EmbracingChaos' Quest For The Clean Bulk

[EmbracingChaos]

Good to see you EC. And yes, we do have "set points" that our body "gets used to" and tries to get back to, whenever we deviate, so it's not surprising to see you end up at the same weight/bf 2 years later.

 

What I wonder: Where were your lifts at 2 years ago and where are they now?

 

I didn't keep very good track of the weights I was lifting until about January 2014 when I was already around 12% body fat.  That being said, you're right my lifts have definitely gone up so I suppose there is always that.  That's another thing that I'm going to do this cut to try and retain muscle, ideally my lifts won't go down much.  Some muscle loss is bound to occur, but I just have to do my best to keep lifting heavy and persuade as much of it to stay as I can.

 

It will be interesting to compare what my lifts are whenever I reach 12% again to see how they've changed.

[Disil]

I don't expect them to change much tbh. You might have to go down with volume or training frequency towards the later stages, but I doubt you'll actually lose much muscle at all if you keep being as diligent and smart about it as you've been during past cuts.

[EmbracingChaos]

Yesterday was the easiest cut day so far (8th day).  There are probably several reasons for that:

• A week of momentum was built up
  
• I'm used to being a little hungry all of the time now
  
• I'm not yet deep enough in that food cravings and hormonal issues are occurring
  

I didn't eat until dinner then had half of a butternut squash, half of a cucumber, and a green pepper.  A little while later I had fish tacos on lettuce wraps.  A banana for dessert topped it off, and that concluded a heavy deficit day.  I'm going to eat "reasonably" on each day except for two heavy deficit days on Wednesday & Saturday (Eat Stop Eat style).  I'm not going to worry too much about it though and just try to cut as hard and deep as I can mentally stand.  

 

Something else I'm trying this time around is wearing a backpack loaded with weight during the day.  I started with a 10 lb. weight yesterday, I'm doing 12.5 lbs. today, and will keep increasing by 2.5 lbs. per day until I find a challenging weight without feeling like I'm going to injure myself.  The goal is to trick my body into believing that I'm heavier than I am in hope of convincing it to keep muscle.  If it starts affecting my posture or something of that nature I may have to abandon it, but so far it's not bothersome.

 

Body Fat:

17.9%: 149.1 lbs (prior) - 150 lbs. (current) - +0.9 lbs.

17.8%: 148.7 lbs (prior) - 149.6 lbs. (current) - +0.9 lbs.

[EmbracingChaos]

Day 9 went by without too much of an issue as well.  There were a few moments of doubting whether it was worth it and thinking about tearing through a large bowl of ice cream, but no harm no foul.  I didn't eat until dinner, then had half of a butternut squash, large bowl of cabbage, a green pepper, 12 oz. of 93% lean beef hamburgers, 4 oz. of chicken, 20g of Almonds, and a banana.

 

Workout consisted of overhead and bench presses.  My lifts have not gone down yet, but I did notice they were more difficult to complete (I was definitely shaking while completing the last rep).

 

Body Fat:

17.9%: 149.1 lbs (prior) - 150.0 lbs. (current) - +0.9 lbs.

17.8%: 148.7 lbs (prior) - 149.6 lbs. (current) - +0.9 lbs.

17.7%: 148.4 lbs (prior) - 149.0 lbs. (current) - +0.6 lbs.

[EmbracingChaos]

Day 10 was a heavy deadlift day.  I'm definitely feeling the soreness of it, so I'm glad today is a rest day.

 

Dinner

bowl of cabbage

green pepper

half of a tomato

1 lb. of 93% lean beef

half a can of beans

90g white rice

can of enchilada sauce

banana.

 

Body Fat:

17.9%: 149.1 lbs (prior) - 150.0 lbs. (current) - +0.9 lbs.

17.8%: 148.7 lbs (prior) - 149.6 lbs. (current) - +0.9 lbs.

17.7%: 148.4 lbs (prior) - 149.0 lbs. (current) - +0.6 lbs.

17.5%: 148.1 lbs (prior) - 148.6 lbs. (current) - +0.5 lbs.

[EmbracingChaos]

Day 11 was a rest day.  This was the toughest day yet as I had to fight through quite a few food cravings.  I saw pizza boxes in someone's trash can driving home from a co-working place my company leases and my stomach lurched with desire.  Looking back on a cut it's always worth it, I've never regretted losing the fat, but in the midst of it all my brain loves to convince me of how unnecessary it all is.  It's just a case of mind over matter.  I'm reminded of a quote from Anthony Mychal's blog:

 

 

... you can dig one hole, 50 feet deep, or you can dig 10 holes 5 feet deep.  Both work.  But finding a way out of the 50 foot hole is much more difficult.

