Urgan Shows Up, Does the Thing

[Jord]

forgiving yourself for not being able to time travel and change the past, seems wise

[Urgan]

1/19/2018 - 1/21/2018

You know what makes it hard to leave bed? Cat cuddles.

Food

Lunch-time: 12/18

Water: 13/18 - 2

Calories: 2324 / 2457, 2615, 2185

Protein: 126 / 133, 106, 103

Fiber: 35 / 66, 18, 10

You can tell the meals that have BEANS in their name ran out when....

 

Sleep

Curfew: 13/19 

 

Self-Care

Skin Stuff: 14/21

 

Still working on this. It's a balance between scaly and oil slick.

 

Friday

OHP

45     2x5

50     5

60     5

68     5

65     3x5--5RM PR + 1!!

 

Bench

45     5

60     5

70     5

80     5

86     2

 

Saturday

Squat

45       5

115     5

135     5

145     5

168     2

160     3x5

 

Deadlift

135     5

140     5

160     5

188     5

178     3x5

 

Despite repeating the previous cycle, OHP still managed to get a PR because I lost the equivalent session last cycle for some reason I CBF to go back and verify.

Squats were hard, deads were easy. 188lbs was supposed to be a double, but I did 5 because I felt like it and there were people around to impress/rattle out of their conversation and NOTHING reminds you of where you are like deadlifts.

 

Sunday was DOMS Central USA. I did some rare adulting, cleaned some things, and made tamale pie with pulled beef instead of ground. 10/10 would do again.

 

On 1/19/2018 at 8:41 PM, ixaera said:

 

As a fellow cookie admirer, I just wanted to quote this because it was awesome and bears repeating (just like your squat sessions, which are much less enjoyable than a cookie perhaps but still)

 

In the land of cookie-themed gifs, nobody's gonna outdo Cookie Monster.

Just over here confirming that 160lbs for 5s still sucks. Verified and greenchecked and ready to GTFO. Sadly, this just means I'll be doing 161lbs next time lol.

 

On 1/20/2018 at 7:53 AM, Cataleya said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one suffering from Grade A Lethargy. Comforting, somehow.

 

I think it's a survival mechanism from that cold snap. Yup, gonna blame it on that and pray another one doesn't whip through the country again. WHEW.

 

2 hours ago, Taddea Zhaan said:

forgiving yourself for not being able to time travel and change the past, seems wise

 

Weeellllllll.....

[Mistr]

Good for you getting to the gym and getting your reps in, even when it was crowded and stupid. 

 

I'm glad you survived the cold snap. Nine above is typical for my part of the country, not yours. And now we have 45 and rainy which ought to be there and not here.  

[Urgan]

52 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Good for you getting to the gym and getting your reps in, even when it was crowded and stupid. 

 

I'm glad you survived the cold snap. Nine above is typical for my part of the country, not yours. And now we have 45 and rainy which ought to be there and not here.  

 

Apparently we decided to share. It's a snotty and rainy 60 here ATM. Do Not Want. I'd prefer cold and dry honestly.

[Jord]

Congrats on your OHP PR! We all know OHP likes to be a bit of a punk.

[shaar]

On 1/22/2018 at 10:17 AM, Urgan said:

Still working on this. It's a balance between scaly and oil slick.

 

You too?!?!!  I honestly almost had a hissy fit at the gym this morning trying to put on makeup for work when my last-night-slick-face was suddenly 500% flaky.. WHAT IN TARNATION

 

Cannot handle.  HOW is this even POSSIBLE

 

18 hours ago, Urgan said:

 

Apparently we decided to share. It's a snotty and rainy 60 here ATM. Do Not Want. I'd prefer cold and dry honestly.

 

Also disgusting here.  Damp?  Check.  Humid?  Check.  Just warm enough to be nauseating?  Check.

 

???

 

Maybe this is why our skin can't decide how to be........

