I'm done brehs... cut is over. Didn't reach the goal but we improved on last year and learned a lot. That's enough for me. Time for this rice pudding 
SATIL log
- Thread starter TLR Is Mental Poison
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Weight/Diet: 173.6 (regular) Not bad. Looking a little soft already though, vascularity is 
That rice pudding was too rich for my blood, have to keep it simple. Still gonna ride tonight and hopefully Saturday morning as well, but I'm wrapping it up this weekend. Gonna shoot back up to ~2500 and do 1 ride a week as I said before... keeping my food at work mostly the same; might do some more sandwiches and carby things to switch it up for lunch, but I'm gonna keep the shake solo. Pre workout intake >>>>>>>>>>>>>> post workout intake and with the overall higher calories I should feel satiated most of the day.
For dinner I really want to keep up this habit of cooking meals.... I don't want to get back into the habit of cereal and Pop Tarts for dinner. I found some healthy microwaveable shyt, but I think I will also get a little loose and have pizza and shyt. That will keep me on track. This will sound crazy AF but I'm DREAMING of a freshly baked loaf of wheat bread w/butter. I think I will bake the loaf Friday night and have a slice with breakfast before my Saturday ride.
Workout: Same shyt.... alternate upper and the ride tonight as mentioned. Lower back is kind of hurting but not in a way that worries me.... been working on the car. Great thing about the high rep leg stuff is it's a lot easier on my back. I do think I will make the jump to 275lbs on squats and deads this Saturday for a 5x8. Also gonna try to bring leg curls back in the mix on weekdays.
But yea, overall goals for this gain season are to make legit strength gains (tired of benching 235), keep weight and diet under control, and of course not get injured.
That rice pudding was too rich for my blood, have to keep it simple. Still gonna ride tonight and hopefully Saturday morning as well, but I'm wrapping it up this weekend. Gonna shoot back up to ~2500 and do 1 ride a week as I said before... keeping my food at work mostly the same; might do some more sandwiches and carby things to switch it up for lunch, but I'm gonna keep the shake solo. Pre workout intake >>>>>>>>>>>>>> post workout intake and with the overall higher calories I should feel satiated most of the day. For dinner I really want to keep up this habit of cooking meals.... I don't want to get back into the habit of cereal and Pop Tarts for dinner. I found some healthy microwaveable shyt, but I think I will also get a little loose and have pizza and shyt. That will keep me on track. This will sound crazy AF but I'm DREAMING of a freshly baked loaf of wheat bread w/butter. I think I will bake the loaf Friday night and have a slice with breakfast before my Saturday ride.
Workout: Same shyt.... alternate upper and the ride tonight as mentioned. Lower back is kind of hurting but not in a way that worries me.... been working on the car. Great thing about the high rep leg stuff is it's a lot easier on my back. I do think I will make the jump to 275lbs on squats and deads this Saturday for a 5x8. Also gonna try to bring leg curls back in the mix on weekdays.
But yea, overall goals for this gain season are to make legit strength gains (tired of benching 235), keep weight and diet under control, and of course not get injured.
Weight: 172.4 (regular)
Gonna officially call it today. Here is my end of cut benchmark last year, almost exactly a year ago, almost exactly a year to the day:
This year we did:
End of cut benchmark: 173lbs
Lowest weight in cut: 172.4
Total weight lost: 20.6lbs
Again the goals for this gaining season are to make as much gains as possible while gaining as little weight as possible. I feel like I can do it as long as I don't fall back into old bad habits. I have to use the same strategies I did to drop the weight.
One thing I'm looking forward to is getting into some more interesting, less recovery friendly cardio. Gonna ride outside, go for some hikes, do some swimming. That's another thing.... next year I gotta wrap shyt up early so I can enjoy the summer. Again if I can keep weight under control until March it should be a breeze, I don't want to set a target as I wanna see where I'm at... and hopefully things will be better this time. After my last cut I started using creatine, which I think helped A LOT, but accelerated the weight gain. I also didn't have much of an exit strategy from the cut. Now I have a clear exit strategy and some more tools in my toolbox to stay on target. Should be another few productive months
Gonna officially call it today. Here is my end of cut benchmark last year, almost exactly a year ago, almost exactly a year to the day:
This year we did:
End of cut benchmark: 173lbs
Lowest weight in cut: 172.4
Total weight lost: 20.6lbs
Again the goals for this gaining season are to make as much gains as possible while gaining as little weight as possible. I feel like I can do it as long as I don't fall back into old bad habits. I have to use the same strategies I did to drop the weight.
One thing I'm looking forward to is getting into some more interesting, less recovery friendly cardio. Gonna ride outside, go for some hikes, do some swimming. That's another thing.... next year I gotta wrap shyt up early so I can enjoy the summer. Again if I can keep weight under control until March it should be a breeze, I don't want to set a target as I wanna see where I'm at... and hopefully things will be better this time. After my last cut I started using creatine, which I think helped A LOT, but accelerated the weight gain. I also didn't have much of an exit strategy from the cut. Now I have a clear exit strategy and some more tools in my toolbox to stay on target. Should be another few productive months
Weight: 174 flat today (regular), 173 flat (post ride)
OK. Let's go through the last 36 hours of food
Bevita biscuits
A big ass chicken calzone (at least 1000kcal, that is being conservative)
Whey shake + some fun size candy bars
BBQ chicken thighs and brussel sprouts
Bread + butter (prob 1000kcal worth)
A few muffins
Some crepes
1.25 ~9" pizzas
Whey shake again
Like 3 bananas
I think I've had a week's worth of calories in 36 hours. Just had to let loose. But I'm full now. I think I will be ready to get back into the swing of things by Monday.
