The Most Loathed

Tuesday 

Strength

I started a new strength program today and it scrambled my brain:

2 RIR

• Dumbbell Press (Flat) 65lbs: 12, 10
• Dumbbell Press (Incline) 50: 12, 9
• Dumbbell Press (Decline) 60: 10, 9
• Pushup: 15, 12
• Dips BW: 8, 7
• Reverse Lunge (Dumbbell) 25: 15, 12
• Smith Machine Squat 135: 12, 10
• Leg Extension 60: 10, 8

The push ups were meant to really fry my chest that should have already been pretty exhausted. My chest was pretty exhausted but I think that because I didn't put myself at a deficit, it didn't matter. I need to elevate my body so I can get my chest even lower. The dips were much harder than I expected. The leg work was where my brain just stopped functioning. 

Monday

Sleep

I woke up around 4 and didn't think I'd get back to sleep but by the time my alarm went off, I was dreaming. Lately I've been dreaming of jiujitsu which is new for me. I was in my May tournament and we had to go to overtime and I was nervous about it because I don't feel adequately practiced at the overtime rules

Food

I did pretty well until the end of the day. I had a couple hundred calories left and I've really been craving a some treats so I treated myself to 50 grams of this chocolate peanut butter granola from Trader Joes and 50 grams of oatmilk. It was delicious but put me 100 calories over on the day. No regret but I could have done 30 and 30 and stayed on track. Ah well. 

Still hanging out in the 199s but slightly smaller 199s. I expected to be reliably in the 198s next week. Just grinding out these final weeks.

Training

BJJ

More half guard passing, this time from the over under which I don't do as much as I should. Start from half guard, place inside shoulder on their belly button, load their outside leg on your outside shoulder. Assuming their inside knee is blocking the pass reach down towards your own inside knee and grab their shin, walk away until the knee shield drops then walk over it. Give them your weight through your shoulder and they will beg you to just pass. Control the battlezone. Shoulder of justice then pass your still trapped leg however you like

Rolls

Alex (purple) - it was a fun fight but we were moving all over the mat and it was a little crowded, which meant more resets. We had a couple good exchanges but I kept taking top. At one point we had full attention of the professor so he's shouting out coaching to each of us in turn. You can kind of see us both turn on the NOS at this point and we had this long exchange where position wasn't settled for a minute as we each took a turn on top then the bottom person keep moving to get out. However, he escaped briefly and his head popped up and both Professor and I saw him pause and take a break. So we're both shouting at him not to celebrate as I jump on top and pin him down for the time to expire. 

Josh (purple) - this one really annoyed me. We started with me down and he jsut got heavy. We eventually ended up in a corner where I can't move. I would reset us if I'm on top but he doesn't want to. He eventually gets a sloppy submission that is entirely predicated on that corner. It's valid but it annoys me. So we go again. We rolled and bump into another group and I'm tapping him to stop and he doesn't I literally say "hey man, stop" and he tries to sweep me at this moment. I make him move and reset but credit him with the sweep. So I sweep back an go to work on a submission as time expires. He says "that was a really good battle". I pull a face and saw "eh". He says "Well, it was a good one for me". I was kind of a dick about it but everything he did was just bad mat etiquette. I know he wants to beat me but you have to pay attention.

I think there was one more

Stan (black) - I got on top first but Stan was able to sweep. He was attacking kimura but not landing them. I was really leveraging something an Akagi black belt taught me to get from my side in bottom mount to my back and it defended the submissions but I was unable to unseat him so it was a long 5 minutes

Rob (blue) - Rob tried a judo sweep but it sucked. He stepped in again and I just pushed him over my leg (basically the same sweep but let him initiate it). I took top and to his credit he fought hard to regain some kind of guard. He started going for leg entaglements and I kept myself out for a while eventually. I decided to let him work. I should have just disengaged and taken top, so I give myself bad mmarks on this exchange. He eventually found a tap in there. 

At that point everyone was gone except Josh and Tim who were clearly engaged with one another so I took off. I don't feel like it was a good training day for me. I wasn't really meeting people where they were. I wanted a good clean roll with a peer but was a bit too fussy about it. I'd just say I was tired and canky. Not sure if it's sleep or calorieds

Tuesday

I did try to turn in earlyMonday night, to get a little more sleep. Sure enough, 4 am came and I was awake. I kind of dozed between then and 5:30 but not real sleep. 

Today will be tough so I'm trying to get my head right. Time to go make more coffee. 

friendly poke

5 hours ago, DrFeelgood said:

If you have a way to reliably measure your body composition then you might also look at Katch-McArdle as you get leaner.  Since it uses BF% as an input it doesn't tend to fall with mere bodyweight like the other formulas.  When I was working out steadily I found it to be more in-line with what I was experiencing in terms of weight loss and energy levels relative to TDEE outputs.

 

Strong work!  I hope to get back down in the 190s with you before too long.  For me it was almost 9 years ago, and I was only sub-200 for a few months.

This is an interesting idea. I've been debating if it's worth paying the $150 for a dexascan. I may run the numbers against what I think my body fat is and just see how it bears out.

