2/2/19 Food for today -
Breakfast: Shake = 1 cup whole milk, 1 large egg, 1 scoop quick oats, 1 scoop protein powder. 1 banana.
Lunch: Small serving of leftover lime cilantro rice with sausage, onions and peppers. 3 soft boiled eggs. 12 oz glass of whole milk.
Snack: 2 tortilla chips with guacamole. Small handful of mixed nuts. Mandarin orange.
Dinner: Large portion (~12 oz) of steak with extra spicy horseradish. Steamed broccoli with cheese. Tomato caprese.
What? Two chips? I had about 35 for dinner tonight. We had taco/burrito night and I just made a mountain of nachos. I skipped the rice and tortillas so I figured the chips were an even tradeoff.
That’s how much guacamole I had left…
just my words J, 2 like in two T W O chips in a grown up mans stomach.
Well you’ve lost some weight recently
So maybe 2 chips is adequate.
Nice lifting, I’ve been wondering about the joker sets. I would have done a PR set on the primary lift, maybe with a rep left in the tank.
I like the running part… All that running going on around here on the logs. I have to resist it. I think it hurts my SI joints.
Following. We have similar goals except you are way stronger than me. Maybe I’ll wake up and get there one day. Keep grinding.
The chips were just a vehicle to finish off the guacamole, the nuts and orange were my actual snack.
I do a PR set on the primary lift on the 5’s week and 1’s week, and do a joker set on the 3’s week. 3’s seems to be the sweet spot for me for building strength, so I like to go heavy on them. It just might not be as effective while I’m in a caloric deficit, and I need to remind myself that strength isn’t my primary goal right now. Still, I’m not really building strength right now, I’m just recovering it. I’ll do jokers on the other 2 3’s days for this cycle, and maybe drop them next cycle.
2/3/19 Morning weigh-in 195.2#. This is a new morning low, and hopefully the first of many over the next 4 months.
Also, went up and fixed my workout post from yesterday where I apparently fat-fingered and missed the 9 on my workout weight. I want to lose about 16.8#, not weigh 16.8#! Thanks for pointing that out, Mort. 
That makes great sense Steve. I would probably keep it, as long as the joker isn’t a rpe 9,5 or 10.
I would imagine it would be easier to build strength than muscle on a deficit.
Yeah, I didn’t lose too much muscle during my layoff, just let it get soft and added some padding over it. I just want to retain the muscle I have, and re-teach it to express its strength. I’m not going above an RPE of about 9 right now, and the only reason it’s that high is because I’m giant setting 2 main lifts, so I’m carrying some fatigue over.
2/3/19 Food for today -
Breakfast: Shake = 1 cup whole milk, 1 large egg, 1 scoop quick oats, 1 scoop protein powder. 1 apple.
Snack: 2 oz beef jerky
Lunch/Dinner: Went to Kansas City to get a squat rack we found on Craigslist for my son, and ate out at Bristol Seafood Grill, which was having all you can eat brunch buffet when we got there, so I sort of went overboard -
So let’s see if I can remember everything. First plate, clockwise from top: Green beans with peppers and onions. Bacon. Smoked salmon. Salmon sashimi. Charred smoked tuna. Crab souffle. steamed mussels. eggs Florentine. In the middle, salad of olives, onions, peppers, tomatoes, mushroom. Couscous salad under that. Edit: There was also some asparagus salad there in the middle, I sort of piled 3 different salads on top of each other.
Second plate, clockwise from top: Prime rib slathered in horseradish. Green beans with peppers and onions. Couscous salad. Olive, onions, peppers, tomato, mushroom salad. Salmon sashimi. Steamed shrimp with cocktail sauce. Thai barbecue wings. More bacon. Smoked salmon in the middle. Also had a few more pieces of smoked salmon when the wife couldn’t finish hers.
Snack: Latte = 4 oz of whole milk. It was either this when I got home, or going into a food coma.
This was honestly the best seafood I’ve had in years, and the best seafood buffet I’ve ever had, bar none. A whole lot of protein, not very much carbs, some good veggies, and probably a decent amount of fat. I don’t want to turn this into a food blog, but I had to take pictures of there’s no way I would have remembered what all I had. I won’t need to eat again today.
I I’m jealous. I would trade that pizza for some good sea food any day
I’ll eat the hell out of a good pizza, too, but I’m a huge seafood fan. I was pretty surprised to find seafood this good, in almost the geographical center of the US, as far as you can get from an ocean pretty much. Their stuff is all fresh, never frozen, flown in daily, and it’s not cheap but definitely reasonable for what you get. It was $32/plate for Sunday brunch, but it was just my wife and I, and we didn’t drink any alcohol, so we came out cheaper than we usually do when we go out to a steak place. I didn’t look at their dinner menu, but I imagine it’s a little more expensive when you’re getting fresh entrees instead of mostly smoked fish and buffet dishes.
2/4/19 Morning weigh-in 197.6#. This was a surprise! I expected a little bump from my seafood binge yesterday, but not 2 and a half pounds. The only thing I can figure is that between the beef jerky snack and all the smoked fish I took in a boatload of sodium, and I know I drank a lot more water than usual yesterday, so salt/water bloat? I’m new to this whole ‘trying to lose weight’ thing… Anyway, we’ll see how this week goes. I’m on night shift all week, so my sleep and training schedules are going to be interesting.
Hey, Trim, welcome aboard! I just jumped over and checked out your log, and it looks like you’re doing the most of the right stuff. Like you said, keep grinding.
It’s the salt bloat. Can you move your wedding ring? I can’t get mine off after a good binge.