[Urgan]

2 minutes ago, shaar said:

 

You too?!?!!  I honestly almost had a hissy fit at the gym this morning trying to put on makeup for work when my last-night-slick-face was suddenly 500% flaky.. WHAT IN TARNATION

 

Cannot handle.  HOW is this even POSSIBLE

 

 

Also disgusting here.  Damp?  Check.  Humid?  Check.  Just warm enough to be nauseating?  Check.

 

???

 

Maybe this is why our skin can't decide how to be........

 

[Urgan]

Guess who has a cold.....that's right, this girl. Ugh why.

[Urgan]

1/22/2018 + 1/23/2018

OH THE HUMANITy

Food

Lunch-time: 14/18

Water: 15/18 

Calories: 2273 / 2143, 2402

Protein: 111 / 115, 107

Fiber: 18 / 21, 14

 

Sleep

Curfew: 13/19 

 

Self-Care

Skin Stuff: 16/21

 

 

So. A mixed bag this week so far. I have been killing it on the lunchtime and water goals, and it has really made all the difference for time-sensitive headaches, but of course I've had headaches/migraines for the past two weeks for muscle tension and Shark Week reasons, so. Yeah. Food hasn't been AMAZING, but considering what I am about to tell you, it'll make sense. Curfew has been....optional?? But again, no energy or low blood sugar-related issues, so I count it against me here but life says it's all good. Same story for my skin. I'm dancing a fine line to keep my skin on point, so "skin care" may in fact involve not doing much to it, because applying X cleanser/lotion would turn it oily and the other would leave it dry and raggedy. I do the best I can, guys. 

 

Alright, so not to spoil the ending but I came down sick yesterday. Mike came home early on Monday due to "allergies" that morphed into a cold (thought it was due to the schizo weather we've been having, that day it was that snotty 60 and rainy, if you will recall). I hope I didn't expose any of the gym or my Aikido partners to it, but after all I did not know this was coming, so I don't have too much guilt there. Tuesday I woke up fine, so I had no reason to stay home but it socked me while at work. Medicine didn't do anything to control the sinus issues and that was what tipped me off that oh hey this sounds a lot like what Mike said happened to him.....oh. Cue dragging my sniffly sneezy carcass home early and I've taken a sick day in hopes of avoiding spreading the plague. I didn't exactly care too much about curfew these days because who has ever had a one day cold anyway? 

 

This means yet another Wednesday missed at the gym.  Hopefully it dies down tomorrow and I can....make up the missed gym day? Another three consecutive gym day week?

 

 

To speak nothing of missing Aikido, which makes me sad. Given I only presently have 1-2 symptoms, it's extra sad. But I'm trying not to be part of the problem, hoping that I only ever have these 2 symptoms and it doesn't get into my chest and cause weeks of fun to come. That's what typically happens with colds. Given Mike went back to work for a full day and hasn't complained of sinus issues, I have cause to hope whatever this is, it's weak sauce relatively speaking.

[ixaera]

6 hours ago, Urgan said:

Guess who has a cold.....that's right, this girl. Ugh why.

 UGH

 

 

[Jord]

It never ceases to amaze me how fragile we are while yet being the dominant species on this planet. Our bodies be trollin' us.

[Urgan]

14 minutes ago, Taddea Zhaan said:

It never ceases to amaze me how fragile we are while yet being the dominant species on this planet. Our bodies be trollin' us.

 

Sure, we may be hanging on by a thread at times, but you should see the other guys. 

 

Spoiler: I opted for the gym. Possible famous last words. 

[shaar]

3 hours ago, Urgan said:

 

Spoiler: I opted for the gym. Possible famous last words. 

 

Oh man.

 

Seriously the worst thing about sickness is the screwed up gym schedule IMO.  WE WORK SO HARD TO MAKE IT WORK.  Come on colds, ain't nobody got no time for this sass.

[Urgan]

30 minutes ago, shaar said:

 

Oh man.

 

Seriously the worst thing about sickness is the screwed up gym schedule IMO.  WE WORK SO HARD TO MAKE IT WORK.  Come on colds, ain't nobody got no time for this sass.

