The progress and top secret details of project defattiefication

[Bernard Marx]

Alright. I put together a 6 day winning streak, continuing until Saturday. Sunday, I knew Easter at the in-laws would be a challenge, and my resolve lasted about a half hour into things. Then I got comfortable and old habits took over, overindulging accompanied by socializing. I'm ok with it. After all, there aren't any more holidays for a while, so if I got derailed one day by a holiday, I should have no problem keeping a longer streak alive without a holiday interruption.

 

Back at it today.

 

Weigh-in this morning showed a drop of 3.2 lbs. A bit over my 2lb/week goal, but I'm not going to adjust calories just yet. In the past, when I start to get back on the wagon, I have seen bigger than expected losses in the first week, and then they level out at a fairly consistent pace, so I'm going to give the current eating plan one more week. If next Monday comes with a drop of over 2lbs from today, I'll try to math out an appropriate caloric intake adjustment, if it comes in between 1 and 2, I'll consider my plan dialed in for now and stick with it, and if less than 1, I'll give it another week and average out any weight change over three weeks to make a decision about how effective my plan is.

[Bernard Marx]

New win streak started. 1 day in the books successfully.

 

My workout was rather disjointed yesterday. For some strange reason, the time slot I visit the gym where it is usually empty or empty minus a couple of folks on the treadmills/bikes/ellipticals was a happening time.

 

I couldn't work through my circuits as circuits, because the place was too busy for me to monopolize that much space/equipment, so I tried to go with super setting instead (I still have a pretty tight half hour time limit, so if I don't work through my recoveries from one exercise with another, I won't fit it all in). 

 

There were some good things:

After discussing with Urgan, I decided to put deadlifting back into my routine. Repped 145x5 in three sets and it felt really good, so good in fact, I'm going to increase the weight for next time and see how that feels. I still had some left in me after my third set, so I'm pretty sure I can handle a bit more.

 

Dropped ten lbs off my assistance weight for pull ups. That's a step in the right direction. I've got a ways to go yet to get to full bodyweight pull ups, but hopefully the early progress is a good sign for this program and in a year I'll be there.

 

There was a little bad:

My flexibility seemed off yesterday. I've been working a lot on stretching my hips after my workouts. One of my favorites is borrowing child's pose from the yogis, but yesterday, even after thirty seconds, I just couldn't breathe and relax my way into as deep of a stretch as I've gotten out of the pose before. My hips just felt very solid. Hopefully it was just a fluke. My hypothesis is maybe lifting in more traditional supersets didn't keep my muscles as warm as zipping through full body circuits usually does, so hopefully that's all it is.

 

Diet:

Made a really good salad and dressing for dinner and had enough left over to pack some for lunch today. Iceberg lettuce, spinach, carrots, grape tomatoes, chickpeas, and black olives. Dressing was white wine vinegar, garlic, herbs provence, crushed red pepper, EVOO salt and pepper. It really hit the spot. On that note, I've been surprised to find myself not really feeling deprived or hungry so far and other than Easter haven't had to work too hard to stay on track. Hopefully I can keep seeing weight loss at this calorie intake, because I feel pretty comfortable maintaining it for a while.

 

Once I get into the neighborhood of 190-200lbs, I can ramp up the calories to maintenance level or a little over, try to make the extra calories come mostly from protein, and start really and truly lifting for strength and muscle gains. If I were to wind up back around 230 some day, I'd be ok with that, but only if my body fat percentage were at or below 15% (hypothetically speaking, if I were 230+ with 15% or lower body fat, I would be a freaking BEAST, can you say possible level 50 goal?).

[Urgan]

1 hour ago, PDazzle said:

Repped 145x5 in three sets and it felt really good, so good in fact, I'm going to increase the weight for next time and see how that feels.  I still had some left in me after my third set, so I'm pretty sure I can handle a bit more.

 

Do this. You should be able to go up 10 lbs without it brutalizing you, to judge from this happy reaction.  

 

1 hour ago, PDazzle said:

My flexibility seemed off yesterday.

 

I'd blame it on your normal workout being thrown off, it's probably as good a reason as any for not feeling quite normal. 

