided to start our taxes with that time instead. We just do the standard deduction and I got it done in about an hour. I always feel like I'm missing some stuff but I checked my investment websites and whatnot and according to them there were no additional dollars to declare. 

BJJ

Takedown

We're repeating this takedown that I kind of like. The gist is to sidle up to the person (ok we actually use and arm drag or trap the arm at the shoulder) near arm reaches to their far lat, your outside arm controls their inside arm, you step one leg behind them and rotate both of your bodies so they trip over you inside leg. There's a risk that they go for a knee bar here but this is why you try to grip the far lat. 

For ground work we're doing back control submissions from the underhook side. We're working on the hand fight, get the straight jacker and feed the top arm (strangle side) to your leg for control. Professor has also been having me work on trapping the bottom arm with my bottom leg, since I'm stocky and not super flexible. It's darned effective. 

Tuesday

Lift

Last day of week 1

• Seated Leg Curl 60: 15, 15, 12
• Seated Leg Extension 60: 15, 11, 11
• Sumo Squat 205: 10, 8, 8
  • I suspect with these, there are more in the tank but not having a spotter / training partner make me wary
• Superset
  • Cable Curl 35: 12, 10, 8
  • Cable Tricep Extension 40: 20, 15, 10

While lifting I noticed a sign that said something about women's weightroom times, it was an hour on each of about three or four days. I saw a gym attendant doing the usual checks of how many people were in the weight room, did anyone look like they would kill themself. I asked her if I could ask her about it and you could see her immediate withdrawal . She had been yelled at about this already. I asked if it was something where I couldn't use the weightroom or if they were just trying to get more women in. She hedged and hemmed and hawed and said I couldn't use it. It was not big deal to me, not my usual times. I wasn't there to yell, just getting info. She immediately started to back peddle and I gave her a few encouraging words. I didn't want he thinking I was there to yell at her too. She settled down a bit and explained that they did want to get more women lifting and they were just trying something and she wasn't even sure they would actually do it. 

It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. 

BJJ

Marathon Roll. I came in feeling kind of run down and my rolls were so-so. I gave up a couple taps just due to the fact that everyone seemed to want to go at a 10 to my 8 and I just didn't care enough to elevate my energy. I did take the last three rounds to pick on some white belts. They did a pretty good job. It's always interesting when they don't react to a threat, you grab a collar or leg and they act like nothing has happened. We have a bigger kid, who I think wrestles at school, who has been getting better. I have to go to a plan B or C to submit him. He gets frustrated but I point out to him that I have to go a little deeper into my plans each time. He's making good progress. 

Wednesday

BJJ

Ben approached me sheepishly before class to tell me his demo partner for his purple belt demo wouldn't be there. He hadn't asked for anything but immediately started to excuse mmake about how he didn't want to interrupt my rolls after class since he knows I like to get after it. I asked him did he need a demo partner. He said he did, so I said lets run through it. He had a full page typed out which made me worry a bit for him. We rant through his demo and it was pretty good. I gave my standard advice to slow down, let all the movement be broadcast so people could see it and that I'm a friendly partner, I want him to look good and will try to be where he needs me to be, noone knows what his demo is supposed to be so if he gets lost, just keep moving.. We ran through it two more times before class, smoother each time.

I worked with Josh in class. We did the same takedown as Monday which I'm kind of glad for. Josh and I played around with a little resistance. Today's addition is that if the person circles away you can just drop down and gather their legs to a double leg. 

Back to back attacks from the underhook side. Josh was struggling because he's missed a few classes.This time we were doing the two lapel choke which has to be my favorite slow burn submission, well, second favorite, arm triangle could qualify. Favorite from the back though. I tapped one of our professors with it last weekend and he's still threatening (playfully) to come and take it back from me. It has a weird mechanic though that took me a long time to get right, so I was teaching it it Josh. 

