Serge Storms: Training Log

Training Logs
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Quick update and recap of last week.

Current weight: 186.5
Goal weight: 182
Target date: Monday, May 27

I’m in an awesome position to be at peak leanness for the start of summer. Well done. All I really need to do is tighten up my consistency for the next three weeks, and everything will be dialed in.

Targets:
Calories: 2400
Protein: 180g (30%)
Carbs: 240g (40%)
Fats: 80g (30%)

These aren’t the most aggressive fat loss macros…I’m making some very slight trade-offs so that I can increase my chances to be consistent and to sustain these macros throughout the summer. Aggressive would be 50% protein, 30% carbs, and 20% fat. Super effective, but it’s very hard to sustain that level of protein intake, especially without some kind of competition goal. My goal is really to just peak at the start of summer and then HOLD that condition throughout the summer.

Last week:
Great week. I have started a new role at work, and I’m back to a MUCH more consistent routine.

I get up at 4:00 am, hit the road at 4:30, I’m at the gym (at work) from 5:30-6:30. I did this every day last week.

Yesterday, I did 36 miles on my road bike outside. I ride six miles to get to the path, then I lay down the hammer for 24 miles, and then either enjoy the ride back or suffer all the way home, depending on what kind of shape I’m in. Apparently, my condition is improving these days…I averaged 20mph for the 24 mile course, and I was still able to hold 20mph on the 6-mile trip back home.

I don’t want to break any records on the bike this summer, but I do need to stay in good enough shape to do a few century rides.

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3 Week Plan - More Details

Timing:

Wake-11:
500 calories P+C

11-4:
900 calories P+C

4-sleep:
1000 calories P+C+F

I find that no matter what appetite strategies I use during the day, I need to look forward to a fairly normal dinner at night. That’s why I try to keep fat intake low until dinner…fat grams add up quickly with meals that aren’t based on chicken breasts or tilapia.

I also try to save plenty of carbs for dinner, so I can have a few Beck’s Lights and/or some chocolate and still hit my targets for the day.

What works for me during those first three, low-fat meals is sticking to my staples and keeping it simple:

At least two shakes with about 50g of protein each
Oatmeal (Biotest Superfood sprinkled in, Splenda)
Ezekiel toast with jelly instead of butter
chicken breasts
Egg whites
Yogurt
Fruit
Protein bars: Quest, No Cow, or MetRx

This is an easy plan to execute once the switch is flipped and as long as stress levels are not chronically elevated. That time would be now.

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Pretty good Serge. I always think if you’re averaging above 18mph for 2 hours or more then you’re doing fine. Love the log, its very informative.

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Last week, I took a quick video of myself doing some of my stupid human tricks.

I’m glad I did. It led to a bit of an epiphany.

I wasn’t impressed with the video. None of my tricks really looked that impressive. I mean, it’s impressive in itself that at 45 years old, I can even do a 1-handed handstand spin, but the overall impression was just not that…impressive.

Made me wonder why I’m spending so much time working on useless shit. It’s fun, but it’s not really getting me anywhere.

I decided to shift gears a bit and get back to lifting. So for that last week and a half, I’ve been doing this split:

Chest and biceps
Back and triceps
Shoulders
Bike or Tricks or Rest Day
Repeat

I’m really liking the soreness right now. Brings back memories.

If I pair this with a consistent enough diet, I will not just lean up for the start of summer, I’ll also improve my overall look significantly. RECOMP time! Yes, it’s possible, even for an old guy with many years of training under my belt. Why? Muscle memory and a primed metabolism.

Diet has been all over the board with macros, but pretty on-point with calories. Except for this past weekend. I may have exceeded 7,000 calories on Friday. Let’s not talk about it.

It took a few days, but my weight was back to 185 this morning.

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Ah, yes…welcome back to the dark side haha

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Looks like I’m on an every-two-week update schedule in this log.

Training is going good - I have not missed many days and I’m feeling pretty good on all fronts.

I signed up for another 100-mile bike ride on June 8th. I was planning to get some long rides in on the weekends during May, but the weather has absolutely sucked. I’m going to crank up the bike work for the next two weeks to get my cardio fitness as high as possible. I’ll make up for the lack of overall saddle time with pure fitness and mental strength.

I may need to decrease the lifting intensity just to make sure I get that hour or so on the bike prioritized first, but I am not at all concerned about losing size or anything.

The hardest part is just getting my mind back into bike training mode. I am willing to suffer through a few weeks of cardio-focused training so I can finish this century ride and enjoy it. Then I’d like to go back to just using the bike for the extra calorie burn and sunny, adventurous rides on the weekends.

But who knows, maybe I’ll catch the bug again and start racking up weeks of >100 miles. There is a window before the metabolism adapts where 100 miles/week puts me into a fun zone of lots of good eating and hard riding. The challenge then becomes how to transition into the next phase after that.

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I did exactly this, and the ride yesterday turned out to be awesome.

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The ride turned out to be about 80 miles. We started in Wilmette, IL and ended in Milwaukee. I was hoping it was a true century, but oh well. I was with a group of guys from my company, and we stuck together for most of the ride.

