The Most Loathed

On 11/7/2023 at 11:04 PM, Keladris said:

Oop double post. My prep work today involved reoragnising the pantry, which is a couple years overdue. Wanted to share the results as I am very pleased. I have ADHD and struggle when I can't see things to know that they exist. So I am hoping this will help me with food prep and reducing waste too.

 

Spoiler

 

This is genuinely impressive. 

 

On 11/9/2023 at 10:57 AM, Snarkyfishguts said:

What's your holiday game plan? 

Hide.

I don't think my solution is actually a good one but I basically try to ignore the holidays except when I literally can't. I can't work out on Thanksgiving and Christmas day but I don't let the whole season become an excuse to miss the gym. I write out my training plan with the necessary holes in it for days the gyms are closed but otherwise keep it as tight as possible. 

I've never tracked my food through the holidays and to some degree I don't know how much I will this year. On everyday that isn't an actual holiday I'm going to stick to my food tracking, which means telling family "if you send me home with those cookies they'll just get thrown away" and sticking too it because I don't need "holiday treats" sitting around. On the actual holidays, I"m not going to be sitting at the table with my food scale, weighing things but I plan to be as moderate as is reasonable. However, I'll also tell myself "you can't gain a pound of fat by relaxing at this meal". 

 

In all likelihood I'll gain a pound or two but I know that I'm doing a weight loss phase on the new year so I'll deal with those pounds then. 

 

September 11 - 219.9

September 18 - 220.7

September 25 - 218.0

October 2 - 216.0

October 9 - 215.4

October 16 - 213.8

October 23 - 215.5

October 30 - 212.6

November 6 - 216.3

November 13 - 215.5

 

Check out my weekly averages for the post few weeks, this is not doctored to make the math work in any way:

 

No idea how I manage to get the same average to the tenth of a pound across three week. I had heavy days and light days. I messed around with new vitamins which meant a shift in water being held in my body. But over the course of the three weeks I averaged the same number per week. I guess I feel I can confidently say that I know what my actual weight has been this month. 

On 11/12/2023 at 2:40 AM, Jarric said:

Hope you manage to catch up on sleep this weekend - the combination of the clocks changing and 3am airport trips sounds less than ideal!

I don't know if I ever caught up but it's improving. It's a slow fix.

 

Friday

Training

BJJ - No Gi

More working on heel hooks from Cross Ashi. I spent my after class time working with Joe on my entry to legs from half guard. Tony came over and explained a sweep that fit into that well but I realized yesterday that I had forgotten the details of the sweep so I'm hoping to catch him this week and ask again.

 

Food

Food was within a rounding error of my goal so I'm satisfied. All week my hunger has been growing though. It seems like maintaining my weight is about to get more difficult and I'm starting to have some concerns about my next weightloss phase. For now I'm just trying to focus on my current goal of maintaining. 

 

Sleep

Looking back at my sleep log, it looks like I got to bed late on Thursday and had trouble falling asleep. I don't recall what was going on in my head that caused this.

 

Saturday

Training

BJJ

Normally I lift on Saturday but since I was picking Laura up at the airport Saturday afternoon I decided to roll today and then figured I would lift on Sunday because I could do it anytime during the day, giving us a more relaxed schedule. 

Most Saturdays that I have gone, class has been really light, almost all white belts so it was a pleasant surprise to see a few purple belts there this week. I'm trying to conjur what the lesson was but it's not coming to me. It was taught by one of our blue belts. He does a good job but he's a small guy so his game is very, very different than my own. I'm always glad to be exposed to his techniques but they aren't things I'm going to implement. 

My favorite roll was with Coach Foote (purple). He was a blue belt when I started jiu jitsu and used to be in the gym all the time and always had new moves he was trying out. He's extremely good at playing guard, one of the two people that taught me to fear a good guard player. However, I'm much bigger than him and we're both older so he didn't like to roll together for a long time because he feared getting hurt through white belt spazziness. About the time he came to trust me a bit more to be a safe roll, he had to take some time off for knee surgery. Since then he's been much less active at the gym.

We started our roll out from the ground and he very reasonably took guard. I pretty quickly felt him more to a high guard, which is a very effective position but one that almost no one at my gym plays. In traditional closed guard the down person has their legs around the upright person's waist. This is almost a purely defensive position. You can do some things but you're really waiting for an opportunity. High guard means wrapping your legs around  their chest and/or shoulders. People who like triangles will work this position but it makes you vulnerable to having the up person back out and pass. He had a strong high guard though so it bound my shoulders up, limiting my ability to freely move. 

I could feel him working through an attack serious. He realized quickly that he couldn't set up a triangle on my. My size makes this difficult and I have a reputation for shaking off triangles that are anything but perfect. He barely missed a beat in getting my hands off of him an don the mat which opens up a lot shoulder attacks. He never fully went for one but it kept me wary. He kept trying to expose my back which wasn't yielding him much because I could just walk back across his center line. I think this is the attack he wanted most. Each time I would recover my arm he'd take a shot at a platform arm bar which are my favorite submission I can never finish. I'd get my arm free, start to stand, he would break me down and we'd go through the cycle again. 

In the end it was a 0-0, no submissions finish which is the most boring possible outcome to a spectator but between us, I survived all he had to throw at me but I would give him the edge. While I vaguely threatened to pass, he was threatening submissions. That said, he's got literal years of training on me. So it wasn't a win for me but I was able to not do anything too dumb and I feel like I could find holes with more reps. 

 

Food

I went a couple hundred calories light on food mostly because my schedule for the day cut out my afternoon snack.

 

Sleep

Sleep was much improved Friday into Saturday. I did all I could to bend my Friday to better sleep. I had a nice wind down hour prior to bed than got in bed and read my dinosaur book some more. Once in bed, I stayed there until 6 am, which is my idea of sleeping in. My Whoop says I got 85 hours of sleep and gave me a green recovery score.

 

Sunday

Training

Strength

• Dumbbell Press 60 lbs 5 x 12
  • This was right in the sweet spot of difficulty, keeping the same for next time then likely increasing reps
• Dumbbell Row 60 lbs 5 x 12
  • A little easier than the presses but I have trouble staying mentally in the movement and feeling the muscles. i'm going to keep this the same and really try to focus on the mental parts of this exercise next time
• Seated Dumbbell Press 30 lbs 5 x 12
  • +1 rep next time. This lift has given me some fits leading up to now but I was happy with the amount of effort and work
• Assisted Pull Up - 105 5 x 12
  • Keep the same for next time
• Assisted Dips -65 5 x 12
  • Keep the same
  • After saying last time I was thinking about dropping this in favor of a more isolated exercise, this time I felt like I really got a nice muscle stretch and lot fo good connection
• Dumbbell Preacher Curl 20 lbs 5 x 12
  • After failing last time, I was happy to finish this properly but man do I feel like a weak little baby barely finishing these with only 20 lbs. 

 

Food

I overate by a couple hundred calories. I've mentioned it a couple times in the past week but hunger is increasing. My average bodyweight over the past month has been crazy consistent but I've just had more of those times where I get distractingly hungry and let myself eat to clear the noise. I had a bit of that yesterday. We're heading into holidays so this will likely get worse. 

 

Sleep

I slept really well. My recovery was a bit lower but my actual sleep was 8.5 house again and I woke up feeling refreshed.

 

End of Week

From a training and food stand point, not much to say about last week. I'm generally satisfied. I obviously had the sleep disruption, which is frustrating because I had just started to feel like I had unlocked something. So, back to work on that is really all I can say.

 

The more interesting story from last week, to me, was that Laura was out. With her gone, I was in total control of my schedule. This is always a good reality check for me. Despite being the absolute master of my own time and activities I don't actually get any more done nor do I get a ton more down time. This is a cycle that has played out numerous times but it's important that I get that reminder sometimes. 

I am sometimes prone to thinking that because I adapt my schedule for here and/or because I prep food or do dishes for us both that when she's gone for a few days I'll get all caught up on chores and get some optional ones done that i've been putting off. Not true at all. When she's gone I tend to get almost exactly the same stuff done and continue to put off the same stuff. When she's gone I may play around with my order of operations a bit but generally find that any experiments aren't really meaningfully different. 

