Waldo

Thanks, I do, fortunately it was short lived. A little tired earlier, but that's about it. As I figured, the scale was crazy low last night, I had to reset the scale on my weight charts, lol. 194.4. I think the tape moved 1/8" yesterday alone, seems like I made a big jump. I think where I am right now "counts" when it comes to what my endpoint goals were, my abs are always visible. I need to flex to see all 6, when I do they are pretty sharp. I'd like to drop another 1/4" though before stopping, should be very doable if I raise cals at the usual time Sunday night. After skipping last nights workout, I decided to do a shortened version of it tonight a day late. I'm still going to go out running later as well. Workout Log - 8.17.22 DB Flat Bench 50 x 10- 60 x 9-, 9+, 9* Gosh, why haven't I been doing these. After watching some form videos and cleaning things up, holy crap these hit my chest as well as anything I've ever done. Slower reps gone very deep with a squeeze at the top. Ring Front Lever Tuck Hold - 15 sec Open Tuck Row - 5+, 5+, 5+ Form gets sloppy those lat couple reps, knees pull in making it easier. This is going to be a form progression exercise as much as anything for a bit.

Well I started out this challenge getting covid, now I've got the flu. This is so much worse than covid was for me. The only calories I've taken in thus far today are from cream and sugar in my AM coffee (didn't last long). Slept most of the day. I'm feeling a little better now and am going to give dinner a go; its pasta night. No workout though. I'm guessing the scale is going to be crazy low given how little I've taken in today. I was starting to feel the hormone effects from cutting really bad yesterday, but being sick with the flu really seems to completely blunt those effects. If today is outlier low on the scale I might start taking creatine tomorrow, since that should be this cut's low point, unlikely to be beaten by any day later this week. I was at 199.0 yesterday after being 196.2 on Sunday. I wanted to wait until I hit the low weight of the cut before I started; the scale still has meaning and I've been at it now for a year an a half. That said 196.2 is a good enough low point, even if I don't beat it today or later this week.

I've had sore tendons for a while now, especially elbows. When I raise cals, before I really jump in and hit it hard, I want to give it a week or two of lighter workouts to let that recover. No sense in hurting myself. Workout Log - 8.15.22 Heavy Bag - 15 min 10 minutes without gloves, 5 minutes with. Limited the amount of full power punching due to soreness. Pistol Squat +15 MB - 8-/8- 16" Box - 6/6 +15 MB - 12+/12+ Gained a rep vs last week on the medicine ball pistols. Deadlift 155 x 5 245 x 3 335 x 3- 355 x 3+ 375 x 2+ Belt over 300. DOH for the first rep at 335, then mixed, straps for the last two sets. Were I taking creatine now I would have had that 3rd rep, I just wasn't willing to summon what it would have taken to get that bar up a 3rd time. Romanian Deadlift 195 x 10- Last week I did not have the right weight. This is the right weight. I probably could have done a couple more reps, but it was burning, its good to leave some reps in the tank.

Things got a little out of hand this weekend, in a good way, so I did an impromptu ice cream refeed last night, felt I was setting up for a pretty hard crash without. Ice cream isn't great for refeeds (too much fat), but its usually how I raise cals. Fri-Sat-Sun my diet compliance was excellent with almost no snacking. I ran outside Saturday night for a long run. Yesterday, between going to the pool (I swim a lot, I'm not the stand around or sit in a chair type) and yardwork (which included brush clearing), I was going nonstop all afternoon and really feeling the deficit. I can definitely tell the hormones are starting to come into play. I want to still keep going this week though. Scale and tape both moved strong. Scale has been 197.4, 198.2, 196.2!!! the last 3 nights. Tape moved 1/4" since Friday. I'm confident that I'm now the 2nd leanest I've been post-college. This time in 2014 I was slightly heavier and my muscles were slightly smaller. Only in 2017 did I get leaner than I am now, though I'm lighter than I was in 2017 at my leanest. The last time I weighed in lighter than last night, while I was lifting (2015's weights don't count because of that), was 6/18/14. My data for 2017 is so poor that its not really useful for figuring out how close I am to that, but I'm not far. One of my goals this time around is to lay down a marker measurement-wise to assist with future goal making. I'm definitely itching to be done with this cut. I'm starting to feel small, which tugs against I feel fat. I did order some creatine. I'm not a big supplement guy, but creatine works and I'm a strong responder. It supercharges your high power output system; I make a noticeable jump in the gym (and on the scale). It should help me transition volume up to where it needs to be for gaining. I'm going to wait until I'm done cutting to start taking it though. This will be the 3rd time I've taken it (bit in the 90's in college, again 2016-2017), the jump in gym performance and muscle size last time around was pretty amazing, but its one of the reason muscle measurements and weight don't compare well between 2016 and today (and scale 2017 to today). Workout Log - 8.13.22 Run 4.09 mi in 48.20, 11:50/mi avg, 155 avg HR, 176 peak HR Getting the heart rate up since I had covid seems to be isolated to the bike. I wore my hrm to see it its an issue running and it is not. If anything it was a little high.