Workout: Hit my 5 set weekend upper body day, and in the morning I rode outside. It's fukking hot out man. Blew my load early too, went too fast at the beginning. The lost weight def helps up hills though; I was flying even after I got gassed. If I pace myself I can be a lot more productive. Plus the ride didn't affect my upper workout at all (though I only rode for about an hour and not an hour 30). I should be able to keep shyt under control if I can ride outside for ~90 minutes a week. My calorie burn rate outside is a good ~1.5x higher than it is indoors so that will be a better use of time... and I have the capacity to recover from those rides no problem.
Gonna try for that 5x8x275 on legs tomorrow.
OK. Let's go through the last 36 hours of food
Bevita biscuits
A big ass chicken calzone (at least 1000kcal, that is being conservative)
Whey shake + some fun size candy bars
BBQ chicken thighs and brussel sprouts
Bread + butter (prob 1000kcal worth)
A few muffins
Some crepes
1.25 ~9" pizzas
Whey shake again
Like 3 bananas
I think I've had a week's worth of calories in 36 hours. Just had to let loose. But I'm full now. I think I will be ready to get back into the swing of things by Monday.
Workout: Hit my 5 set weekend upper body day, and in the morning I rode outside. It's fukking hot out man. Blew my load early too, went too fast at the beginning. The lost weight def helps up hills though; I was flying even after I got gassed. If I pace myself I can be a lot more productive. Plus the ride didn't affect my upper workout at all (though I only rode for about an hour and not an hour 30). I should be able to keep shyt under control if I can ride outside for ~90 minutes a week. My calorie burn rate outside is a good ~1.5x higher than it is indoors so that will be a better use of time... and I have the capacity to recover from those rides no problem.
Gonna try for that 5x8x275 on legs tomorrow.
Weight: 174.4
Workout: Got through 5x8x275 on squats and deadlifts. shyt was kinda heavy cuhz
Workout: Got through 5x8x275 on squats and deadlifts. shyt was kinda heavy cuhz
Weight: 176.2 (regular) Ugh I overate this whole weekend. Yesterday was the last straw. Felt like I was about to pop. I went from beasting for food to being sick of it in ~72 hours. No worries though, I feel OK about getting back to some semblance of a routine. One good thing is I have been mostly able to pull the plug and close the window around 7-7:30 PM so hopefully I can continue with that. Hoping weight will settle back down in the 174-175 range by the end of the week.
Weight: 176.4 (regular) Hopefully this is where we settle close to. So nice to be able to eat flexibly again. Shooting for like 130-150g/day of protein so I have a lot of room. Between the extra calories and lower protein I have like 500kcal more of carbs to play with 
Having lasagna for lunch 
Having lasagna for lunch Workout: Hit my upper heavy bench day. Went for 235- too greedy. Got the first set of 5 done but dropped back to 230. Was too gassed to go for 6 on the last set.... kind of bummed.
Gotta map out the plan for this cut. 3-9 week cycles sounds pretty good.
Gotta map out the plan for this cut. 3-9 week cycles sounds pretty good.
Weight: 176.2 (regular) Not bad considering I found and killed a box of granola bars... yesterday was probably a 2700-2800kcal day. Something else I noticed is since I upped the calories my sleep is so much better. I have been having long movie grade dreams damn near every night. Waking up has been a little tougher actually as I have to come out of REM. That's gotta be good. Going to be tricky trying to cut with the baby though. Eh I dunno. Maybe it will work since being up at night won't be as disruptive. That is def going to be an adventure.
Enjoying the moment for sure though
Workout: Hitting legs today. Going to try for 3x6x315 on squats and 3x4x335-345 on sumos. Heavy low rep squats are my bane.... hoping going to a 6-7 rep range instead of a 4-5 will give me enough variance without being so damn taxing. Especially at a lower body weight where my leverage isn't as good. Def have been enjoying the higher rep stuff and I don't plan on competing soon so I'll just stick with what I enjoy
Enjoying the moment for sure though
Workout: Hitting legs today. Going to try for 3x6x315 on squats and 3x4x335-345 on sumos. Heavy low rep squats are my bane.... hoping going to a 6-7 rep range instead of a 4-5 will give me enough variance without being so damn taxing. Especially at a lower body weight where my leverage isn't as good. Def have been enjoying the higher rep stuff and I don't plan on competing soon so I'll just stick with what I enjoy
Workout: Man, that was intense. Hit 315x6,6,7 on squats and 355x4,4,5 on sumos. Those squats were not easy at all. It's like my mind has a mental block at 3 plates. We got it done though.