In the two lapel choke your strangle arm grabs their far side lapel, lower than you'd initially think, at least for this entry. Your control arm grabs the other lapel (do not grab the same lapel or this doesn't work. It takes time to learn the feel of this) It doesn't really matter where you grab it as long as your elbow has a good bend. Cantilever your top leg to pop you up on your elbow. This hides your strangle arm behind their head and now you can just lay on their body, protecting that arm.  This is the hard part, row you strangle arm to your chest using your lat. Tricep extend your control arm. when done right you'll hear the fabric of the gi squeak like ropes on a ship (you've heard this in movies). You're using the neck of the gi as a noose and tightening it.

The new things we added is, I will regrip on the control arm and rachet this further but professor didn't want that. Instead we are trapping the far shoulder with our legs and turning it into a bow and arrow

I rolled with Josh after. We had one round left so I grabbed Ben and ran through his demo twice. 

After class Ben gave his demo. From the inside of the demo it felt ok. I missed one cue, he dropped a couple of movements, but we kept moving and people loved it. He got a bunch of "great demo" comments from people. One of our brown belts said "I haven't seen Mike tap that many times in a month". People loved it. He got his purple belt. Well done Ben.

Then I rolled with Stan. He's still trying to introduce some of the side control, half guard bottom stuff so he's thinking more than he should. He tried octopus on me three times, two of them he failed to clear my arm and I smashed him. One of them he got the guard but not the sweep  and i smashed him. In the end we traded submissions, one each, and rolled for about 12 minutes. We were both in total oxygen debt by about 8 minutes in, the short shallow breaths where you're just barely keeping up. I took his back on a leg attack attempt which I transitions into a crucifix with a lapel strangle for my submission. For his he was in a kind of X guard position and I was focused on him just going from a submission from the splits but he adjusted my right leg and turned it into a kneebar. In hindsight, I should have driven hard to escape, I may have gotten away but I was so amused by the submission that I focused on that and he got it. 

One of our black belts came over after watching us and commented on my use of butterfly hooks. It's not something I think about a lot but I have started to harry standing opponents by hooking their legs with my feet and push and pull them. I mostly reserve it for white belts. I'm still learning it as a tool and I recall being a white belt and having no idea what so ever with butterfly hooks. They're like magic in your first months to year. At one point Stan had stood up and I had transitioned to hooks and trying to trip him over them. Tony (the black belt) pointed out that I could have pulled and balled up and would ahve likely gotten a sweep. It was great advice and I'll play with it.

I'm over time for this post. Off to work. 

8 hours ago, AwayLifter said:

Hi, hope you are well!

 

What guitar do you have? I have a cherry Epiphone es339 and a Gretsch Jr G5655 in Hudson blue.

 

Im also trying to learn French as live in a french speaking town.

Hey @AwayLifter, good to meet you.

I've got a Fender Telecaster Deluxe, the Chris Shiflett model. When I decided I was going to try to learn I put aside a little money so I could buy something not on the bottom tier. This was in the mid range of what the store had. I know quite a few people who play and they tend to tell me I should buy more guitars but I just can't bring myself to spend the money. I've thought about it just for the purpose of letting one sit around in drop d for play metal/rock songs but I don't feel like I put in enough time as it is.

I've looked at Epiphones. They look really nice. What's your take on yours?

If you're living in a french speaking town, you've got a really different situation and I'm a little jealous but also thankful. The immersion has to be great for your learning but it's got to be tough some times too. I'm just doing an app. We were going to go to France this year but decided we wanted new couches more. So we kept working on our french with the idea that maybe in a couple years we'll go and know a little bit of the langugae. We'd also like to hit up Quebec in the mean time . I know Quebec French and France French are pretty different but I'd feel better at least being able to read a little bit. 

Monday:

Sleep

My sleep has been better the last few days. I'm trying to push a few more calories towards the end of the day and I think it helps.