Measurement friday never disappoints. Always puts me in a good mood. The scale stayed under 200 again, 199.2 last night. Various waist measurements all lost 3/8" or 1/2" since last week. Most other measurements stayed the same, but a few flexed ones lost an 1/8th, to be expected when cutting as glycogen starts getting depleted. Strong fat loss last week. Calculated LBM has stayed about the same since my last diet break. An odd point in the mirror; I think I've jumped to the next level of leanness (it kinda goes in tiers), however I'm basically as fat as I can be on that level, so if anything I feel fatter. Big thing is that the love handles are almost totally gone. But I have noticed, really for the first time in a very long time, a little bit of loose skin. I used to have a lot years ago, but getting lean and staying that way made it go away. Just a little bit, under the belly button on either side. But that isn't helping the I feel fat at all. But, at this area of leanness, when losing at a good rate you can basically see a difference every day. Workout Log - 8.12.22 DB OHP 40 x 8 50 x 5- 60 x 5+, 4* Given the next step of this workout is moving to incline bench, I'm very strict about the overhead press, which my new bench has been great for. Last 2 weeks I've really run out of steam on my 2nd set of 60's. I hit 6 a few months ago, but I know with my old bench I was arching my back and turning it into an incline press. This bench is very upright and very tall, tall enough to support the back of my head, which makes it much easier to keep strict form through the press. DB 45 Incline Bench 50 x 9+, 11+, 10+ I'm still passing through the this feels weird phase on this exercise, but gains have been rapid. Pullup BW x 8 +35 x 6-, 7+, 7+, 7+ Added some reps here. Always the question, is it because I'm stronger or because I'm lighter. Concentration Curl 35 x 9/9, 9/9 Wrist Curl 35 x 10/10, 10/10 Reverse Wrist Curl 12 x 10/10, 10/10 Left wrist cracked each rep

Scale has been under 200 the last 2 nights, 199.2 and 198.8. Things are moving along nicely; this week has been going really good cut-wise. Deficits have been larger, progress has been pretty constant, mirror, tape, and scale, and I haven't really felt any bad side effects; I think I'm going to ride this groove right into next week, keep cutting at least until it gets hard. Workout Log - 8.10.22 Spinning - 10.3 mi, 30:09, 134 bpm avg, 156 bpm peak Again it was raining, I wanted to run outside. Have the same issue I had last week, hard to really get my heart rate high, the peak isn't getting near what should be my max. Workout Log - 8.11.22 Heavy Bag - 15 min 10 minutes kicking, 5 minutes with gloves Pistol Squat +15 MB - 8-/8- Front Squat 135 x 5 185 x 5- 195 x 5-, 5+, 5+ Alright, ready to add weight to the bar next week. Probably going to skip 200 and just jump to 205. This workout is one where the volume is going to need to go up once calories are raised. Do I do more front squats? Maybe some step ups or weighted box pistols at the end? I tried doing calf raises, but they seem like a waste of time. Unilateral volume seems like it could be useful to add.

Another big deficit day today. Its like coming out of the final turn on a track 5K, I'm really pushing. I feel like the mirror moved overnight, first big move this undulation. The remaining tire shrunk, its less of a tire now than a bit around the belly button, a softness on the abs, and some love handles hanging out by the hips, the zones of remaining fat have separation. Some of the ab horizontal lines are getting stronger standing at rest, hints of the vertical line are appearing. Fat is starting to get that caviar feel now. Tape moved 1/8" for a total now of 3/8" this cut. Scale dropped to 200.2 last night, hopefully it dips back under 200. Workout Log - 8.9.22 Bench Press 135 x 10 185 x 5- 205 x 3- 225 x 2f 185 x 8+, 8+ Sleeve hit the safety bar in the hole and messed up my focus, probably would have had #3 otherwise at 225. DB Bench Press 60 x 9+, 10+ Decided a good place to add volume to this workout is to move to the DB's to do even more benching. 60's are my largest DB's for now, but a pair of 70's is on the mid-term radar. Definitely feel these a bit better in the chest than straight bar bench, though they do feel a bit awkward, I've never done DB bench for any period of time, only as a total beginner. Ring Front Lever Tuck Hold - 15 Open Tuck Hold - 15 One Leg - 5+5, 5+5, 5+5 Open Tuck Row - 3-, 4+ Tuck Row - 12+ Incrementing the progressions a bit, adding the open tuck rows. Core strength is getting up to snuff, its no longer limiting. Its really badass to hold your body in a lever, single leg is where is really starts to feel like it, its like you are hovering in space. If I can find a good hand hold I should be able to do single leg dragon flags. EZ Bar Curl 89 x 6+, 5+, 4+ Toward the end of this workout I clearly ran out of gas, it was most visible in curlz. Deltoid Raises Front (12) - 10, 12 Side (8) - 10, 11 Rear (12) - 10, 12

