Waldo's Log

[PaulG]

Definitely interested, the logs you've made have helped my own progress immensely. I'm glad you're still posting when you can.

[Waldo]

So...

Workouts this week have been pretty poor. Pretty much in full on support wife mode, which has meant making dinner earlier, severely cutting into my workout time.

That said, I've got running on the docket tonight and its kinda nice out.

Did the IVF egg transfer this morning. Two awesome embryos were transferred, we've got 8 good ones remaining that are being frozen. Everything has worked out great. Now we're into the wait to see if it worked period. If it did, we have a reasonably decent chance of having twins (~25%). Fingers crossed.

Definitely interested, the logs you've made have helped my own progress immensely. I'm glad you're still posting when you can.

Thanks.

[Hermione Gainser]

Fingers crossed! 

[MasterOfCows]

Fingers crossed for you and your wife for a successful implantation!

[Tanuki]

Good luck, Waldo, I can see you're having a stressful week.

 

It would seem your site's domain has expired

[Waldo]

Good luck, Waldo, I can see you're having a stressful week.

 

It would seem your site's domain has expired

Ah. Thanks for letting me know, I'll go reup it.

[Waldo]

Fingers crossed!

 

Fingers crossed for you and your wife for a successful implantation!

Thanks.

Man oh man waiting is tough. I think tomorrow is the first day that a pee on a stick test could possibly work, though my wife wants to wait until the official blood test at the doctors next Thur and isn't going to do a pee on a stick test beforehand.

But we did get the word that all 8 of our leftover embryos were successfully frozen, 4 are high grade, 4 are mid grade. So we'll be able to do at least 2, if not 3 frozen cycles if needed. Frozen cycles are MUCH cheaper to do.

Although we'd like to have 2 more kids, I'm a bit terrified of twins. Two same age babies with colic on different schedules would be pure hell for 12-16 weeks. After that it wouldn't be so bad, but man the first 3-4 months would be tough, even if they didn't have colic and were on the same schedule. Ideally we have a single this go round, and pay to keep the embryos frozen for a couple years, then use the frozen embryos for #3.

[Waldo]

Anyway, here's another picture of the house for y'all.

I have my own little reading/relaxing area in the corner of the living room (great room? the more formal and much larger of our 2 upstairs living room areas), where I can drink coffee and read something or surf on the tablet on mornings I don't work.

Wife snapped a good pic of kiddo hanging out there.

I'd like to change the cheapo plastic pot to a fancy MCM bullet planter sometime soon and eventually want to panel the wall on the left with newer style walnut and ? (lacewood or bubinga maybe?) paneling as a wow accent wall, also refinishing the built-in speakers (you can kind of see one on the edge of the photo), but it'll be a while before I get to that.  Found the sweet little table in that shot for $45 at an estate sale a couple weeks ago.  It needs refinishing eventually, but its solid walnut and built great, heck the wood alone is worth $45 (at least around these parts, that's about what 5 bdft of walnut will set you back)

 

Right now I'm finishing the shoe bench that I've been working on since Jan, replacing most of our doors, and working on little details with lighting/electrical/hvac and whatnot.

 

Here's part of the shoe bench I've been working on:

Its made out of laminated strips of reclaimed baltic birch ply, faced in walnut. I just have to finish it with lacquer, and that part is done. I also made a floating cubby cabinet (fits underneath with 1" all around) that needs final sanding, paint, lacquer, and some facing strips I'm going to make out of some old maple gym floor boards I have.

Planing this bench flat was one hell of a workout. Once the pieces started getting close to flat, pushing my #6 through it took practically everything I had. Even using the #4 was no walk in the park. And it took a long time, somewhere around 8-12 hours total (~1 week overall) of planing and sanding (done when my arms were recovering between planing "sets"). Baltic birch ply is HARD (and strong), its no el cheapo Home Depot ply, the whole bench is as hard as (and could be used as) a cutting board.

[Hermione Gainser]

I bet! I can't wait to hear that it took.  Fingers remain crossed.  

 

Can we talk about how big your son is now?  it seems like yesterday you posted a pic of you holding a wee toddler at the pool.  

 

House looks great! 

[RisenPhoenix]

Kiddo is adorable.  I'm also very jealous of the hang-out spot, because I've always wanted something similar to it.  Just never had the space to work something out.

 

Hoping for good news for you and the Missus!

[Waldo]

I bet! I can't wait to hear that it took.  Fingers remain crossed.  

 

Can we talk about how big your son is now?  it seems like yesterday you posted a pic of you holding a wee toddler at the pool.  

 

House looks great!

Thanks!

Seems like yesterday he was just a little baby. They grow up so fast. He'll be 4 in a couple weeks.

 

Kiddo is adorable.  I'm also very jealous of the hang-out spot, because I've always wanted something similar to it.  Just never had the space to work something out.

 

Hoping for good news for you and the Missus!

Thanks!