Nutrition

Running a little over on calories but letting it be. I'm trying to get used to pushing a few hundred more on the weekend through Tuesday then throttling back the second half of the week

Training

Friday was no-gi back stuff with Ken as my partner

Saturday was strength training, I'm only allowing 4 exercises per session and I feel like I'm leaving a lot on the table but it will ramp up

Sunday was Akagi and very rewarding. It was my first time wearing my purple belt there and several of the people I roll with often and respect noticed and that felt good. It's not supposed to be about the belt but it felt really good to have people who's jijitsu I respect notice and congratulate me. 

Monday

Normal BJJ

The current theme is back attack from the underhook side. Today we covered my preferred approach which is the turn it into an armbar. I got a few tweaks and improvements but nothing game changing. 

French

Got my chapter done today just grinding along

Guitar

Didn't get it done today due to time crunch

Productivity

I've been bringing back some of my Pomodoro stuff, doing blocks of work then blocks of break and am seeing an improvement

To-Do

I was going to start on this but realized I hadn't posted since Friday so I came here instead. I'm going to try using Notion, if it's not too onerous to set up. 

Training

Strength

I created a new meso cycle. I titled it Time Crunch and gave myself only 4 exercises per workout, which feels like none but the idea is that I can add more sets and reps and still keep my time commitment sane.

RIR = 3

• Assisted Pull Ups - 50 lbs: 11, 8, 7
• Rear Delt Flyes 10L 15, 14, 13, 12
• Dumbbell Upright Row 20: 16, 16, 15
• Stiff-Legged DL 185: 10, 9, 8

RIR of 3 is far enough out that it gets a little harder to estimate, in my opinion. 

Bodyweight

194.5

Holding steady. I waffled on starting up creatine again. I think I'll go without this month and see if I feel like it helps with recovery which is what I want it to be doing

Nutrition

Hit my goals for the day but my calories are extremely front loaded. I could stand to space them out a bit more. That said, I wasn't exactly hungry at the end the day, more snackish. I'm hesitant to put to much thought into it because my schedule should be changing very soon and that will change everything.

Sleep

Woke up at 3:30 and could not get back to sleep. My brain was just ready to get on with the day. at 5 I gave up and got up.

Guitar

Fiddled about for about 20 minutes on Day Trippin. Didn't do much else.

French

Completed one node. I actually repeated an exercise because I bombed it pretty bad. It was a pretty good exercise, all old review, which I need much more of but the app rarely does. I need to figure out a way to do more rview. 

To-Do List

Still need to find a home for this. 

12 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

1) Worried about feeling hunger

...

2) Fear of failure

...

3) Burnout

These three things kept me from dieting for at least a couple years when I knew I should. When I finally did diet I removed the fear of failure by not having a pass/fail condition. You've kind of done this with your 4 week escape hatch. I think 4 weeks is a good place to put that btw. But regardless of how long you go, you're a success because you continue to do the work. 

Training

BJJ

Back attack, this time from the underhook side, which is not the way we usually teach it but it's my preferred side. It's less effective for strangles but better control and transitions to an armbar very smoothly. The primary point of today's lesson was the hand fight, feeding the straight jacket then trapping the top arm with your leg so you now have one more free hand than your opponent and that hand is used to strangle. 

Stan asked if he could record all the attacks I'm using from half guard right now so I did a 2 minute video for him. This basically sums up the vast majority of my game but it's working very well for me right now.

Bodyweight

193.4 - first day post family trip so expect fluctuations

Nutrition

Spot on

Sleep

Slept form 10 p - 5 a with no memory of interruptions. Best sleep in a while

Guitar

Lesson. I haven't played in a week so not much progress from last time but we went through Day Tripper and made a few notes. I'm looking forward to working on this. We started working on a new piece that I don't recall the name of so I'll add it in a future post. 

French

I did two units because I was really lazy while we were on the road and missed couple of days. Starting to work on clothing and I'm really happy to see that they are introducing days of the week and times of day. I need too figure out a way to do some review.

To-Do List

Nothing. Dishes got done.

I need to find somewhere for my to-do list to live. 