 

Yeah, I'd have to second that. Missing the gym and the dojo is pretty hard, but hopefully it means I didn't spread crap. Now if I could just get rid of this headache we'll be back in business. 

[Kishi]

So, I know you know more about programming and being strong and badass and all that, but might it not be worth your time to take a deload and let your body recoup a little?

[Urgan]

48 minutes ago, Kishi said:

So, I know you know more about programming and being strong and badass and all that, but might it not be worth your time to take a deload and let your body recoup a little?

 

At this point, I am fairly confident the cold did not affect my strength terribly much, if at all. I was able to do 185lb singles this morning, a first given I have only done 185lbs one other time at 6AM and that was for one lonesome rep. Sure it was heavy, but I moved well and didn't die. I made the decision to go by following the lead of my husband, who had symptoms exactly 24 hours before I did, so I suspected I knew what to expect for today by that example and it was pretty much dead on. Make no mistake, I had a shoulder angel-and-demon battle in the bathroom this morning trying to decide what the best move was for me today and well, the gym won out. The thinking being, well, I can do SOMETHING and know I did my best even if it doesn't remotely resemble the weights called for, whereas I can lie in bed and be miserable (I had a headache because of course I did and a heavy bar on the back does wonders for this condition) and feel guilty all day that I chose to be lazy again and it turned out I was perfectly fine after all. I can't say that it wasn't worth it right now, but time will tell (at least I have a full 24 hours to recoup between lower and upper sessions, unlike last week's Thursday evening session followed by morning upper body lol). All this and the fact that it is Intensity Week, which is way less brutal than say, 5s week.

 

A totally separate question is what to do next week, and there is an argument for having a deload week on Monday. That will be dictated by how I move Saturday and/or how I feel warming up on Monday. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And who knows, maybe this will be the one time left in January where I can manage to lift on Wednesday?? Maybe actually be able to follow the plan for once?

 

Also, holy crap it's almost February.

[Kishi]

It is!

 

Anyway, the reason I even brought it up was that the pattern reminded me of some advice from Anthony Mychal, a guru of Steve's who talked about weights as a stressor to the body. The specific pattern he mentioned was putting up a PR and doing lots of lifting like it's your job, but then getting sick. The reason he cites that this happens is that the body is low-key stressed, and that stress turns into strength in the weight room.

 

It just kind of seemed to happen like clockwork for you, so it seemed reasonable to me to ask if that was something you had considered. Especially given that you've got a lot of stressors on you and you ain't got time for that.

 

But hey! As long as you're feeling good and doing what you should, it's all okay. I will continue to hope this.

[Urgan]

3 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Anyway, the reason I even brought it up was that the pattern reminded me of some advice from Anthony Mychal, a guru of Steve's who talked about weights as a stressor to the body. The specific pattern he mentioned was putting up a PR and doing lots of lifting like it's your job, but then getting sick. The reason he cites that this happens is that the body is low-key stressed, and that stress turns into strength in the weight room.

 

It just kind of seemed to happen like clockwork for you, so it seemed reasonable to me to ask if that was something you had considered. Especially given that you've got a lot of stressors on you and you ain't got time for that.

 

Yeah, within healthy parameters we do this on purpose. It's called the stress, recovery, adaptation cycle. Go outside of healthy and it can compromise progress. I am particularly vulnerable to sinus crap and given the fact that I was living in closer proximity to someone who'd already caught a cold, there wasn't much I was going to be able to do about it. As it is, I am impressed it was essentially a 36 hour cold, which is a massive improvement over the 2-3 weeks of joy that happened last year an a month later. Now THERE was some stress, good Lord. I try to remember to be grateful every day that I am not where I was a year ago. We're almost out of EOY and it was a fraction of the awful that hit me last year. Other people weren't quite as lucky.

 

5 minutes ago, Kishi said:

But hey! As long as you're feeling good and doing what you should, it's all okay. I will continue to hope this.

