Dinner last night: Bbq rubbed sous-vide chicken breast with reduction Bbq sauce, grilled broccolini, quinoa, cheddar crusted zucchini, braised kale w diced ham hock, and (not pictured) a giant salad, and little slice of zucchini bread for desert.
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I’ve got an idea…
Looking lean man, way to stay the course!
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Thank you sir!
Had a PR on Sunday AM: 186 and more shred-down than ever before. I guess that means I thought I could slack on my diet-game. I didn’t track calories and I ate little besides bread and cheese all day. Cooked like cook @ IHOP, then ate a big dinner of pork shoulder, rice and veggies. Woke up Monday AM @ 189.5 
Monday I had a lower cal day, 2320. Ate clean. Had a good session in the early AM with my new training partner.
It was push day:
Leg ext, BB bench (“heavy set” was 165x5), side DB raises, and tri-rope pushdowns (75lbx12).
Tues am woke up weighing 188 and lost some of my newfound layer of flub. It’s insane how a minuscule amount of fat made me feel like I had lost everything I had worked for up to this point. The fear of blurring abs is real.
Today is going to be low-carb. First time in weeks. Not sure how I will respond. I skipped waffles and yogurt this morning. I’m not going to eat any direct carb sources today. I’ve got a long day in the office; I’m interested to see how it pans out.
Menu for the day:
Tri-tip
Salmon
Nuts (yaaaaaaay!!! It’s been so long, old friends!)
Olive oil
Salad & spinach (at least 2/3lb)
Broccoli (2lbs)
For dinner my wife is making enchiladas with the salsa verde I made in Sunday. Will be using the low carb tortillas for mine.
I ate low carb for a year before taking the plunge into the carb-pool; I’m excited to see if my mind does alright without 300g of, what I now think-of as, “the good stuff”.
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188.5 this morning, but I usually weigh-in “post-movement,” and I was unable to “move” this morning. My guess is, if everything were equalized, that I’m about 187. Still sore from Monday’s push session (sore pecs). My lifting partner can’t make tuesdays, so I took yesterday off.
Yesterday’s low carb experiment was a success, I guess. I felt great until 2:30, then the fog started to come over me. I got an espresso and perked right up. Kcals for the day was a tad shy of 2500. Macro breakdown was 235P, 145F, 45C. I forgot how much I love eating fats, so if nothing else, it was a great way to break up the monotony of rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and lean meat.
The low carb gods were smiling on me, because when I went to the grocery store, on my way to work, to pick up spinach (1lb, ate the box @ work!), I saw a half-off deal on some awesome charcuterie:
SCORE! Now I am planning to do at least one low carb day per week, until I finish the charcuterie.
Woke up this morning and had the waffle iron set, batter made, and PWO measures. Ate a kodiak power waffle before hitting the weights this morning. Damn did that ever make a difference. Since starting this early routine, I have been lifting Ina scoop of protein and 30g of rice flour pre-workout. Felt much better with something solid in there. Also took 5g Creatine for the first time in a couple months.
Log of workout:
Deadlifts felt great. 185x6. Definitely could have gone heavier… I’ll get 225 next time. Also Went light on lat pulls because there seems to be a point where my arms take over for my back and I wanted to focus on my lats. I would like a new weight tower, because the one I have doesn’t like to be loaded more than 140lbs… After that it gets jerky. I lubed it the pulley, but I think it’s just shit gear. That’s what you get for $100 on Craigslist!
Today is back to carbs; I’ll be in the warehouse unpacking and moving stuff all day. I’m also getting a cord of wood delivered, so hopefully I get a lot of movement and action. Nothing beats the feeling of being exhausted at 8pm because of doing so much physical work.
I hit my personal best look on Sunday morning. Now that I’ve seen my lower back look that good, I’m looking at my current state, which is just a skoche (American, not metric skoche) bigger, and I’m suddenly not satisfied.
I mean, today, I look the same as I did a week ago, which was, at that time, the leanest I had been. Yet now that I’ve seen that I can go further, I’m not happy with this. I was perfectly happy with this a week ago. Now I just want Sunday’s body back. How do competing bodybuilders handle being “past peak”? As I age, I know that it will happen regardless of how hard I train. I’m just trying to figure out this mental game. I hear a lot about “trusting the process” and such. That might be the thing that scares me the most about the idea of getting onstage: the idea that I will never look “that good” again. Do you just rest easy in the knowledge that you have looked that good before? Do you use it to fuel your drive to look that good again? I don’t know if it’s different for Powerlifters. Is Getting a big PR (“I pulled 600!”) different? It’s a more tangible accomplishment than "I was my leanest on x day.
Early-morning ramble: done.
Happy Wednesday t-nation. Today will be the best day of my life. Then I’ll wake up tomorrow, do a little tiny-something more than I did today, and tomorrow will be the best day of my life.
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It definitely IS a mental game! It comes down to trying to maintain a level of leanness that you’re happy with AND that is sustainable. It’s always fun to push into new lean territory, but there becomes diminishing returns with the amount of work that is required.