We averaged 16mph for the entire ride. The first half hour was just a crawl, and the last 3 miles was a police-escorted slow roll through the streets of Milwaukee.

When we were actually riding as a team for long stretches, we were averaging about 18mph.

After the last rest stop, I decided to break away and test myself a little.

I ended up doing the last 15 miles or so at about 21 mph. By myself. Into a 10mph head wind. Not bad!

Today I wanted to do a “recovery ride”, but my legs felt awesome for some reason, so I ended up doing sprint Intervals for about 45 minutes. Too speed was 32mph on flat road with a slight tailwind. I was usually hitting 26-28 mph on my sprints. I was holding 23-24 mph for some pretty long stretches. Not bad.

I’m pretty happy with how the 80-miler went. The weather has sucked, so I haven’t had time to log any long rides - only two rides over 20 miles all spring. Instead, I made sure I was pushing my cardio fitness as hard as possible over the last few weeks, whether it was on the spin bike, the indoor trainer, or with the jump rope. It really paid off, I was never gassed and had a ton left in the tank.

I am feeling on the brink of going full bike psycho over the summer. There is something addictive about being in awesome shape and knowing you can hang with the more experienced cyclists in a group ride. Oh, and there’s the thrill of drafting effortlessly at 25 mph. Never gets old.

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Killer ride this evening.

20.6 mph average for 50 miles.

I jumped in with a team called the South Chicago Wheelmen and I was in way over my head. But I hung in there. Barely.

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Awesome! Embrace it.

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Been a while.

I’m starting a new streak for logging my food intake. I put the log on the back burner for a while. I’ve been tracking my output every day without interruption for, well, for the past few years (logging workouts), but I haven’t been logging my food intake.

Current weight: 190.0 lbs

My goal is to tighten up to around 185. I’ve spent the majority of the summer at about 190, which is fine, but not as lean as I like to be. I’ve been able to do that by keeping my activity level high. My diet has been just barely good enough to stay under 190 lbs. Barely.

Last week, I logged everything. I averaged an intake of 2600/day and my workouts averaged 500 calories burned/day. I have plenty of room to clean up some food choices and shift my macros around, which I will keep doing and getting better at as I get deeper into this groove.

I could also shift my training a bit to favor body composition improvements. I’m on the fence on this one. I really enjoy what I’m doing in the gym right now, but my training style doesn’t really force my body to adapt all that much. I’m doing lots of body weight gymnastics stuff, plenty of jump rope intervals, and lots of isolation work for arms, shoulders, and chest…using pretty light weights and high reps with lots of different contraction techniques (slow, explosive, iso holds, etc). My gymnastics and breakdancing skills are probably near an all-time high, which I think is pretty badass for being in my mid-40’s.

It’s getting old, though. It feels like it’s time for a change. It always feels that way in the fall for me.

I might go back to a training routine that resembles what I was doing back in the “Indigo Project” Boot Camp 2 days. Either that, or something even more basic like the Fred Hatfield program I did back in my 20’s. I think I need to lift some heavier weights and try to rediscover the love of the “pump”. That’s what used to do it for me when I was in more of a physique improvement mindset.

This week will present some challenges…it’s not the best week to be trying to tighten things up…not at all. Work stress will be high. The next five nights, I’ll be going to dinners at nice restaurants. The schedule will be tough. I’ll be working out in hotel gyms. If I can make it through this week hitting my calorie goals (2500) and macro targets (45/30/25 C/P/F). No matter what, I’m going to log everything.

List of prioritized tactical goals:

  1. Log everything
  2. Hit the calorie goal of 2500
    2a) Limit alcohol to a few light beers/night at most
  3. Hit the gym
  4. Hit the macro goals

If I do all 4 of those things, I’ll keep my momentum and drop a few pounds this week.
If I do the first 2 of those things, I’ll keep my momentum and drop a few pounds this week.
If I only do the first one of those things, I’ll keep my momentum but my progress will not start up again until next week.

There are a lot of sub-tactics that need to be executed if I want to hit goal #2. It starts with limiting the alcohol intake. If those two light beers turn into a few strong cocktails or more, then things can easily unravel. That’s why the alcohol goal is 2A. Alcohol causes a few downstream effects that can mess up momentum pretty easily. It will compromise the quality and duration of sleep, which in turn compromises the likelihood of having a great early-morning workout. It will compromise appetite the next day, which will make the diet much more of a mental struggle than it needs to be.

The other subtactics for Goal #2: Keep the carbs low in the morning. This seems to help with appetite later in the afternoon. Keep water intake high. Set some rules around dinner: no appetizer or dessert, no bread before the meal. Stick with a big chunk of protein, a big pile of green stuff, and just say no to all the other bullshit.

Logging here AND in my Lose It app seems to improve my chances of success, so that’s why I’m back here. Staying connected keeps me engaged.

I’ve been looking at some of the logs that are familiar to me and still have some catching up to do.

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Nice to have you back. Say hi to Coleman for me.

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Weight=190

I was traveling all week - Monday - Friday. How I ended up at 190 this morning is a mystery. It throws the first law of thermodynamics on its head. Maybe the second and third laws, too.