I'm going to try out a daily battle log for a while. One of my gripes with NerdFitness's format is the constant need to create new challenges on the website's schedule. I'm going to attempt to take the power back for myself and do my own thing. Everything's and experiment and nothing is forever.

I'll come back and fill edit this first post from time to time to fill things in, either questions that come up a lot or links to topics in the thread as it grows. But for today, on to the good stuff.

Note for myself:

Wow. A whole week.

Last week was fairly normal except Laura and I decided to treat the weekend as our Anniversary weekend since she has performances this weekend and because we kind of have a couple anniversaries. So, we both took Friday off and just had a generally relaxing day at home. She had to go that night and do an audition for Minnesota Opera. Unfortunately, she did not feel good about her audition when she came home. To unwind a bit we went out for an unplanned meal out. We split an appetizer of cheese curd, and entree of fish and chips, and a dessert of a chocolate brownie (realistically that thing was 4 servings). We also each had a cocktail. Predictably, my weight bounced up north of 196. Which,  I confess, was uncomfortable for me, psychologically. I have fretted over its slow descent but held strong to the belief that it will come back down. 

Saturday was our planned anniversary celebration which largely consisted of going and getting the stuff to do homemade sushi, easily one of our favorite meals but one that I don't think we've done for a year. We had a great time, the food was good. We split a bottle of our favorite sparkling wine to go with it. So the weight held on a little longer than normal, but all worth the trade off.

I've been sticking to my higher carb diet and trying to focus those carbs around my workouts. I have been eating a big bowl of oatmeal with a couple scoops of protein a couple hours before I workout. I've also been adding carbs either in the form of a granola bar after a workout or even a few jelly beans right before. Still keeping things pretty monitored but tinkering. I definitely feel the decreased satiety from eating sugars or at least not eating protein and fat but I think I'm seeing the benefit that I have more energy to burn during training. 

Friday of this week I'm getting promoted to purple belt. Not much to say about that other than it's happening. In some ways, it's too soon, but in more ways, it's not. From a straight mat skills stand point, I have a pretty well defined style/game for a blue belt and I continue to expand it by working with people on my kimura / octopus aspect. 

I got word yesterday that a rumor I had heard is true, we are adding 6:30 am classes, Tuesday and Thursday. I've been asked to be the back up coach behind Purple Belt Mike (yeah, they're be two of us now. I'm usually called "Big Mike" by other people when differentiating us). So that will change my world significantly. I have built my life around training daily from 11 - 1 ish. There was a time I looked at leaving my job because I was going to lose that. Well, i'm going to move my whole training schedule to 6:00 - 8:00, roughly. Meaning, I will work form 9 - 5:30 daily. Almost like a normal person. It's, honestly, going to a be a tough adjustment back. I really liked my midday split. I will still probably go to 11 am class on Friday's so I don't lose a class out of my week and as an opportunity to stay connected with my noon friends. I'm torn between keeping my weekly volume the same and taking Saturday totally off and adding one more lifting session. TBD.

That's the time I gave myself to update. Next post will probably be a new thread. 

Monday

January 1, 2024: 211.9

January 8, 2024: 207.6

January 15, 2024: 203.7

January 22, 2024: 203.5

January 29, 2024: 200.9

February 5, 2024: 200.8

February 12, 2024: 199.4

February 19, 2024: 196.0 
February 26, 2024: 195.9

March 4, 2024: 196.4

March 11, 2024: 194.9

March 18, 2024: 195.2
 

Weekly average

12/15 - 12/31: 214.3

01/01 - 01/07: 209.7

01/08 - 01/14: 206.2

01/15 - 01/21: 203.5

01/22 - 01/28: 201.9

01/29 - 02/04: 200.8

02/05 - 02/11: 199.4

02/12 - 02/18: 197.9
02/19 - 02/25: 196.7

02/26 - 03/03: 195.4

03/04 - 03/10: 194.9

03/11 - 03/17: 195.0

Had a big meal out on Friday and then ate a little more generously on Saturday. Predictably my weight bounced but this is all part of the plan so it's made its way back down to 195.