It's just a good thing for me to observe from time to time. My time constraints are of my own device and short of winning the lottery (so I don't need to work or work much) , I need to do better at working within the same constraints that I currently have day to day. 

 

New Week

It's the holiday season so schedules are messy. This weekend I will be heading down to visit my parents for an early Thanksgiving. I'm not really very connected to my family so this is always frustrating for me. So I'll be trying to make the experience as positive as I can but struggling with the frustration of the futility of it all. I'll head down Friday after Jiujitsu and come back Sunday midday, so I'll miss Saturday and Sunday training. Once down there it's pretty much a game of sitting and waiting for each meal to pass. I've been trying to work out an opportunity to drop in for a jiujitsu class while I'm there but I can't get people to organize their thoughts on the weekend enough to make a real plan and I feel like I can see my time being leeched away. So I will try to get a workout in but it seem increasingly unlikely. 

So the week will end with radio silence from me and the final week of the challenge will begin with me just trying to get my legs under me and see if I really gained weight or if it's just water being stored from inactivity and low quality food. 

Oh wow, no updates so far this week. I didn't realize I had let to go so long

 

Monday

BJJ

Monday Marathon roll. No notes to report this far out. 

Sleep

Sleep was terrible because of daylight savings time

Food

I came in a few hundred calories under because of the marathon calories

 

Tuesday

Lifting

• Dumbbell Press 60 lbs 5 x 10
  • Go to 5 x 12
• Dumbbell Row 60 lbs 5 x 10
  • Go to 5 x 12
• Seated Dumbbell PRess 30 lbs 5 x 12
  • keep here
• Assisted Pull Up -105 lbs 5 x 10
  • go to 5 x 12 next time
• Assisted Dips -65 5 x 10
  • go to 5 x 12
  • Considering dropping these for a traditional tricep isolation movement
• Dumbbell Preacher Curl 20 lbs 5 x 12
  • Completed only 2 sets, fatigue just shut me down

No BJJ - Laura was flying out on Wednesday so I took Tuesday night off so we could have the time instead

Sleep

Daylight Savings Time still messing with me so total sleep quality was garbage

Food

Pretty normal day for me. Over by a few tens of calories

 

Wednesday

BJJ

More work on Cross Ashi / Honey Hole. We had one of the brown belts subbing in as instructor. This one has been pretty clear that he doesn't really like Cross Ashi and it showed. We were working on the kneebar primarily. It was an interesting way to clear the blocking leg, kind of hard to explain. If I sit back for the knee bar during the pass then the position looks mostly like this, where the black gi is the bottom position and the blue gi is the top. In that image the bottom player's left knee is subject to a knee bar, the right leg is subject to a heel hook or possibly ankle lock, although the ankle takes more maneuvering the find.  The bottom player will cross their legs depending on which leg they think I want, trying to hide the leg of mine that they think I want. We were covering that rather than fighting to extend the protecting leg you can keep it crossed but pull it into your lap, freeing up the leg you want to attack. 

Sleep

Had to get up at 3 to drive Laura to the airport. I took an hour nap but suffice to say my sleep is a total mess this week.

Food

Food was tough today for two reasons. Being sleep deprived made me just crave food, which is just a think I know happens. However, in my hunger I decided to finish the chicken nuggest I bought last week. I had the same experience that I had last time. I ate like 800 calories of nuggets and felt no satisfaction what so ever. I was no less hungry. So, I guess the new rule is, no freezer nuggets for me. They're the empties of calories to me. 

 

Thursday

Lifting

• Good Morning 95 5 x 10
  • add 20 lbs
• Hip Sled 410 5 x 15
  • Add 20 lbs
  • This is by far my heaviest and most grunty exercise and people have no idea what to do when I'm doing it
• Glute Machine 75 lbs 5 x 10
  • Add 5 lbs and 2 reps
• Hack Squat 100 lbs 5 x 10
  • keep everything the same for next time, working on getting the really low start position
• Leg Curl 70 lbs 5 x 15
  • I added 5 lbs for this. Keep the same for next time
• Leg Extension 75 lbs 5 x 15
  • Same for next time

I made the choice to change up a couple movements to get away from my feeling that I wasn't exhausting the muscles as much. I don't know that this is for sure my long term configuration but I'll do it for a few weeks. 

Sleep 

I went to bed early to try and start getting some recovery. Since it's just me the dog wnted to cuddle right up against me which isn't the best because I wake up when she shifts but it's ok. I slept in a bit and took a nap

Food

I'm not through the day yet and it's been a bit of a struggle to not overeat. I went for a poke bowl at lunch but the doors were locked so I went to a place that does indian pizza to get a wrap and half dozen wings. I should have skipped the wings. I didn't do the math ahead of time and they were 600 calories on their own.  Bad behavior. Ah well. 

Friday

Training

BJJ

I got to work with Stan as my partner. The instructor was trying to get people to work on mount and mount escapes. I didn't get a ton of value out of the little time we had but I do need to work on the entry to single leg X from Mount. Chris was teaching people the current meta of mount escapes with framing and kipping but my lazy escape is pretty good, if I do say so myself so I used that just because it's wired into my body at this point. 

 

So, to say a little about escaping mount. this is what mount means in BJJ

 

You are straddling someone's upper body.  It's the first dominant position that everyone is taught. Like all the first things you are taught in BJJ, everyone tells you it's really good but, at first, it's super frustrating and much harder than it seems like it should be. A lot of people at the blue and even purple belt level don't really like it. With time you learn the mechanics of holding mount. I put a bunch of time into learning this and it's something I'm pretty good at but I will also acknowledge that there are a couple of people I cannot hold down this way. The have the escape all figured out.

As the bottom person this position is really emotionally tough at first. You feel like you're getting crushed, you can't breath, and you know you're vulnerable and my worry about getting hurt. A good mount player will feel so much heavier than their actual body weight should allow. They'll use their time to climb higher and higher on your chest and use their knees to wedge your arms away from your body, making them useless. 

In the image above, the top player is in a pretty good positions, you can see her knees are in the the armpits of the bottom player. Her feet are flat on the mat, not rolled up where the ankle is easy to access. With her hands on the mat and her tilt forward she's probably not very heavy but it appears these are both white belts so that will get better. The bottom player is doing good by having her feet flat on the mat. This will allow her to lift her hips off the ground rapidly to access escapes. However, her arms are totally useless out like that. In this moment, she wants to do the standard white belt mount escape called the Bridge and Roll or Ooopa Roll in Minnesota. She will connect both hands over either arm of the top player and folder the top players elbow to her (the bottom player) chest, bridge her hips up and roll towards the arm she has trapped. This will prevent the top player from posting and should lead to a sweep. This is the first thing we teach white belts, it does work but it so rarely happens. 

What we covered is a more effective system (they're not mutually exclusive though) where the bottom player hands would both be on one hip of the top player, both elbows inside the top players knees and hips. Then she would work her hips away, using her arms as a "frame" which is to say, just something blocking the top player from coming forward. 

 

Rolling

I rolled with Stan (black) as my partner. Then we did a few minutes of top-bottom-out I beat all the people I should beat (white and blue belts) and lost to all the people I should lose to (brown and black belts). After class I hung around and rolled with Stan a couple times because everyone else was taking off.

 

Sleep

Sleep quality and quantity were great and my recovery registered as green, which makes me happy. I felt good.

 

Food

Laura had a bit of a day and wanted to order pizza. I really wish she would communicate this before I eat my afternoon meal but c'est la vie. I had a pretty good deficit of calories so we ordered a small pizza and a half dozen wings.

