TLDR: Costumes, Not Candy

Too Long Dad Recap

It was another fun week of:

Work from home
School from home
Lifting from home
Cooking and eating from home

The monotony can be pretty overwhelming, especially with the responsibility as a dad of keeping things light for the kids with limited options. Square footage helps. Weather helps. For my personal sanity, it also helps to have fitness goals to strive towards.

Comment below with what you’re doing to cope with 2020 as we approach darker, colder evenings.

Things I Watched/Listened to This Week

Because I did so much cardio and walking this week, I ran out of podcasts to listen to and ended up listening to a couple of Tim Ferriss podcasts. I subscribe to his podcast but rarely listen because it’s pretty pretentious Silicon Valley stuff usually.
- But this week’s episode featuring Matt McConaughey episode caught my eye. He’s out promoting a book, and it was worth the listen to hear his backstory and general philosophy on life.
- I also listened to the 80/20 author Richard Koch on another Ferriss podcast that was pretty incredible too. Koch has an amazing investment track record and philosophy on investing in “Star” companies. Love the patience and discipline and idea that I could find one incredible investment to go all-in on, cash out and then bro down.
I also watched some YouTube videos from Iron Musket
- Iron Musket is a dude who makes protein ice cream recipe videos and similar videos.
- In the last few videos he opened up about some binge eating issues he’s struggled with that were great to listen to.
- Then Greg Doucette, much more famous youtuber, made a video about his video. It’s good to hear men talking about their struggles with self control when it comes to food, because I’ve definitely had issues with that in the past.

Things I Ate to This Week

Kept things on track for the most part this week, but had a big slip up Thursday night and ate around 3,000 calories instead of the 1,800 or so I was shooting for.
Then Saturday, doing a silly food challenge led to another spike in calories and retained water.
Planning to get back on track this week, targeting around 1700-1800 calories this week see if I can inch a little closer to 160lbs after hovering in the 162-164 range this week.
I’ll include protein ice cream probably daily. This is a pic of the blueberry flavor that I make at least 2-3 times a week.

Halloween will be a real test as usual with all the candy, but stay strong Dads!

Things I Lifted to This Week

Besides the max test for squat, bench press and deadlift this week, the most fun thing I did was on my final warm up day lift in costumes. I deadlifted 370lbs first in a Heinz mustard costume, then a Ketchup costume. After that, I squatted 285lb in a cheeseburger costume. My kids really enjoyed the show, and it was the first lifting video my wife watched in months!

Testing Recap

This is old news at this point if you follow me on Instagram, but I tested my max’s for Squat, Bench Press and Deadlift this week after a 12 week program with an emphasis on deadlifts.
The top end deadlift number was 415lbs, 10lbs off my all time PR.
From here, the plan is to build up more strength while keeping pretty lean to see if I can get all the way to 500lbs at less than 170lbs at some point in my early 40s.
Squat was also down 10 lbs, but I think the squat has been my most improved lift from a form perspective.
Bench press dropped significantly to 250lbs, but it hasn’t been as much of a focus.
I was very fortunate this training cycle not to have a back, knee or anything tweak. That’s rare for me because I tend to overshoot on fatigue and prescribed RPE.
Going to do a low stress week or two and recover from the high intensity action in the last few weeks.
Going to keep up with the cardio and lunges to try to push for another few weeks on the diet to get down to 160lbs after a few slow weeks.

The goal was to hold as much strength as possible while reducing body fat. I took my time with the weight loss and continued to train heavy and hard over the last 6 months. I may have been going a bit too hard in the gym, though. I could have probably tapered better and managed fatigue in the final week better, instead of getting 15,000 steps and 400 walking lunges everyday leading up to it. If this were a meet, maybe I would have taken rest in the final week more seriously.

On test day, I weighed in at 162lbs. The plan was to test squat and bench on one day and deadlift on the next.

Bench Press: I reached 250lbs which I was shooting for. I took it twice, because my butt came up the first time, but I got it both times.

Squats: I hit 330lbs as an opener no problem, and thought 340lbs would feel lighter than it did, but I muscled it up. Decided to try 345lbs and didn’t make it out of the hole, despite a pretty good looking descent.

Deadlift: I managed 415lbs eventually, after failing once. I’m happy with this number.

So in summary:

340lbs squat
250lbs bench
415lbs deadlift

Compare those to March 2020 peak strength numbers at 188lbs bodyweight:

350lbs squat
275lbs bench
425lbs deadlift

Not bad for 39 years old! The plan from here is to stay below 170lbs bodyweight and build strength up, “maingain”. The last year of bulking up 15 pounds then shedding 28 pounds was worth it, and I think it helped me add muscle where I wanted it (my back and legs) while losing fat around the middle.

Having said that, I think staying below 12% body fat year round is more ideal for me.

Dad Report: Vegan Challenge?

I decided to start making YouTube videos again, and just finished editing my first comeback video, which I’ll post tomorrow.

I wanted to re-start regular YouTube posting for a few reasons:
- It’s distracting for the kids, at a time when we are quickly running out of things to distract us from things we can’t do.
- It helps me practice public speaking, which helps me in my job which increasingly involves giving presentations. Measuring my words, avoiding saying “um” or “uh”
- It’s fun!
I think I can get into a rhythm of posting once every week or so, by alternating between two types of videos:
- Challenge videos (food challenges or fitness challenges)
- Shorter topical, vlog or update videos
An example of a food challenge would be eating only protein bars my kids choose for an entire day, eating what my wife eats, letting my kids choose what I eat, eating fast food only, etc.
The first video this week is about me eating only things in the freezer that are old and not likely to be eaten by anyone else.

Which brings me to my next Dad topic…

My Son Decided to Become Vegan

My 11-year old son read about how bad animals are treated and decided to become a vegan. So, naturally, we jumped to accommodate his new lifestyle by buying him lots of vegan food. Then, over the course of a few days, he decided he liked cheese and eggs too much and wanted to be a vegetarian. Then he decided he liked meat too much and decided to be a “flexitarian”. Finally, he just gave up the idea entirely.

So, this eating the freezer food challenge ended up being me consuming all the vegan stuff we bought for him a few weeks ago.

I’m still not sure he didn’t go vegan just to see how quickly he could make us parents jump to adjust our lives to accommodate, only to turn around and then watch me suffer to consume the leftover “food”.