On to more social eating in March

15 hours ago, Everstorm said:

Really struggled to keep calories down this week.  The over days and under days basically averaged out to maintenance, or maybe 100 calories below.  Not sure if this was diet fatigue or the ol' hormonal rollercoaster in play.  Going to try to get back on track for the next 2 weeks, then call it.

If you're a pound or so out from where you want to be, this is a great plan. If you've got more weightloss in the works, give yourself a break whenever you need it. I went through a week a like this at a pound out and it sucked to know I was so close but so far away.

22 hours ago, Shello said:

I sometimes struggle with challenge goals when I just continue to do the same things and it doesn't seem very exciting or eventful.  But do whatever works for you even if you just come in and check in.

20 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

Sometimes endless possibilities can be daunting! There’s no hurry to figure it out. Maybe that is the challenge. try different challenges on and see how it fits for your goals. 

 Yeah, I tend to over think goals then just do the same things each time. I'd kind of like to find a way to bring forward some of the things that I haven't focused on in a while: guitar, productivity, house chores, etc. But I also need to not make myself crazy.

Monday

BJJ

Before class

Halfguard play with rob (blue). He got excited to try and set up toe holds on me so we worked on those a bit. He got some coaching. Not sure how much stuck. He's going to get dangerous with those, which is a little scary but good for me thave to learn to deal with

First class back. We were working on back attacks and I was working with Shane. The basic gist of the class was attacking from the bottom side, my professor prefers that the attack arm is the bottom arm. It's how back attacks have traditionally been taught. I've heard some people challenge it but I don't know enough to say if this is falling out of favor. 

If you go straight for the neck, people quickly learn to defend this reflexively. He's encouraging us to use the control arm to control that side arm on our opponent, take are strangle arm straight across to the far shoulder, staying low so the strangle alarms don't go off. If you can get a grip all the way around their delt or top of tricep you can then let the hand slide up behind the trap. If they get savvy you can release the control arm and grab your own hand to set up a short choke, 

Rolls

From the back, EBI rules. I got Stan because Shane had to head to an appointment. usual back and forth. I think we each got one sub and one escape. 

New White Belt, I've been saying I need to get down to the new, trial class guys. There was no one obviously pairing up with me so I walked down to the two white belts and two white gis (we all wear blue but we give the people doing trial lessons loaner, white gis). They had obviously paired up one white belt to one white gi the first round and were about to trade off. I pointed at the group and asked "who's going to mix things up"? The two white belts stepped out and one of the white gi's shyly raised his hand. Great, we're off. They were working side control so I put him in side control top. I swept him and took mount. He just kind of flailed so I reached for a cross collar choke in an exceedingly obvious manner. He did nothing. I stopped him and showed him the Oopah Roll, which is our usual day one mount escape. He swept me. This put him in my guard. He flailed a bit and then stopped and said "what do I do now". So I showed him a the 100 level guard break. He broke my guard, moved to side and I swept him back to mount. Reach for the cross collar, he swept then tried to break by guard. I didn't give him the pass this time, I reguarded. He looked at me confused and I said "do it again". He broke my guard, passed,I swept. We did this another time or two before time expired. He was breathing hard but I think he learned some stuff. 

After class

More work with Rob. He just wanted to roll. He walked into my half guard, gave me a kimura so I submitted him. It was over in a minute and half. He didn't want to go again. 

I looked over and saw Eric and Stand working on the kimura fro side control / half guard and my heart leapt with joy. So I hung out and worked with them on it. I'm really enjoying this little study.

