Catspaw's Quantity Counts Challenge

[Vector]

Is this a regular dip? I'm not sure because of the 'reverses' part?

[catspaw]

Is this a regular dip? I'm not sure because of the 'reverses' part?

 

Yeah, a regular dip.  Starting at the top (arms straight) and then slowly moving towards the arms-bent (dip "starting") position.

[TeaKwonDo]

Wow, love the post on hunger. I get "I deserve this" and cravings a lot, but at least I caught onto the specific cravings. If I crave raw meat, I'm probably missing iron. Dying to scarf a block of cheese? Need calcium. Salivating over spinach and kale? Magnesium. Rotisserie chicken? Fat. And if it's the "OH GOD GIVE ME BAGELS AND BROWNIES" attack, then I'm either tired and need carbs or feeling emotionally deprived.

[Vector]

For what it's worth (bench destroys me instantly, dips feel great for me) I'd try short stroking it to right before it starts to feel 'off' for a few days- might just  be a position you don't get into often, and your motor neurons are not quite up to speed yet. The dip is a weird move, but a good one.

 

Are you on bars, rings, chairs?

 

Another thing is most people have a 'happy place' for hand width for dips, and will have issues outside of that range. Lastly, you might video yourself and see if you are really going too deep, which isn't good either.

[Hermione Gainser]

Split squats. Then Bulgarian split squats. Heavy. Total kick ass, but light enough weights you don't need the rack. BSS with 75 in each hand is serious. People will still look at you weird, it's the fur.

 

I third this recommendation.  I was having the same problems with occupied racks every time I was trying to squat.  I completely understand the urge to ragequit.   I've done bulgarian split squats before and they are heinous (in that, holy shit it works kinda way).  And my previous research has indicated that is a decent substitute when subbing is necessary.  Having that as my back up plan has helped immensely. 

 

Yesterday I visited a new crossfit gym that's opening up about a 15 min walk from my place.

 

It's way out of my price range as a making-zero-money author, but I dreamt last night about flipping tires, and climbing ropes, and box jumping and all sorts of functional exercises.

 

It's making me consider adding such things to my routine, even though I don't have access to them.  Hm.

 

Hello Laura's favorite day dream. How are you? Heh. Yeah, I dream of CFing (also love that people assume I'm a CFer b/c CF girls are some bad bitches--not that us not CF girls aren't, obvs, but yeah, anyhow..rambles), too. 

[Waldo]

Great post about hunger.

I'd add one more, related to your long term craving (which I would argue is the true hunger signal that your body sends, everthing else that we interpret as hunger is unrelated to actual nutritional need).

I expereinced it last time I cut, and have read about it quite a bit related to bodybuilders cutting for competition. I don't have a name for it. In general:

- Nothing takes the hunger away. Even at the end of a large meal, you are still hungry.

- You fantasize about eating. And not some snack you want, large meals instead (like holiday meals and whatnot, I fantasized about pot roast).

- Snacking has zero appeal. When dreaming about eating a turkey, potato chips or cookies pale in comparison.

- I didn't stay in the condition long enough, but in general for men your testosterone levels will tank, on top of snacks having zero appeal, sex also has zero appeal.

In general this sort of hunger is only experienced by those who are running out of fat stores and have been dieting long enough that the body is seriously fighting back with its chemical-emotional weaponry. Feeling like you are starved while at the same time just finishing a huge meal is a big of a mindf***.

I don't think I was experiencing a specific nutrient deficiency as you describe. I wasn't low in any major micro, and occurred when I had a fairly small deficit (~400 cal/day), eating over my non-exercise mainenence amount.

[catspaw]

Skipped deadlift day today.  Just felt awful, dunno why.  Around 2pm I was SUPER hungry and ate my dinner in advance (saving snack for dinner) and then passed out on the couch in a headachey light-sensitive afternoon of sicknessy bleeeh that may or may not have been hormonal.

 

Hoping I'll feel better tomorrow.