 

I am keeping an ear to the ground, so long as the weight goes up I haven't failed to keep the balance. Most of the things that have prevented proper session timing were out of my control and I am doing my best to not let those things stall me out just because they happened. Altho I would like them to stop now and let me left on schedule plzkthx.

[Urgan]

1/24/2018 + 1/25/2018

Actual footage of me at 7PM last night

Food

Lunch-time: 15/17* 

Water: 16/17*

Calories: 2262 / 2306, 2207

Protein: 118 / 104, 138

Fiber: 22 / 21, 26

*removed a day since I was out of work sick

 

Sleep

Curfew: 14/19 

 

Self-Care

Skin Stuff: 18/21

This week has not been terribly kind to me. Wednesday I stayed home entirely and, given that, my macros were comparable to an average day (literally) and that really was a feat given my first meal was at 3:00PM. IF like me, guys. It's easy, just get sick. I'm doing good enough at my Food goals, although there is room for improvement on my fiber. Generally meal timing and water have helped my headache severity, but lately I have had a lot more of them. Given my migraines kicked up a week early, sorta trickled into Shark Week, and still kinda hanging around while I contended with a cold, it's hard to separate out what I'm dealing with. It got pretty bad at the end of the day on Thursday and the drive home was terrible. After putting my car in park and shambling into the shower, I felt a good bit better. Took a double dose of mag, felt more or less fine, and so far today is better than Thursday was, easily.

 

I'm taking a deep breath.

 

EOY...ends next week.

I'm going to have a normal lifting schedule and if all else fails on Saturday, it will be a deload week.

I'm going to strive to put a moratorium on experimenting with wheaty things (the darn ginger cookies are gone....the Complete Cookies, however, are not yet). 

I will keep doing what I know works--drinking water and practicing good meal timing.

I will research taking a course of probiotics to confirm that my gut has what it needs to function properly. I don't want another thing to take from now on, I just want to investigate the subject for a month or so's worth, whatever it takes.

I will double my magnesium for at least the remainder of this bottle for relief. 

 

Thursday Squats

45       5

135     5

150     3

170     1

180     1

185     3x1

 

Oh yeah, I did some squats. No deadlifts because 1. no time and 2. recovering from the sicks. These looked pretty darn good for the hour and that I'd been sick <12 hours ago and in fact, the last rep was darn near textbook perfect. Hope springs eternal. Saturday will determine the course I take on the lifting front.

[Jord]

FWIW I heart probiotics and will sing all of their earthly praises. However, the good ones are expensive, (read: any worth taking) so when I can afford them I usually just take 2-3x week.

[shaar]

4 minutes ago, Taddea Zhaan said:

FWIW I heart probiotics and will sing all of their earthly praises. However, the good ones are expensive, (read: any worth taking) so when I can afford them I usually just take 2-3x week.

 

Seconded, thirded, and fourthed.  I'm always amazed at how quickly they work, and with such efficacy.  Like, I can feel positive changes within days.  But... yeah.  Gotta pay to play, phew.  Still, very much worth a shot IMO!!

[Urgan]

1/26/2018 - 1/28/2018

Gonna Feel That One In the Morning

Food

Lunch-time: 16/17* 

Water: 17/17*

Calories: 2286 / 2359, 2291, 2294

Protein:  116 / 112, 129, 110

Fiber: 24 / 11, 6, 66

*removed a day since I was out of work sick

 

Those aren't typos, that is actually what happened this weekend. WHY.