Based on what I've seen of your progress so far, I have absolutely no question that you'll get there with ease.

1 hour ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

I like it when this happens too! 
 

You have surpassed your initial goal for this PVP. Congratulations!!! Are you in maintenance mode now? What is your next step? 

The thing I wrote on the spreadsheet was my "easy" goal. I have a little further to go so no changes at this time. I'm going to hold at 2200 calories through the end of the challenge unless I hit 190, which should be unlikely. At that time I'll kick my calories up to 2500 for several weeks. I will be trying to find my maintenance calories going forward. I think it'll be in the ballpark of 2800. Then it'll be monitored maintenance through May. At that time... I don't know. I've kind of exceeded any expectations I really had for myself when I started this a year ago. Ascetically I'm happy than I thought I'd really ever be. So, I guess I get to focus on training while actually eating the calories I'm supposed to. 

1 hour ago, Jarric said:

Congratulations on going sub-200! 

Thanks. It's been 10 years and even then I was just there for a couple weeks. It's been over two decades since I was reliably under 200 lbs.

1 hour ago, athousandwords said:

 

Such beautiful charts!

 

 

I probably missed this upthread, but what's a Whoop?

thanks. Data stuff is my profession so I have no excuses. 

 A whoop is an activity monitor. At some point I need to write up a longer post just describing my experience but, if you want a step counter, there are cheaper ones that are as good that are out there. I had a really specific use case (The most jiujitsu friendly activity monitor) but unless you have the use case, I wouldn't recommend it. 

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

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

Fun fact about this week, 199.3 is the Mean, Median, and Mode. I had a low weigh in at 197.4 so I pulled my lowest and highest weights to see if it changed my mean,  nope. 199.4 feels like a really accurate read for my weight right now. 

I'm still losing more weight than math would dictate so I'm happy about that. Presumably my actual daily basic burn is about my Benedict Harris calculation. I'll work on figuring out that number once I get to maintenance. My Whoop was intended to solve that but I can't say it succeeded at that. In the top chart below you can see the two lines converging. The blue line is my calculated caloric need and as I lose weight my Benedict-Harris says I need fewer calories (presumably true) so that is the cause of the lines getting closer and closer. 

As of right now, I'm on track for my goals. I'm happy with that. 

11 hours ago, Laghail said:

Oooh! What's the podcast doing with the title? I did Power Broker a few years ago and found it fairly impressive.

It's periodic episodes of 99% Invisible. 

We're not very far in yet and you can listen to the episodes anytime so catch up at your own pace or do it in the future sometime

Friday

I was concerned about socializing at a brewery last minute, when I hadn't accounted for it in my calories. I did something that had a person been in the car with me as I pulled in and suggested it, I would have balked. I ordered an Non-Alcoholic beer. Also, I liked it. I'm not much of a beer drinker so nothing was calling my name as I scanned the menu and I saw the NA and thought "I won't have to deal with the feeling of alcohol and I can go home and eat those calories" and I ordered it. Socializing was fine but I think I was the only person not there in a couple and the only one person where their bond was over their kids activities. I hung out for a while. At one point two guys got to talking about wrestling in high school and I'm nodding along and one of them looks at me, points at his ear and says "It looks like you've been in a few scrapes", indicating my cauliflower ear. I nod. The other guy points at my shirt and says "jiujitsu" and then they returned to talking about their kids softball team. I'm not totally sure what happened there, to be honest. I as psyched to talk grappling but then one of them pointing out my hobby seemed to kill it. Regardless, I hung around for 90 minutes while I drank my "beer" then I came home and at a bunch of food to round out my calories for the day.

Saturday

Strength: my final day of deload. New program starts Tuesday. Barely felt worth it to go to the gym but I needed to move at least a little. Trust the process

Food:

More socialization. Laura sang and a couple we hang out often sang with her in the choral concert. We met up at a food hall for supper after. It was crazy busy and loud so not the greatest environment to socialize. I opted to drink water to avoid alcohol calories but they had an Indian place that had momos, I ordered a half dozen and gave away two to people at the table. I ordered a dosa which was basically a hard crepe with what I would describe as a corn or other grain patty in it. None of it was bad but I wouldn't bother ordering from them again. 

Sunday

Akagi 

A kind of light crew and I had some trouble finding rolls. I got to roll with most of my favorite guys. A purple belt who I know had a conversation with me about how we almost competed against one another once but he got promoted two weeks before so we didn't get to. We talked about being old and heavy.

A new guy was there, it was his fourth session of jiujitsu. He knew nothing but knew he knew nothing and just wanted people to do jiujitsu to him. I helped him a little bit but then people started referring him to me for rounds. He wanted me to just go full speed, to feel what jiujitsu was like. He immediately got scared and started backing out of my guard but not truly disengaging. It's hard to submit someone in full defense mode but I took his back and submitted him. We went again and now he was protecting the back take side and I was going for the kimura side but he was sitting back too much for me to make anything of it but I was able to use my octopus half guard to sweep him and set and Americana. The third go I set him in mount. I quickly escaped but he did a nice job of taking my back but had no idea how to retain it so I started to escape until I realized his choking arm was just flailing around. So I extended it for a break over my own shoulder. That was the final tap of the round. 