 

The intention will be to slow cook muscle from now on and lose body fat when only 1-2% was gained rather than waiting until a lot has built up.  Prolonged fat loss sucks.  Any time spent losing body fat is time lost building muscle.

 

Dinner

large bowl of mixed vegetables

1.25 lbs. pork chops

100 calorie granola bar (we were out of fruit, but this was still a bad idea, it just caused sugar cravings to kick in)

 

Body Fat:

(no changes)

[EmbracingChaos]

Day 12 was an Overhead/Bench press day.  Diet was good but cravings are definitely still hanging around.  It's par for the course though, I suppose.

 

Dinner

large bowl of cabbage and cucumber

~ 5 oz. chicken breast

half a pan of chicken lasagna

1 banana

 

Body Fat:

17.9%: 149.1 lbs (prior) - 150.0 lbs. (current) - +0.9 lbs.

17.8%: 148.7 lbs (prior) - 149.6 lbs. (current) - +0.9 lbs.

17.7%: 148.4 lbs (prior) - 149.0 lbs. (current) - +0.6 lbs.

17.5%: 148.1 lbs (prior) - 148.6 lbs. (current) - +0.5 lbs.

17.4%: 147.6 lbs (prior) - 147.9 lbs. (current) - +0.3 lbs.   <- Look at my body totally go right back where it wants to be

[PaulG]

Been lurking for a while. Cutting sucks, but it looks like you're sticking to it well. Congrats.

Okay, so I'm curious. I see you tracking your weight/BF% and it's only been a few days; what are the chances, you think, that what you're actually seeing is a water weight drop?

Edit: I should have explained that better. It's clear you're losing fat but it seems you're worried that you might also be losing muscle. If your LBM is going down, what are your thoughts on it being water weight?

[EmbracingChaos]

Been lurking for a while. Cutting sucks, but it looks like you're sticking to it well. Congrats.

Okay, so I'm curious. I see you tracking your weight/BF% and it's only been a few days; what are the chances, you think, that what you're actually seeing is a water weight drop?

Edit: I should have explained that better. It's clear you're losing fat but it seems you're worried that you might also be losing muscle. If your LBM is going down, what are your thoughts on it being water weight?

 

It's confusing from the way I'm logging the BF% and weight trend, so I should  probably explain that part a bit better in any case.  I actually weigh/check body fat daily and track them in a spreadsheet (since 2011).  Then I do a weighted moving average from the daily values to create a trend (similar to the Hacker's Diet).  Each of the body fat entries in my posts are a body fat trend number that I hit before in my initial cut from 18%-10% and I've "left behind" in this cut.  That being said, you're definitely right that water weight/muscle glycogen loss would be affecting the numbers.

 

I'm probably just paranoid and over-analyzing the whole situation because as we all know it's pretty damn hard to gain muscle and I'd like to preserve as much as possible in the process of leaning out again.  Cutting just flat out sucks and sometimes I just want to succumb to eating however I damn well please and not worrying about it.  I logically know that I would just feel even worse after doing that though (once the sugar high wore off).  It just sucks looking at numbers and feeling like you've been spinning your wheels.

[Disil]

I'm probably just paranoid and over-analyzing the whole situation

Yes.

 

After obsessing about fitness for a long time (mostly due to not having a life, too - which recently changed), this video helped shift my perspective a lot:

 

 

I get annoyed by the guy pretty quick and he can be quite repetitious, but he does have the odd quality video every now and then.

[EmbracingChaos]

Yes.

 

After obsessing about fitness for a long time (mostly due to not having a life, too - which recently changed), this video helped shift my perspective a lot:

 

 

I get annoyed by the guy pretty quick and he can be quite repetitious, but he does have the odd quality video every now and then.

 

Thanks, that was just what the doctor ordered.  He has a great point (no kidding about getting a little irritating though).

[PaulG]

I skipped to 0:30 in and then only listened to another 30, pretty sure I got the gist of the whole thing. But I liked what I heard!

EC, you're right about both: you're overthinking it and cutting sucks balls. I don't want to do it either. Don't make me!!

FWIW, I don't think you're going to lose muscle as easily as you think you will. Definitely not at >10% body fat. You'd have to have a medical condition for that to happen; and given how little protein most of us ate pre-fitness, if your body really ate muscle that easy, you probably wouldn't have survived to adulthood. That's my cheery thought for the day.