 

1 hour ago, PDazzle said:

Once I get into the neighborhood of 190-200lbs, I can ramp up the calories to maintenance level or a little over, try to make the extra calories come mostly from protein, and start really and truly lifting for strength and muscle gains. If I were to wind up back around 230 some day, I'd be ok with that, but only if my body fat percentage were at or below 15% (hypothetically speaking, if I were 230+ with 15% or lower body fat, I would be a freaking BEAST, can you say possible level 50 goal?).

 

Once you crack the 200 mark and are into the 190s, you're going to be running a totally different show, where increasing weight won't hurt you a bit. It's a bit of a mental adjustment, no mistake, but it's fuuuuuntiems. Especially after living on a cut for so long, you'll feel like a rocket blasting into space, lol. Sounds like a great long term goal. 

[Bernard Marx]

2 day win streak in the books.

 

I almost didn't win yesterday. I had a small lunch, and a small quick dinner. I needed to raid the fridge after dinner looking for a few extra calories to get to my goal. Found a couple hardboiled eggs left from Easter and a small container of leftover pasta e olio that got me up to the mark without nuking my macro ratios.

 

I was a bit surprised after logging my dinner that I had come up so short. Yesterday would have been an easy day to phone in my diet since I'm in the midst of a major deadline for my group term project (and one of my group members didn't pull their weight, so the other two of us are stressing trying to fill in the gap before Sunday), and came directly home from working on a computer to sit on my computer and crank through some schoolwork. There's still a bucket of my kid's Easter candy sitting on the counter that I managed to avoid sneaking into (My wife did me a favor and hid it this morning to make it easier to portion it out to the kids a little bit at a time, because we want to encourage health but not total self deprivation, and just like it's a temptation for me to see the bucket, the kids will ask for candy all day if it's in sight and in mind).

 

Workout yesterday felt really good again. I dropped 10lbs off my assistance weight for dips, and still hit all reps and sets, and I even got a little bit deeper into the movement than I have in the past. If I were to hit my weight loss goal, that 30lb subtraction would leave me only 20lbs away from unassisted dips, so that's something to look forward to.

 

Bodyweight squats...my mobility isn't all the way there yet to start adding weight to it, but I'm getting closer. I switched from box squats to plain old vanilla BW squats. There were maybe 6 reps out of my 3x10 that I didn't get full range of motion or maintain proper form. A couple due to lost balance (since I'm used to slightly unloading on the box at the bottom), a couple due to my heels coming off the floor, one where I couldn't quite get my butt down enough, and one where I caught my back rounding slightly. I've got to get the form down and mobility addressed before I start loading them.

 

I'm still not sure how I'm going to go about loading my squats when I get to that point. The gym I go to (free gym facility at work, can't afford a membership elsewhere) doesn't have squat racks. My options seem to be learning to clean into front squats with a barbell (doable, but I'd have a bit of a learning curve since I haven't worked clean since high school football, and I've never worked front squats), using the Smith machine as a lesser evil because it's there, or trying variations with dumbbells/kettlebells. I've got some time to think about it since I'm guessing I'll need at least a few more weeks to get my form solid. For now, I'm leaning toward goblet squats with a dumbbell as a start to loading the motion, but I know at some point I'll want and need to go heavier. Maybe a mix and match philosophy where split squats/goblet squats provide the free range of motion and stabilizing muscles, clean and front squats for similar motion and slightly different muscle activity, and sets on the Smith to allow me to load heavier than I can clean when I need to do that. Idk. I never liked squatting on the Smith in high school when the rules were you had to 'learn to squat' with it before you could work in the racks, so I'm really not thrilled with that option. 

 

 

[Urgan]

Good job on the fooding and removing temptation. You still get to enjoy such things in moderation without feeling guilty. Whatever you eat should be eaten with no regrets or else it's just a case of "the beatings will continue until morale improves." Winning it. 

 

10 minutes ago, PDazzle said:

Bodyweight squats...my mobility isn't all the way there yet to start adding weight to it, but I'm getting closer. I switched from box squats to plain old vanilla BW squats. There were maybe 6 reps out of my 3x10 that I didn't get full range of motion or maintain proper form. A couple due to lost balance (since I'm used to slightly unloading on the box at the bottom), a couple due to my heels coming off the floor, one where I couldn't quite get my butt down enough, and one where I caught my back rounding slightly. I've got to get the form down and mobility addressed before I start loading them.