Food had been good today. I weighed in a little heavier than yesterday (199.0 today, 197.4 yesterday). I haven't seen 200 since Wednesday so I'm feeling good about that. 

Next Week

This week is shaping up pretty well. Laura will only be out one evening. She has a phone call Monday night but we'll do an Amy's pizza together for convenience and speed. Tuesday night we're both out. Wednesday she's out so I'll do chore. Friday we'll both be in. Also we both have next Monday off Hooray!

Thursday will be the big anomaly. I thought ahead for once and got us a Valentine's reservation (yes, on the 15th) but it's for a really fancy place we've only been once and really enjoyed. I'm not even going to track calories for that meal. Not that it'll be outrageous at all, it'll probably be 800-1000 calories, a couple meal's worth for me right now, but I'm not going to waste the bandwidth to try and calculate. It's a set meal and I will eat what they place in front of me. Last time we did get the paired wines, we're skipping that this time. We've both cut back quite a bit and one glass is plenty so we'll each get a glass a la carte.

So the week is shaping up well. I don't think I'll get to 195 this week but probably in 3 weeks. So everything is just motoring along. 

23 hours ago, Kishi said:

 

1.  Knees Over Toes (KOT) program presently runs Monday to Friday. Saturday and Sunday are rest days.
2. Night training is only available Monday, Thursday, and Friday. Saturday and Sunday are noon and morning, respectively, but it doesn't matter, because those are rest days.
3. Therefore, Monday, Thursday, and Friday training will each be worth half a point. So KOT is half a point, and mat time is half a point.
4. Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday trainings are each worth a full point, because only one kind training is available to do on those days if I assume that the goal is for these to harmonize with one another rather than interfere with one another.
5. Half points are still possible on days where I follow one program and not the other when I could have feasibly followed both. I will bias toward KOT because of its rehab benefits and its carryover to more of my life than mat time.

 

I think I'm being slow. What is your plan?
I think I see:

• Monday:
  • AM: strength
  • PM: unspecified martial arts
• Tuesday:
  • AM: Strength
• Wednesday:
  • AM: strength
• Thursday:
  • AM: Strength
  • PM: Unspecified martial arts
• Friday:
  • AM: Strength
  • PM: Unspecified martial arts
• Saturday: Rest
• Sunday: Rest
  
  
   

Friday

Sleep is keeping with the theme of waking up too early

Training. BJJ

Professor told me towards the end of class that he planned to teach knee shield but it accidentally turned into a guillotine defense class.

1. Single Leg takedown attempt but top person sprawls. Bottom person cuts the corner by taking a deep grip on the knee and rotating around to  to back. Drive the person forward to take their back
2. Single Leg takedown top person sprawls, bottom person tries to cut the corner but top person moves with them. Bottom person lifts the top person's shin and puts it on their own leg. 
   1. Top person pulls guard, bottom person just blocks the knee crossing their body and passes
   2. Top person stands on one lag, bottom person stands to and trips them 
   3. Bottom person tries to take the back but top person defends with a guillotine (wrap your arm over their head, connect your hands and lift to strangle. Fall to guard

From 2.3 above we defend the guillotine, your goal is to get your body perpendicular to them with your head on one side and hips on the other. Ideally you do this by just clearing the leg. If they keep the leg high on the side you need to go to you can reach down your own side and grab their shin  and pull it down to pass. 

Food

Two consecutive days at 199.x (.4 yesterday, .6 today). 

I got a text from a friend that he turned 50 yesterday and he and his wife are having a get together at a local brewery and he'd like it if I came out. So I skipped afternoon snack and just had a single casein dose. I'll go hang out for one beer's worth. There will be a food truck there. I really want to get a burger from them and I just might. I 578 calories to spend tonight, having already recorded a pint of beer. But I know we're going out with friends tomorrow too. Just 5 - 10 lbs to go but the social stuff is kicking up already. 

Thursday

Food

Laura was having a rough day and we got a new half case of wine in so I planned for a glass of wine last night along with some turkey meatballs I bought at the store. It all worked out great, I had 11 calories to spare (effectively 0). I was a little annoyed with MFP because when I searched for turkey meatballs every thing was listed at a serving of X meatballs with no reference to how much a meatball weighs. I dug deeper into the food list and found one but whenever I see these nutrition labels I want to slap the food company. Use weights people. 

Thursday into Friday are my first two consecutive days below 200 lbs since a brief window I spent here back in 2014 (yep, a decade ago). 

Training

Deload Week

I'm barely doing anything in the gym this week to give myself a deload week. This is my second one. I did only a couple sets, all single digit reps, usually with the weight dropped down. Last month was my first deload week and I think it had benefits. I'm midweek so it's tedious right now but I think it's a good idea. 

I feel you on striving the simply be "overweight". When I look at the "normal" weight range, it's way below where I want to be.

I always like how polished your spreadsheets are. 

9 hours ago, sylph said:

• Lift weights 2x/week.
  • SBS 2x/week hypertrophy template
• Run 2x/week. 
  • Buy 6 mo sub to ZombiesRun! to facilitate this
  • Do in conjunction with post office trips as much as possible.
• No alcohol on weeknights. 
• Snack less. 