[70Kel]

Skipped deadlift day today.  Just felt awful, dunno why.  Around 2pm I was SUPER hungry and ate my dinner in advance (saving snack for dinner) and then passed out on the couch in a headachey light-sensitive afternoon of sicknessy bleeeh that may or may not have been hormonal.

 

Hoping I'll feel better tomorrow.

Maybe it is your body saying give me MOAR food to lift??

Hope you feel better soon :-)

[This is Seth]

Yesterday I visited a new crossfit gym that's opening up about a 15 min walk from my place.

 

It's way out of my price range as a making-zero-money author, but...

 

Offer them the services of you writing their blog in place of payment. If I had that option, as a business owner, I'd jump all over it.

[Vector]

Offer them the services of you writing their blog in place of payment. If I had that option, as a business owner, I'd jump all over it.

This is a fabulous idea!

[Blueberries]

Offer them the services of you writing their blog in place of payment. If I had that option, as a business owner, I'd jump all over it.

This is a fabulous idea!

Yes! Bartering is the best ever.

[nightlight]

Sometimes it saddens me to read through the forums.

 

Not always.  Sometimes it's different, and I see things that make me smile.  I see all the friendships that have blossomed, and the shared successes.  We set goals for ourselves, and push ourselves and each other.  We reach finish lines that we never thought possible.

 

But sometimes there's a lot of unhappiness too.  I just want to lose that last 5 lbs, someone writes. My thighs are disgusting.

 

There's such a fine line between wanting to improve out of a sense of self-betterment, and wanting to improve because you dislike who you are.  It's a line that I'm familiar with; a line that I've straddled many days, and skipped back and forth across with the wind.

 

Reading our forums, sometimes, you would think that the solution to all of life's problems are just a few pounds of fat loss away.  I'm so miserable at 132, someone writes. Why can't I just get down to that 130 line?

 

It makes me sad because I think a lot of folks are in for shock and disappointment.  Even if your glutes are photoshop-perfect, you won't magically start loving yourself.

 

When I read the forums and think about us as a group of rebels, cheering each other on as we set exciting life and fitness and body goals for each other, and helping each other to get through tough times, it's so easy to be cheered.  But some days I see so many of us with so many issues that go way beyond the surface ones that we're trying to tackle.

 

Maybe that's okay, though, because I think that what a lot of people need are hugs and love.  We come for the nerdy fitness, but we stay for the crowd who says "ugh, sorry to hear about your day".  Cuz sometimes you just need to know that someone out there cares.

 

To all you rebels out there who need an extra hug today, /huuuuuuuuug!  Be good to yourself.

 

i really needed to read this. thank you

 

3 weeks into this new "eat a whole lot damn less" cut.  My days vary from "psychologically snacky" through to full blown "hunger", and I was worried that at my checkpoint today (measurements, pics) I wouldn't see any progress.

 

Fortunately, we have measurement movement.  Whew! (All measurements in cm cuz you can take a girl out of Canada, but...)

 

Chest: -0.5 cm

2" above navel: -2.5 cm

Navel: -2 cm

Hips: -1 cm

Thigh: +1 cm

Calf: -1 cm

Bicep: 0 cm

 

Pics don't show a huge difference, but I feel a lot of the difference that the pics don't show -- just more tightness and such, y'know?

 

 

Sticking with the program for another 3 weeks before the next evaluation checkpoint.  Here's to hoping I don't eat off my own arm in the meantime.

 

don't gnaw your arm off. they're pretty. and you need them.

 

I've been thinking a lot about hunger recently.  (Three guesses as to why ).  Specifically, I've been trying to pay a lot closer attention to the actual signals I'm getting from my body.  Not just the macro signal of "hungry", but trying to break down that signal into what it actually means and why I'm getting it.

 

As I've been doing this thinking, I've started mentally teasing out several different hunger "types".  This is not a real scientific list -- some of these are genuine physiological hunger "types" and others are just distinctions that I find useful -- but by giving these things names and descriptions I've found that I can often more accurately label what I'm feeling when I'm "hungry".  Maybe it can help out some of you guys out there too.