Covid is starting to fade. I have a cough, can't smell much of anything, and things taste funny, but I otherwise pretty much feel fine. After being super light on Saturday night (198.4), I was heavy again yesterday (202.0). Down now 1/4" on the tape since the cut started. Cutting effort was pretty meh this weekend, but with the kids in school now starting this week it'll be easier to really hit it hard to finish strong. Today is going to be a big deficit day. Workout Log - 8.6.22 Ride 15.86 mi on the spin bike in 46:17, 134 avg hr, 159 max I was going to try to run outside but the weather had other plans. I expected to struggle with a high HR due to covid, the opposite was true, I had a hard time getting my HR up, kept checking to make sure it was on my arm right. Workout Log - 8.8.22 Heavy Bag - 15 min 10 minutes without gloves, 5 minutes with Pistol Squat +15 MB - 8-/8- 16" Box - 6/6 +15 MB - 11+/11+ Deadlift 155 x 5 245 x 3 335 x 3- 355 x 3+ 375 x 2+ Belt over 300. DOH for the first rep at 335, going to work towards that. I bought some straps as my grip has been failing, tonight was first time using them, used straps for 355 and 375 instead of mixed grip. Romanian Deadlift 175 x 12- These were a bit too easy, need more weight than this, was too lazy to add more to the bar though, next time. I want to figure out a good way to add calf raises to this workout. The bumper corral I made seems like it would work well to elevate the foot, I could just make a small single board with that profile.

With an upper body workout on tap last night I decided to give it a go. I'm coughing a good bit and seem to get exhausted easy, but the fever is gone. It went better than I expected. Scale was up to 201.8 last night. Tape appears to have moved a little this AM. I haven't really noticed it yet appearance-wise. Fat is getting squishy, but its not yet caviar. Workout Log - 8.6.22 Seated DB OHP 40 x 8 50 x 5- 60 x 5+, 5F That left would only go 4/5 of the way that last rep. I dropped the backoff set due to having covid. New bench is taller than the old one and more upright, I'm doing a better job isolating the vertical plane, not arching back to engage chest; which is probably showing up in reps. Pullup BW x 8 +35 x 6-, 7+, 6+ Dropped the 4th set, a superset with OHPs which was also dropped. 7 reps at +35 is a recent PR. Could definitely still feel elbow soreness, but I don't think these made it worse. 45° Incline DB Bench Press 50 x 8-, 9+ 60 x 5+ I've never done incline bench for any sustained period. My new bench though is way better for it and I actually have big enough DB's. I have some clear form issues that need work. This seems like it'll be some high value work; I swapped out the loaded dips that used to in this place this workout. DB Concentration Curl 35 x 8/8, 9/9 Was able to work around elbow soreness with these, though I didn't do a 3rd set. DB Wrist Curl 35 - 10/10 These include a finger roll at the bottom of each rep (weight rolls out to last knuckle). DB Reverse Wrist Curl 12 - 10/10 The wrist curls were an ad hoc addition after I decided against set #3 of curls. The reverse were done arms laying on plyo box. I think I'll make these a permanent addition to this workout for a while, targeted forearm work isn't something I've really done outside of grip. But they go toward my "learn how to gain" goal; forearm accessories are something that basically noone but people trying to gain muscle mass should be doing.

I really wasn't feeling up to doing my Thursday workout (squats) last night, so I opted to walk instead again. 3 miles this time. Tonight is an upper body night so I'm going to give it a go. The other day kid #2 was in the gym (he's the source of covid this round..) and challenged me to a pullup contest. Its been a bit since I've done max reps at BW so I gave it a go; 20 reps. Not bad for coming in cold with covid, 3 higher than my max when I stopped doing them, opting instead to do weighted only. Scale moved up, I have to figure its going to be crazy for a bit. Did my weekly measurements today and really studied them a bit more than I have. I figured out that on one side (L leg and R arm) I gained size consistently over the last 3 cut cycles. On the other of each I got back to the size I was 2 undulations ago when my LBM spiked. I was able to use that info and waist measurements to figure out which of the formulas applies best to me (I have 5 different ones for males); the basic YMCA formula. The rest describe LBM change out of sync with measurements (modified Y does too, its just modified for measuring style). I hadn't looked at that part of the spreadsheet at all in a while, but if I'm going to be trying to gain mass, I'm going to need to get a good LBM tracker going. Comparing measurements of the last 4 diet break weeks: Biceps (L, R) 5/20 - 15.3, 15.8 6/17 - 15.6, 15.9 7/08 - 15.4, 16.0 7/29 - 15.6, 16.1 Quads (L, R) 5/20 - 23.1, 23.4 6/17 - 23.5, 23.8 7/08 - 23.6, 23.6 7/29 - 24.0, 23.8 The Y formula, using one of the more accurate and conservative waist measures I track, gives: (LBM, FM, BF%) 5/20 - 169.9, 34.2, 15.3% 6/17 - 174.7, 30.4, 13.7% 7/08 - 174.6, 28.5, 13.0% 7/29 - 176.4, 25.7, 12.0% Which tracks arm and leg measurements nicely. The formulas should predict muscle size changes correctly, which this one does.

Covid hasn't been totally debilitating, after the fever broke its been like more of a cold, though I'm extra exhausted. Last night's schedule called for running, but I decided to walk instead, so I walked 3.3 miles (about what I normally run Wednesdays). Walking is lower impact on whatever I did to my foot, even though it really didn't hurt at all yesterday, I wanted to be sure to keep it that way. Running yesterday just didn't seem like a good idea at all. Scale was 199.8 last night. Keeping under 200, barely. Tape saw movement to 30.8" this morning, so diet is showing real progress.