Reposting goals here to keep them in the forefront. I tend to stray/forget as the challenge goes on, so we'll see if I can help prevent that this time around.

Snack Less probably still needs some work. Less is pretty ambiguous.

Something that I found that helps me is I created a Google Form that I fill out before bed that asks me:
What kind of workout did you do today?

• BJJ
• Strength
• Cardio

Did you consume alcohol today?

• Yes
• No

And a bunch of other questions. It makes it easy to track. Given that you want accountability it'd be easy to share the workbook here. 

8 minutes ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

You've worked really hard to lose the weight and stay strong.  I'm really happy for you!

 

What is the belt color progression in BJJ? I like purple, that's a nice color. 

 

Your quests sound like fun!! 

Thank you. I am looking forward to hitting my goal but trying to be at peace with the process in the mean time.

Belts go:

• White - you get this the first time you walk in and usually have it 6-18 months. Most people say this is the belt where you learn to survive and not panic.
• Blue - This one usually lasts 1-2 years but it's not crazy to have it for 4 years depending on how often you train, your school, and a bunch of stuff. This is when you actually start to learn jiujitsu
• Purple - normally 2+ years. I haven't heard a top end of that but 6 or 7 isn't unheard of. This is where someone develops their "game", their specific style. It's said that if a black belt allows a purple belt to play their game, the purple belt should have a shot at winning, but if you keep them for playing their game, their effectively a blue belt
• Brown Belt - 1 to 10 years. I think brown belt is the rarest belt. A lot of brown belts don't stay brown long. They're said to be black belts in almost every way. This is usually just where you sit while your professor watches you develop things outside your game, so that if things don't go your way, you aren't back to blue belt status.
• Black Belt - the shortest time to earn this from white is normally tenish years but there are special cases that are shorter. Theoretically, you can do jiujitsu forever and never earn this. Most black belts say this is when they really started learning

There are two more belts that are rarely seen: red and coral. I don't really know the difference but these are people who not only got their black belt and had it for decades but went on to teach and make very significant contributions. They probably have some moves named after them and a lineage of black belts of their own. 

Wednesday

Food

First time in a while where I was just HUNGRY. The last couple weeks I've been walking around thinking "I could just live on at 2200 calories. I kind of have my routine down and I feel good". Yesterday my body was all Audrey 2.

I only went 30 or so calories over. Because my Wednesday schedule is tight I didn't have time for my full afternoon snack but had a larger supper of a chicken breast sandwich. I even put a little mayo on the bread, which I have been avoiding just because of how high calorie mayo is.  Waking up this morning, I still have some of the hunger thing but I think it'll get better today. I'm assuming this is my body responding to the demands of three rolling days in a row with no calorie adjustment. 

This morning's bodyweight was 199.5. The last few days have been alternating between 199.x and 200.x so I'm right at 200, to my thinking. I've got three weeks left so I should just ding a stable sub 195 by the end of the month, which is good enough for my purposes. 

Sleep

This week has been weird. I've been tired at night but then I've woken up before my alarm each day. The tiredness is building and I'm seeing a nap in my future. 

Training

BJJ - Half Guard passing

Today we were using the gi lapel which is a dirty little thing I do to people already. The basic idea is if I've got my right leg between your legs and my left leg at your right hip, normally I want to fight for my right arm under your left but if I can untuck your gi jacket and pass it behind your back to over your right shoulder, I can grab that and I now I control both shoulders with one hand and have my other hand free to get my leg out. I can also take advantage of that jacket as a tool for strangling you. I don't use this tactic as often as I should because, frankly, it feels like cheating because it's so powerful. It was interesting watching Professor teach it because he's teaching step 1, step 2, step 3 then people have a question about steps 2 going to 3. In my mind it's not a series of steps but just kind of part of the big amalgamation that is half guard in my mind so I'm seeing principals, tactics, decision points that aren't coming up. I'm thinking about when and why I'd do different things but keeping my mouth shut because for all I know about half guard, he knows more and he knows a lot more about teaching. 

I worked with Ben who has been frustrated with me for a bit but I think teaching him how to pass my halfguard could help with that. It's just this impenetrable wall to him but showing him all the gaps and doorways may help him. So we worked through it and I made sure to give him as many reps as I could. 

Rolling

Ben (blue): The roll was supposed to start from halfguard but I wanted to give Ben and advantage so I gave him the lapel too. That made my life really hard. Add to that that Ben likes to just hang of for dear life, I had set myself a real challenge. The first go he wasn't in the right state of mind so I just swept him out of the gate. Here comes the frustration. I take to, I don't take the lapel, I pass. We switch back and I give him the lapel and make sure he's all set. Now his in barnacle mode. He's not trying to win, he's just hanging on. This is annoying but it's exactly what I expected and what I was looking for. So I've got to rock and roll to make any space. We move all over the mat as I'm trying to create any room to work and he is just hanging on for dear life. EventuallyI get him too far over my center line and dip my inside knee out and that frees me up to swing that leg out and now we're in my closed guard. So we reset.