 

I'm still not sure how I'm going to go about loading my squats when I get to that point. The gym I go to (free gym facility at work, can't afford a membership elsewhere) doesn't have squat racks. My options seem to be learning to clean into front squats with a barbell (doable, but I'd have a bit of a learning curve since I haven't worked clean since high school football, and I've never worked front squats), using the Smith machine as a lesser evil because it's there, or trying variations with dumbbells/kettlebells. I've got some time to think about it since I'm guessing I'll need at least a few more weeks to get my form solid. For now, I'm leaning toward goblet squats with a dumbbell as a start to loading the motion, but I know at some point I'll want and need to go heavier. Maybe a mix and match philosophy where split squats/goblet squats provide the free range of motion and stabilizing muscles, clean and front squats for similar motion and slightly different muscle activity, and sets on the Smith to allow me to load heavier than I can clean when I need to do that. Idk. I never liked squatting on the Smith in high school when the rules were you had to 'learn to squat' with it before you could work in the racks, so I'm really not thrilled with that option. 

 

I'll just say this, nothing teaches you how to squat under a load like squatting under a load. To be perfectly frank, your coach had it ass-backwards, you can't expect someone to squat without actually coaching the movement. I think you already understand smith machine, dumbbell/barbell front, and barbell back squats are all different movements based on the degrees of freedom of movement permitted and the placement of the weight. You're going to have subtly different body mechanics for each--not that front squats and squats with other non-smith equipment is wrong at all, it's just different by way of physiology--and training one thinking you're preparing for another is incorrect coaching. Now you do have a quandary with the equipment you do have access to, no lie. The obvious answer is to change gyms when you have the means to, but you can't do that right now because of the facts of life.

 

Barring that, you have two options: front squats with free weights, back squats with an imperfect tool. There's pros and cons to each relative to your situation, let me highlight them and you can make the final call.

 

Back squat

+ a better tool for strength building

+ it recruits even a bit more muscle than front squats (front squats are quad-heavy)

- the smith machine takes the natural balance requirements out of the back squat that helps you develop the ability to be truly stable while under a load

 

Front squat

+ free weights ensure all the small stabilizers are being worked along with the big movers

+ front squats are a really good (if not the very best) compound movement

- dumbbells and kettlebells don't scale as well as a bar--i.e., you have to make jumps at the predetermined poundage of the dumbbells your gym has (5lbs, I assume?)--so your linear progression might taper off faster, though as a guy you'll be able to operate at 5lb jumps way longer than a girl can. Dumbbells will probably be more scalable than you kettlebell options, but then again your gym may have an excellent selection of KBs, so YMMV

- you'll rely on cleaning in lieu of a rack, which won't immediately be an issue, but once you get >BW it might get tricky

 

In terms of where you can get the most bang for the buck, the progression of free weights available to you will probably be kettlebells > dumbbells > barbells, so you could work with dumbbells until you exhaust the available poundage, practice your clean, and then work on making progress with the barbell. * shrugs * There's an argument for getting some exposure to back squats even with the smith machine, but you'll have to contend with it potentially teaching you a sub-optimal movement pattern for such time as you have access to a power rack. Your present gym already has barbells, have you spoken to them about obtaining a squat or power rack? It most likely is a lost cause, but you won't get what you don't ask for, right? 

[Bernard Marx]

59 minutes ago, Urgan said:

In terms of where you can get the most bang for the buck, the progression of free weights available to you will probably be kettlebells > dumbbells > barbells, so you could work with dumbbells until you exhaust the available poundage, practice your clean, and then work on making progress with the barbell. * shrugs * There's an argument for getting some exposure to back squats even with the smith machine, but you'll have to contend with it potentially teaching you a sub-optimal movement pattern for such time as you have access to a power rack. Your present gym already has barbells, have you spoken to them about obtaining a squat or power rack? It most likely is a lost cause, but you won't get what you don't ask for, right? 