Afterwards Stan wanted a live round so we started standing. If memory serves, we both took some attempts at take downs but he won that battle. I don't recall but I swept him some how. We got in the halfguard kimura battle with him on bottom, which I would call the more dominant position in our current understanding of the positions, although traditionally it is not. I have done enough of this position that I've become aware of things the top player has to do. I pinned his top leg down. This prevents him spinning away to take my back or scooting under to finish the kimura. Unfortunately, he still has my arm in a position that is a real disadvantage for me. I had a weird moment where I stepped over his leg. I don't recall thinking of it, I just recall doing it. I suddenly had moved from a bad position to a good one. I was techincally mounted, although he still had my arm. As I moved my hips away, the kimura turned into my arm wrapped around his body. Now he realized, I had his back and he needed to flee. He got to his back and I kept mount but he went to work on getting his arms between us. I got ahold of his lapel and looped it under his shoulder. As he was working on bucking me off, I was working the lapel to the other side of his head and dropping my forearm over his neck. The next time he bumped me, it sunk my forearm in for the strangle and he had to tap. 

We went again. I've lost a lot of the details by now and likely some got mixed into the above paragraph but I found myself taking his back from the kimura top for a second time, which I found interesting. I need to learn more here but this feels like the answer to this system. We ended after about 8 or 9 minutes, when the round timer went off, no submissions. No idea on points but I was giving him a pretty rough go

Food and Body weight

Weight is holding steady as sub 195 in the morning, I'm happy with this. 

I've added 300 calories to my day and I like it. It feels like real excess. This should not be enough to clear my maintenance calories on its own but should allow me to go out once a week and pig out and still be in my calories. For example, this Saturday we're heading to a place called Hai Hai. I'm giving myself permission to eat whatever I want including dessert. I'l try to back into calories for book keeping but the idea is to eat a little under more days and have a big ol' feast day. It's an experiement. We'll see how it goes.

Tuesday

Strength

Dumbbell press 70: 11, 8, 6, 6

Dumbbell Fly  30: 8, 7, 6, 6

Dumbbell Shoulder Press 40: 13, 11, 10, 7

Dumbbell Lateral Raise 25: 10, 8, 6, 5

Dumbbell Shrug 90: 15, 11, 8, 6

Assisted Pull Up - 50: 12, 8, 6, 7

Seated Cable Row 62.5: 9, 8, 7, 5

I started to run out of mental juice for the last coupple exercises. I for more like I quit than couldn't do a few more pull ups. 

BJJ tonight. I'm trying to figure out how I want to spend my extra calories. I'm on track to have plenty of protein but not enough carbs and i'd like to get more carbs in . I may resort to toast with jelly. I'd kinda like to go out and get some freezer waffles but don't think I have time.

Oh wait, Laura ws going to stop by Target on her way home. .... I have a plan !

2 minutes ago, Shello said:

I usually hide all the noise and just keep Monday weigh ins but I kept this week's daily on the chart to show how today's weigh in is a lie. 

I started looking that the detail and trends together a challenge or two ago and was surprised how useful I found them side-by-side. I think your current chart is really informative as you have built it. 

I'm curious, for those nerds who eat hot cereals (oatmeals, porridges, etc), how do you like to make yours?

I've been eating instant oats for breakfast for a couple weeks now and they're really working for me but I'd kind of like to upgrade to a steel cut oat or even a different grain but I don't want to stand over the stove for more than a few minutes, zero minutes is better. Currently, I boil a kettle and weight out my instant oats at 5:30-5:45ish. I pour the hot water over the oats then go start my workday. Around 7:30-8 I come back and they're all hydrated and puffed up. I add some protein powder and berries to make it delicious and eat. I don't want to eat any earlier than that because I reliably train at 11 and I want that lovely glucose as close to my bloodstream as possible when I start. 

Does anyone have a hot cereal that would take will to a similar treatment, where I can apply a little heat and water a couple hours ahead then return to it and pretty it up before consuming?

On 3/10/2024 at 8:00 AM, Sepherina said:

Those are some awesome tattoos!  

Thank you. I love her artwork. I've considered offering her a couple hundred bucks just to make some large images I could print out expensively and frame as art to have around my office. 

Sunday

The plan for Sunday was to skipp Akagi and head to a friend's how for his birthday boardgame maraathon. I had a big bag of snacks to share that I was taking with me and I was looking forward to gaming again. An hour before the texts went out that he had a work fire to deal with and he had to postpone his birthday plans. 