Now I'm on top, I pretty easily pass to his back but he decides that we're not stopping there and goes back to guard when I relax because the drill is over. Ok, he thinks he prevented the back take when really he's just going outside the drill to claim he hasn't already lost the drill. So I pass again and the same thing happens. Fine. I grab his arm and set a submission to make him tap. We can choose to play these ego games but in this space it's only going to go one way. 

After that he was gassed and the rounds got shorter and shorter

Ken (purple): we both play half guard so I didn't give him the free lapel and he doesn't default to lapels so this was just your standard halfguard play. Ken's been taking time off for the new baby so he's a little out of shape and out of practice so it ended up being a sweep, a pass, and a sweep for us.

After Class

Stan (black): we got a full round in but it ended with a great kimura by him a the buzzer. We started off on our feet, just playing around. We both went for some judo throws that we failed at. I really need to tune up my stand up game. I forget how but we ended up in the dog fight (kneeling next to each other with my hand over his waist, his arm over mine in a whizzer). We struggled there but I ended up on bottom and he started hunting the kimura immediately but I was determined to not let him find it. I knew which arm he was chasing at any given moment so I'd turn to hide it and fight to get my feet back in to reguard, he'd chase the other one and i'd switch. He's definitely leading the dance and I'm following. I managed to pull off his bottom side control and get both arms in and bump hard enough to move him off of me and come back up to guard. However, he passed again and we're back in the same struggle where he wants a kimura so bad. Eventually he moves to 3/4 mount (I'm on my side and he's kneeling over my waist). He goes to set up a gift wrap (my top arm across my face, his bottom arm reaching under my head to hold my wrist, his top arm holding the upper arm down) but he isn't he never sets it in place. We both hear the 10 second warning and he somehow moves so that he whips my arm from gift wrap (across my face) to a locked in kimura (he has to face the opposite directly and either extend my arm or put it behind me). I still don't fully grasp what his body did in that moment but it was great. 

Matt (white): Matt's our newest big guy and I have been working with him. They were doing closed guard today so I start in his closed guard. I give him first move, he breaks my posture, good. I push away and he goes for a hip bump sweep but it's about 20% shy of being enough so I smash him back to the ground. He goes again and I go with it but slip out to half guard then sweep him. I mount him and hear panicked breathing immediately. I go for the worst submission and just lay a forearm across his throat. This doesn't need to be a submission but he fails to address it so he taps. We go again for guard, he tries to hip bump, I smash him back down and use the moment to pass. I submit him from top side. We go again with him in my guard. He does a good, basic guard break. No notes, he's doing exactly what I want and expect at his level. I, however, suck and move to half guard and sweep him because i'm the worst. I mount and let him panic just a little. He's getting better and this is just a thing you have to deal with in jiujitsu. If, as a white belt, he can settle down in my mount, he's doing great. He panics and his arm flies out so I take it and dismount to an Americana. He still has a little fight in him so he waves the arm around a bit which just turns my Americana into and armbar and he taps. 

After the roll he wants to drill not letting me take his back easily. He's improved. Then we work on his mount a bit. He's still new and doing it well but I teach him about high mount. 

Other

Guitar Lesson

This went pretty well. We were off for three weeks because of semester change but we're back. We had a nice little jam at the end which was the best way to end it. He was doing the hard part of setting the pace but then adjusting to match me. I was allowed to just play. 

French Class

My workplace offers a french class that started this week. Laura and I both attended and enjoyed it. It is a great compliment to the Duolingo lessons

Next Challenge is up

This is the it, the end of my losing weight for a while. 

Last year I was running 240-245, as I type this I'm playing around near 200.  By the end of this challenge I want a weekly average of my morning weigh in that is between 190 and 195. 

I'm going to stick to the process I have used so far. I'm keeping my calories at 2200 with 190-200 g protein  per day. I get there by eating about five times a day and using MFP to track everything. I've got a couple meals on the calendar that will be a free pass but I should be on track for all but 4 or fewer days. 

Quest Reward: Character Mod: 2 new tattoos

Other things in the Quest Log:

Monk Progression

• Arm Triangles are banned
• Get Octopus Half Guard and learn to use it
• Canto Chokes from Side Control
• Mounted Armbars and Leg Triangles

I'm expecting to most likely be promoted to purple belt in March. That means I'll need to bump up my entry to Submission Challenge and face harder opponents. In the event this doesn't happen, no sweat at all. Happy to remain blue a little longer.

Warrior Progression:

No hard goals here, just keep up the 3x/week consistency. I'm just about to start my next 4 week cycle. In March I have a lot of calendar events so I will likely not use the app and plan my own mesocycle.

Build out the map:

• Continue with App language classes
• Continue to look at travel plans, not making any bookings until March

Side Quests:

• Rework my google forms for myself and talk about those here sometime
• keep practicing guitar, start tracking it a little bit, just to make sure I'm getting my reps
• Office refresh - my office is slowly getting cluttered. I need to take some time and just clean it up and reorganize some stuff

I'm sure I'll come up with some side quests to add in as the time passes. 

19 hours ago, Kishi said:

You talk about Renaissance Periodization has got me watching Dr. Israetel's content lately, and I think I like him. He's put out a diet app; I was wondering if you had any experience with it or what your thoughts were?

