know thine limits

Today, there has been no gym.

Honestly it takes a whole heap of reasons to keep me out of there, but as well as feeling hungry and generally a bit miserable all day, I genuinely feel quite run down and very, very antisocial.
So I took the advice of a good women, kept out of there, and took it as some very rare down time.
I'll be straight, at the minute I look bloody awful...
Outside influences and things we cannot control often take their toll and it's important to listen to your body AND your brain for physical and psychological reasons.
Rest and relaxation are important, especially for hormonal balance, so tonight I shall be doing both things by watching series 2 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and bumping up my protein intake.
Tomorrow is another day.

...and here we are. 

Today I removed my 10am shake and replaced it with half of my 1pm lunch, left out ON's Serious Mass and  had a couple of scoops of Gold Standard whey in a about 300ml of semi skimmed lactose free milk.

For the first time in a long time, I've had a growling stomach, genuine hunger pangs and a ravenous appetite.

Markedly, this is a good thing, though rather unsurprising since I've ripped a good 900 calories out of my day and reduced the portion sizes of my meals some what. Meal frequency has however stayed the same.

I'm yet to eat tea, but am already very, very hungry (finished the last dregs of my shake about 1.5 hours ago).

Training wise today was legs and shoulders, using mostly free weights and compound movements in a HIIT style of workout - 1 minute work time, 30 second rest time, 5 rounds, total time per exercise a rather daft 8 minutes.

I hit squat first, played it safe and loaded up 50% of my 1RM, convinced I'd piss through it.

Half way through round three, I actually wanted to throw up. 

I wanted to stop.

I didn't though, refusing to re-rack the bar, I stood with it until I got my breath back and then dug deep to find the extra energy to keep going.

Utter. Murder.

This set the tone for the rest of the sessions. Rep after rep, sweat everywhere and a stubborn refusal to give in.

On the plus side after an hour I was done to the point I could only just about dead lift 50kg off the floor, and certainly with no elaborate frequency...normally on a Monday I'm in for 2.5 hours plus, and it was nice to crawl home early.

Aching a little already, surprisingly in my calf's, abs and obliques.

 

First steps.

So, another blog.
Actually it's more for me then it is for you.
Think of this as me keeping tabs on me, and we'll be fine.
It's not you.
It's me.
Maybe I'll even keep up with this one!

Since returning from the magical land of Australia, I've been hitting the gym primarily for strength gains and mass gains. That's a fairly easy thing to do. Eat big, lift big. These past four weeks have seen me, Monday to Friday, consume in excess of 4000 calories, with a heavy carb bias for recovery.

However whilst increasing mass and strength (to frankly stupid levels) I've also had an increase in body fat and retained water, which was kind of inevitable. So, whilst I have no issue with looking like a 5 foot something or other tank, a lot of my hard gains are being masked by excess water and fat...which I do have an issue with.

My aim is to spend the next 8-12 weeks doing some extensive re-composition. It's not going to be simple, or  for me at times very enjoyable as it means diet wise I'll be eating a lot of the same stuff a lot of the time. However, as well as being interested in the physiological aspects of this, I'm also interested in the psychological aspects as well.

I, like many others, have a very intimate relationship with food, in some much that what I eat and when I eat it can have a direct effect on my mood. This is something I wish to knock on the head if I'm honest, as it can go either way.

So I have a number of aims:

• Reduce water retention to a minimum.
• Reduce body fat to a maintainable, year round figure.
• Preserve muscle mass as much as possible.
• Increase my anaerobic capacity.
• Increase my aerobic capacity
• Maintain a positive hormonal balance.
• Psychologically rewire my perception of food.

In order to get there:

• No grains (not because I'm a zelot or anything, simply for reducing inflammation and water retention)
• No simple carbohydrates.
• High fibre.
• Low fat.
• High protein.
• A wide of aim of 2000kcal a day, reducing over a weekend where I'm not training.
• No dairy. None. Nada. I'm lactose intolerant anyhow, and lactose free milk in the amount I use in a week does not come cheap.
• Replace my protein shakes with BCAA's...post, pre and intra workout.
• High intensity, short, strategic workouts. 

I'm using this week as a transition period to drop my calories gently, and eak out some bugs in my training to make the most of the way my time in the gym and keep my cortisol levels in check.

I'll be using this blog to:

a) Log my workouts

b) Log my mood

c) Log my meals

d) Log my progress