The flipside of this is that you don't exactly see a lot of people with abs that don't work out. Appearance is a consequence of fitness. Fitness has gravity, it will eventually pull in diet. For many people outside of the late teen years, it likely is impossible to reach a visible ab bodyfat % without strength training. The ratio of fat:lean mass lost is affected by training (and genetics), without training there is a lower bound where lean mass loss will be enough to prevent a further drop in bodyfat % despite continued weight loss.

Single leg squats are about the best exercise you can do for mobility and balance. But gaining any appreciable muscle mass in the legs via unchallenging exercises is going to be a problem. One underappreciated leg strength exercise that takes little equipment - good ol hill sprints, the bane of every HS football player in august. Careful, that'll give the doms like nothing else if you hit it hard.

If you are hangry its your bodies' way of telling you that you need a break. A one week diet break where you take in carbs and a calorie surplus will do wonders. The scale will go nuts, that's fine, fat gain is almost impossible in that short a time. Afterwards when you kick the diet back in, it'll be right back to the easy days. If you still have a lot to lose, it'll be a few months before the same symptoms return. Getting hangry after dieting a while means a specific hormone is getting low, a consequence of a sustained calorie deficit. A diet break will cause a surge in production, how long it lasts depends on how lean you are.

Having off of work with covid, I have some time to mess with an updated all-time weight chart (its got that dot under 200 yesterday) and a photo editor. Somehow dashed graph lines print like crap from excel->pdf->jpg. I labeled Kid #2 and #3, the gov't shutdown, and the early pandemic. Each was a point of massive change in my fitness habits. Kid #2 and Gov't shutdown are the change points for strength training. Prior to Kid #2 I did bodyweight workouts at home, Kid #2 to gov't shutdown I lifted at the work gym, gov't shutdown to today I lift in my home gym. I also labeled the "control band", a concept I took from the Hackers Diet; 205 is my ultimate goal weight, there is a +/- 10 lbs control band around it. I got that weight from some ideal male measurements, a bodybuilding standard (vitruvian man is one of the sources, but so are a few famous bodybuilders from the pre-drug era like Steve Reeves). I always pay attention when weight for 6'1" dudes is given (NFL and Ninja Warrior for example), and that's pretty much where I want to be. A big part of the reason I stopped caring about gaining in 2016 is that I thought that I had achieved my long term goal; when I set the 205 (@~10% BF) goal in 2012 I had to gain a whole lot of muscle mass to get there (just like dieting, I was a lot further away than I expected as well, I've gained more than 25 lbs of muscle mass since). I labeled the 3 injuries that severely affected my fitness for a while; frozen shoulder stopped all upper body work for >6 mo, the foot stress fracture stopped all cardio for 3 mo (and all intense cardio for 6 mo until I got the spin bike), the back injury stopped most leg and overhead strength work for 6 mo. The circled points are the ends of the 3 long cuts that have ended in me getting quite lean. The first one I was able to transition to a bulking and cutting period that maintained my leanness for the next year and a half and led to almost 15 lbs of muscle gain, before a frozen shoulder injury knocked me out of basically all upper body work for a long time (gave up the leg work quickly thereafter), 2015 I did not actually get leaner or try to lose weight, I probably gained bodyfat, that "loss" was my muscles shrinking as I stopped strength training. The leanest I got that whole period was right around 9/10/14, 1 year after the low point in weight, that fall I entered a period of maintenance that I'm trying to replicate, this time though with "diet breaks" (lol) periodically to try to trigger extra muscle gain. The 2nd was triggered by the upcoming kiddo, and was pretty much a flop afterwards. But I was happy with where I was at. Long term goal achieved. I was right on the edge of the control band. This picture shows it poorly, but it really was the gov't shutdown and the holidays immediately preceeding it that caused a huge weight spike away from the edge of the control band, and it likely went higher than this shows, I started (but without looking at the scale) immediately after the shutdown, but didn't really try on the diet front. The early pandemic replicated the shutdown but even more extreme, plus its basically eternal at this point. #3, well that's where I am now and what this challenge is all about, sticking the landing. Long cuts to leanness are very different than short cuts to leanness, the hormone issue is very real and its easy to remember how unpleasant the cut was. Red circle #1 was a time I will never forget and a time I never want to return to; at the time I didn't totally understand hormone control and in part wanted to see "what happened" when I ignored it. This time has been totally different, coming in soft with the undulating plan, it really hasn't been unpleasant and I've made efforts to keep the cutting from sucking (such as making a favorite food of mine a cutting only food). Its likely that the pause gone wrong in the middle of this cut was in part due to the back injury really affecting my strength training work, causing all around effort on that front to fall apart (only in part, getting back into the control band very much was a motivation killer, a "good enough" point so to speak). I'm still not doing back squats, not sure I'll ever get back on that horse.