I did ask. Unfortunately, as our company has grown, they changed their model. At one point, they were providing gyms at every facility, but they have so many facilities that I'm told it's 'not cost effective' to put more in all of the new facilities. Because they feel it's unfair to employees in other facilities, they've made the decision to continue to maintain existing gyms for those facilities that already have them, but they won't invest in any further improvements to those existing gyms...I get it, and I'm still happy with the perk of having free access to a gym that I can visit during my lunch breaks, but it would be nice if it had a power rack.

 

I think a home gym setup might be more cost effective if I really need to switch. I was pricing buying new on Amazon (and could probably get things cheaper if I hunt Craigslist), and I come up with about $1500 for a 300lb olympic set with 7ft bar, power rack, adjustable bench (that could actually handle my body weight and the amount of weight I'd like to someday be able to bench...), selecttech dumbbells, and rubber flooring tiles including shipping on some of the overweight items from marketplace vendors. Even if I paid that full retail it wouldn't take very long to recoup that over the cost/aggravation of finding a local gym that actually has the equipment, the cost/time of traveling to/from the gym, and of course the membership fees for access.

 

I think I'll see how I'm doing over time working with what I have and keeping your suggestions in mind and start socking my pennies away. Hopefully by the time I truly need a proper back squat option to keep progressing, I'll be in a position to scour CL deals for what I need.

[Urgan]

Yeah, work is work and you can't make 'em. Good on you for being brave enough to ask. 

 

A home gym is definitely the gold standard of training, no hassle, no fuss, no muss. As long as the barbell isn't bent, used is just as good as new~ 

[Bernard Marx]

Yesterday counts as a win. I stayed within my calories and did my workout. I went pretty hard on my workout. I decided to be a bit more aggressive with progressive loading than I was before. Before, I was mainly concerned with not losing too much muscle while losing fat, so my rule was add weight when you complete all reps and feel like you could do more. This time, I'm borrowing the progressive idea from stronglifts that if I hit all the reps, the weight goes up. Period. If I don't hit all reps, I'll stay at the same weight and if I get stuck for three consecutive workouts I'll drop down and start stepping back up.

 

I won't progress as quickly with my program as it is now, but I feel pretty good so far about the results I'm seeing to address some of my worst muscle imbalances and mobility issues. I'm loosely planning to stick with this program for about a year with minor adjustments as needed. By next spring, I'll hit up craigslist and closeout sales (getting rid of the stuff they didn't sell to resolutioners) to put together my home gym, and then I think I'll move into the stronglifts program and really start to work strength. I think following this program for a year will make sure that when I move into that type of program I'm able to execute the movements (especially squats...if I tried to load a bar right now, I'd give half squats at best) with proper form.

 

This is me. I have to keep dreaming big for the future, or I lose myself in the daily slog. I've been feeling stressed this week. Between school deadlines and my son being ill over the weekend (he's getting better now, and it wound up being nothing major but I'm still a relatively new parent and seeing him that far out of character had my heart in knots), it's been a pretty emotionally draining week. I find myself better able to let go of stress when I daydream about what could be if I just stick it out and keep working.

 

To that end, I've added a couple points to my level 50 goals. First, I'm going to officially say that a bodyweight in the area of 230lbs with a body fat percentage in the 14-17% range is me at level 50. Second, at level 50, I will be a member of the 1000lb club. It might take a few years of hard work, but anything is possible, and I would absolutely love to come back to this thread and post video of my 1RM for bench, deadlift, and squat to prove my membership.

 

[Bernard Marx]

Now I just need to make myself cry in the gym...

 

So I can say I put blood, sweat, and tears into rebuilding my body. Scuffed my shins up pretty good with the deadlifts today. Maybe I should wear longer socks for these workouts...

 

Hit all the reps easy enough and had enough gas left in the tank for another set or two if I wanted, so next DL workout I'll go up to 165x5. It's been a while since I deadlifted regularly, so I was pretty conservative on the weight I started with. I don't want to get hurt by doing too much too soon, but I feel like somewhere between 175 and 185 is probably the zone where I'd be just barely able to complete all reps with proper form. If I do well with 165 next time, I'll start bumping it up 5lbs per workout as long as I complete all the reps with proper form (I could even increment by 2.5lbs as I discovered the work gym doesn't have a power rack, but it does have a few 1.25lb plates). If I'm right on those numbers it just tells me one thing: 200lbs is close enough to taste and seems like a good short term goal to try and punch through that barrier within a few months as I get stronger.