 

Saturday

Training

Strength

• Sumo Deadlift 155 5 x 12
  • ended up doing 5 x 15 just because I didn't read my notes closely
  • These are really starting to beat up the skin on my legs. I'm considering swapping them out even though I'm in the middle of this mesocycle. I'm not sure what to swap though. I don't feel comfortable going to heavy deadlifts and I'm not sure it would solve my issue. Light good mornings or RDLs is a viable option but expose my back a lot and I'm rally enjoying it not being hurt right now
• Hip Sled 410 5 x 12
  • felt great. These are my one really heavy lift these days and I like how it feels
• Split Squat 10 lbs 5 x 12
  • actually did 25 lbs 4 x 12 then 0 ls 1 x 12 just because the weight was fatiguing my back a lot
• Single Leg, Straight Leg Deadlifts 10 5 x 12
  • Actually did 0 lbs 3 x 15
  • My back was fatigued from holding the plate for my previous lift and I felt like I was failing due to balance way more than strength failures. Need to swap this out too
• Leg Curl 65 lbs 5 x 12
• Leg Extension 75 lbs 5 x 12
  • When I started these I thought there was no way I'd get through them all and I did take some longer rests but I got there

The big take aways are that my two posterior chain exercises aren't doing what I want right now. I want to edit my workout and put something else in but I don't know what. I'll start playing with stuff more and switch it up soon.

 

Sleep

Sleep was good but recover showed as mediocre. I'm honestly not sure why

 

Food

I knew I wouldn't have any protein sources prepped by noon so I grabbed some chicken nuggets out of the freezer section which I ate for lunch. I learned something. Chicken nuggets are totally unsatisfying to eat. I ate my alotted calories and realized I did not feel like I had eaten anything. I'm looking at the nutrition label now and they have more fat than carbs and more carbs than protein. Add to that ketchup or barbecue sauce and it's a pretty crap meal. I think of the number of times I've seen kids eating these and that I have regularly watched a kid with 100 lbs or fewer eat 500} calories of these in one sitting along with other things.... Well, it feels not good. I'm tempted to throw away the rest of the bag.

Regardless, I gave myself a second help in a rare "screw it" for me on the calories thing of late. So I was like a  1,000 calories over for this day but it's pretty rare for me.

 

Also see, the next section for more food stuff

 

Social

We have some friends we call The Hyphens. They're married but each kept their previous last name, which was already hyphenated. So, rather than remember four last names, they are The Hyphens. Anyway, they are our most social friends. They host us and other often. They Also belong to some wine clubs. They realized they had 7 or 8 bottles of pinot noir from the same vineyard for subsequent years so they invited several couples over for dinner and to open several bottles and do a wine tasting year over year (a vertical tasting was the term). I felt really bad for them when we showed up to learn that it was just the four of us. People had RSVPed no, so they weren't surprised  but they were obviously trying to do a bigger social thing and getting the two of us was the best they could make happen. We all had a nice time and they were lovely hosts as always. I'm not saying a bad word about them or the tasting, just that I felt bad that they couldn't get together the big group that they wanted. 

 

Sunday

Training

BJJ - Akogi

It was a no gi kind of day at akogi so I took my jacket off and did a few rounds that way. It's a good reminder of what is the same and and what is different. Other than that, I did pretty good. I'm still at a lower intensity but hold my own. I think the only interesting roll was some blue belt I've never seen before. It was towards the end of my session and he came in seeming a little cocky but it's hard to know if you don't know the person. He had a weird style where he as trying to stay active but not really for any reason. so he as constantly changing his grips, breaking my grips, moving around. I just went with it You want to break my grip, totally fine but I'm taking a different grip while you do that. Oh you want to break the new one, well now I'm threatening a collar drag with my first hand. Oh, you don't like the idea of a collar drag and want to break that, now I'm hip to hip with you and I'm threatening your back. I just stayed active and closed the gap a little bit each time he tried to break up what I was doing. I think he's used to people getting frustrated at the constant action but I was able to keep him reacting to me rather than the other way around. 

Regardless, I crept my way in and strangled him with and arm triangle. He smiled and popped up and we went again. He was a little less active but doing the same thing. I don't recall what my second submission was but that time he shook his head and we went again but suddenly he was way less active so I slowly came in again and time rand out as I was closing on a third submission. I'm hoping I see him again. I'd like to get a better sense of whether this is his usual game or what.

 

 

Sleep

We got home late but it was time to set the clocks back because daylight saving time is still a thing so I got plenty of sleep. I also went really easy on the wine, glass and half maybe over 4 hours, and it didn't seem to interfere with sleep.

 

Food

I burnt over 1,000 calories doing jiujitsu and didn't feel like chasing the number, plus, I knew I had over eaten on Saturday so I came up ~500 short and was happy with that. I was hungry after supper so I had a bit of ice cream and other snacks before bed just to try feel good falling asleep. 

 

 

Last Week

I don't have a lot to say in review of last week. In general I'm satisfied with where my attention was directed I had one poor recovery day but I was able to prioritize getting that back on track. I haven't summed my calories for the week but I think I probably ended up with a net surplus but not a huge one. I did much better on guitar practice the second half of the week but got out of the habit for the weekend, which is pretty normal for me. I have some tweaks I want to start working on for strength training.

 

This Week

This week will be a bit different than normal, not a lot, but a bit. Laura is headed out of town for the second half of the week. I had a dinner out lined up but that has fallen through so I'm just going to be normal. I had booked this time as PTO because we were going to do a staycation together but this opportunity came up for Laura. I think I'm still going to keep the PTO as is and relax. So, I have no excuses for not eating well.  I will need to take care of the dog and give her a little more time and attention but that can be part of relaxing.

Monday with be the monthly noon marathon roll. Normally these weeks are tough but I'm taking Tuesday night off so we can hang out before Laura flies on Wednesday so that is my solution to handling that recovery. 

 

September 11 - 219.9

September 18 - 220.7

September 25 - 218.0

October 2 - 216.0

October 9 - 215.4

October 16 - 213.8

October 23 - 215.5

October 30 - 212.6

November 6 - 216.3

 

It was a weird, wild week on bodyweight. I had a low of 212.6 a week ago. I knew it was artificially low but as I rebalanced back I also started some new vitamins that cause a bunch of water retention. I bounced all the way up to 218.3. I had pretty good evidence that I was excreting a lot of the micronutrients so I cut my vitamins down and dropped to just over 216. I think I'm still retaining more water than a week ago but I'm happy with where I'm at and while I think I'm still excreting some of the micro nutrients, I'm ok with my current situation. 

Welcome back and good luck.

 

Life definitely does happen and sometimes the time has to be right. 

15 hours ago, Kishi said:

This is similar to my finding these days with indulgences - I like a variety of flavors and not necessarily needing to finish feeling uncomfortably full.

I've got another friend that whenever we go out, we just have an agreement to order different things and share. I was surprised to see these guys share though. In my mind splitting food with another person is a bit more of an intimate act than just sitting and each eating your own and this group isn't all that close. It was nice thought

 

Thursday

The focus of the day was to take it easy and get to bed early

Training 

Strength

• Dumbbell Pres 55 lbs 5 x 12
  • felt good, the right amount of difficult, felt the pecs get warm and swell
• Dumbbell Row 55 5 x 12
  • felt really disconnected in thsi lift, better when I consciously pulled my scapula down.
• Seated Dumbbell Press 30 5 x 12
  • At least I didn't fail liek last time. Still felt very heavy and only had 0-1 reps in reserve on the last set
• Assisted Pull Up - 110 5 x 12
  • felt good, leaning towards light. thought about adding 5 more pounds for next time but not yet
• Assisted Dip - 70 5 x 12
  • Tough but not heavy. I've found with dips that I don't get a specific muscle active and my triceps don't get too engaged so I'll consider swapping this next program
• Dumbbell Preacher Curl 20 5 x 12
  • failed on tshi and did 3 x 12, 2 x 8. I think fatigue was getting me

Food

I went a rounding error's work over. I've got a ton of calories banked so not worrying about it. The volume of food on the day ended up being a log but I definitely had a craving for some calorie dense, low quality snacks at the end of the day that I avoided. 

Sleep

As mentioned in my last post, sleep Wednesday into Thursday was bad. So was Tuesday into Wednesday so two nights in a row stacked up didn't feel good. I tried to use Thursday to set up a good night's sleep. So, Thursday was kind of rough. But I did get a much better night's sleep Thursday into Friday. 

