Matt's Dieting Adventure

[PMDL]

Dieting sucks. Strength goes away, and all your fat muscly goodness shrinks to nothing.

I started around 100kg (220lbs), and as of today I am the lightest I've been since early 2003, weighing in at 85.1kg (187lbs)as of today.

Strength is roughly maintaining, but has still dropped sharply compared to what I can do at my peak. This pisses me off, but sacrifices have to be made.

My rough dieting schedule:

Mon/Weds/Fri - 250-300g protein/100g carbs/50g fat/2000 cals
Tues/Thurs - 250-300g protein/<30g carbs/50g fat/1600 cals
Sat/Sun are "free" days, meaning eat whatever, just keep total amounts of food low.

So far this is working well, though I'll probably have to switch to something more complicated in a few weeks like UD2.0 if I don't want to waste away to nothing.

Training is a M/W/F schedule, with an alternating A/B split partly stolen from DC Training and partly from 5x5.

Looks like this:

A
Bench Pressing
Shoulder Pressing
Tricep reps
Pullups/Chinups
DL

B
Biceps
Forearms
Calves
SQ/FrontSQ

The big lifts rotate through on a heavy/light/maximal wave with each session, which gives about 5 days between each session instead of 3x/week with a normal 5x5 routine. This seems to help out a little better w/ recovery while dieting.

Today:

EZ Curl - 30kg + bar x8+4+3
Zottmans - 15kg x6+5+4
Did both standing, didn't feel like using the preacher curl
Leg press calves, 4Px12, slow and paused stretch
SQ, warmups then 145x2
depth jumps 2x8

Pretty shitty squat session, but I'm not expecting much right now. Body weight was down to 85.1kg, from 86.3 a week ago. 1kg/week is a little faster than I'd like, and strength losses are not a good idea just yet, so I might have to jack the cals up a bit during the week.

[Isaac Wilkins]

Despite my rock-like metabolism, I find that I do better if I keep my calories high (for me) and incorporate more movement as opposed to slashing calories as I used to do and relying on just strength training. I actually get stronger as I get leaner. I'm sure this would end at some point but I've dropped 8-10% bodyfat at times while gaining strength the whole way.

Note: In this type of diet iteration I DO include a few days (usually two) of nearly PSMF-style dieting. This is obviously where I drop a lot of fat. I generally have a little more fat in there than a true PSMF (~50g), but otherwise 250-300g of protein and very few carbs.

[Kyle]

EZ curls? WTH!

Kyle

[PMDL]

Despite my rock-like metabolism, I find that I do better if I keep my calories high (for me) and incorporate more movement as opposed to slashing calories as I used to do and relying on just strength training. I actually get stronger as I get leaner. I'm sure this would end at some point but I've dropped 8-10% bodyfat at times while gaining strength the whole way.

Note: In this type of diet iteration I DO include a few days (usually two) of nearly PSMF-style dieting. This is obviously where I drop a lot of fat. I generally have a little more fat in there than a true PSMF (~50g), but otherwise 250-300g of protein and very few carbs.

I experimented w/ a more PSMF like approach last week, was doing like 250-300g protein, 75g carb on training, none on off days, and 50g fat every day.

That shit sucked. Strength was down, felt like crap, recovery was awful, etc.

This week I bumped it back to 100g carbs on training days and about 30-40g on on the off days, also not being so strict w/ my food choices. Added in more cardio activity. Felt a ton better overall.

Friday's always the refeed day, I don't really count carbs just try to get a ton of them while keeping fat moderate, which helps too. It's funny I go into a feeding frenzy on Fridays, eat "bad" foods on Sat/Sun (just low quantities overall) and I'll come in on Monday weighing the same, if not less.

Weight and visible body fat are trending downwards, and with the exception of this squat workout, the weights have been staying pretty stable even increasing a little, so it's cool for now. I'm going to see about getting a little more carb today and tomorrow and see if that helps w/ the strength any.

[PMDL]

Today:
Bench, 85 (187) 5x5
Push Press, 55 (121) x5, 60 (132) x5, 65 (143) x5
Dips, x18+6+5
Chest/tricep stretching stuff
Pullups, 4x6
DL, 150 (330) 15 singles

BW was back up to 87kg after the weekend carb-bender.

[Kyle]

Today:
Bench, 85 (187) 5x5
Push Press, 55 (121) x5, 60 (132) x5, 65 (143) x5
Dips, x18+6+5
Chest/tricep stretching stuff
Pullups, 4x6
DL, 150 (330) 15 singles

BW was back up to 87kg after the weekend carb-bender.

Nice pulling, 15 singles is alot of singles lol

Not a bad push press either.

Kyle

[PMDL]

Blah. Push press is weak. Everything is weak.


Squats - warmed up with 3 sets, then hit 115 (253) for 1x4. This was hard as fuck, and since I was supposed to be doing 5x5 I knew it wasn't happening. So I switched to singles and did 10. This may have to be the staple for the time being, I don't think I can support heavier 5s anymore.

BB Curl, 80lbs x8+5+3
Seated Calves, 60 (132) x10, 70 (154) x8
Alt DB Hammer (LOL) Curls, 40lbs x12+6+4

On the diet front, weight was back down to 85.4kg (just under 188 lbs) after being 87 on Monday from the carb binge, probably explaining some of the squat suckiness. This what quite interesting since I'd had a good 100g of carbs beforehand, which included such awesome clean foods as iced coffee and three cheeseburgers from McDonald's. Cals for today will end up being around 2300, about 200 cals and 50g carbs higher than I'd want normally, but fuck it. Weight loss is on track.

Dieting is gay, but at least I make the most of it.

[PMDL]

Went in to do some "cardio" today, but got lured over to the OL platforms since I hadn't done any of that stuff for a bit.

Warmed up w/ the bar for some pulling and OHS stuff, then did my best impersonation of a snatch using some technique cues I've gotten.

Good things - wider stance definitely helps me get lower and into a better overall pulling position. This makes the transition from 1st to 2nd a lot easier.

Bad things - for some reason I'm wanting to catch the bar out in front, and as a result I missed a lot of lifts. I don't know if it's because I'm not following through on teh 2nd pull (likely) or because I'm getting scared about the catch and dropping into a full squat (equally likely).

Basically just did 40, 45 for 3 singles each, then 50 for 2 singles, then 55 for one really goddamn ugly single. I was at about 50% for "passable" catches vs. "almosts" that I had to ditch at the bottom.

Followed that up w/ some Hang SnPulls + Hang Sn (3+1) for four sets at 40.

Then I came home, depressed. Oh, also weight was down to another record low, 84.8kg (186.5 lbs).

This is starting to worry me, which means either a diet break is due soon, or I'll have to switch over to something more recomp-ish sooner than I'd thought. 180 lbs is my absolute limit of how light I'm willing to go.

[Tru]

[PMDL]

Suck it Shannon.

Supposed to go lift today. But I feel like a train wreck, so to hell with that. I'm going to rest and enjoy carby goodness.