 

My sets are lower reps than workouts I did in the past, and I'm pushing higher weights to try and get stronger, and so far it seems to be working faster than my past efforts. I know gains are much easier to come by early in a workout, so I'm not going to let myself get to swelled up in the head by it, but it feels pretty good to increase the weight after hitting all the reps in one workout, then come in for the next workout, grab the heavier weight, and rock out all the reps again.

[Urgan]

2 minutes ago, PDazzle said:

So I can say I put blood, sweat, and tears into rebuilding my body. Scuffed my shins up pretty good with the deadlifts today. Maybe I should wear longer socks for these workouts...

 

Seriously, do this. They make deadlifting socks for a reason. Or wear pants, but you may not be able to stand it, lol.

 

4 minutes ago, PDazzle said:

If I do well with 165 next time, I'll start bumping it up 5lbs per workout as long as I complete all the reps with proper form (I could even increment by 2.5lbs as I discovered the work gym doesn't have a power rack, but it does have a few 1.25lb plates). If I'm right on those numbers it just tells me one thing: 200lbs is close enough to taste and seems like a good short term goal to try and punch through that barrier within a few months as I get stronger.

 

5lbs should be doable for some time, given you've started at a relatively low weight (a good thing). Stick to the 5s until you feel compelling evidence that you're approaching the top of what you can do. Then you can lower the volume or lower the rate of increase to 2.5. Pretty sweet your gym has plates that small, most places don't. 

 

6 minutes ago, PDazzle said:

My sets are lower reps than workouts I did in the past, and I'm pushing higher weights to try and get stronger, and so far it seems to be working faster than my past efforts. I know gains are much easier to come by early in a workout, so I'm not going to let myself get to swelled up in the head by it, but it feels pretty good to increase the weight after hitting all the reps in one workout, then come in for the next workout, grab the heavier weight, and rock out all the reps again.

 

Strength training does use lower rep sets, enjoy the easy gains to the fullest, it'll become a steeper hill to climb sooner than we ever like. You definitely want to prolong increasing the weight each session as long as you can for a strength gains goal. You're doing great, no reason you can't pat yourself on the back a little and keep on lifting.

[Bernard Marx]

RIP win streak. Blew it again this weekend, with no holiday for an excuse. It was getting late Saturday, I was working on a term project and the kids were getting hungry, so we decided to order pizza for a quick dinner. I should have known better. The combination of stress and my old weakness/nemesis of pizza. Before I knew it, I'd eaten almost an entire medium pizza by myself. After a day of not tracking my eating at all. I think I nuked any calorie deficit I might have cultivated during the week with that one.

 

The only upside to the weekend was an unseasonably warm day yesterday that let me put my daughter in the bike trailer and head up to the grocery store. There are a couple solid hill climbs on the way home, and with probably 80 - 100lbs in the trailer between my daughter and the groceries, I guess I punished myself a bit for my indiscretion.

 

I'm hardly surprised to see no significant movement on the scale this morning. No sense getting mad about it. I know my weaknesses, and I succumbed to one of them. All I can do is get back to it. Today has started well, I had my oatmeal/protein powder mix for breakfast. Haven't eaten my banana yet, I'm saving that in case I need a snack. Going to hit the weights in about two and a half hours. The only way to avenge a loss is to grab a win, and start stringing wins together into a streak. 

[Urgan]

You still set yourself up for future success with your week of good habits, a pizza adventure won't derail you so easily. Re: weekend issues, have you considered meal planning for the weekend for those times when there are not holidays (at which point, it's Christmas or Thanksgiving or whatever...not worth losing the fun of life over~)?

 

1 hour ago, PDazzle said:

The only upside to the weekend was an unseasonably warm day yesterday that let me put my daughter in the bike trailer and head up to the grocery store. There are a couple solid hill climbs on the way home, and with probably 80 - 100lbs in the trailer between my daughter and the groceries, I guess I punished myself a bit for my indiscretion.