 

Guitar

I practiced and it felt good! I actually quit work on time and played guitar for half an hour and actually felt like I wanted to keep going. I really only had time to work on two things.  I played along with The Jayhawks at full speed and mostly kept up. I worked on the Stevie Ray Vaughan melody from Chitlins Con Carnie, working on just playing the melody that goes with the first 12 bar loop until it felt natural. 

 

Mobility

I mad myself stop guitar to also do stretching but I have to admit, I'm not sure I made good use of this time. I got the yoga mat out and do some spine rotations but that was about it. 

 

 

I don't really grade entire days but I would mark Thursday down as generally successful. I didn't get 100% but I got the important bits done of the important bits and then a bit more. That seems good enough to me. 

I forgot to post on Monday. Fortunately, my spreadsheet is the all seeing eye for me.

 

September 11 - 219.9

September 18 - 220.7

September 25 - 218.0

October 2 - 216.0

October 9 - 215.4

October 16 - 213.8

October 23 - 215.5

October 30 - 212.6

 

This is a bit artificially low due to dehydration and not having a bit bowl of veggies on Sunday like I do most days. That said, I've been kind of low all week. I keep bracing for big calorie days on the weekend then they never quite materialize, at least not in a persistent way.

Welcome Back!

I'm glad you made the choice to respawn rather than sit out. I've respawned at least twice myself and have the same experience, NF works for me. I've tried other formats and approaches and they haven't done what I needed them to do.

The one additional point I'd add to someone who is reading your post and really feeling the same, we don't check to see if you've formally respawned. You can totally just slip into the community and people will be glad to see you. So if needing to announce yourself is a barrier to entry, don't do it. We're glad you're here regardless. 

Tuesday

Training

Strength

• Sumo Deadlift 135 5 x 15
• Hip Sled 410 5 x 12
• Split Squat 10 5 x 12
• Single Let Deadlift 10 5 x 12
• Leg Curl 60 lbs 5 x 12
• Leg Extension 75 lbs 5 x 12

 

BJJ

It was Halloween night but we had marathon roll anyway so only 7 of us showed up. There wee three white belts who were just fodder for the machine. My fellow Blues Tim and Charlie were there and newly minted black bel Dan was there. Having so few people meant we got a couple rounds with each. With the white belts I generally give them any position to start and I try to encourage to really take advantage of this, I'll invite them to take mount or back. At first they don't want to take an advantage until I submit them once or twice then they start taking more and more advantage. I've totally been on the receiving end of this and did (do) the same thing. It's funny how social contracts work.

Tim is always a pain to get to the ground and he knows it but once there, the weight difference is insurmountable (he's like 150) so I usually ease up and try to control him without weight. He slips out and we end up fighting from the feet again. I rolled with Charlie a couple times and really expected to get into trouble giving him and advantage but for whatever reason he struggled to mount a defense. He did, however, escape two arm bar attempts by me with really good mechanics. The first one I was goofing around and just going for it. The second one, though, I settled in to get him. He tried to somersault out of it but I caught him by hooking my foot behind his head. So my left leg was across his chest and my right shin was against his left temple with my foot behind his head, with both of us face down. I used the foot behind the head to force him to somersault a second time and tried to slip my leg out to go across his chest or neck as he rolled over but he rolled into it so I put my foot back behind his head. I forced a second somersault, same result. I forced a third. Finally, I started laughing and let go and and we a good chuckle at his defense.

Dan was game as always. He tried all of his strength moves of impossible chokes from bottom but they were working this time. One of them he basically has an arm triangle but I'm on top. It's uncomfortable but usuallyI can hold out longer than his arms can. As I'm waiting for his arms to give up I notice the music is growing quieter and quieter and it's getting harder and harder to think . I tapped. It was a slow burn but I was heading towards unconsciousness. 

For my part, I'm working on trying to learn butterfly half guard so I repped that with Dan and tried it out on the white belts. I have thousands of reps ahead of me on this. 

 

Food

I came in nearly 1000 calories under goal but just didn't have it in me to push it higher. 

I have been messing around with eating even more veggies. I've been buying bag of frozen veg that are microwaveable. I throw a bag in teh microwave when I make lunch then split it up over my two afternoon meals .

 

Sleep

Sleep was solid coming into Tuesday but I know Tuesday nights suck so I'm seeing this good sleep as insurance against the night to come.

 

Wednesday

Training

BJJ

Before Class

I worked with Joe on my half butterfly. It works great on an unresisting uke but I'm no getting it to work one a resisting opponent yet. I forget what Joe wanted to work on but we helped him solve a problem. We also had a black belt jump in and offer advice. 

 

Class

More Honey Hole. Manny (purple) wanted to work together again. He didn't understand the initial drill but I got him squared away then, in the final movement, I didn't understand the drill so he got me squared away.  When it came to rolling we traded subs and w both acknowledged that the person who got subbed in each case gave up too much. I gave him a platform armbar when I was on his back. Totally avoidable but I was trying to do something else and let it linger too long. In response I took his back again and wrapped his lapel around his face, which he can survive until I  put two hands on it and drew it up under his chin for a strangle with no road out. 

I rolled with Firefighter Eric (purple) and he got a couple subs. I had one or two sweeps that I would swear would work on most black belts when I roll with them but I can't get anything on that guy. 

 

After Class

I worked with Eric on an arm bar escape that professor was trying to coach me with during our roll and I just didn't have the capacity to understand at that moment. Then we rolled again, to much the same effect. He's got a great armbar to mounted triangle that I need to work on some day but I need to park it behind my current plans. 

 

Sleep

Predictably sucked but still came into the day green. on recovery. I didn't feel green. It was the first time in a while that I had that feeling before jiujitsu of just being creaky and rusty. My lifting session has left some low level soreness but my body has the beat up feeling.

 

Food

My food shows me as coming in at 77 calories over and I suspect it was way less but I was meeting a pair of guys I have worked with at two different jobs for Happy Hour and dinner, we do this 2-3 times a year. I planned for two cocktails and a restaurant burger. I had the two cocktails but instead of a burger we chipped for three appetizers (wings, pretzel bites, and seasoned fries). I liked that option a lot more and left not feeling stuffed. I assume it's fewer calories than a burger but can't be bothered try and figure out what it would be and it's done so I'll just roll with what I have. FWIW, Thursday I weighted in at 215.3 which is definitely higher than Wednesday morning but on the low side for my overall goals right now. 

 

Guitar

Guitar lesson and I felt bad going in because I haven't practiced all week. It's just been one of those times where I've felt a little short on bandwidth all the time. Whenever this happens I feel compelled to tell my teacher right out of the gate that I haven't been practicing. He's always gracious about it. We worked through some stuff together but didn't add anything. 

The stuff I have right now is very simple but I feel it gets at area that I struggle with a lot:

• I Will Make You Love Me by The Jayhawks - the chords are all super simple and in my skillset but changing at full speed leads to unnecessary finger fumbles. Why can't I go at full speed, no idea. 
• Chitlins Con Carne by Stevie Ray Vaughn - Trying to learn a melody. It's perfectly in shape 1 pentatonic which I have totally comfortable for myself. I struggle to put the pattern in my brain. I feel like I'm trying to memorize a dance or poetry in mandarin. I simply don't have the building block to store it
• Improvisation on Pent Minor Shape 1 - I've always struggled with improvisation and as far as I can tell, and as we discussed, it's a one way street for me. When someone improvises they have feelings about what they are playing, my only feeling is distaste. There's not really times where my hands take over or I spontaneously feel something is good. Instead my brain tells my hands what to do then sits back and just grades whether they did or did not do the thing. There are a couple, non improvised, melodies I can play that don't work this way. They're more relax and loose and I can just enjoy it but I've not yet found that in improvisation.