You called it, I can barely force it over my knuckle right now.
Those two plates looked so damn good Steve, I got hungry right away.
The weight loss thing is a bit funny.
I track it on an app, my weight goes down for 3 - 6 days then suddenly goes back up, before over the next 3 - 6 days it goes low again. Like my body wants to stay fat.
But the salt bloat after them plates seem very correct.
Yeah, I’m not going to sweat one anomalous day, as long as it stays an outlier and doesn’t become a trend. Of course, it’ll be tough tracking weight this week since my eating and sleeping schedule will be all messed up with night shift.
2/4/18 5/3/1 full body giant sets cycle 1 day 7 squat primary/press secondary - Weight 196.5#
Warmup: barbell complex x3 with chin-ups 1/1/1
Giant set 1:
Squat:
5x45#
3x95#
3x135#
Work sets:
3x195#
3x225#
3x255#
Joker
3x275#
Press:
5x45#
3x65#
3x95#
work sets:
3x125#
3x135#
3x145#
3x145#
Chin-ups 2/3/4/5/6/7/8
Accessory giant set:
1 arm DB press:
10x60#
10x60#
10x60#
Krok rows:
10x70#
10x70#
10x70#
Zercher squats:
5x155#
5x175#
5x195#
Conditioning: 20 minutes elliptical, aerobic program at lvl 6, 215 calories burned, and max heart rate of 170 during the high speed parts of the program. More calories, worse heart rate this time, but today was supposed to be a rest day and I’m feeling a little sleep-deprived right now as well.
I’m steadily discovering old strength, still plenty of room to go up in squats, just going to be patient and keep following the program and remembering what my goals are right now. I’ll have plenty of time to build strength after June 1st.
Food for today -
Breakfast: Shake = 1 cup whole milk, 1 large egg, 1 scoop quick oats, 1 scoop protein powder. 1 small bowl of mixed fruit.
Snack: Small handful of mixed nuts before going to move a bunch of furniture.
Evening meal at work: Large salad = baby spinach, cucumber, carrot, orange bell pepper, broccoli, radish, mushroom, olive oil and vinegar. 1 can of tuna on water. 12 oz glass of whole milk.
Snack: Mandarin orange before training.
Post-workout “meal”: 1 can of low sodium kippered herring. 1 banana. 1 12 oz glass of whole milk.
I only had one real meal today, and that was what’s usually my lunch at work, so I’m low on protein for the day. I may have to do a protein shake prior to going to bed when at get home at 3:30 in the morning.
Edit: had a scoop (so 30g) of protein with my creatine when I got home, so got my daily protein up where it needed to be. Vanilla protein powder + strawberry creatine powder + water /= strawberry quick, but it wasn’t terrible either, I may start doing every day with my creatine.
Today was supposed to be a day off, but I had enough dead time at work to get the workout in, so I took it. Tomorrow night will be crazy at work, so there’s no way I would have been able to train then, so it made sense to shift things around. My body is probably going to want to crash hard in an hour or two. We’ll see if I have time to train Wednesday or Thursday.
2/5/19 Morning weigh-in 195.4#. That’s more like it. Not enough sleep, had to get a shower after I got home so didn’t get to bed until 4, and the dogs were waking me up at 8. I’ll try to catch a nap before going back to work this afternoon.
2/5/19 Food for the day -
Breakfast: Shake = 1 cup whole milk, 1 large egg, 1 scoop quick oats, 1 scoop protein powder. 1 small bowl of mixed fruit. 3 soft boiled eggs.
Evening meal at work: 1/2 of large salad = baby spinach, cucumber, carrot, orange bell pepper, broccoli, radish, mushroom, onion, olives, olive oil and vinegar. 1 can of tuna with copious amounts of Frank’s Red Hot sauce… 12 oz glass of whole milk.
Meal before coming home from work: Other 1/2 of the salad. 1 can sardines in olive oil.
Bedtime: 1 scoop (30g) protein powder in water with creatine.
I had a little more substantial breakfast this morning with the added eggs, but still probably pretty low on total calories for the day. I feel fine though, got a nap before work so wasn’t dragging at work at all. Feeling a little sore today though, but looking back I did 4 whole body workouts in 7 days, since I skipped my extra day off, so not really surprising. I’m definitely waiting until Thursday to train again, to get back on my Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday schedule.
Late to post this but god damn those plates of food looked nice!
Also checking your meal logs I wish I had the mental discipline to eat as ‘clean’ as you do.
2/6/19 Morning weigh-in 194.8#. First time dipping below 195#, wohoo! I’m sure I’ll fluctuate back up above, but it’s another milestone. Next stop, 190#.
The thing that seems to working for me is to set myself up in advance for success, and get on a routine. My breakfast shake + a fruit in the morning is easy. For lunch at work, I have a fridge there that I keep stocked with all my salad fixings, and I have a desk shelf with olive oil, vinegar, hot sauce now, and a bunch of cans of various fish, and that’s all I eat at work. For dinner at home, my wife has gotten into the healthy eating as well, so the big thing I have to exercise there is portion control. The biggest challenge is eating out, and obviously I give myself some leeway there, but I at least try to make good food choices, and unless I’m doing a buffet I’ll set aside half of whatever I get to take home and eat as another meal.
This is a good place to note a couple diet changes I’ve made but haven’t really talked about.
These 2 changes add up to a net drop of less than 400 calories/ week, but with more protein and less fat, and puts more of it around my training where it’ll do the most good. I’m already at a deficit, this just gets my macronutrient ratio closer to where @jackolee suggested, and from watching his log, he knows a thing or two about fat loss.