I haven't used their diet app. I'm using their lifting app. I'm in their product support group on Facebook and based on what I'm seeing there, the diet app is good but more prescriptive than most. It will try to tell you what macros to eat and when. It tells people, for example, that they need a preworkout meal with 100 g of carbs then it tells them to have a post workout meal with whatever macros. Some of the users seem to love this, some hate it. There are things you can do in the app to push this around, for example if you want to do intermittent fasting. Some clients are totally cool  with that, some are saying it's a deal breaker for them. 

I thought about using their app but was having success with MFP so I decided to stick with what was working for me. If I felt like I needed some top down structure, it would be a good option.

19 hours ago, Kishi said:

Also, I appreciate how patient you are with me always stopping by and asking questions. So thanks for that.

No sweat man. You're always welcome.

Monday

Sleep

Trouble with falling asleep, trouble falling back asleep. I'm thinking I'm drinking too much caffiene and I'm going to try and pull back on coffee.

Food

My monday morning weigh in was 200.8. I think it's within the expected bounds for me so no sweat, happy to be hangning out around 200

(Spoiler: Tuesday morning was 199.4 which was lower than expected so things are happening)

Training

Marathon Monday

I had a pretty successful set of rolls.  It's a day later so some of the details are gone but here's a few things

Ken (purple) - We were starting with a takedown to halfguard, the roll starts when we get to half guard. I got and easy sweep and mounted. He turned to his side and I took tactical mount. I fished around and found his collar. He knew what I was up to but I smashed his shoulder down to keep him stuck. I fished with my other hand and found his pant leg and fell back to a bow and arrow and tapped him. This used to be his submission so it was a bit of an insult but we both know what's up. The second round I was in his half guard and used the techniques we've been working on to pass, which is different than what I have been doing. The pass worked well and I thought of a strangle I was shown yesterday (image in the spoiler tag). I attempted it and he slipped out, swept to top so I swept him back again. This time I took his back and strangled him with lapel choke variant. After this we paused briefly and did some troubleshooting on why my Canto Choke didn't work. That's when I learned the name of it so I'll be watching videos on YouTube later. We went one final time, I swept him, returned to tactical mount and heard him say, "If you want my purple belt card, you can have it". So I subbed him again.

Reid (blue) - taps. I felt bad, he was visibly frustrated. I felt like I was going 80% but he as just not having success. I got my first, live, successful Canto thanks to Ken.

Leon (brown) - going into this Leon was exhausted. He had just had a tough round and he had worked overnight. I say this to explain away the tap differential. I forget what the setup was but I ended up putting him in my half guard (shocker) and I was trying to octopus sweep him  but failed, still working on that. I eventually unbalanced him and he tried to flee so I locked up his legs and set a heel hook. He gave me a frustrated face and tapped. We went again with me taking top. I came to side control and took another shot at the Canto and got it for the tap. We went again with him on top. I managed to sweep him but I heard the ten second warning on the timer go off and I loosened up and he snatched my free arm for a last second kimura. Props to him for grabbing that. 

Rob (blue) - He was all tentative and wanted me to set the program so I told him to pass my half guard. I gave him 50% resistance so he eventually passed I forget what I did to tap him but I did

I think there were some more rounds

After class I saw Aramus (blue) hanging around so I invited him to roll. We did the big guy push and pull from standing. I went for a shot but he flopped on top of me and got top. Then held top. I almost chased him off a couple times but never got it. I'm just going to keep training with him until I can easily unseat him . No subs were traded but I never got off bottom. 

On 2/2/2024 at 2:53 PM, Kishi said:

I don't think I'm ever going to be over how much of a difference tiny details like that can make. It's what helped me the most, I think: not having some kind of iron toughness or anything as much as knowing what the other guy's going for and mucking it up enough that it doesn't work. It never takes much.

I was talking to the Professor at Akagi yesterday and he said something extremely similar. It won't be a perfect quote but he said "That's the difference between me and you. We know the same moves. It's just I know 100 little adjustments to make to make something work or not work. It's what I call being thoughtlessly thoughtful. Knowing what's happening and making those little changes to get what you want." Similarly, I find that learning "a move" isn't even really the beginning. It's when I start doin reps, get confounded by an unwilling partner and have to actually learn what they'll do to stop me but also, even with my idea of a perfect set up, what works and what doesn't. 

Catching up form the weekend

Food

Pretty good. Summing the difference between my goal and actual calories consumed is -34, which is to say I was 34 calories under for the three combined days. Considering we split a bottle of sparkling wine on Friday that I hadn't planned for, I'm super happy with that. I also had and achievement unlock of hitting 199.7 Sunday morning. It was nice to see a sub 200 for the first time. In general my weight seems to be moving as desired. 

This isn't strictly a food thing but it's a body comp thing. I did something I know that I've ever done of Friday. I came home and told my wife "I'm really happy with how I look post workout. I don't think I've ever looked this good". I proceeded to take my shirt off and show off a little bit. I'm generally not a "check me out" guy but I had four clearly visible abs, my chest had cool striations when I flexed, my shoulders looked swole, my legs were all bit. It was a cool ego boost. 

