Serge Storms: Training Log

My plan right now is to keep getting leaner until I hit a point where I can’t comfortably sustain it.

I feel like that might be about 4-6 pounds of body weight away. I’m at 189 right now.

My lifting mindset is geared towards gaining some size in my chest and back, but my calories, macros, and food choice are set up for gradual fat loss at the moment.

Thanks for asking. Helps me check to make sure I’m aligned with myself. Goal setting gets tricky when you are liberated from delusions of being huge someday, leaner than most already, but still driven by a need to refine and improve.

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I hear you.

Care to make it interesting? A friendly wager as to who can finish the year with the lowest bodyfat?

No worries if it doesn’t match your goals or whatever

I am attempting to get better at detaching from results. I’m also trying not to compare myself to others.

So, yeah, sure, let’s do it!

What would you like to wager? Do you have any goats? Children?

I saw your plan in your recent log post. Looks solid. This will be made more interesting because we are taking different routes. I think I’m gonna just go ahead and get there quickly and hope to be at about the same leanness in September as I am in December.

Also more interesting because you seem to have generated quite the buzz in anticipation of a photo post.

I say we make absolutely no rules. If it comes down to it being so close that we need to identify a specific way to measure body fat, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Now. Where did I hide that DNP…

Right on!

If I lose, I will name my first born Serge in your honour. Other than that, I don’t really see how we can actually have any sort of wager given that we’re separated by the Atlantic Ocean. It’s all just in the spirit of good fun anyway.

I have never understood why people are so interested in seeing a photo of me. For the last year or so I’ve been telling people I’m a soft two hundo, then I actually met someone from this site and they saw for themselves that I was… a soft two hundo. Devastatingly average; my physique is going to be a huge anticlimax for a lot of people, but hey ho.

I’ve been in way better shape in the past but I was full of steroids at the time which I don’t do anymore. I may hit up a little clen in the final stages of the diet just to try and kick things up a notch, but I dunno. Kinda over the PED thing.

So let the trash-talking commence, fat boy!

No fittest dad contests, but I’m preparing like there could be one any day.

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Wednesday 2250 calories
250g C
170g P
58g F

I have been super locked-in this week and wow, it’s paying off.

I was in some interesting lighting at the gym today in a corner of the studio with natural sunlight reflecting off the mirror. Maximum definition.

New veins everywhere. Quad and hamstring separation. Skin on lower legs and forearms is looking blueishly transparent.

Every time I get this lean, I marvel at how skinny my legs start to appear. It’s like they hit a point where they go from thick and solid to stringy and veiny in a very short time. Makes me realize that it’s not my quads and glutes that make it so hard for me to find jeans that fit when I’m on the soft side of 200 lbs. It’s actually just my fat ass and thighs.

I still have plenty of quad cushion, glute insulation, and a little bottom ab fluff to melt away. But to see these visual indicators moving in the right direction without much scale movement, cravings, energy issues, or strength loss is good.

Lighting can play some tricks with your mind. I’m glad I put the super bright flat panel LEDs in the ceiling in my basement studio. It’s a very unflattering and will hopefully prevent me from thinking I’m leaner than I am.

Also, some of these Ninja Warrior contestants are super lean. Seeing super lean people doing athletic things is a good reminder to me that I can push further without crashing my metabolism and withering away to nothing. I think the years of reading bro-shit plants that seed in us that getting super lean is not sustainable and must be done a certain way or else failure and possibly death are imminent.

THURSDAY INTAKE
1900 calories
215g C
190g P
49g F

Nails.

A vacation in England is high on the wife’s bucket list, so there is a nonzero probability the opportunity for said scene will come to pass.

The point being, I hope you’re not just teasing me.

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Then I must absolutely insist the two of you make a trip North of the border and enjoy all of our fine Scottish hospitality! It would be an honour.

Haha, never would I be so cruel! I love a T-Nation meetup.

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My sisters name is Storm (no joke) so if it’s boy it’s Serge, a girl it’s Storm. Heck I’d be naming them that even if you do lose!

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Friday
2600 calories
250g C
225g P
65g F

Lifting - Horizontal pushing and pulling variations

Saturday weight = 191

Skulpt body fat result = 9.6%

Interpretation:

My weight has been holding very steady in the 189-190 range. It’s been a weird week with some of my food choices. Sodium intake has been all over the board, from one extreme to the other.

Bottom line here is that I’m looking leaner in the mirror, getting closer to the next belt notch down, feeling great, and lifting much more like a bodybuilder than a ballerina.

So yes, recomp. I’ve been bigger in the past, so getting a quick rebound response from the drastic change in lifting stimulus should be possible.