You're just peeing away some glycogen. When the cut's over it'll pop back in.

For my part, I'm still thinking about that video. Maybe it's time for all of us to pick a non-fitness goal or two...

[EmbracingChaos]

...

For my part, I'm still thinking about that video. Maybe it's time for all of us to pick a non-fitness goal or two...

 

Yea, me too.  I felt guilty after watching it, my first thought was "Why am I so obsessed over first world problems?"  I should be spending more time doing cool things with my kids rather than obsessing over how fast/efficiently I can lose body fat.

[Disil]

The best takeaway of the video for me personally was this: You need to train hard 3-4 times per week. You need to eat the way that furthers your goals. You need to maximize sleep and minimize stress. There is severe diminishing returns for anything beyond that. Doing just those things takes what, 2 hours per day, maybe (not counting sleep)? What the hell are we doing with the remaining 14 or so wake hours, obsessing over fitness? I mean sure, add another hour for reading, learning, experimenting, whatever. But some days,  spent 10+ hours with fitness. Planning, researching, sometimes actually doing things. Reading some more. That just drives you crazy and it also makes you feel like time isn't passing and you're still not progressing, still cutting/bulking in slow-motion. Focussing on other things and letting fitness be like a tertiary goal that's dealt with "on the side", peripherally - that's the way to go.

 

^

Writing this on a site called "Nerd Fitness" while I should be sleeping already. Brought to you by the hypocrite of the year.

[EmbracingChaos]

In the spirit of the video I decided to pick a new goal to pursue.  Though the video mentioned not dwelling on fitness, I personally took it more along the lines of not dwelling on body composition.  So I decided to pick a skill related to fitness to learn, and after a bit of googling around to find something, I chose handstands.  After wandering around the internet I ended up on http://chrissalvato.com/blog/, where I saw a picture of someone doing a handstand press.  For S's & G's I decided to skip the intro stuff and straight up try a handstand press.  I had my oldest daughter take a video with my phone.  For your amusement, here was the result (forgive my complete lack of knowing what I was doing):
 

 
I've since learned I should be able to do a 15 second handstand before working on the press and that I should do a pirouette bail instead of the rolling bail that we all end up naturally doing.  I'm going to try to do handstand practice every day and build that skill up to a respectable level.
 
Day 13 has come and gone.  After dinner we took the kids to the neighborhood park and played around.  They just got new bikes and my 3 year old loved being able to ride hers to the park.
 
Dinner
enchilada bake (1 lb. 93% lean beef, 2 servings rice, enchilada sauce, half a can of beans)
large bowl of green beans
a banana
2 servings of oatmeal
 
Exercise
Barbell Squats (warmup), 4x165, 2x185, 1x205 <- didn't hit my 5/3/1, squats are always my weak point and first to go in a cut
"" "" [7, 6, 6, 6, 6] x 135
Deadlifts 5x245, 3x275, 1x305
Handstands
 
Body Fat
...
17.3%: 147.1 lbs (prior) - 147.7 lbs. (current) - +0.6 lbs.

[EmbracingChaos]

The best takeaway of the video for me personally was this: You need to train hard 3-4 times per week. You need to eat the way that furthers your goals. You need to maximize sleep and minimize stress. There is severe diminishing returns for anything beyond that. Doing just those things takes what, 2 hours per day, maybe (not counting sleep)? What the hell are we doing with the remaining 14 or so wake hours, obsessing over fitness? ...

 

 

Absolutely, this comment was right on.  It reminded me a lot of a blog entry from Anthony Mychal, about Rewiring the Flinch.  He talks about Kelly Bagget's 3 S's to muscle growth, to which he adds a fourth (soul).  Here is a snippet from the blog post where he talks about it.  Basically these are the four things that he believes directly impacts how your body decides to use excess calories, and how you spend the rest of the time not directly related to nutrition and exercise is important too, and should not be stressing you out.

 

 

1. Stimulation
2. Supply
3. Signaling
4. Soul - ... There are 24 hours in a day. If you train for two hours, four days per week (something considered to be “a lot†by many), that’s 8 hours in one week. Considering there are 168 hours in one week, you’re looking at 160 hours of “stuff†floating around in the ether of unknown. Soul accounts for things like stress, sleep, and lifestyle—the forgotten 160.