So, on to the next two weeks of work

 

Thursday

It's Thursday morning as I write this and I slept like absolute crap last night. My recovery is in the red on Whoop and I agree. I actually fell asleep ok but woke up at 2, warm, elevated pulse, elevated breathing. No idea if I just got too hot or if this is the couple of drinks messing with my sleep or what but it sucked. I was awake for about 90 minutes then just dozed after that, waking up another 3 or 4 times. I'm still going to lift today but otherwise take it easy. Since Laura and I have both been feeling a little crunched this week I offerred to order in tonight so we can just have the most chill day possible and probably go to bed early. It'll likely be pizza since I'll let her pick but that's ok. My goal is to get to bed early and get as much sleep as I can going into Friday. I may catch a nap today too. 

Monday

Training

BJJ

Before Class

Rob did his usual "what are you working on?" question so I practiced a new entry to X guard(s) on him. It's out of a slightly different version of half guard so I'm going to be spending all month trying to change my muscle memory to put my foot in a different position to set this up. That said, I like the interplay of this version. I can try to sweep and if I succeed, great, if I fail, then I go for the legs. I have not yet figured out the interplay between this slight variation and my traditional half guard.

 

Class

Last class of the month and it really seems like they ran out of content on this topic a week ago. So we did more honey hole entries from X.  I worked with Chris (brown) who was obviously bored and just wanted to roll so we'd do the entry then add more and more resistance. Personally, I could do more unresisted reps but we weren't going all out so there was value there.

Instead of standard rounds we did top, bottom, out on open guard which makes me think we're going to either butterfly or guard passing next month.  I didn't get a ton of education value from the short rounds but it was a good workout, which I always enjoy. Based on watching, we're better at guard than at passing but based on my experience at Akagi, our open guard play at our gym is kind of crappy.

 

After Class

I had no meetings so I hung around for rounds with Stan (black) and Eric (purple) and it was submissions on me all the way down, which is appropriate. 

 

Food

I came in a bit under, per usual, which I'm great with. The weirdest thing is that my weight on Monday was crazy low. After holding steady with a bit of a bounce on Thursday I just dropped a pound on Sunday. Fine, that seems reasonable but then I was down another pound and half on Monday. 

 

Sleep

I had a good night's sleep but woke up to a yellow recovery.  I had a couple drinks Sunday night and think that they impacted my sleep. I've learned that my sleep is a lot more sensitive to alcohol than I ever thought. I have have two drinks with dinner and just assume I'll be in the yellow the next day. My respiration goes up and my HRV goes down. 

End of Week, End of Month, General Check in on the Hibernation Project

 

Training

Jiu Jitsu

I have mixed feelings about taking my hands off the wheel for this month. I think I needed to do it, to remove some stress and expectation from myself. However, I feel like I'm missing out on some valuable training. So I'l return to setting an intention for November. Legs. Specifically, I want enter into traditional X guard during about half of the rolls where we get to an exchange when I'm on bottom and they're up, which is a position I will need to engineer. I want to use it to sweep and take to leg when they go back wards. I will also keep letting lower belts pin me just to escape.I'm not going to make this a specific intention but just a drill I work on, when people either attempt to come through my guard for the strangle or stiff arm me, I want to start taking their arm.

 

Strength

I'm happy with the dumbbell program for now and plan to stick with it for the month of November. I will likely plan to take Thanksgiving week as a deload and restart with higher weights from Thanskgiving to Christmas.

 

Mobility 

I have reduced mobility but want to bring it up again. I have a spot on my calendar for it now, I just need to do it. I have found I get a lot of value from some of the animal flows on YouTube so that will be the plan. 

 

Other

I dramatically cut cardio. I think this was the right choice to maximize my other training I'm going to leave it low for now

 

Sleep

My sleep has improved over the month, in particular this past week. I have been trying to prioritize sleep more. Rather than letting when Laura is ready to sleep decide for me, I have been trying to just call it done it when I need to and go to sleep. I have been trying out just staying in bed when I wake up at night rather than immediately getting up. I've dramatically cut my water intake after dinner so I don't need to wake up to use the rest room. I stopped taking CBD gummies before bed but do take one when I wake up at 3 am or earlier if I'm having trouble getting back to sleep. Currently I am reading a dead tree book rather than Kindle to see if it will help. There's still a little improvement to make but I'm mostly happy with my sleep as it has gone this past week. In November my only goal is to extend this into a trend. 

 

 

Food

I'm super happy here. The chart below is my actual weight plotted against my goal weight. I did adjust my goal down from 220 to 216 a couple weeks ago just because 216 is where I seemed to land. But just having this long of a trend of deliberately holding myself at my desired, lower body weight is a real win for me. I've got two more months of just being here but they are the toughest two months, the holidays. So while part of me wants to rush ahead and lose more, I'm urging caution in myself. Just stay here until 2024. You'll have all year to make new weight loss goals. 

For the most part I'm very happy with my food situation. I have been able to dine out, have dinner with friends, even enjoy some ice cream. What I'm doing right now is working for me. 

 

 

Gaming

As a part of the Hibernation Project I added gaming to my things to think about but I haven't said much so far. Last weekend we went and played board games with friends, which is my favorite form of gaming but the hardest to arrange. So that's a win. I have also been playing more video games. I bought Hollow Knight on the Switch and have put a few hours into that. I haven't done a platformer since I was a kid and it seems like a pretty accessible game although it's my understanding that it can get hard. I've enjoyed that. I also bough Super Maria Wonder this week and tabled Hollow Knight for a bit while I work on that It seems like an easy game to play but a hard game to master. 

I'm still hoping to get some more in-person game time but I'll settle for what I have. 

 

Guitar

I haven't talked about this much lately. This is largely a function of not being sure how I want to document this. Time is my usual metric but that seems inadequate for saying what is good time spent. I have moved my guitar practice from the beginning of my day to the end of my day and I'd call it a lateral shift. First thing in the day I am prone to distraction, last thing, II'm prone to fatigue. I'm keeping it at the end of my day for now but we'll see. I have found that the idea of just picking it up when I go past has been a nonstarter for me. I just keep myself on too short of leash during my workday. I have, however, had some success with being less pedantic about what my practice is. Picking up the instrument and just doing scales because I want to, working on a couple of the riffs in my book, messing around with the chords in a song to try different voicings or just clean of the sound of the ones I am using. 

I feel like a lack of clarity of purpose may stand in my way here but I also just don't care to over legislate this. It has always been the crockpot of projects for me. I'm going to turn it on low and let it just simmer for a very long time with little to no stress and see what comes out . 

 

Recovery vs Training

This is kind of a duplicate of some of what I said above in sleep and training separately but I wanted to carve out a spot to talk about this specific interaction. If food /weight isn't my biggest with for the month then this is. This chart is my recovery per Whoop and I think the general trend is positive. There's been one red day this month and more green days, more consecutive green days. This feeds back into my training. It means when I walk in I'm ready to go. It means my last round or rep is cleaner and crisper. I got to this by sleeping more, reducing my training to more specifically focus on my core areas and trying to tailor my diet further. This is arguably the whole goal of these logs. So I'm going to keep plugging away at this little intersection above all things.

 

 

Changes

No major changes going into November. I'm leaning into the Whoop app more. I'm letting myself drive for those green numbers on sleep and recovery. I'm still trying to hold my weight steady. I want to make sure I'm making good on my end of day mobility and guitar time. Those are my two biggest opportunities for improvement right now. 

I am getting a blood test done in a couple weeks that is one of these things where they look at all of your micronutrients and hormones. I feel like the company I am having do this is just going to try and sell me testosterone, which I don't think I need. But I'm interested in the nutrient situation and plan on probably adding some vitamins to my daily mix. If my testosterone is genuinely low then I'll take that under advisement and consider it but, truly, I don't think that's a thing for me. 

 

Holidays

Since it's that time of year, it's worth at least mentioning, glancing at my calendar, there isn't a weekend in November with some kind of social commitment. That's fine. That's real life. This will be the largest counter force to my goals but I think I can balance these things. 