That's exactly what I did back late Feb 2020, that totally derailed what was to that point a very good cutting attempt. When the pandemic started I could barely walk. I had a mild stress fracture and wasnt too worried about it, went running on it, hobbling by the time I made it home. I was limping for more than 3 months afterwards. That was actually the biggest trigger for getting the spin bike, as they are really low impact compared to running, cardio I could do while my foot healed. This is definitely not a stress fracture, if it is it feels nothing like the last one. That was almost like an itch inside my bones at first, then there was a definite point I could press that hurt once it got bad. This time the place that hurts is the meat so to speak. Muscle or tendon. Apparently its not uncommon in jumping athletes. I'm guessing I did it while doing pistols and didn't notice. What I thought were the side effects of getting a booster shot got stronger and stronger through today, to the point where I took a covid test and am positive. First time that I know of; my wife is still holding out, only one in the family remaining. My only real symptom has been fever, though its been more feeling like a have one (bad) than actually being hot. I've been shivering under a blanket tethered to the couch all afternoon, though feeling better now. On the bright side, getting sick is in fact a really effective diet, even if it causes you to miss workouts (lifting tonight wasn't happening), it burns a lot of calories. It helps the scale along. 199.4 today 🥳 Finally! Under 200. Needed to catch the covid to get there (well even without today had a good chance of making it, I've been close lately). I haven't been under 200 since 2017 when kid #3 was born.

I had a bad run of ouchies late last week. I think maybe I pulled a muscle in my foot, something like that, sore tendon. I'm confident its not a stress fracture, it just doesn't feel like one. It started hurting lightly Tues-Wed, I ran Wed night, it didn't seem serious. Got more sore as the week went on and I chose not to run on Saturday, spinning instead as its easier on the body. Might be in the same boat this week, but it definitely has improved. My elbows had been sore here and there, but mild; friday's chinups changed that, my elbows (the tendons), esp the right, are killing me. I think its time to stop doing chinups; I've stopped straight bar chins in the past for this very reason (that time it took much longer to figure out the problem exercise). My body just doesn't like doing any chinup volume whatsoever, esp loaded. Which means my Friday workout is going to need editing, I've been doing loaded chins as an accessory lately. I'm totally fine with pullups, so stopping chins is nbd, they are a recent addition, testing to see if anything has changed with my elbows, nope. I'm not entirely sure I made it all the way to surplus yesterday, so I might have started cutting a day early, though a relatively small deficit. Today otoh, deficit is going to be a big one, getting things moving. Tape was a proud 30.9", about where I left it, esp when you consider the extra stuff in the guts. Was a light 201.8 yesterday, but had been in the 204's the days before. Weight spikes are to be expected in a diet break, yesterday's number though makes me think that I'll be under 200 when I lose that transient weight (next day or two hopefully). Usually I start seeing tape movement on Thursday for the first time. Workout Log - 8.1.22 Not helping the overall sore spot issue is that I got a covid booster today, so I have deadarm from that and overall fatigue, which was really noticable once I started deadlifting. Heavy Bag - 15 min 10 min without gloves, 5 min with. I was not striking hard today between all the various sore spots. Pistol Squat +15 slam ball - 5/5 16" box - 5/x +15 slam ball - 11+/11- I didn't do the plyo set on the right due to the sore foot, body didn't want to go there, and last weeks plyo pistols are on the short list of sources of whatever is going on. Deadlift 155 x 3 245 x 3 335 x 3- Holy cow these were way harder than they should have been. Had to do the right side palm in due to the elbow soreness. Pretty strong lethargy from the vax kicked in so I called it before getting to the peak sets.