Well, time to start Jiujitsu up again. I got dressed and headed to Akagi. 

I seem to be over my cold except for an occasional, lingering cough. The plan was to take it pretty easy and head home whenever so I didn't count rounds. While there, my goal was to keep working my halfguard kimura/octopus system I've been trying to develop. It was also my first day allowing the arm triangle again so I was going to count those. 

I can tell you up front, I got 0 arm triangle. I really only tried to set it up twice and even then if felt a little forced so I was unsurprised when it didn't finish. That is not to say that I got no submissions. I didn't keep count but I'd guess I was north of 20 submissions, maybe as high as 30. I only had a couple rolls where I didn't submit my opponent and when I recapped in my mind on they way home, I could not recall giving up a submission. I only rolled with one black belt, a handful of purples, every blue I could get to roll and a handful of white belts. So I wasn't rolling outside my bracket. So not crazy good but good enough to enjoy, I think. 

The majority of my submissions came from that kimura/octopus system I'm working on. People were just handing me the kimuras. I get it, I've done this before too. If you don't know, it seems like you can sacrifice that kimura pretty safely. Just smash them down and sprawl to pass or counter by going tall and reverse it. However, this system seems to counter most of that pretty effectively. It's not perfect, I can still get passed this way but you can't give me a moment to escape my legs nor can you let me scoot under. I really have to be pinned in place and my opponent needs to be really disciplined on their arm position. I landed somewhere in the range for 5ish naked kimuras and a couple more where I had to scoot across. I don't recall getting any back takes. I got three, I think, octopus sweeps. I'm learning a shortcut version where I opponent hides the kimura arm from me. That means they have not post on that side and I can sweep. 

I found a really surprising number of back takes. I was trying to think about it after and I'm not entirely sure where they all came from. Back takes are a natural part of my halfguard game but my memory is that a lot of them came from the opposite direction. People would try to pass from half and get frustrated by me harrying their far arm so they'd turn away, to reverse half, which is fine as it sets up octopus but they would turn too far and I'd release my halfguard to scamper around the far side, sometimes pressing them away and spinning them just a bit and I'd be on their back. Then i'd set up a lapel choke. 

Anyway, it was a good time for me. My body definitely felt fresh, despite being sick, because of the time away but I am glad to be back on the mat. 

We're getting to the final stages of this challenge and it has me thinking about next challenge and trying to think of something to change up. I'm going into a maintenance phase for my diet which is great. i'm at a bodyweight that seems to be working for me. So while I'l need to keep one hand on the rudder, it's no longer something that needs my full attention. I' have two months until my next meet so that will be a part of it but I'm not certain where i want to place my focus beyond that. Trying to focus on recovery has never yielded me results so far. That would be the ideal case but I don't know how to make it successful. I have a handful of little projects that are always on. my radar: housekeeping, home improvement, guitar, learning french. Those are easy ways to make checklists and people like that but it's not my favorite... I don't know, I need to think about this

Monday

January 1, 2024: 211.9

January 8, 2024: 207.6

January 15, 2024: 203.7

January 22, 2024: 203.5

January 29, 2024: 200.9

February 5, 2024: 200.8

February 12, 2024: 199.4

February 19, 2024: 196.0 
February 26, 2024: 195.9

March 4, 2024: 196.4

March 11, 2024: 194.9
 

Weekly average

12/15 - 12/31: 214.3

01/01 - 01/07: 209.7

01/08 - 01/14: 206.2

01/15 - 01/21: 203.5

01/22 - 01/28: 201.9

01/29 - 02/04: 200.8

02/05 - 02/11: 199.4

02/12 - 02/18: 197.9
02/19 - 02/25: 196.7

02/26 - 03/03: 195.4

03/04 - 03/10: 194.9

I'd be lying to say I'm anything but super happy with this. I'm reliably below 195, even if just by a bit. Last week I did not training and kept my calories low and was able to not gain a bunch a weight. I have reliably seen over the past month that if I eat a "junk" meal I get a good 1.5 - 2 lbs bounce that starts  8 - 12 hours after the meal and lasts about 1.5 to 2 days. You can see three really. clear examples of this in my chart above, I'm just coming off of one now. So I expect tomorrow's weight to be down near the both of 195 into 194. 