Weight: 176 flat (regular) So far it kind of feels/looks like this metabolic recovery is stronger than I thought. I went way over yesterday too. It's still very early, and this week was very bad, but last year I gained about 1lb/week from 7/22 through the end of the year. I seem to have stabilized a bit faster but it hasn't even been a week yet. I have a short trip in mid August.... I will see where I am before I go. Hopefully I can stay in that 175-176 range until then and keep the weight gain to ~1lb/month. I'm in a nice groove with cardio and I am actually enjoying it. And again now that I have the recovery bandwidth I can do different things. I'd love to get back into swimming for example.
Workout: Hit my alternate upper stuff. Gonna try and start tracking workouts in Jefit. Have to hold myself accountable and stay on track on all fronts. I think it tracks body weight too.
Workout: Hit my alternate upper stuff. Gonna try and start tracking workouts in Jefit. Have to hold myself accountable and stay on track on all fronts. I think it tracks body weight too.
Weight/diet: 175 flat (regular) Getting back into a little groove. I really do need to be more strict about closing the window.... but surprisingly 2 burgers was a big enough dinner to go for a decent ride on. Gonna take another big regulating chunk out with the long ride Friday. Yesterday was actually decent diet wise, though I did succumb and get a bag of chips with my shake. Gonna go out for lunch today and have the other two burgers for dinner tonight.
Workout: rode outside when I got home. Only did 25 minutes; could and should have went longer but I goofed on the route. There are two legs to the loop on my house... the north leg and the south leg. North leg is short and easy; south leg is where the pain is. I did one of each starting with the south leg... gotta start with the north leg as that's basically free mileage. Though to be fair the north leg has a pretty steady and long climb towards the end. I was gonna say my weight helped with my speed, but I think it's more my legs.... last year at this time I was squatting 5x8x225 and 3x5x295.... now I'm squatting 5x8x275 and 3x6x315. Probably explains why I def look more than ~3-5lb leaner. Still struggling to bench ~230 though
But we will attack that more aggressively on this cycle.
Workout: rode outside when I got home. Only did 25 minutes; could and should have went longer but I goofed on the route. There are two legs to the loop on my house... the north leg and the south leg. North leg is short and easy; south leg is where the pain is. I did one of each starting with the south leg... gotta start with the north leg as that's basically free mileage. Though to be fair the north leg has a pretty steady and long climb towards the end. I was gonna say my weight helped with my speed, but I think it's more my legs.... last year at this time I was squatting 5x8x225 and 3x5x295.... now I'm squatting 5x8x275 and 3x6x315. Probably explains why I def look more than ~3-5lb leaner. Still struggling to bench ~230 though
But we will attack that more aggressively on this cycle.Damn, weekend report.
Weight/diet: Low 175s (regular). In a groove. I think I'm crusing around 2300-2500 a day. It's nice. With the lower protein + higher calories I feel like I won the lottery
More carbs than I know what to do with.
Training: Rode 16 or 17 miles Saturday morning, can't remember. Nice ride. Then hit 5x10 upper body in the afternoon. Went well. Hit 5x10 squats and deads today. Kind of brutal. Big thing I realized is I def can't rush squats. I took like 5-7 minute rests on the first 4 sets, but on that last set I think I took 12 or so. Just gotta do like 10 minute rests and let myself recharge. Deadlifts were easy though but I gotta record my form.
I think I'm gonna try 6 week cycles (5 on/1 off). It's aggressive but I think I have the capacity to push on. Just going to try it for this cycle and see what happens. I may need to stretch to like a 7 week cycle later on (5 on/2 off) for my joints. I have like 31 weeks to play with before I cut down again so I have time.
Weight/diet: Low 175s (regular). In a groove. I think I'm crusing around 2300-2500 a day. It's nice. With the lower protein + higher calories I feel like I won the lottery
More carbs than I know what to do with.Training: Rode 16 or 17 miles Saturday morning, can't remember. Nice ride. Then hit 5x10 upper body in the afternoon. Went well. Hit 5x10 squats and deads today. Kind of brutal. Big thing I realized is I def can't rush squats. I took like 5-7 minute rests on the first 4 sets, but on that last set I think I took 12 or so. Just gotta do like 10 minute rests and let myself recharge. Deadlifts were easy though but I gotta record my form.
I think I'm gonna try 6 week cycles (5 on/1 off). It's aggressive but I think I have the capacity to push on. Just going to try it for this cycle and see what happens. I may need to stretch to like a 7 week cycle later on (5 on/2 off) for my joints. I have like 31 weeks to play with before I cut down again so I have time.
Homegirl visited me last night and now I'm feeling a cold coming
Need to triple up on zinc!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was NOT part of the plan
Need to triple up on zinc!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was NOT part of the plan
Weight: 176.4 (regular) Same as last week. Home base team is in town so I'm probably not gonna get to go to my work gym today and possibly tomorrow. No worries... I might go try a local gym at home.... wifey can't spot me on 230lb bench or 315lb squats; I'd feel better. Just need to find a decent gym nearby; the Golds sucks. 1 squat rack, 1 bench, very crowded. I might have to go to a Crossfit gym