   Soul should be a no-brainer though. Take two people with the same “everything else.†One sleeps eight hours every night, takes a two hour nap every day, has a brotherly relationship with friends, and is generally happy. The other sleeps four hours, hates his job, hates his commute, has no friends, feels alone, is and is generally stressed.

[Disil]

Yep. Spot on.

[EmbracingChaos]

I decided to push my limits and do a 40-hour fast.  The last thing I ate was about 18.5 hours ago (my oatmeal), so I'm almost at the halfway point.  I do 24 hour fasts nearly daily, so I'm excited to see how I feel after the 24 hour mark.  If it doesn't end up being overly difficult, I'd like to do two of these per week and then allow myself to eat up to maintenance on the other 5 days.  That would allow me to lock in a roughly 4k deficit per week with just two days of really "feeling the suck".  Anyway, we'll see how it goes.  I've just been keeping busy and occupying myself.  I took my dog for about a mile walk with a 35 lb. weight in my backpack, practiced handstands and frog stands, and drywall patched/mudded several holes in my walls/ceiling from when I finished wiring up my new house with Cat 6.  My nephew and niece are coming over here shortly to hang out with my kids, so they should keep me plenty busy.  So far so good... 

[Disil]

Shortgorilla has tested his limits with fasting too a while back. i believe he concluded that 30 hour ish was about the point where it stops making sense, but found that 20-24 hour fasts actually helped and he felt great.

[EmbracingChaos]

Yea, I don't think 40 hours gives any increased insulin benefits or anything compared to 20ish; I'm certain beyond that is diminishing returns. The deficit will be the real benefit, that way I won't have to restrain myself (comparatively) on the other 5 days. We'll see though, this may be a one time event.

[EmbracingChaos]

Day 14 is done.  This is about 35 hours into my fast, so I could start eating around 2 P.M. CST.  Surprisingly I don't really feel any different than on any other day.  It's nice knowing that I don't have to have a deficit again until Wednesday.  To me it's the diet parallel of HIIT, 1 day of intense, deep deficit followed by 2-3 days of recovery coasting.  So my current daily structure looks like it will work out to this:

 

 

Monday - Deadlifts / Eat Maintenance

Tuesday - Bench Press / Eat Maintenance

Wednesday - Off / Fast

Thursday - Squats / Eat Maintenance

Friday - Overhead Press / Eat Maintenance

Saturday - Off / Fast

Sunday - Off / Eat Maintenance

 

I'm going to run with that for the next 4 weeks and reanalyze on August 9 to see if I need to make any changes.  

 

Food

Exercise

(2) 35-lb. weighted .9 mile walks with my dog

Handstand/Frog Stand work

Body Fat
17.2%: 146.5 lbs (prior) - 147.7 lbs. (current) - +1.3 lbs.

[EmbracingChaos]

Day 15 done.  I was anxious to eat by 2 PM yesterday, so I started eating shortly after the 40 hour mark.  Still ended up eating slightly under maintenance, but boy it was nice to have a more calorie filled dinner and a snack.

 

Food:

Bowl of cabbage

Bowl of green beans

~ 6 oz. chicken

1 Chicken / bacon / onion / alfredo pizza on a thin wheat crust (homemade)

2 servings of oatmeal with a large banana

 

Exercise

Handstand and tuck planche practice

 

Body Fat
17.1%: 146.0 lbs (prior) - 146.9 lbs. (current) - +0.9 lbs.

[EmbracingChaos]

Ran across this while browsing YouTube.  It's stuff we've all heard before, but for some reason the presentation struck me as quite inspirational.

 

[EmbracingChaos]

Day 16.  Another easy day, it's nice when these come around.

 

Food:

Bowl of cabbage

(2) 1/2 lb. hamburgers on wheat buns w/ ketchup, mustard, onion, tomato, pickle

1 sweet potato cut into fries

32g peanut butter w/ 1 large banana

 

Exercise

.9 mile 45 lb. weighted dog walk

Deadlifts (warmup), 5x255, 3x285, 1x315

"" "" 9x205, 8x205, "", "", ""

Barbell Back Squats 4x165, 2x185, 1x205

Handstand and tuck planche practice

.9 mile 50 lb. weighted dog walk

 

Body Fat
17.0%: 145.9 lbs (prior) - 146.6 lbs. (current) - +0.7 lbs.

[EmbracingChaos]

I ran across this picture of myself while looking for a picture for my wife.  This is the best picture I have of me at my heaviest, and this was a good 20 lbs. below the heaviest I got.  Crazy.. it's hard to even remember being that big.  For fun, here it is compared to me at my lowest.