[Saith]

Illness destroys my diet.

That is all.

Skipping workout tomorrow. Might as well take the full week off, and likely need to recover anyway. I've missed last Friday, Monday, and will be cleaning the apartment tomorrow. Many dishes need to be done. Food needs to be cooked. And I need to be smacked around, but that probably won't happen.

On a positive note my fish oil and multivitamins arrived today. Some other stuff is to arrive tomorrow. The CoC grippers shipped from Maryland to California, I'm not sure why. I live in Virginia so they will have to make it cross country again. I'll have to ask them about the sites they've seen when they arrive.

[Saith]

Diet goal:

Lose 2 pounds of fat per week.

How I will accomplish this:

1. Stop getting sick
a. By taking my new multivitamin 3x/day
b. By taking fish oil 2x3x/day
2. Calorie cycling
a. On lifting nights I will eat more by packing slightly bigger portions and take a post workout shake.
b. On non-lifting days I will pack lighter portions and not have a shake in the evening.

I should be able to manage this much....

[oyaji poi]

Why don't you clean up your diet even more, rather than do sneaky calorie cycling things? Start following the Berardi Habits as closely as possible.

And start eating more goddamn veggies.

When I wanted to drop some fat, I replaced rice and pasta with plates loaded with spinach. If I making tomato sauce or curry, I'd use spinach instead of pasta/rice. Worked really well. And make the portions smaller.

Seriously though, eat more veggies. It's ok to have your pre-bed shake on non-lifting days.

What are you doing to lose fat? Are you doing cardio or complexes or anything? That would be a good idea if you're not.

[Saith]

Sweet, feedback.

All the cardio I do is a five minute warmup before lifting and 10 minutes of light cooldown after lifting. I posted on the S&P boards asking about incorporating cardio in with my training and they told me I should limit it greatly. I plan on adding tabata thrusters for GPP on Friday post-lifting. Is there anything else I should be doing?

I'm trying to find ways to get more veggies in my diet. All my staples (things I prepare early in the week) include pasta or rice of some kind, but I started looking through the recipe thread to get some ideas on what else I could do.

And what about chili? Are kidney beans okay for fat loss, or do they fall under the same category as pasta and rice?

[thethirddiaz]

Chili can be a very good meal.

Also, there is a difference between LSD (i.e. long runs) and HIIT (sprints or complexes). The latter will help you lose more fat. They talk about both in the conditioning forum if you are interested.

[oyaji poi]

You might want to prioritize things. You seem to be concerned with fat loss, but are spending most of your time on strength gains. You might be getting stronger, but you also seem to be stressed by your lack of improvement in your body composition goals. Basically, your ends and your means aren't exactly aligned. I believe in having a base of strength to work from, and trying to keep that base as much as possible while chasing other goals. Once you're strong, work from there on other things. But I'm from the S&P, so I'm biased.

You could keep on going with your current 5*5, and get really strong and develop a fair amount of muscle too. Which is great. Your body composition will change greatly as a result of that. On your off days just doing 15-20min of medium intensity cardio might be enough to lose some fat and not interfere with your strength training.

Once you have a good strength base (squatting 200 5*5, reasonable within 6 months) you could switch to the Westside for Skinny Bastards programme which incorporates various types of strength and conditioning into it. But first, a base of strength and technique. This comes by doing the 4 basic lifts a lot - squat/deadlift/bench/OHP as often as possible to learn the movements and get strong. Then specialize. Continue WS4SB for another 6 months, that's a 1 year plan for you right there. Six months on the basics learning the moves and getting strong, then another 6 months trying new shit out and still getting strong and fit.

Bringing up your conditioning by doing some intervals, but mainly medium intensity cardio on off days would probably help greatly. Just going for long walks, or hikes, or playing basketball, or jogging around the track a few times would probably help a lot in that regard.


Anyone have other comments?



And stop eating those fucking chocolates and snacks.

[Saith]

Wednesday:

7:30 AM: Muffin.
10:00 AM: Yogurt, almonds, celery+natty PB.
12:30 PM: Subway turkey sub on wheat, lettuce (no spinach), tomato, cucumbers, olives, sweet peppers, onions, oil and vinegar.
3:00 PM: Mashed cauliflower, apple.
6:00 PM: Chicken with green beans and rice. Need to find replacement meal for this. I'm thinking chicken, tomato sauce, and spinach. Should be able to find something on the recipe forum or online.
9:30 PM: Forgot to eat my cottage cheese before bed. Oops.

Chocolates aren't really the problem. Used to be I couldn't eat a meal without something sweet after for dessert. Lately I find it easy to just eat the meal.

I like that plan Oyaji. At least the strength part. I need to look up medium intensity cardio to see what that is. I feel like I should be doing something on my off nights, but that could just be years of conditioning through going to the gym four consecutive days.

Edit: Forgot to mention that my foam roller arrived last night. I tried to pop out whatever it is in the base of my spine that's causing the pain, but didn't have any luck. I did crack my back though, which was pleasant. Maybe if I do an exaggerated hand bridge it will pop that lump back into place....

[oyaji poi]

it's not rocket surgery. just walking on an incline treadmill at a brisk pace for 20 min would be good active recovery. The Conditioning guys would laugh, but fuck it, I'd call it cardio. Or a few circuits of bodyweight stuff too. 15 min of 20 squats - 10 pushups - 10 situps - 5 pullsups. As many rounds as you can. And so on...

Or just run a bunch.

[Saith]

Originally Posted by oyaji poi

it's not rocket surgery. just walking on an incline treadmill at a brisk pace for 20 min would be good active recovery. The Conditioning guys would laugh, but fuck it, I'd call it cardio. Or a few circuits of bodyweight stuff too. 15 min of 20 squats - 10 pushups - 10 situps - 5 pullsups. As many rounds as you can. And so on...

Or just run a bunch.

I like the idea of bodyweight circuits. I can pull a bunch of exercises out of my Mark Hatmaker book and hit a good split. I need to find a place to do pullups around my apartment though.

[Saith]

Thursday:

7:30 AM: Muffin.
10:00 AM: Yogurt and handful of almonds
12:30 PM: Subway 6" honey oat, tuna, cheese, black olives, lettuce, tomato, onion, sweet peppers, sweet onion sauce.
3:00 PM: Apple, natty PB.
7:00 PM: Mixed veggies, 15 shrimp, ~2tbsp cocktail sauce.
9:30 PM: Cottage cheese