TLDR: Embracing the Grind

Too Long Dad Recap

Another week older.

Another week of getting paid to work from home.

Another week of progress in the gym.

Another week of being present as a father.

Another week of learning and growing.

Another week of sharing it all with you…

Below is the summary of the lifting and consumption of content and calories for the week, plus some thoughts on fatherhood.

Stuff I Watched This Week

• Not much in the fitness arena, to be honest.
• Been watching the new Perry Mason on HBO with the guy from Americans, The Titan Games on NBC, and Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix
• I read more than I watched this week, a big win for me for which I am patting myself on the back.

Stuff I Read this Week

Boring stuff, related to my profession rather than the fitness game.

• I finished a book on the electrical grid in the U.S.
  • The Grid
• I started a new book I inherited from my grandfather about the strategic history of the Texas Eastern Transmission company, owner of one of the largest natural gas pipeline systems in the country.
  • From Texas to the East
• I’m listening to a series of lectures on the basics of energy on Audible.
• One things I’ve been procrastinating for years is writing a book on the history of the narrow niche of pipeline companies, so all of this could be considered “research”

Stuff I Lifted this Week

Pushup Zoom: I recently re-connected with classmates from high school (I graduated 20 years ago), and I found out they are working hard to stay in shape like me. They’ve have a group zoom call set up 3 times a week for a 25 minute EMOM of push-up sets session. We had 13 guys on one of the calls this week.

I managed to participate in all 3 sessions this week. I hit 392 on the last session, which was a personal best, but roughly 300 reps less than others were doing. It’s fun to stay connected and motivated.

Regularly Scheduled Training

I got 4 solid barbell training sessions in the garage, including my first squats and deadlifts since the knee surgery. The knee felt great all week.

Training included:

• Several sets of 10 SSB squats and some hex bar deadlifts on Sunday
• Deadlifted Tuesday for 3 heavy sets of 5 and some front squats.
• Two other sessions with slingshot bench, squats, deficit deadlifts later in the week.

You can see the footage in the video below.

Some of that footage includes my daily lunges. Since I re-started the 400mm daily lunge protocol again, I am on a 10-day streak. I usually either do it down my own street or walk a few blocks to Villanova University to lunge up this one particular hill.

Daily lunge walking is something I’m still experimenting with, but I like the idea of it as a replacement for steady state cardio that can wear on my joints over time.

Things I Ate this Week: Play a Game You Can Win

My wife made it very difficult to stick to the plan this week. A few times this week, she’d com strolling in and say something like, “I’m really craving something sweet, but I don’t know what…”

For the record, she is not pregnant, but still indulges most cravings and never puts on any weight. It’s not magic that she can do that. When she wants ice cream, she’ll put some in a bowl and take it to another room and eat it on the couch. When she finishes her bowl, she is finished eating. She just eats intuitively naturally and has a healthy relationship with food that I don’t have.

That’s different than the way I generally eat anything, especially ice cream. I eat in the kitchen, and can get in the bad habit of just eating out of the larger container. I don’t have the ability to eat half a piece of cake and put the rest back in the fridge. But as you can see in the picture below that I just took from in my refrigerator, my wife can put a piece of cake back.

All of that pre-amble is to say that I didn’t progress as much as I expected to this week on the my cut. My 7-day trailing average weight didn’t budge at all this week, still at 176.4 lbs. I dropped calories down to 1,900 this week as a target, but compliance wasn’t great.

Things would go great most of the day, and I’d have my protein target hit and I’d still have 200-300 calories left to reach the target. Filling up that last few hundred calories is where things went off the rails a bit. There’s just always so many treats to eat.

Fresh Focus, Playing to My Strengths

So, this next week, the goal is to have a plan for the full day and stick to the 1,900 calories as best I can. If I can do that, I’ll be sitting here next week at 175 lbs or less, which is going to feel great.

I prepared meals from several fun recipes from YouTubers this week, including this vanilla cake that was roughly 500 calories and included 63 grams of protein. With big volume recipes like this, I can continue to have big portions and weak portion control and win. Dieting is all about creating a game you can win.

In addition, I made protein ice cream and the recipes intrigued me so much, I bought frozen blueberries at the store to try to make better ice cream this week, which I’ll share.

Dad Report: Artificial Gravity

The last few months, I have established a routine with the kids where each of them has a weight training session at least twice a week, each with a specific focus area they chose:

• My 13-year old daughter’s focus is on building up her assisted pull-ups and chin ups to be able to do them unassisted at some point. She deadlifts too, and her form continues to improve.
• My 11-year old boy’s focus is on overhead press, he likes pull-downs and is less interested in doing squats or deadlifts.
• My 9-year old boy’s focus is the deadlift and bench press. He’s up to 30 lbs on the bench.

I vary weights and rep schemes to go light some days and heavy (but still light) other days. Getting them interested was difficult, but now that they decide what to focus on, they are starting to enjoy it.

Showing by Doing

If I can show them how training can lead to progress, it will be a huge Dad win for me. It’s very challenging to instill grit in suburban kids these days.

Things are so comfortable in all areas of their life. Like Adam Carolla is fond of saying, we all live in a world without gravity. It’s incumbent on parents to create artificial gravity for their kids. We need to create things they must push against to force adaptations that might have come more naturally when I grew up.

A major goal is to teach them to self-motivate physically. My kids are all incredibly motivated learners, and the older two read much more than I did at their age. So, my angle is trying to show them a strong, healthy body can help them in their creative pursuits. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Taking Me For a Ride

My wife’s done her part, taking long bike rides daily with the kids. My older son took me on a ride Thursday, to show me the empty parking garage at Villanova he likes. The game on the way back down was to see if we could get down without peddling once. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Thanks for reading! Keep it on the DL, fam.