Starting yesterday I have pushed my daily calories to 2500 / day with the expectation that I'll have one "feast" day per week, a day where I'm over 3kcal. This will be my experiment as I start maintenance. I'm happy with my current look and think I'm at a healthy weight. I have to make weight at 195 in May so just maintaining. After that tournament I'll reassess. I may play around with weight over the summer or maybe I'll just leave it and live on.

It's been my week off from training and I've been recovering from my cold so I haven't really had much to say here but I've been around a lot, reading other peoples' threads, not always commenting.

I had originally planned to get into  the gym the last few days of the week and do my deload work but since I was still bouncing back from my cold, I just took walks. I've kept my calories low so I was maintaining until this morning when I weighed in very low (193.4). While we were at Trader Joes we both kind of wanted trashy burritos so I let myself have a burrito and a half for lunch which will put me over on calories for the day. 

Tomorrow will also be a low quality food day. A friend is having some guys over for his birthday of boardgames. We'll be there for six hours. I was asked to bring som snacks so I got a couple different kinds of chips and some popcorn for me. I'll take Zevia to drink. He's told me what bourbons he has a couple times. I haven't had the heart to tell him I haven't drank bourbon straight is, maybe, six months. When I started managing my calories, liquor was the first thing out the door. Not deliberately. I just found it didn't fit in my nutrition. These days I split a bottle of wine with my wife over two days, once a week. That's the extent of my drinking. I'll probably drink one to two more drinks per week more going to maintenance but it's going to remain pretty light. 

Plastic is off of my tattoos and they're here forever. I'm so very happy with the art she came up with. Warning, the photos in the spoiler tag are huge. I left them full sized so the tattoos are actual size (on my monitor) or slightly larger. 

I'm really looking forard to getting back the gym on Monday

4 hours ago, TimovieMan said:

Alright, lowest this year! 🤘

3 hours ago, DrFeelgood said:

Nice!  I hit my lowest of the year this morning, too, but I still have a couple of days to push it even lower for my official on the week.

Nice. Everyone setting records and it's only March. Well done.

8 minutes ago, Harriet said:

Sounds really sensible. If it came off 36 hours later it must have been mainly water and food weight, right?

Yeah. For a single meal it almost always is. 3500 calories is a pound (really roughly). I'd need to eat a ~750 calories to theoretically gain 0.25 lbs of real weight and that assumes a perfect translation of calories to weight gain. So when I had my treat meal and I was about 500 calories over my maintenance amount for the day but I gained 1.5 lbs on the scale, at least 1.25 lbs of that is ethereal and a couple days later, I was back within a couple tenths of  a pound.

14 minutes ago, Harriet said:

I am feeling better about tracking right now because my current goal (lose 5kg, be a smidgen leaner) feels so much more achievable than my usual dream (lose 15kg, be absurdly thin) and the time limit of 12 weeks is really reassuring. Plus it makes it easier when you have a cute, intuitive app (not RP).

I've seen them message this a few ways but I personally like the very process forward messaging more than goal forward, meaning, if you know you can live at a deficit that will lose you a half a kilo per week then make a plan to do that for 10 weeks. Then go to maintenance, then reassess and you can lose 5 kilos more if you want to or not. If you find you can't do all ten weeks, go to maintenance early until you feel ready to diet again then assess your deficit tolerance and do that. If you lose 2 kilos, go to maintenance and assess the situation and decide you like where you are, you haven't failed at losing 5 kilos, you have succeeded at losing 2 and finding the weight you want to be for now. The emphasis being, it's an ongoing cycle of assessing the situation, making a plan and doing it, then maintaining and assessing, no pass or fails, just a process.