 

  

Stomach growling (clock time hunger)

 

For a really long time, I believed this to be True Hunger.  Your stomach gurgles and growls, and why shouldn't it?  It's almost lunch time!  If you delay your meal, it starts to get worse, and protest louder.  This is clearly real hunger.

 

It wasn't until I started playing with IF that I learned that this hunger actually goes away.  For some reason, I imagined that once you entered the stomach growling stage, if you ignored your hunger, it would keep getting worse and worse and worse until you... what?  Lay on the floor in agony?  I'm not sure what I thought.

 

If you want to experiment with your own clock time hunger, invent a new meal, say at 10 am, where you don't currently eat.  Every day eat something at that time for 2 weeks.  Then one day, don't.  You'll feel this hunger. "Eat something," your body will say, "I'm genuinely hungry and may die if you don't eat at 10 am."  Which is silly, of course, because weeks before then you survived just fine at 10 am without a snack.

 

 

Weakness / light headedness hunger

 

That weak feeling you get when you're hungry seems to be closer linked to actual hunger.  This is the world of macros and blood sugar and fuel sources here.

 

If you eat primarily carbs for a week, and then eat an all-fat meal, it takes a loooooong time before you stop feeling weak / light headed.   Similarly, if you eat primarily fat for a week, and then eat a high-carb meal, you might feel even MORE light headed.

 

So while this may not be a perfect "do I need more food?" signal, it seems like a reasonable "I do not have energy available to me" signal.

 

 

Specific craving (short term)

 

Someone mentions chocolate dipped pretzels and you're like "omg I could totally use some chocolate dipped pretzels right now" and then spend the next hour daydreaming about chocolate dipped pretzels.  You might even feel tummy-growling about it.

 

A lot of these seem to come from the food-reward cycle (I enjoyed reading The End of Overeating about the industry's play on this cycle), which has taught your brain that certain foods will bring about happiness.

 

Case in point: when women are at a place in their cycles when their brain stops receiving happy chemicals, they crave foods that they know trigger happy chemicals.  This shouldn't be surprising.

 

But the same thing happens when you crave a bag of chips.  You want that happy-chemical rush.  You're not craving the nutrients or even the calories.  Just the happy-chemicals.

 

 

Specific craving (long term)

 

My best recollection of an experience like this was when I was inadvertantly eating low-carb low-fat.  Just lean protein and fibrous veggies.  And I would finish a meal, and literally still be chewing, and be sooooooo hungry.  I kept eating and eating but there was like a pit in my stomach that still needed food.  It lasted for 3-4 days, when Dawsy suggested to me that I eat an avocado.  And, instantly, it was gone.  I was probably playing on the edge of rabbit starvation without knowing it.

 

A vegetarian friend of mine developed these weird sushi cravings, but she didn't eat fish.  But she would dream of eating sushi and was just really really sushi hungry.  Then one day she had a handful of seaweed chips, and the hunger disappeared.  She wasn't craving the sushi, she was craving the nori, specifically (my guess is) the iodine.

 

There's something to be said for long-term cravings possibly being a sign that you're deficient in some macro/micro.

 

 

Snacky (psychological hunger)

 

Everyone is familiar with this one.  The desire to have your hand moving food into your mouth.  For a lot of folks, this happens late at night.  And it apparently gets stronger if you indulge it.

 

Lots of causes here, from boredom to stress to routine, but if you stop and ask yourself "am I actually hungry?", it's hard to lie to yourself in these cases, because it's usually pretty obvious that you're not.

 

 

"I deserve this" hunger

 

This one may be less familiar to the general population, but I suspect rings true to many NFers.

 

"I've been sooooo good with my diet recently.  I've followed perfectly for the past two weeks.  Plus I ran an extra mile today, PLUS I had a bad day at work.  I deserve this cupcake."

 

I want to distinguish "I deserve this" hunger from "planned treat"s.  "I deserve this" happens in the moment, and feels almost out of control.  Like fate is moving food to your mouth and you just can't stop it.  And the next thing you know, you've eaten ten cupcakes, because you deserve it.