Sleep

Sleep has sucked the last couple days. I've woken up early in the night and struggled to get back to sleep. I'm finding myself not really thinking but also feeling like my brain isn't gearing down. I've gotten back to sleep but it's take a while and been fitful sleep.

France

No hard plans yet. We're planning to start booking things in March. The latest conversation has been that Barcelona is experiencing an extreme drought and starting to implement a lot of restrictions of residents and guests. So we've talked about just doing France gain. We've also been talking about adding a smaller trip to DC sooner rather than later. There are some real specific things we both want to do there. 

We found out that the company that we both work for has a biweekly french class. So we both singed up. It turns out we also get free access to the paid version of Duolingo for doing it. So we both started using that. I have to say I'm liking Duolingo way more than Babble.

More stuff later but time to start my day

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

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

Despite no real change in my point in time (-0.1 lb from Monday to Monday) my average has been lower this week. Where last week it was aberrantly low, today it's right in the median and mean. Yesterday was a big milestone. I saw my first 199.x weight. The X was a 7 but it feels like an accomplishment to see a weight that doesn't begin with a 2. 

I'm fairly certain that when we get to the end of the next challenge will be the end of my weight loss for a while. I'll still do a maintenance phase at the end and I plan to keep one hand on the tiller long term. I'm not sure what my actual body far percent is and I've decided I don't want to pay $150 to get an accurate measurement but by my rough gauge, I'd say upper teens. It feels like a healthy percent and I'm content with how it looks. 

On 1/29/2024 at 7:20 PM, Sepherina said:

I never realized that as an owner of a Mazda…but yeah…the silly light comes on every time the temp drops…

When it gets below 0 my crash detection light comes on. It literally comes on no other time, I don't think I even have that feature. But the light comes on when it's really cold.

Tuesday

Strength

• Dumbbell Press (flat) 65: 12, 10, 8
• Dumbbell Press (Incline) 50: 10, 7, 6
• Dumbbell Press (Seated) 35: 10, 8, 8, 6
• Assisted Pull Up -60: 9, 7, 6
• EZ Bar Preacher curl 30: 10, 7, 6, 6, 5
• Cable Curl 40: 12, 10, 9, 9
• Stiff Leg Deadlift 210: 10, 8, 6
• Hamstring Curl 70: 13, 9, 5

BJJ

The folks we know from Akagi showed up with friends, nearly a dozen guests in the class, most of whom I have rolled with before. I tried to make sure to make people from our school mix with those folks. That occupied most of my mind for the time. I took a couple mediocre rolls just so guests would always have a partner. We did have one guy attempt a Buggy Choke on me. Buggy Chokes were a big part of the meta a couple years ago, it's this unexpected choke where the bottom person in side control can strangle the top person by grabbing their own legs and somehow wrapping around the top person. I've never seen it happen live. I've seen it tried a dozen times. This guy started to set it up and I paused and said "go for. I've never seen this live" I stayed still and let him work into the position and, sure enough, it was a good choke. However, it also told me what I needed to know, which is that my suspicion that as long as my head isn't hanging past the rid cage, I'm safe. So we got back to rolling and now that he had one, I felt him go for a second so I just drew my head back a bit and, guess what, no strangle. A get chance to test my hypothesis. 

Wednesday

BJJ - Half Guard Passing

I worked with Reid again. We continued to work from Danaher's passing position.  I meant to get home and get this written down but I forgot to and now I regret it 

Thursday 

Strength

• Seated Cable Row 60: 14, 12, 11, 10
• Pull Down 50: 14, 10, 10
• Barbell Shrug 210: 16, 12, 10
• Dumbbell Fly (flat) 30: 12, 11, 8, 9, 6
• Skull Crusher 50: 9, 7, 6
• Cable Tricep Pushdown 60: 14, 12, 10
• Leg Extention 60: 20, 15, 12
• Smith Squat - couldn't get the maching due to other people so I had to miss this

Sleep

I've struggled a little with sleep this week. I started out at a deficit, had a couple mediocre days, then a couple good night. This morning I woke up at 5 and couldn't get back to sleep. Nothing terrible but a little frustrating.

Food

My bodyweight seems to have started to move again, a bit begrudgingly. I'm still sticking to 2200 calories a day. I've definitely wondered if going back to my more flexible model, from last fall, would help things move along but have resisted the urge to tinker with things too much.

Monday

Sleep

I mentioned this in the last post but I'm starting the week at a little bit of a defecit. Last night wasn't bad in its own right but I'm still carrying a couple bad nights from the weekend.

I did notice that my Whoop recorded a nap yesterday, which was odd because I didn't nap. When I checked the time it matches to a choral concert. / ballet that we went to too. It thought I was napping rather than just sitting still. I've never had it count me as napping while watching TV so I'm not totally sure what was different but it was funny to me.