The spot sort of just came together on its own. I've always enjoyed getting up early on the weekends, drinking some coffee and reading. My spots for it though were usually in the living room (cut short or distracted when the TV goes on) or office (where my time became net surfing instead of reading). When we were buying furniture for the place, I bought this chair and ottoman without a specific place in mind, it just looked cool and was comfy. This corner seemed like the best place for it, and everything has just sort of grown around it. My wife complained at first that noone would use our nice chair there in the corner, but it has grown into a great quiet reading spot.

What you can't see in the picture is that our giant bookshelves (used to be in my office at the old house, I used it to hold my feet for natural hamstring curls, its in quite a few of my workout pictures) is right next to it on the left. Literally. I believe the photo was cropped at exactly the edge of the bookshelf.

Funny thing, now that we've lived there a while, is that spot is used far more than the rest of the giant ass living room it is in. Kiddo plays in the living room, there is a ton of space, but that's about it. I suppose when people visit its a great place to sit and talk or play games, but day to day it sees little use. Though having a giant ass room right in the center of the house does make the place feel incredibly spacious.

[PaulG]

Hey Waldo, a couple of bulking Q's for you.

1. When you're transitioning from cut to bulk, how many weeks do you plan for your maintenance/ramp-up? I'm about to transition, but not sure how long to spend at maintenance before I start adding 100-200 calories per week.

2. Just so I have a point of comparison with my estimation of my bodyfat %: do you do your progress photos relaxed or flexed?

[Waldo]

Depends on how long you've been cutting. For a long cut, spend a few weeks in transition (to normalize hormones; starting a sustained surplus in the midst of low leptin with other systems surpressed is bad and will lead to unnecessary fat gain).

For a short cut....cutting yesterday, maintenance today, bulking tomorrow. There really is no need for much of a transition. Even in a surplus, the first few days will be maintenance anyway as the surplus goes to rebuild depleted glycogen reserves. On a short cut, slow changing systems don't have time to adapt to the cut, hence there is no need to re-adapt to not cutting.

All my photos are flexed.

[Sloth the Enduring]

The bench looks nice. I'm impressed that you were able to hand plane plywood. Super sharp and super tight mouth, I assume?

[Waldo]

The bench looks nice. I'm impressed that you were able to hand plane plywood. Super sharp and super tight mouth, I assume?

Well I keep the mouth on my #4 pretty tight, but my #6 has a fairly open mouth (for an old bailey). I didn't even bother with the #7, just too hard to push through the ply.

But yeah, keeping them sharp was a constant battle. I have the original sweetheart irons in my planes (all are old stanleys), they are fairly thin and dull fast, but they can at least get real sharp. I definitely see the value in putting a hock or veritas iron in them. You could tell as they dulled, what was hard to push became impossible.

I wasn't kidding tho when I said it was a workout. Once that #6 was getting close to full width shavings, I had to have a real good stance, roll my weight forward, and use hip torque to go along with the push to keep a constant shaving and actually move it. I had DOMS like a mofo in my shoulder area.

I actually shot a pretty awesome photo in the midst of planing the long piece:

[Sloth the Enduring]

Very cool; I bet it was a real workout.  You ever rip by hand?  That's a good workout too.  I'm trying to think back to the last time I built anything, and yeah, a surprising amount of hip and leg drive when you plane.

 

I have some old planes too (#7, #4 both old Stanleys, #3 Clifton I bought when the dollar was strong for a brief moment, and a couple of randoms).  In my limited experience, the Sweetheart blade can get sharp enough to split an atom (I use oil stones, occasionally supplemented with diamond paste), but they don't stay sharp very long.  I replaced them with Hocks which don't get as sharp, but maintain that pretty sharp state for a long time.  The Clifton blade is a dream, it gets wicked sharp and stays wicked sharp.

[TeaKwonDo]

Good to see you're still around, Waldo--and from the looks of it, doing better than ever.

 

Cheers, man.

[Waldo]

So, game on.

We find out the results of our IVF on Thur, but its positive until proven otherwise.

I decided about a month ago, that early pregnancy was probably the best time for me to be for real cutting. My wife won't see me bulking gorging and join in the fun, instead in the time when new habits are established, I'll be living on a meager intake. But to prep for that I had to stop lazy cutting and go with a bulking-ish intake for a couple weeks to prepare for a serious cut.

I've been feeling fat as of late, so its time. Dropped my cals to 1700 net today (~1k cal deficit). Been at maintenance or small surplus for about a month.

I haven't updated my old spreadsheet since I moved. Unfortunately the change in my habits made it hard to do (lack of computer time), but I found a new way to fit it in (at work). So I'm going through and updating it in full. I actually have all data (track daily weigh ins on my phone in a note, MFP keeps track of cals), so its just a matter of tedious data entry for 6 months of data. To my surprise it appears that my metabolism has kept up just fine, despite a pretty major shift in my exercise habits (cut in half).

A waist measurement yesterday clocked in at 32.5". Not as bad as I was expecting, especially given how fat I feel. I'm 1.25" larger in the waist than I was at my leanest, which is about 5 lbs of fat loss. Weight is a bit unexpectedly high at the moment, but even if it normalizes as expected a couple pounds lower, I still seem to have gained about a pound of LBM since I was at my leanest (also quit taking creatine, which counts for another pound or two).