 

 

Thirst

 

Yes, thirst goes onto the hunger list.  Am I the only one who sometimes has trouble distinguishing hunger from thirst?

 

For me, specifically, I feel simple-sugar-craving when I'm thirsty.  All of a sudden I'll be like "man, you know what'd be great right now?  Ice cream" and then I think about it and realize I'm actually thirsty.

 

Dear my thirst mechanism: learn to signal properly, k thx.

 

 

----

 

So those are some hunger "types" that I've identified.  When I find myself getting hungry these days, I try to figure out which of these it is.

 

Which are the ones that you struggle with the most?

wow. this is interesting. and amazing.

[goodwince]

I actually believe IF changed me to drinking more water as I should have been anyways! When I staved off eating till 1ish, I attempted drinking water more and found to cure my early hunger pain. Now I drink 3x the water. All because IF taught me something about hunger and myself. For the first time in my entire life.. I don't have to wear chap stick.

 

I love snacky/deserve-this hunger. It's true the less you give into them the less they come up. It's pretty amazing. I honestly think that's the advantage to the 30 day challenges. Some people are always complaining about this as being too strict for beginners, but I think it teaches us about ourselves.

[chammy]

Maybe you really should eat more? =/ I can barely deal with how I'm feeling right now, I'm not sure I could deal with a cut on top of it.

[Loren Wade]

I've been away for a few days and just caught up.

 

Not sure how you don't see. I'm seriously really impressed with the progress pics. Huge difference in such a short time.

[foxytrot]

Skipped deadlift day today.  Just felt awful, dunno why.  Around 2pm I was SUPER hungry and ate my dinner in advance (saving snack for dinner) and then passed out on the couch in a headachey light-sensitive afternoon of sicknessy bleeeh that may or may not have been hormonal.

 

Hoping I'll feel better tomorrow.

 

Hope you're feeling better now!!!

[Hermione Gainser]

I actually believe IF changed me to drinking more water as I should have been anyways! When I staved off eating till 1ish, I attempted drinking water more and found to cure my early hunger pain. Now I drink 3x the water. All because IF taught me something about hunger and myself. For the first time in my entire life.. I don't have to wear chap stick.

 

I love snacky/deserve-this hunger. It's true the less you give into them the less they come up. It's pretty amazing. I honestly think that's the advantage to the 30 day challenges. Some people are always complaining about this as being too strict for beginners, but I think it teaches us about ourselves.

 

+1

[surge_supra]

Yeah maybe you should start eating a little more or tweak some things in your diet? I don't know if you should be feeling like this :/

 

I get the same problems though. I can't NOT eat before lifting or working out. If I don't I literally can't do anything. I workout at half capacity. And I need a MEAL not like a few bars. And when I started adding a little more carbs to my diet I suddenly felt much better and more full (I would eat an entire meal and still be hungry). You gave me that idea catspaw I eat my sweet potato after every workout.

[catspaw]

Feeling a lot better -- thanks all.  I think I just had a short cold or something.

 

Rainy day today and spending one more day in recovery, so I painted some nerdly easter eggs:

 

Gonna hide them around the neighbourhood, hopefully to delight some folks.

 

Back to deadlifts tomorrow!

[Vector]

Nice eggs!

[Loren Wade]

Feeling a lot better -- thanks all.  I think I just had a short cold or something.

 

Rainy day today and spending one more day in recovery, so I painted some nerdly easter eggs:

 

Gonna hide them around the neighbourhood, hopefully to delight some folks.

 

Back to deadlifts tomorrow!

Yup. Pretty much amazing.

[Haikoo]

Hah! Fun eggs! *goes to your town to look for them*

[littlewings]

Companion egg!! <3

[catspaw]

Caught a photo of myself in juuuust the right light this afternoon.

 

 

See that?  The outline of abs starting to come back!

 

Note that this is flexed -- previous progress photos have been, and will continue to be, unflexed.

[Vector]

Very cool! I have half a mind to try to see if I can get to visible abs...never have tried!