 

Don't do the punishing thing. Sounds like it was fun for both of you and a good weekend activity for multiple reasons.

[Bernard Marx]

1 minute ago, Urgan said:

You still set yourself up for future success with your week of good habits, a pizza adventure won't derail you so easily. Re: weekend issues, have you considered meal planning for the weekend for those times when there are not holidays (at which point, it's Christmas or Thanksgiving or whatever...not worth losing the fun of life over~)?

 

 

Don't do the punishing thing. Sounds like it was fun for both of you and a good weekend activity for multiple reasons.

The 'punishing' comment was meant more as a half joke because the ride home was harder than I had planned. I know some people struggle with themselves emotionally when they fall off diets but I've gotten used to it. I've been going up and down over almost three years now, and as long as it's more down than up, I can accept it. It took me almost ten years to get up to 280, and I haven't been below 220 since I was in middle school, so right now I'm tied for the 'best shape of my life.' I want to go further, and I want to get better, but I'm not a professional athlete, fitness model, or really anyone whose livelihood depends on that level of discipline.

 

I love going for rides with my daughter, and she seems to enjoy going to the grocery store, (She can name most of the items in the produce section at two, so I'm happy about that) and it was an excuse for some light easy activity to get out and enjoy the weather. I can't wait until my son turns 1 so I can bring him too without disobeying my pediatrician's recommendation for the bike trailer (apparently the bouncing/vibration of bike trailers in kids under 1YO has been linked to 'shaken baby syndrome' like symptoms and she suggests better safe than sorry). 

 

I basically granny geared my way up the climbs...probably could have walked faster, but that trailer was heavy. A bunch of heavier liquid items were on sale at better than normal prices, so I stocked up, two gallons of milk, two large glass bottles of EVOO, the white wine vinegar I like for dressings, plus our normal produce load, 5lbs of oatmeal, 2lbs of coffee... I need to remember to shop like I rode my bike on trips when I ride my bike LOL.

[Urgan]

1 minute ago, PDazzle said:

I need to remember to shop like I rode my bike on trips when I ride my bike LOL.

100% relatable, would so make this "mistake"...

 

Okay, just checking, even the littlest things can stack up to negative momentum--if you make a regular thing of the bike trailer, definitely a win-win-win.

[Bernard Marx]

I missed a workout Tuesday, and have had a rough couple days. Just feeling drained and stressed out. I tried to make myself shake it off yesterday. I logged all my food again and got back into the gym. 

 

I hit my sets and reps deadlifting 165, so I'm going up to 170 next time. I've also been more aggressively dropping the assistance weight on the pull up/chin up/wide grip pullups in my plan. Since I alternate through the three of them each workout, I've been (and I'll keep doing it as long as I can keep hitting the reps) cycling my assistance weight downward relying on the fact that the wide grip and chin up variations are harder and easier than normal pull ups respectively. The way it has worked is workout 1 I do pullups with 110lbs of help. Workout 2, I do wide grip variation with 120lbs of help. Workout 3 I do chinups with 100lbs of help. Workout 4 I start the cycle over with regular pull ups at 100lbs of help. I've gone through three cycles, and each time I do the pull up workout at the lower assistance I just barely hit all the reps, but by the time I cycle through the next two workouts and come back to it, I'm just barely able to get all the reps with less help. If I get to a point where I can't keep the constant progression with the three workout cycles, I'll add a fourth with body weight negatives that will probably look something like 1. pull up, 2. wide grip 10lbs more help, 3. bw negatives, 4. chin up 10lbs less help

 

I think I need to remind myself what I've accomplished already in less than a month's time to try and reinspire myself. I've progressed 30lbs closer to my goal of unassisted pull ups. I'm working my way toward a 200lb deadlift. My hip flexibility has improved enough that when I went for a bike ride I felt more comfortable leaning forward into the bars while I rode, and I'm now having more trouble with balance than flexibility when it comes to getting my squat form down. I've dropped about 3lbs total, and when I look in the mirror against my 'before' posture picture, I feel like I see a little bit of improvement. All this in less than a month is HUGE and if I just stick with it, I can keep moving forward.

[Urgan]

You're doing awesome, one day closer to level 50!