Whoops, stopped updating for a bit

 

Wednesday

Training - BJJ - More leg locks, working from Cross Ashi / Honey Hole. Everyone is really busy prepping their demos for Friday

Sleep - Sleep has been getting on a bit of a roll, turning that number green on Whoop more and more often

Food - 161 calories short on the day which is good enough for me. Plus I have a couple days of light over eating on the weekend

 

ThursdayTraining - Strength

• Sumo Deadlifts 115 5 x 10
• Hip Sled 410 5 x 10
• Split Squat 0 5 x 10
• Single Leg Deadlift 0 5 x 10
• Leg Curl 60 5 x 10
• Leg Extension 75 5 x 10

Sleep

Food - 200 calories over. This is a wash from some early days of the week but I'm a little annoyed by it because it happened due to a book keeping error. I had stopped at the grocery store and bought some frozen bagged rice that I could throw in the microwave for a quick carb. Below is a screenshot of the label from Walmart.com, which is not a perfect match for the bag but it will convey my point

 

Now here is a screenshot of the front of the bag

It won't jump out at you but that nutrition label is for 1 serving per bag of 145 grams. That bag label says that it holds 283.5 grams. The bag is two servings. The two hundred calories over is because I ate this bag split over two meals thinking I was getting 100 calories and change each meal. It wasn't until I looked again on Friday that I realized I had over eaten and went back to edit it. It's only a couple hundred calories so it isn't important in the grand scheme but it annoyed me because I was trying to do it right. FWIW, it is also mislabeled in MFP as 1 container = 210 calories.  I couldn't figure out how to submit a correction. Also, when I looked this up on a different site, it a had a label more like the one I had on the bag but this one did say the bag was two servings, not one. I checked and double checked my bag and it did not say that. 

 

Friday

Training - BJJ - You can tell we're getting to the end of the month. We basically just recapped our cross Ashi content. It was a good recap for me, I needed it. I got to work with Tom, who is a purple belt and does a little more legs than average at my gym. He was a good partner and we worked on some fine grain details, which I really appreciated.

I got a great roll in with Firefighter Eric. We don't really have many purple belts I expect to lose to but Eric is one He did some wrestling coaching before doing jiujitsu and I just cannot beat the guy. I can't even get on top. Professor had set the timer for 8 minutes and he kept an eye on us. Eric got four taps out of me in that time. I was doing everything I could to disrupt him, gain an advantage, anything. There were two or three brief moments where I could feel that he wasn't on top but each and every time as I moved to take control of the situation, he was there first. Back on top for him and back into the mines for me.  He was out for a few weeks for a toe problem and I thought I might be able to make some progress on him in that time but just like JD, he came back fresher and I didn't make an inch of progress. 

 

Belt graduation

Friday night was belt grad. I earned another piece of tape on my belt. I'd still be ok with missing a promotion but I'm guessing it won't happen until after my purple, which I expect to see in about 4 months. I did my own demo with Ken who got his purple belt. He's been one grad ahead of me since I started, just due to our start dates. It just means I get to tap a purple belt a little more often than I used to. I also was Stan's uke. We spent  weeks working on this but I think he was happy with the results. Below is a picture of the throw he did on me that had everyone talking afterwards. When we practiced I kept trying to slow him down because I knew that once he got up there, everything would be faster and with more force. I'm not sure I had any success at slowing him down though. Regardless, it was three minutes of him slamming me around and tapping me. I'm glad I got to be there for it. I also got to see my favorite brown belt promoted to black belt. I generally don't like belt grad but was actually glad to be there for this.

 

 

 

Saturday

Strength

• Dumbbell press 55 lbs 5 x 12
• Dumbbell row 55 lbs 5 x 12
• Seated Dumbbell press 30 5 x 12
  • I failed on this one, I got three sets in and couldn't finish the fourth so this came out 3 x 12, 2 x 8. I assume the extra reps on the flat press fatigued my delts for me
• Assisted Pull Up -115 5 x 12
  • I thought about adding 5 lbs going in but didn't since I was adding reps. Need to add five pounds next time
• Assisted Dip - 70 5 x 12
• Dumbbell Preacher Curl 5 x 12
  • Failed and ended up with 2 x 12, 3 x 8

Gaming

We went over to some friends house for chili and board games. I made lemon bars for dessert, everyone was very happy with them, myself included. We played Bohnanza which is a really old game but one Laura and I used to play. Basically you have to play bean cards out of your hand in the order you have them but when it's not your turn you can wheel and deal as much as you want, so it's got a good social element and keeps you engaged when it's not your turn. I set a tone early on of making deals as much as possible which I think helps, because if you try to play it serious, it's boring. I lost in the end both because I had painted a target on myself early with my wheeling and dealing and because I planted more inefficient beans. Then we played Cascadia, which was new to Laura and I. This was a much quieter game. The gist is that you are trying to build ecosystems. You score by having certain arrangements of animals and large clumps of land mass. So, for example, hawks scored well but could not be next to each other. Salmon scored but only in continuous lines (runs), that kind of thing. Shawn and I tied in the middle of the back but Carol took a strong win.

 

Sunday

Training - Akogi

It was a light turn out when I got there but it grew over time. I started out with four consecutive rounds with four very different blue belts. I'm still not in my must-win mode so I took it kind of light but didn't give up submissions. I got myself to go after legs a couple times which was one of my two basic ideas with these rolls. Later I tried to work out of pins and avoid getting my hands split from one another. A good time overall and per my whoop I burned 1200 calories so I stopped for a Culvers double patty burger and a small root beer on the way home

 

Monday

Still on PTO for the day. We saw my in-laws off and I went to the gym.

Training

More work on leg locks. Not a whole lot to add to what I've written before. The biggest thing that I am running into is that while we have a lot of ways once we're into the legs. I'm missing a way to get there. You are oriented 180 degrees from how you normally are. The one thing that we did that was useful was a new entry from traditional X guard, which I actually get to. I need to rep that some which means I need to find my way to traditional X a bit more often.

Food

I shorted myself a couple hundred calories assuming that I would be up from the weekend with family.

 

Sleep

After several nights of really good recovery scores, presumably based on sleeping in during the family visit I got a mediocre score. I believe this is because I had a little bit of intestinal disturbance after eating way more restaurant food than is normal for me. Nothing catastrophic, just a little gas that woke me up several time. I expect it to self resolve.

Tuesday

Training

Strength

• Dumbbell Press 55 lbs 5 x 10
• Dumbbell Row 55 lbs 5 x 10
• Seated Dumbbell Press 30 lbs 5 x 10
• Assisted Pull Ups - 115 5 x 10
• Assisted Dips - 70 5 x 10
• Dumbbell Preacher Curl 20 lbs 5 x 10

The plan for next time is to go to 5 x 12. I'm actively debating, do I go to 5 x 12 on everything or do I take the first two exercises to 5 x 12 and hold the rest at 5 x 10 then next session take two more up and so on. My argument for the former is that I feel like I have 3+ reps in reserve on all of the these. My argument for the latter is that the extra ten reps on bench will add more fatigue to my shoulders for seated and dips. Plus I can stage up longer if I do the latter. Intellectually, that latter feels right but I'm sure I'll want to reach for it when the time comes. So, it's less of a debate and more, trying to convince myself to take the conservative path.

 

One thing that this workout has reminded me of is the weird phenomenon I have of feeling physically bigger as I get pumped up during lifting. I have no idea how common this is. I'm pretty sure it's just an artifact of hormones but as I lift and my muscles get exhausted, I see myself in the mirror and I feel like I 'm taller, wider, and more athletic looking. The amount of pump I get is invisible to anyone, myself included. I don't think it is a visible thing, I think it's entirely my brain seeing myself differently. But it's weird, but it feels kind good. 

 

BJJ

Really small class for the night, mostly white belts, we had a couple purple belts turn up late which is literally a jiujitsu meme and our purple belts insist on living up to it. The first few rounds turned into teaching rounds as I took a white belt, did something that frustrated them, then taught it to them. The primary one I recall is a woman who has been coming more and more. We're both blue belts and of similar weights. I caught her in my favorite, the Von Flue. She was plainly frustrated and asked when she needed to let go of the head when I got her so I spent a couple minutes teaching her the move and showing the exact same stuff I talked about in this thread a couple posts ago. 