Goal this cut is to lose 1". I might have a break of sorts in the middle when we have some company visiting, either way target completion is 3 weeks from today. If things go awesome I could realistically hit my goal by late next week.

When I've reached my goal, I'm going to do a mini-bulk until mid-May, more than anything I need to ramp back up to bulking level workouts. When mid-may hits I'm going to cut again, this time my goal will be 31" in the waist, hit in time for opening day of the neighborhood pool.

Even though I've been lazy and goal-less for a while, I still am following the overall plan to be at my leanest for opening day at the pool; I just had no intermediate goals leading up to that point.

On deck tonight for workouts is hill sprints.

Before tonight's workout I have 2 doors to stain. I did all the prep work over the weekend (hinge/lockset/sanding...), so its just a matter of staining them, should be easy to do. Tomorrow it looks like the weather will be perfect for spraying lacquer when I get home from work. What a change it is to replace tired old painted a million times white interior doors with new stained natural wood doors. They look amazing, especially against all the newly painted walls and trim. I wanted to go with a fruitwood stain, but good ol home depot didn't have any, and I didn't feel like a trek to the woodworking store, so we went with the wife's suggestion of medium walnut. Oiled apple wood (which is the approx color of fruitwood stain) would be an amazing color for interior doors though IMHO.

[Waldo]

Good to see you're still around, Waldo--and from the looks of it, doing better than ever.

 

Cheers, man.

Whoah.

It took me a minute to place your avi. You changed your name, didn't you? Was it KD?

Every few months, seemingly for forever around here, I look around and notice:

Nice to see someone return.

[Hermione Gainser]

 

Squee!!! (Early) Congrats!!

[wildross]

I'm not dead...

[TeaKwonDo]

Whoah.

It took me a minute to place your avi. You changed your name, didn't you? Was it KD?

Every few months, seemingly for forever around here, I look around and notice:

Nice to see someone return.

 

EXACTLY my reaction when I tiptoed back here. Remember the good old days, trying out myo-reps and bulking? Now you'd make a killing as a trainer, especially around martial arts circles 'cause it's all push and zero pull to balance it out. Bar work and statics are the missing pieces in traditional training.

 

And it turns out Bruce Lee was also a huge fan of isometrics--ever heard of the power rack?

[RisenPhoenix]

A waist measurement yesterday clocked in at 32.5".

 

When you measure your waist are you measuring at your navel or the thinnest point?  Or both, because who doesn't love data?

 

(Just wondering, since I've been semi-lackadaisical with my measurements I feel.  Partially because I just keep fluctuating and not seeing decent differences over time...)

[Waldo]

I'm not dead...

Oh there's still a few folks around from long ago. It seems the Warriors tend to last longer than average.

But the list of the dead is very, very long. When I go through my old challenges, most people are gone.

 

EXACTLY my reaction when I tiptoed back here. Remember the good old days, trying out myo-reps and bulking? Now you'd make a killing as a trainer, especially around martial arts circles 'cause it's all push and zero pull to balance it out. Bar work and statics are the missing pieces in traditional training.

 

And it turns out Bruce Lee was also a huge fan of isometrics--ever heard of the power rack?

 

Power rack, as in contraption meant for safely holding barbells loaded with iron plates?

Well a killing is relative. Much like photography or woodworking (other hobbies of mine), even to be very well paid in that particular field really doesn't compare at all to what I make as an engineer.

That's one of the reasons I haven't jumped into a challenge, I wouldn't know anyone anymore.

Been a while since I did any proper bulking or bulking workouts (rest-pause work). After this short cut I'm doing I'm going to get after it. I've been doing "maintain strength" workouts way too long.

 

When you measure your waist are you measuring at your navel or the thinnest point?  Or both, because who doesn't love data?

 

(Just wondering, since I've been semi-lackadaisical with my measurements I feel.  Partially because I just keep fluctuating and not seeing decent differences over time...)

I measure at the thinnest point. I've measured a couple of different ways, that is to me the most repeatable. I flex my abs, exhale, stand up straight, and cheat my measurement as much as possible (with a myo-tape, that doesn't mean much (jiggle it for an extra 1/4"), with a regular tape I used to pull it hard). It is such a repeatable measurement that I'm able to track body fat levels (which it is a near perfect proxy for) extremely accurately.

[Waldo]

So day 1 of the cut in the books.

Started strong, day 1 was at 1355 net cals, a deficit of 1345 cals for the day.

Workouts yesterday were a 4 mile walk on my lunch break and a hill sprint workout at night. I did a warmup fast jog, 2 full recovery hard sprints, then 2 shortened recovery sprints (each ~100m @ 5%). Sprinting speed is starting to come, I'm about ready to unlock the high gear (which is highly fueled by adrenaline).

Tonight is upper body dynamic day. HSPU's, assisted one arm chins, ring dips, and one leg ice cream makers. My right shoulder has some sort of issue that I feel when pushing, I should be ok for the HSPU's/HeSPU's but might swap out the ring dips for pseudo planche pushups, which don't bother my shoulder.