I’m also happy with my walking around look right now, so I’m reluctant to fight the urge to step on the gas pedal with my deficit just to nudge my body weight down.

So, I’m gonna stay the course. I could probably spark some incremental fat loss by staggering my calories a bit more. I haven’t had many low days or eat less/exercise less days, and usually one or two of those in a week will speed things up.

Hesitant, though, because I’m enjoying the volume of lifting for upper back and chest and I want to make sure I support my recovery so I can keep pushing.

I seem to re-run this analysis about once every two weeks. So far, my conclusion has always been “stay the course” with my overall calorie goal and explore some tweaks with the details.

I’ll stick with that approach for a few more weeks. I have reached my current level of leanness about three or four other times in my life. I never stayed their long enough and I never made enough of a commitment to push further to get even leaner.

My theory is that I don’t have to do both. I think if I just stay the course longer, I’ll gradually settle into a “leanest-ever” state, without having to drop calories much lower than now before eventually bringing them up a bit.

On the other hand, I have so many cards to play if I wanted to just get aggressive and blast through my leanness PR and get it over with. This approach is especially tempting because I have such great control over my diet right now. Full confidence that I could slash to 1800 calories/day right now if I wanted to.

I feel like choosing the slower approach will be a better path to strengthening my habits and getting my head around the concept of permanently eating this way and living the 2350 calorie lifestyle.

You’re in the sweet spot with time on your side! Being dialed in is such a game changer it’s not even funny. Once you hit that happy walk around weight, you know you’ve made it. BC at that point you’re only a month or so away from next level lean if you want to push it, and you also can’t screw anything up with a couple days slackness. Boom!

That’s pretty much where I’m at right now, but 2-3% higher than you. I’m not looking for 8ish, but 11-12 is where I’d like to be year-round, with a diet down to 9-10 for trips/etc.

God damn

They’re alright. The drugs make it better though :grimacing:

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Nah, this Skulpt device is probably pretty generous. I’d add a percentage point or two to get a more realistic number. But it’s helpful for directional tracking.

Edit. Hi.

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Sunday LIFT

Chest 60 minutes

Barbell bench press.

A lot of reps x A lot of sets x not a lot of plates

Reverse DB fly between sets of pressing

PM - Toboggan Chutes Stairs

6 sprints
3 walking

75 minutes
Average HR 150
Max 186
Calories burned: 950

It’s been years since I did a cardio workout like this. I took a double dose of a pretty potent “endurance enhancing fat loss powder” before I went and HOLY SHIT.

I’d love to throw this type of session in once or twice a week. Throws the body a big curve ball and from experience, I believe it creates an afterburn that last a few days. Trick is to NOT compensate by replacing the burned calories with food. I’m in track for that today, I’ve been eating like I’m three weeks out from a contest. Dinner was grilled chicken breast, broccoli, riced cauliflower, and a pile of baby spinach. With Udo’s Oil for dressing.

Today was one of those progress-accelerating days, for sure.

Massive chest pump during the morning workout. Of course that was AFTER I did my little progress photo shoot.

Overall, I’m where I should be right now, given what I’ve been doing. I have room to gain the chest and back size I’m looking for, and also room to tighten up even more. And yes, I’ll be doing both at the same time.

I didn’t plan it this way, but the lifting style that I have been using for about two or three years up until a few weeks ago couldn’t have set me up better for a transition into more of a typical bodybuilding-style of training. Heavier loads, compound barbell movements, and more typical intensification methods
are all new types of stimulation for me, so my body will perceive everything as a growth signal for a while. The next month or so of lifting can be a huge boost for me if I play my cards right.

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Ephedra?

Before it was controlled somewhat, boy did it do the trick. I need a little boost. If not EC, what is it…

I don’t mention specific products, so I’ll just list some of the main stuff:

Choline Bitartrate,
N-Acetyl-L-Tyrosine
HICA (Alpha-Hydroxyisocaproic Acid)
Ashwagandha (root) Extract
Terminalia Arjuna (bark) Extract
Intellectus™ (Celastrus Paniculatus (seed) Extract)
Kigelia africana Extract
13-Methylberberine
AfraLean™ Grains of Paradise (Aframomum Melegueta (seed) Extract)
N-Coumaroyldopamine,
Rauwolscine (Rauwolfia Serpentina (root) Extract)

Sunday 1300 calories
125g P
125g C
35g F

Today was kind of a cross between a pulse fast and a pulse feast.

It was also an ELEM day. Eat Less Exercise More. Few and far between for me, but conditions were perfect today.