I also made a point of taking a round with Areemis (not 100% sure on the spelling). He's a new, older guy, north of 250 lbs. He clearly has years of experience in military combatives but he's new to BJJ. Between size and combatives he whoops on white belts but he's got some real gaps in his game. He also roles like the loser is going to die, which tracks with combatives. He's good a good, if desperate, pin so the two times we've rolled I've started him out pinning me. He makes me work to get away but he leaves his back exposed so this is great training for me. I caught him in my inverted kimura and he was hanging on for  dear life. I broke his grip then eased off so I didn't break his arm so he'd regrip. I stopped us when we got close to another group and he took it as a win for him. It made me realize that he had no idea how much danger he was in. I was letting him work a bit and realizing how much he didn't actually know and he thought he was winning. Still, this is exactly the kind of guy I want to be smooth as silk on, a strong, heavy, low to no skill, try hard guy. I want to have the key to the lock. So for as long as he'll roll with me, I'll keep repeating on him.

The only other roll of interest to me was my roll with Professor Ranch. The moment that stuck out to me was catching him in a kimura and knowing he has a funky reversal that I don't know so bailing. He then tried to catch me in a kimura but I successfully reversed it on him. In that moment of celebration and triumph, where my brain was lighting up with "you got him" he transitioned to some other attack that I didn't see coming and he got me. That's some black belt work right there. 

 

Food 

Tuesday so food was under requirements. No big deal.

Sleep

A second night of mediocre sleep and gut disturbances. Nothing major but a disappoint finish to a streak of better sleep for a few days. I will spoil Tuesday into Wednesday's sleep for the next post and say it actually improved and was better than expected. 

 

12 hours ago, Sepherina said:

Following.  As a data nerd I really enjoy your approach to defining progress.  

It's funny how some of us are drawn to that but I've had other people tell me that simply seeing a spreadsheet gives them anxiety. All are welcome here but especially data people.

 

 

Time for a quick catch up then we'll roll into next week

 

Thursday

Training

Strength Sessions II - Lower body, still feeling out this program I am making up

• Sumo Deadlift 95 lbs 5 x 10
  • very light, add 20 lbs next time
• Hip Sled 360 5 x 30
  • Add 50 lbs
• Split Squat 0 lbs 5 x 10 
  • Stay at no weight, add 2 reps per set next tim
• Single Leg, Straight Leg, Deadlift (1LSLDL)  20 lbs 5 x 10
  • Only completed 3 X 10, change nothing
• Leg Extension 70 lbs 5 x 10
  • + 5 lbs
• Seated Leg Curl 50 lbs 5 x 10
  • + 10 lbs

This is my short term plan for my lower body days. I don't quite know what I think yet. I wanted to emphasize the gluts since I was neglecting those in my total body workout but I'm still not comfortable enough with my back to load up big barbell loads. The split squats and 1LSLDLs seem to exhaust my nervous system as it trying to help me with a funky movement but I'm not convinced I'm actually tasking the muscles I need to be. If I trusted my back I would totally put RDLs or good mornings in for at least the 1LSLDL as I'm sure it would do better. For now, this will do.

 

Rest

Whoop has a recovery score bases on Resting Heart Rate, Resting Respiration Rate, Heart Rate Variability, and Sleep and this was my first Green day in a while. I try to not care about their scores but. I confess, seeing that green is a little dopamine hit that makes me want to try hard and please by robot overlords. So I was surprised when I was kind of dragging all day. The workout was only 150 calories and yet I felt exhausted. I found myself just staring at my computer in the afternoon and took a nap just to try and get some productivity out of the afternoon. I don't know if their concept of strain is very different than my own, if what I think a fully recovered day should be like is wrong, or what. 

 

Friday

Training

BJJ

Manny was there and wanted to be partners again. We had a Chris (brown) as an instructor. He wanted to cover the Von Flue Choke, a favorite of mine and one I've described here before. This is the one I like to use on White belts who hold my head when I'm in side control. In the image below, it may not look like it but it's the guy on bottom who's in danger of going unconscious because he left his arm over the top guy's head. I don't think Chris knows how often I use this so it was interesting to watch him teach it. No issues. He's totally right about what he taught but it was absolutely to the white belt version. 

 

After class I worked with Manny and one of the white belts to cover the next level up. I  showed them how to hide the set up. People don't understand the real danger of the movement. If my partner is laying across my body, in a T shape, it's a natural response at some point to try and grab his head and roll so we both go over his head and I end up on top. In Jiujitsu it's even more common to go for guillotine and the person knows they are safe if they get across your body (to the T shape) but I may just hang on thinking I can eventually get something. The moment the headside arm (hidden in the picture above) sneaks under from that top guy , the bottom guy has alarms go off that their neck is getting compressed and they need to get out of there. 

I think, the savvy play is to leave the head alone at first. The hip side arm is the real danger. You can slide that hand up t their shoulder (like in the image above) and not even had your other arm in position and you've locked them in. It's hard to know without feeling it but the bottom buy is trapped. In the image above, the bottom guy's left hand is trapped in the top guys neck. The bottom guy may even feel good about that and double down on hugging the neck. Now, as the top player, you have them pinned under your body, you and their arm looped around your neck limiting their ability to twist or rotate, now you go for the cross face. As you do this they will fight like hell because every alarm bell is now going off. They are getting strangled and, if you get under the cross face, they shoulder is starting to feel like it may fail too. 

So, it was fun to teach that. 

 

Rest

The only major note here was that I got even higher on my recovery for Friday, 86%. I was curious to see where this would go over the weekend. 

 

Food

This was my last food tracking for a coupled days as I didn't want to make everyone crazy as I tried to keep a log while we were going out for meals and so on.

 

In-Laws Weekend

My family, on both sides, are pretty ok people. Which makes me wonder about myself and why I really do not like spending time with them. All of my worst tendencies come out. After being asked for the third time "do you guys watch..." I stopped my mother-in-law and said, "any time you ask that, the answer is always no." Do I need to say that, no I don't. After literally decades of the same cycle, do I feel warranted, yes. It's those kinds of shortnesses that just bubble up in my mind. Both my mother and mother-in-law are constantly worried that we aren't using coconut oil or do have soy milk in the house but then they dump sugar in all their foods. If you have to travel with your own chocolate sauce, what are you even doing?

By day two I just want them to go away so I can have my routine back. I'm not eating properly, I'm not training. I'm just sitting and waiting. I start to just feel short with everyone. But it's a me problem. These people aren't hurting me. They're trying to be nice. But my head just wants them to go do that somewhere else with someone else. 

Can you tell I was essentially an only child and we never had kids so I never had to adjust to the chaos?

 

Saturday we went out and bought a quiche and pastries and some decaf coffee beans for breakfast in. I ate before they got here so I could have my usual (two eggs, two egg whites, whatever loose veggies I can throw in and a  small slice of toast). We took them to a local apple orchard to get fresh apples and browse. For lunch we took them to a local restaurant that we enjoy. It was delicious to us but they found it too noisy.I get that. Everyone has different tolerances. They explained to us that they have stopped going out to eat because it's become too uncomfortable. They like to get food to go. So  Laura and I figured we'd try to not make them go out again. Then we went to a store where they sell knick-knacks. I hung out for while but went next door to get a tea while they shopped. Eventually my father-in-law was sent over too. After that we came home and they went to sleep it off.

Saturday evening they wanted to have apples and popcorn for dinner so we did that. Although, I had some leftover chicken thighs in the fridge so I fixed their supper then made myself a couple chicken tacos and all of a sudden everyone wanted to know what I had and if there was more. No there's not more. You picked literally any food in the universe and I gave it to you now I need some protein and didn't plan on you suddenly latching onto my meal  

Then they wanted to play pitch after dinner, which I think is a midwestern thing. It's a trick taking card game that you play with partners. It's an old and kind of weird game. We played for about 90 minutes which I think made them really happy. I irritated people when I pointed out that when they flip the cards over to shuffle (showing the bottom cards) that I could count back  7 of the last 8 cards in the deck and by watching where they cut the deck could make some predictions about who got those cards. I pointed out that if they just don't flip over the deck I can't know this. In the end we just settled on me not doing that. 