 

Sleep

Curfew: 15/19 

 

Self-Care

Skin Stuff: 21/21

 

 

 

 

Friday wasn't the best gym day ever--I made my weights, but not for the number of sets I would have liked and by the end of the day I was wiped OUT ugh. This made me wonder if Saturday was going to be a bomb out, but clearly I did not have anything to worry about. Ending squats with a 195lb single was more of a mental test than a physical one, because Lord was I anxious about getting under that bar. But it wasn't really all that bad and went twice as fast as the epic grind the last time I built up to it a year ago and 2 weeks. So I have proof positive that I'm coping better than I was last year. Then...deadlifts. I botched my grip 1 hand width too far to the right on work sets for the first 2 sets and then...the fire alarm went off. Everybody out of the pool. We all went outside in the 50 degrees and rainy weather (stood under the awning, but same difference) for 20 minutes before they let us back in. Spoiler alert: I never saw so much as a puff of smoke. Took that last single stone cold and it was gross. BUT AT LEAST I FIXED MY GRIP. 

 

Cue left side biased DOMS. Saturday night = 1/2" thick slathering of Tiger Balm from left calf to lower back. Sunday proved the DOMS damage ranged from left lat down to the knee, but all within acceptable parameters. I stayed in bed most of the day just to stay safe tho LOL. The one time I was up for a significant amount of time, cooking dinner, my joints did not approve. #noregrets

 

I did decide to do a deload week for 2 very good reasons. 1 - Olive got an upper respiratory infection and I need time to get her to the vet and 2 - half of my body is shot. Deload programming is quick to run through. This morning my body feels like I lifted heavy just yesterday, but not too bad. I'm not even on pain killers (yet). Unless preworkout counts.

[Urgan]

1 hour ago, Taddea Zhaan said:

FWIW I heart probiotics and will sing all of their earthly praises. However, the good ones are expensive, (read: any worth taking) so when I can afford them I usually just take 2-3x week.

 

1 hour ago, shaar said:

 

Seconded, thirded, and fourthed.  I'm always amazed at how quickly they work, and with such efficacy.  Like, I can feel positive changes within days.  But... yeah.  Gotta pay to play, phew.  Still, very much worth a shot IMO!!

 

Hmmm. May have to hit y'all up for suggestions then....

[Urgan]

EOY FINALE

 

So yeah, not a flawless finish for January, but it beats last year's finale. Dramatic reenactment:

 

 

So.

Yeah.

My stress levels and energy have been a lot better this time around, there was no crash and burn that lasted two months and featured being sick almost half of that time, with strong headaches and low energy. This week will be all about planning on my rebuild. 

 

Gym feature: deload week

I will show up and do whatever feels sensible given the state of my recovery

 

No new wheat experimentation

I have done a lot of this and found some foods that seem to work okay with my gut and some that don't. If I eat something with wheat in it, I will list it for isolation later in the event I am still not seeing improvement. Things like doughnuts (like the ones I just had....) and cake seem to be okay. Milk, pretzels, and bread/breading on fried food not so much. See how weird this is? 

 

Drink water - 0/5

22oz x 2 every work day has been awesome and I need to keep right on doing it. Now is not the time to stop tracking this.

 

Lunch timing - 0/5

See above. Has had a major impact on the severity and duration of daily afternoon headaches--i.e., destroyed them. 12:30 - 1 is lunchtime.

 

Probiotic research

By the end of the week, I will have done research on what kind of probiotic I can/should take. With my dairy issues, I'm kinda not sure yogurt is gonna happen and TBPH I am not excited to try it right now. 

 

Fiber plan

I need to not have single digit fiber intake. Not even on the weekends. I need a plan to make this happen, not just fond hopes, and that plan will arm me with a rotation of high-fiber snacks/foods in the event beans are not the star of every meal I make in a week. I have sunflower seeds and bean chips, but that isn't enough and I do NOT want a shiny new food sensitivity thx all the same. 

 

All of these things are intended to do one thing: banish chronic muscle tension that is causing a constant low state headache while I am at work lately. This past weekend I felt pretty darn good and only had a headache briefly after coming home from the gym when every muscle in my body was all WTF. If nothing else, I will know I am treating my body right and giving it the opportunity to direct me to the solution in February.

[Urgan]

And it bears mentioning that I have been able to pop my neck a good bit this weekend, which hasn't always been the case, so I count that as a good sign.