This challenge is for me, and I suspect most people, the hard part. Transitioning to a wholly new phase of the journey. I've done this once before. Background I've been "losing weight" since I got rd 2 of the vaccine last April and the end of forever telework seemed imminent; it was time to buckle down. Below is a weight chart where I've been since (I weigh myself daily, it is to me the most important thing I can do, the minimum "I'm on the train" signal). A diet break turned into a period of falling off the train late last year, (briefly got back on), but things didn't get out of hand and I recovered with some New Years goals. Whereas 2021 was a period of linear dieting from the obese range back to the normal weight range, 2022 has been a period of weight loss+recomp, trying to get down into the buff dude with abs zone, where I've used an undulating plan that I wrote about in my battle log. Though its all regaining past glories at this point still, I've gained several pounds of muscle mass this year along with the fat loss, confirmed by the fact that I've picked back up the habit of regular weekly measurements of all major muscle groups and have notably gained size everywhere but the belly. I'm now basically a physical clone of myself in 2014, when I was at a peak in size and nadir in bodyfat. I've always been a pretty strict calories guy. I used to count calories daily for years, when I diet its where I start. Though I've done well as this has gone along at dropping the counting; by no means am I unaware of where my calories are each day, but going through the effort to write it down hasn't been something I've been doing for a while. To some degree I feel its a graduation to a more intuitive type of dieting, but I think its very hard to sustain something like this without keeping it in a pretty narrow box, hence this challenge, because I'm going to be stepping out of that box. The box my diet has been in has used the feature of the undulating plan that allows for extremes; its pretty easy to swap back and forth between eat none of the things and eat all the things. Eating some of the things, that's the real trick, and not something I've tried to do in many years. I used to harp on it a lot here and elsewhere, but I try not to argue about it so much anymore; I'm not really a big protein guy. Sure I try to eat elevated protein but I'm almost certainly way under all the optimal numbers that are thrown out. People way overfocus on this; the things that elevated protein is supposed to help with you're going to get way more mileage out of carb based hormone control (deficit) or rocket fuel (surplus), though it can help with satiety for linear dieters that have no need for hormone control and are at little risk of muscle loss. Thinking about my protein intake just doesn't cross my mind anymore; many years ago it used to, but one of the things I did to de-obsess was stop looking at protein, and I've seen no difference. (Though when I'm cutting good protein bars are upper tier snacks and I probably do eat an elevated amount compared to the average person). Goals Here are my original goals from earlier this year when I returned to NF, and the epic quest I've been on all year: Though I did fail my goal date (it was 2 weeks ago), I'm not that far off and really I think I've been mentally moving the goalposts on myself; on 1/3/22 would where I am today count as success? One more undulation and I'll definitely meet the criteria (abs!), but I think there is a degree of further refinement I'll chase one day, but with summer ending soon, there isn't much point in doing so now. So that's it, one final undulation to get as lean as I can, then call it good for a while. Then what? I've been fascinated by how insanely effective the undulating plan has been for muscle gain in the midst of an overall deficit, and want to give something like a maintenance+ plan a go. I'm thinking I'm going to try to sync to workout cycles, and try to maintain most of the time, but as fatigue grows shift to surplus for a week and deload to reap gains. I really want to work on shoulders, chest, and arms. Goal #1 - Learn How to Maintain Trying to neither gain nor lose fat is not something I've attempted in quite a while. And its real easy for maintaining to turn into not caring, a situation I'd like to avoid. I'm going to have to start counting calories again to get a feel for how much I should be eating. So once I raise cals the plan is to keep track of calories daily for a while. My final cut starts today; I'm not sure how long its going to go, probably 2 weeks, highly unlikely to go beyond 3 weeks. After that I'm going to count cals the remainder of the challenge. Goal #2 - Learn How to Gain This goal isn't about diet, rather about workouts. Its been a really long time since I was lifting with the intention of muscle gain, not "losing the fat first", not keeping what I've got, but instead lifting to build muscles and backing it up with diet support and the leanness to build mass. If I remember right, raising cals should come with a pretty big jump in recovery capacity, both during workouts and day to day. My set counts and rep counts are going to need editing I'm sure, and I have a longer time to workout than I have had in a while. This is a difficult goal to measure, has to be graded like set RPE, on effort. Goal #3 - Keep Up the Cardio Cardio is not all about weight loss. Cardio is not all about weight loss. I walk the dogs on weekdays at lunch on days I eat at home, I run or spin Wednesdays and Saturdays, I swim laps at the pool when we go. When I don't have the extra motivation of trying to lose the gut, my effort has a way of tailing off in the cardio department. I miss a few days walking the dog here and there due to meetings, but my goal is 3 a week. No missed wed or sat workouts.

Tracking is super easy.... ...if you only eat one thing. I think the trick to long term tracking is to have a boring diet without much variation. And where there is variation, to keep it in manageable chunks.

Nice work this year sticking to those goals! Are you still working on the weight or maintaining now?

Big jump in lean mass this week. The excessive soreness and tiredness was a clue. Just like the break 6 weeks ago, basically every muscle group ticked up in size, and all are as big or bigger than they got to 6 weeks ago (some lost a little since), including chest and upper thigh, which both have a contribution from fat and should shrink. I'm showing about 6 lbs of lean mass gain since I started measuring in early May. Though those calcs are made purely with waist measurements and scale data, its absolutely backed up measurements of muscles themselves, my legs have gained 3/4" and 1/2", my arms each gained 1/2", chest and shoulders 1/2". Heck even forearms and calves have gained 3/8". The diet plan I've been doing has been super effective for recomp; I'm slowly losing weight, but losing fat at a much faster rate and gaining muscle. I wonder if this still would work if I was at a muscle mass apex, as opposed to still smaller than I was at one time. Though I'm getting pretty darn close, at least in the upper body. I made some travel plans for work in a couple months, and it occurred to me I'll be able to visit a couple places of interest on my family tree. My brother does the same thing as Rooks, doing the national park bucket list. I've never really thought about something like that, but a desire to visit places of interest in my family tree is something that I've always been interested in. My moms side of the family has done visiting the old country trips. Its something worth doing that I want to do, it seems like I should formalize it into more of a goal. Part one would be coming up with a list of places of interest. But I'll get to check off a couple big ones; the earliest known NA immigrants in my tree are from the 1630 Winthrop fleet, the ship I can trace to landed in the Salem area. I have two completely separate branches with roots in the 1630's Salem area, definitely want to see the harbor. One of those branches that goes back to early Salem includes one of the girls accused of witchcraft, so I'm also interested in seeing where that happened. A few other places that definitely make this list include: New York City (manhattan+harlem), Amsterdam, and Saratoga, but I can surely come up with a lot more.