Training

BJJ

Half guard passing. We're going to spend all month on half guard passing. I mostly play half guard so this is interesting for me. It means everyone should get better at passing my guard, which means I'll have to get better. We started from kneeling over one leg which was weird to people, they didn't see this a normal start position. I get their point but you have to draw an arbitrary line as the start and this is good enough. We were going for a cross body type pass the head goes to the far side.  You use your far hand and near knee to pinch the hips, to prevent hip escapes. Use pressure to pin the far shoulder, take the crossface and back step out. 

Rolls

Before Class

Hawkens (black) We had a nice long roll to warm up that ended with him submitting me. I'm trying to recall now what it was. I'm going to say kimura but I don't recall. He wanted to go again so I made it a little tougher. I never got the sub but I climbed to top a couple of times and probably would have carried it on points

During

I was in a group of three so we were taking turns until I was told to just stay in and train every round. Happy to do it and my half guard top and bottom is one of the best in the school, the best below black belt, in my opinion, so I did that. I had a good battle with Shane on one round. I felt I had taken his back and let up and he used to that to regain the halfguard and ultimately took the round. 

The we did five people out, top, bottom, out. I took each round pretty easily

After

Everyone ran away except Tim. We mutually agreed to just play leg lock games. He's better than I am so I think he won every round but it is exactly some training I needed and still need so happy to have it. 

Other

Waiting for a text or call from Laura to let me know if her tire is flat. She has the check tire pressure light on, which I assume is just cool weather. We both have Mazadas and it the tire is inflated correctly, anytime it gets cool, you get the light. She just took her car for service a few days ago so I'm guessing that's the deal but if not, I'll run in and give her a hand changing the tire. 

After that I'm headed to my tattoo artist to consult on new tattoos for the year. 

On 1/26/2024 at 6:27 PM, Kishi said:

How fortunate he is that you are there to help him with his humility.

Yeah. That's definitely it :). I do have a personal pet peeve around people who talk a big game but can't back it up. I try to embody Nicky Ryan's rash guard as much as I can

Food

I was over my calorie goal for the week by a couple hundred calories, 10% ish. Some of this was planned. since we aren't doing the chef's box this year we are going out for dinner at least once a month and that was this week. I didn't go wild with dinner out but I also loosened up. We split a buffalo cauliflower and a pizza, I logged it as a California Pizza Kitchen pizza. It wasn't but it was similar is size and style, I had one cocktail, and we split a dessert.  It felt like an indulgence but also didn't feel like I had derailed anything. If anything, given my weight stagnation, it felt like I was telling my body that everything was ok and it wasn't in a deficit. I was a bit heavier the next day but then proceeded to lose weight which is almost certainly unrelated but I choose to tell myself the story that it worked.

Sleep

I had some really good sleep midweek but Saturday night sucked a bit and now I'm trying to recover from that. I totally blame the dog who got into bed and did the thing of laying between us and pushing on both of us as she tried to make space. Now that we're into the week it's going to be a tough grind to get back to rested but I'll work on it. 

French

I'm still plugging away at Babbel. I'm considering paying for some personal lessons but we'll se. 

Training

Thursday - Strength

Week 2 of the meso, back emphasis. My back didn't end up sore but my chest did due to the flies. I need to consider different exercises for my back day. I usually get sore from my assisted pull ups on day 1 of the week. Day 2 I do seated rows and pull downs and I don't get the same effect. 

Friday - BJJ

guard passing

Saturday - Strength

Glute emphasis. I have typically had trouble creating glute soreness but I nailed it on this workout. I did sumo squats and reverse lunges but I tried to really dial in on my technique, control the descent and pause at the bottom. I still think I could do better with the technique but it's a work in progress.

Sunday - BJJ

A nice, long session at Akagi. All the guys from my gym showed up, even a black belt who had never been before, seven in all. It was great to see the turn out. I started off with a bunch of blue belts and represented myself well but struggled to get subs since I'm not doing the arm triangle. As the time wore on I could feel the calorie deficit doing it's thing. I found myself laying back and playing defense. I tried to force myself to play more actively but kept falling back to a pretty slow way of play. I read that as "you're tired, go home" so I checked that I had my 1k of calories in and called it a day

Other

I'm going through one of those cycles were I'm just kind of demotivated to do the extras, like making sure I post here frequently or am allowing myself to be distracted while doing them, like starting guitar and after working on one thing I wonder off to watch YouTube or something. These are frustrating. I think it ties to the calorie deficit as well as cognitive things. There's not fix I know of, just something I have to be conscious of and work on.

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

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

After a frustrating week and a half or so of holding static my weight seems to have started to move again. I was optimistic that I would ding my first 199.X weight by Feb 1 and I still might but we'll see. If I don't it's fine, it was always a bit arbitrary. I'm trying to keep my eye on the fact that I'm so close to my goal and I've already shed 45 lbs to get here. 

11 hours ago, Sepherina said:

 I wish someone had a smart digital “check register” app

What is it you're looking for from the app. I don't expect to have a solution, just curious to learn what features would be useful.

13 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

I realize that I joined the forums to help with fitness, and I've stopped working out even being on the forums

There are a fair few people who either don't workout or don't work out consistently here. Fitness, though, is more than working out. Mental fitness seems to be what I see people practice the most here because it's a good community. I've been on other forums where traditional fitness was more front and center but the community sucked so that's why I'm here.