I did a 2-hour hike in the mountains on Wednesday, but otherwise not much exercise.

Made up for it with a 2-hour workout this morning.

Gymnastics stuff (strict push into handstands)
Jump rope
Dumbbells
Breakdance Moves

Burned about 1400 calories.

Back to some normalcy for a while. Going to use the weekend to reset and restore some fat loss momentum so I can get back to under 185 as quickly as possible. I could do it in 2 weeks if I could manage to flip on the OCD switch and flip off the appetite and cravings switch. I’m working on it.

The rest days definitely had me feeling fresh today. Very solid control of my handstands and handstand push-ups. Pistol squats felt more solid than ever.

I really do need to consider some adjustments to my overall training approach. The intensity, frequency, and volume of the gymnastics power moves needs to be tweaked so that I don’t spend so much time in an overreached state.

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Weight = 190

Expecting to see the scale move soon, as I’ve now strung together 4 days at a deficit.

I’ve been on the fence as to whether I want to shift gears with my training. Been on that fence for a few years, actually.

This morning, I wanted to try a more typical muscle-building workout, so I started with some glycerol in my morning hydration drink. 23 grams, to be exact.

Drank a ton of fluids and cranked out a good chest workout. Definitely felt like the muscles were full/pumped, but I wouldn’t say the glycerol alone is as effective as the right combo of food and hydration, or Mag-10/Carbolin-19/Cyclic Dextrose.
More of a full-of-water feeling from just glycerol. The other approaches seem to be better for vascularity and a tighter/drier feel.

Had a look in the mirror after. Haven’t done a self-assessment in a fully pumped state in a long time. My conclusion: No need to add muscle. The stuff I’m doing gives me as much size as I need in the arms, shoulders, chest, and back. Shifting to a muscle-building phase would just make me look like a bigger version of myself, which isn’t very motivating.

The priorities will continue to be health, energy, strength, agility, skills, flexibility, balance, and leanness.

The leanness will come through the diet, which I will keep trying to manipulate so that it is easy to execute and adhere to. High protein seems to help, although it gets tedious and monotonous with all the chicken and egg scenarios. Low fat intake with a focus on good fats, medium carb intake with a focus on appetite-blunting carbs instead of appetite-stimulating ones, and low alcohol intake…these seem to be the key factors for me.

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Snapshot of workouts from this week.

They are all labeled as “cardio” by the app, but these are my typical dance/dumbbell/jump rope/acro sessions.

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Had a work dinner yesterday, so exceeded my targets just a bit. Not horrible, just a few beers and an appetizer is all it took to push the calories and macros up too high.

Weight: 189.2

There’s the scale movement I was expecting. First time dropping below 190 in a few months, so it’s a nice milestone to pass in the way back to shreddsville.

One dietary principle that seems to always work as I’m getting back into the groove is the simple concept from back in the John Berardi days: Don’t combine carbs and fats in the same meal. I tend to use this for all meals except dinner, where I prefer to eat what my wife cooks so we can feel like a normal family. We cook pretty healthy anyway.

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Weight 193

We had a big team-building event on Thursday night, and I elected to fully participate in the dinner and drinks part of the evening. That probably interrupted my fat loss momentum for this week…we’ll see how many days it takes to get back under 190 now.

Training recap for the week: 5 hard workouts, 2 days off.

Workout Saturday AM:

Gymnastics moves, breakdance moves, jump rope, dumbbell work, acro yoga balancing moves, more jump rope.

I burned 975 calories in 90 minutes. Average HR 136, Max 175.

That’s a pretty decent workout. Not easy to average 136 when you consider that I’m doing mostly short or medium-duration “sets” of movement sequences with some rest in-between. There were probably 20 or so “spikes” in the HR graph where I was above 150, so it’s more like a long interval training session.

Today will mark 21 consecutive days of logging all my food intake in my Lose It app. The first two weeks, I didn’t fully dial the diet in, but at least I was logging. This past week has been much cleaner, except for a few dinners. I need this coming week to be tight. The following week, I have another off-site meeting for the entire week, so that’s going to be a huge challenge that will only be made easier if I use this coming week to strengthen my habits and resolve and get deeper into a groove. I need to invest some effort and discipline into my success this week so that I feel obligated to protect my momentum the week after.

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Good workouts Sunday and today.

Weight = 193.8

Added creatine, increased my protein a bit over the last few days. Also spending more time lifting and less time doing other stuff. Maybe I have more room to “recomp” than I thought. Maybe I’ll just try to keep nailing macros and calories and let some muscle replace some fat. That’s always fun.

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I started typing “chocolate bunny” into my Lose It app search bar and it autocompleted.

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Haven’t missed a workout in 7 straight days.

Workouts are averaging about 45-60 minutes and burning 500-600 calories.

Combo of breakdance moves, acro yoga, gymnastics, dumbbells, cables, and even some straight cardio.

Weight is stable at about 193.

Macro targets these days are “Zone” diet style: 40/30/30.

Feeling good - a little over-reached but that’s fine. I’ve got a huge meeting next week, so I will likely miss a few workouts and restore some freshness.

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Are you still riding the bike mate