I've been hitting the breakfast cereal hard, it is a break week. Holy cow did I get the tired & sore effect this break. I've still never seen anything written about this effect but I've experienced it many times. Raising cals seems to trigger a different type of recovery with higher recovery load than there is when cutting. I get sleepy and unusually strong doms. You get used to it and it fades as you sustain maintenance+, but at first its really noticeable. This time its particularly strong, I wonder if that means another jump in lean mass is coming. Thus far the scale has gone up, but not that far (201.6, 202.0). Curious to see what the tape is going to say tomorrow. Workout Log - 7.27.22 Run 2.91 mi in 36.53, 12:40 pace Lol, I even tried running faster. This is pitiful. It was hot, but its been hot and I've been a lot faster than this. The arch of my right foot was kind of sore, but I don't think that it affected the run. It didn't seem like something running would make worse, I chalked it up to raising cal soreness. Workout Log - 7.28.22 Heavy Bag - 20 min 6 minutes with gloves in the middle. Spent extra time on the bag tonight. Pistol Squat +15 slam ball - 8-/8- Front Squat 135 x 5 185 x 5- 195 x 5-, 5*, 3- That last rep barely made it set 2 at 195. Didn't push it the last set.

I try to eat a surplus every day, but not particularly large (there are days it is large though). But I do want a big chunk of increased cals to come from carbs. Bodyfat itself is what makes leptin, when you have a lot of it the signaling doesn't matter, the body produces plenty. Its not a straight on-off logic circuit, its like a faucet that still runs a little when off, only when the pressure in the pipe drops does the faucet stop dripping, in this pressure head = body fat level, while carb intake controls the spigot, high enough intake and it opens. Keto diets in general are not very effective as you get to lower bodyfat levels, the main early side effect of dropping leptin is that your body becomes a whole lot less gentile at reminding you that you should eat something, you'll be hungry outside of typical meal times and get it extra intense before regular meal times. Keto diets though are apparently quite effective though for short undulations when lean as they mobilize stubborn fat better, but this is a problem for people at 9% trying to get to 8%. Remember the rule I said about 2 weeks being about the fastest leptin can drop no matter the situation. Workouts apparently fall apart to total crap fast, but that doesn't matter for a situational peaking diet. Starting this week I changed my workout start time from 1030 (ha, 1045) to 815, right after the youngest kids door is closed for the night. That is where it used to be back when I joined NF long ago, it drifted later and later, especially in recent years. It seems so obvious to me now, but we get so set in our ways that something like this is hard to come up with. Here I've been trying to gain an extra few minutes for workouts late at night, whereas I waste a bunch of time surfing the net and playing video games just after the kids go to bed. I just needed to change the order of things, truly prioritize workouts and do it first in my free time. Now I have plenty of time to add additional sets or do accessories. I'm still going to run later, its f-in hot outside here in the ATL, big difference when its well after dark. Workout Log - 7.25.22 Heavy Bag - 12 min 7 min without gloves, 5 min with Pistol Squat +15 slam ball - 5/5 16" box - 5/5 +15 slam ball - 10-/10- I had another rep in me but lost balance in the hole on the left that last set. Deadlift 135 x 3 245 x 3 335 x 3- 355 x 3+ 375 x 2+ Added a rep at 375. My old pos bar has some good bend going on at 375 Romanian Deadlift 205 x 8- Had time to add an extra set of these Workout Log - 7.26.22 Bench Press 135 x 10 185 x 5- 205 x 3- 225 x 3+, 3+ 185 x 7F, 8+ Hands were too wide on that first 185 set. Added an extra set at 225. New bench arrived so I got to try it out, love it. Ring Front Lever Tuck Hold - 15 Open Tuck Hold - 15 One Leg Hold - 5 sec x 2, 5 sec x 2, 3 sec x 3 Tuck Row - 13+, 12+ Geez, added time to my one leg holds. Added an extra one leg set. Added a rep to each row set. That 3 sec to 5 sec jump is pretty significant; a 3 second hold is not a strong hold, you have it for a little bit, and its definitely not a negative (whereas a 1 sec hold...), but your hold is brief. 5 seconds is a much stronger hold with better form; it just feels easier. EZ Bar Curl 89 x 6+, 6+, 6+ Yeah, I got that extra rep on all sets DB Raises Front - 12 x 10, 11 Side - 8 x 10, 12 Rear - 12 x 10, 12

No, not 2000. 1200 on the higher days. A lot of that though is coming from exercise. If I eat at a smaller deficit and just ignore the existence of exercise, I'm actually running a rather large deficit, 750-1K. Some days its higher though. It usually takes me until Thursday to start seeing a cut on the tape, by then I'm 3K or so calories in To some degree dieting is about willpower, the larger the deficit the harder it becomes. When that day is one in a seemingly endless continuum its hard to have many of those great days where you skip the snacks and really give good effort. But when monday is raising cals day, its so much easier to pass on something today. When I have more time tomorrow I'm going to write out my workouts, but its been amazing, I moved the time forward a couple of hours, I've had way more time and feel like I'm a little stronger that time of the day.