 

Sunday started similar. I made my own breakfast before anyone showed up so I could eat what I wanted instead of carbs. We ended up going to Penzey's spices, which was great for us because we've talked about making a trip for a couple months and never bothered. We came back home and ordered in Indian which is something Laura and I will happily do anytime and met the requirement of not making them go out for dinner. Supper went similar, where they said they wanted apples and popcorn so I made myself some eggs, then made eggs for others because now they wanted eggs. At least this time I had back ups though. Then pitch and bed.

 

Monday started the same but they were taking off after breakfast and I suited up for BJJ. 

 

 

215.5 after hosting family for three days. I still expect a little bit of a bounce as my body settles into regular eating. I actually didn't bother to track calories for two days. I felt like I could tidy up any damage done if necessary so but far I'm well within tolerances. 

 

Welcome back! Come on over the the challenges and start a thread so some nerds can follow along if you feel so inclined.

Wednesday 

BJJ - before I forget stuff

Before class

Manny is back. We worked on his guard passing with a little light rolling after each pass. Once he fully secured the position we'd reset

 

Class - heel hooks with reaping included which basically means you can't compete with these movements, which always annoys me

Single Leg X, sweep, set up the heel hook. They roll to get out of danger (roll with the direction of the heel hook)

 

(image is a toe hold / toe bar rather than a heel hook but he some principles apply. Because it's probably not obvious, the guy in all black has the submission on the guy with some red on. He loses his grip at the end)

Attacker rolls with and when you hit the same position again (you've rolled 360 degrees) post with your leg to stop the roll, tear the foot off and take it home.

 

Lesson 2

Single leg X, sweep, the sit up and bury their heel in your armpit so you can't hook it. Your outside foot goes across their hip. You cover it with your inside hook to avoid a shootout.Taking your outside leg across the hip is called a reap and illegal in competition because it puts a lot of pressure on the MCL. 

 

as before, when you roll 360 degrees, post out and cripple. I actually found it easier to post at 180 degrees by just spreading my knees a little and posting on my head. The person as about to add the power of gravity to their roll and really don't expect me to come to full stop. They maim themselves.

 

Free rolling

One round with Manny (purple)

Professor called out five of us: Stan (black), Manny (purple),  Me (blue), Pat (blue), and I forget the other two. Everyone else was to line up on the wall (all blue and white belt). Person in starts in open guard bottom. 30 seconds for the incoming person to pass or submit. Winner stays in, draws go to the person already in. I'm a little proud to say, I stayed in all ten minutes. .

At the end only I and Stan had held up ten minutes so we had a mini deathmatch. I lost. 

 

After Class

More work with Manny

Run Stan through his stripe demo.

 

Out

 

 

 

 

Guitar lesson later. Back to work for now.

22 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Following

 

Tuesday

Training

Strength

• DB Bench Press 50 lbs 5 x 10
• DB Bench Row 50 lbs 5 x 10
• Seated DB Press 30 lbs 5 x 10
• Assisted Pull Up -130 lbs 5 x 10
• Assisted Dip - 70 5 x 10
• DB Preacher Curl 20 5 x 10

Starting and upper body/lower body split. I went a little bit harder than intended for this first workout but not crazy. I tried estimating Reps in Reserve (RIR) with the intent of landing near 8-10 but the seated press and dips were much closer to one or two, realizing that estimating RIR is a skill that I have not really practiced so these numbers are loose.

Mobility

I did a short one post lift, 5-10 minutes

 

BJJ

Marathon Roll

I wasn't in a super competitive mindset and it showed. I took very few submissions because if someone wanted to hunker down and prevent it I emphasized going on to another submission. I found that some people like that even less than actually getting submitted. That experience of a very fleeting window of freedom only to end up in another compromised position is mentally and emotionally tough. We had a few folks who dropped in from other gyms so I made sure to roll with each. A couple were pretty experienced (6.5 years and 8.5 years of training) and I felt like I could really feel the difference. I prevented the 6.5 year guy from submitting me but never got any progress on hime and the 8.5 year guy got me twice. 

 

Food

Being a Tuesday I ate as much as I comfortably could. I also made a choice to not do any cardio today. As a part of my Hibernation Project I plan to do a less cardio for the short to medium term. This will allow me to focus on building muscle and recovering. 

Sleep

Weird night of sleep last night

First, I changed my post roll pattern slightly. I opted for a cool shower rather than a hot one. The idea was that ice baths allegedly help with recovering and returning your body to a resting state. While I didn't try to freeze myself out, I slowly adjusted it cooler and cooler, trying to not get so cold so fast as to cause a stress reaction but achieve this more relaxed state. One night on one person but it seems promising. My HR was low 60s going to bed, it's been closer to 70 in the past. More observation required. 

However, around 1:30 - 2 am there is a gap in my Withings data then it kicks in with me being awake. Laura and I both woke up to a vibration, like a cell phone but it felt like it was under the bed. It was very short but woke us both completely. Then it took a bit to get back to sleep. It really messed up here night of sleep as she is not at all used to waking up. It had less impact on me but that's not the same as none. I think we both suspect the Withings sleep mat but I don't recall that it can vibrate and I've had it for years and it's never happened. We're keeping an eye on it though.

Guitar

none. 

41 minutes ago, shaar said:

a memory popped up in my little lizard brain last night of many years ago when the forums did a Secret Santa one year??

I found this

 

11 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

there's no where that says they randomly release wild tigers into the area to chase tourists for the local's amusement

Then why go?

 

My mom does this kind of stuff. I could be flying to Las Vegas like thousands of people do per day and I've done a bunch of times in my life and she'd give me a big "I love you so much and want you to be safe" kind of spiel. If I take it on as serious then it's like "oh wow, what have your heard recently?" and if I don't then it's just a cartoonish attempt at, I don't even know, love bombing maybe, showing her concern. For me, I've had to learn to just totally disregard it.

Interestingly, she was on a trip and in Israel when they had the recent attack, She was totally fine and had to be told later why she wasn't allowed to do her shore excursion and had to go back on the cruise ship, so it's not like she had a near death experience or anything. Regardless, I have been getting arbitrary texts lately of "I just don't tell you enough that I love you" and when I've talked to her (over text) she's clearly a little shaken. I realized it's because, in the same way that she is imagining some extreme scenario for me, she's now making up things that didn't happen but "could have" and reacting to those things. 

 

It's a long winded way to say, these people are mentally scaring themselves on your behalf and you can't let it into your brain or it'll ruin your fun. Go have a great trip. Enjoy being in a different place. As you said, other people live and work there so your fine and it's fun to see where they live and work. 

On 10/16/2023 at 8:55 AM, Snarkyfishguts said:

Yesterday, my aunt noticed I lost weight. She didn't make a big deal, she just murmured "you look like you've lost weight" and I said "I have. I felt motivated to do it this year." and she just nodded and said "Good for you."  I like that she didn't fuss about it, or draw attention to it.  It was just "I'm paying attention."  

I think boring challenges are some of the most productive. Glad to see you are doing some maintenance and sorting out which things you want to work on. 

 

18 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

'Sup?

11:02

Molly?

11:05

Just making sure you've got my contact details.

11:06

Okay. Uh. Does Nightingale know you have instant messaging?

11:07

Are you going to explain the internet to him?

11:08

 

(I mean. It's weird, but it's canon.)

Now you have me hoping that Molly starts texting in the books after where I am in the series.

14 hours ago, TimovieMan said:

Food tracking:

- I'm adding the "calories spent" that my Fitbit indicates as something to track

- I'm adding my daily calorie deficit (the difference between the calories in and out) as something to track

Something I think has been a bit beneficial for me on this front is keeping a running some of the the deficit. Similar to your "when I get into a color range I go for the top end" it's common for people to have a calorie surplus and decide to just let the world burn because tomorrow is a surplus of 0. Versus, "ok, I went over by 200 today. That means over the next couple days I should earn back those 200." It helps me have accountability day to day. It also means I can occasionally "earn" a treat day going a little light on calories for a few days so I have 500 or 600 for a dinner out night. That said, sometimes you do just have to be able to hit the reset button or not "pay" for day off from calorie counting.