If you’re planning to hit the stage at some point you will need to suffer to get there, but it would do more harm than good to try and maintain that level of leanness for any substantial amount of time. I know @robstein held a ridiculous level of leanness for ~8weeks or something as his 2 shows were spaced out by that amount of time and even he (who really knows his body and how to hold his body fat that low) was cursing the world by the end of it!
I like to stay within 6-8lbs of my goal physique (not even close to stage ready, just beach ready) that way I’m still sporting some soft abs and if I have an event I want to shred down for I could theoretically do it in 4-6weeks without any drastic changes to my lifestyle. A little less cals and a little more LISS is my typical approach.
I thoroughly enjoyed getting lean, but pulling 600lbs is still my proudest fitness milestone so far.
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@littlesleeper great advice here bro, spot on!
So true man, the longest 8 weeks of my life. If I compete again, it’ll be two shows, no more than 4 weeks apart, pretty sure I screwed myself a bit going that long between shows.
Very smart, and easy to do when you know what works for you!
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Had a few crazy-days at work. It’s feast or famine generally… So when it’s “on”, I’m working a ton. I lifted on Thursday AM, then worked 8-4, then went to our fulfillment center and unloaded/packed till 5:15. Managed to squeeze in this shot in flattering light:
then went home and scrambled to get ready before the sitter arrived. Took my wife out for our anniversary. Went to a nice restaurant, very low key. Couple of excerpts:
skipped the booze entirely. I did eat .6g of cubensis… Just enough to make things even more interesting for the cirque de soleil show. Not my first time seeing them; goddamn it was awesome! Stayed up till 11, so that meant no 5am workout Friday.
Made another nutritional tangram for Friday’s lunch:
Had a very productive day on Friday; Now I’m off to sleep, waking at 4:30 and lifting with my new partner again. I set up the waffle iron and pre made the batter so I can get a solid pre workout meal in before 5:15 am. My triceps are still crazy sore from Thursday; we shall see how they fair tomorrow. Tonight I tried taking this natural, botanical, oral-sleep spray. I can hardly keep my eyes open writing this; I think it might work! G’Night t-nation.
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This photo disoriented the F out of me for a few seconds, lmfao. I was like, why is a coffee mug fixed onto the side of the wall/cabinet.
derp.
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Your abs are definitely made in the kitchen… Can I come over for dinner… Haha
Keep up the solid work buddy.
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Thank you, sir! You have an open-invite, anytime you make it this side of the pond.
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I think my time with daily high carbs is coming to an end. I’m 190.5 this morning, looking a touch softer. I’ve been at 2500ish kcals for a month now, and I think I have extracted everything I can from this deficit. I’m feeling pretty moody despite eating constantly. My lifts have all gone down. I’ve never been this lean, but I think I have hit the point of unsustainability. My plan is to carb cycle 100, 200, and 300 days. A low and a high per week. I’m thinking I will aim for 2800 kcals daily. Hoping that a slight surplus translates into clean gains. Truth be told I am scared to go above 75g fat daily, and even more scared to blur my abz, which I have really grown fond of.
Goodbye daily waffles, white rice, and potatoes. Hello cheese, nuts, and bacon!
Looking great man! Keep killing it!
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Thanks Rob, that means a TON coming from you!
On an unrelated note:
Holy crap. I have never counted broccoli toward my nutrition counts. Never entered it into my tracker. Never even looked at the bag to see the breakdown. I just pretended that it didn’t count towards anything other than general health. Today I saw this:
2gP &2gC, 15kcals… Pretty insignificant until you do as I do and regularly consume 20 servings in a day!!! (2 bags, 2lbs steamed). That’s 300kcals more, daily, than I was logging. Which means I have been at more like 2800/day. Which is what my new target was. Does this mean I should shoot for 2950?? This game never gets boring.
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189 and tighter this morning. I took too many high carb days in a row and was spilling over. Just a single day of not eating fast carbs tightened me up. I woke up (4:15am), grabbed my belly and went “oh shit, it’s on!”
Yesterday I ate 1.5 kodiak power waffles pre-workout, and 4 servings of oatmeal spaced throughout the day. While I am at work I graze constantly. I just take a few bites of cold oatmeal whenever I get hungry. I ate 2lbs of broccoli and actually counted the cals, so I guess, technically, I am 300kcals less than I was for the past few weeks. Bumped up fats to make up for less carbs. Mixed nuts are the shit, btw.
Workout partner just pulled-up. I’ll update later with log from lifts. Today is deads 
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Hit a PR today on deads: 225x6. They were eaaaasy. I know that’s some weak-sauce compared to a lot of the strength guys here, but I’ve only been doing deads since mid-July.
My progression today was: 85x10, 135x8, 185x6, 215x6 (PR), and 225x6 (PR). More importantly than hitting it was doing it where it felt “right”. I still had gas in the tank. Next deads session I am going to go for a 3RM. 250’s?
Pic from today, feeling back on track:
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