I've been meaning to write something about the undulating diets that I do. Its such a different world from typical weight loss dieting despite being fairly similar. I learned about it from Lyle McDonald and a couple other bodybuilding diet gurus. I've practiced it in some form now for quite a long time total, even though it had been a while before this year. Controlled bulks for muscle gain are a just another form of an undulating diet. Undulating diets.. why? Basically the idea was created by scientist-trainers working out "the rules" of how our bodies hormonal defenses to starvation work, how fat is lost, and how muscle is gained (that one is still poorly understood). Both physique trainers and bodybuilders. Many different forms were created in the 80's and 90's. LeanGains is a well known 90's undulating diet form. At some point as you lose weight, around when you are "normal" weight, your body will start actually fighting the effort hormonally in addition to the psychological fight you had do deal with prior. You can just willpower your way through it to a point, though a lot of the negative side effects of dieting like muscle loss and BMR drop, accelerate greatly when your body has engaged hormonal defenses. Plus it starts to become outright torture. We interact with our hormones mentally, a lot of what you think of as mental struggles and willpower is actually chemical warfare, your bodies defenses. Diet breaks and refeeds will get rid of the hormonal effects (for a bit), though diet breaks are far more potent. Refeeds can almost never be big enough to work that well. The hormonal effects we are interested in countering primarily is the drop in Leptin. Leptin is a happy signal. When your body is producing it its happy, you're not starving. Leptin is produced by bodyfat. Bodyfat is in fact an endocrine organ, and Leptin is one of its products. As your body fat drops lower and lower, all of a sudden its not able to produce as much Leptin and needs strong signals to produce. What tells your bodyfat to produce Leptin? Carbs. Gylocgen in the muscles, insulin in the blood. Refeeds are a form of hacking thyself where you take in a huge jolt of rapidly available non-fructose carbs. It'll all get quickly sucked into the muscles and burned up, however as the process occurs your body will send out a Leptin pulse that will last a few days. Diet breaks are much more effective, where you spend some time out of a deficit and fully refill the bodies' carbs stores. Much more leptin is produced and it lasts a good bit longer. In fact one of the basic rules that has been established anecdotally (and I agree) is that after a diet break or other period of non-deficit of sufficient length, the absolute minimum amount of time before leptin can drop fast enough to see side effects is 2 weeks. A 2 week diet + 1 week break rinse repeat is almost bulletproof when it comes to hormonal side effects, no matter the deficit size or how lean you are. The bodies carb stores are an important point. First of all its important to understand that there are a few pounds of water bound with stored carbs. Pounds. The body seems to have 2 carb storage setpoints; a low point where it defends further carb loss by increasing fat burn, and a high point where excess is burned off. At that high point is where the leptin signal is sent and where the muscle building signals are sent. Between the two is 1000-2000 calories worth of carbs that weighs like 2-5 lb when bound to water in the body. Those calories are important, when you are doing an undulating diet they are the "cost" of moving between phases. You need 1K-2K worth of deficit to run your carb stores down enough to start seeing fat loss. Leptin production isn't going hit peak rate until you've taken in 1-2K surplus carbs to replenish (eating at maintenance doesn't replenish nearly as well). That last point is very important for diet breaks. A good diet break (for the purposes of an undulating diet) should be a surplus and carb heavy. The key item you are trying to achieve is to refill all of your bodies carb stores, which is most efficiently done when energy positive. It can be a bit unnerving, weight is going to shoot up, but you'd need like 3K+ calories of surplus to see any noticable fat gain. One thing I think is important is to keep a regular schedule. I only make diet changes weekly, while sleeping on Sunday night. Undulating diets are a plan to be stuck to, not so much an ad hoc arrangement. In fact, that's the biggest hangup, it is relatively high effort, you have to be mindful of what you are doing, both the deficit times and the surplus times. But its a bit easier to stick to the plan when every 3rd week includes a pail of ice cream or (and...) a few boxes of cereal. Obviously undulating diets are slower than linear diets, but not as much as you'd think. On linear diets you're thinking stuff like sustainability, good decision making, etc... You're in it for the long haul, a surefire way to fail is to be too aggressive. On the flipside that doesn't matter in the slightest when doing an undulating diet; there is a surplus period that is part of the plan in couple weeks, nothing about what is happening in the cut has to do with anything long term, so you are free to be aggressive. By breaking cuts up with frequent diet breaks, you end up with many more but smaller goals, which again tends to feed into aggressiveness; you sprint through finish lines, so throw up finish lines every few weeks and now you're sprinting most of the time. When using undulating plan for cuts, the cutting period should be shortened the leaner you get. This time I did: 8, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2 weeks, with a 1 week diet break between each (first diet break was 3 weeks, excessive in hindsight). Muscle gain efforts when done right, the full bulk-cut cycle, are also undulating diets; most people want to be both bigger and leaner by the end of each cycle. LeanGains is a form of this, though I think frequent undulations are a ridiculous amount of effort to keep track of and horribly inefficient due to the state change calorie cost and time. Surplus periods of 3-4-5-6 weeks followed by 1-2 week cuts is also almost completely invisible to outside observers, even spouses.