TLDR: Display Purposes

Too Long Dad Recap

The work is all done, all that’s left is to display it.

We’ve been putting in the work. Stringing together days, weeks, months of consistent effort and steady adherence to nutrition and training plan. Now we want our reward.

The great thing about things we strive for physically (lifting a certain weight, achieving a physique goal) that only involve us against ourselves is that we get rewarded when we put in work. It is a meritocracy. Sure, genetics can deal some of us a better hand, making the results come easier. But if the plan is well-designed, if we stick to that plan, if we nail the little things day after day, then we will get results.

The keys to the above is the “well-designed” part.

The training and nutrition plan has to be designed to succeed, which requires knowledge about what generally works and self-awareness of what works for you.
The great news though is training and nutrition knowledge has never been more readily accessible through YouTube, Reddit, etc.
The self-awareness component is pretty simple too. It comes with experience. Only now, after 39 years, have I finally started to dial in what I respond to best in the gym and the kitchen.

I think they call this wisdom. It feels pretty fucking incredible!

Meritocracies become harder to find as we age. Business can be more about timing than skill or effort. Jobs can be about kissing the right ass at the right time. Parenthood isn’t always about the effort and skill either, bad luck gets in the way, curve balls get thrown.

But the physique you carry with you everyday is going to reflect your effort and accumulated wisdom. What drives that effort is going to differ wildly, it might be trying to be healthy, trying to win a powerlifting meet, or it may be just simply wanted to look great naked for vanity purposes. For me its a pretty even mix of vanity, health and strength goals.

Comment below with you “why” when it comes to training, and where your plan goes wrong.

Things I Watched this Week:

Given how neurotic I am about all this stuff, my next big issue will be how to hold my current level of leanness while transitioning into maintenance calories. As such, I’ve been re-watching videos featuring advice on the subject.

I don’t think a reverse diet is going to be the way to go this time. Read about reverse dieting at this post I published a few months ago (the first time the cut was supposed to end).

I definitely am going to try avoid a huge binge bender.
I’ll try to find my new maintenance level through trial and error, upping the calories by several hundred, tracking my trailing 7-day average weight.
There isn’t much more to it really, and naturally some weight is going to come back, the key is not to freak out about it.

Also, I’ve been watching professional sports on TV, because their future feels precarious. Who knows when we’ll have another NBA season or how long the NFL season will last?

That carpe diem mentality is my parenting mantra right now too. Enjoy every day with my kids like it’s my last, because I’ll never get this time back.

Things I Ate this Week:

I kept things pretty clean and on point this week, no big slip ups. Protein ice cream, chicken breasts, steamed vegetables, some “anabolic” recipes like cheesecake and pumpkin pie. Lots of water and coffee.

Hit a new all time low Wednesday of 161.6 and 7.5% body fat on my little device. These numbers seemed unachievable even a few months ago.

Patience, consistency, discipline are producing these results, and while progress is now very slow, I am thrilled with where I sit today and amazed at the level of leanness I’ve achieved in this cut.
But the mental game is tough. I’m starting to think about how much hair and toenails weigh and whether people have ever tried to make weight by pulling their toenails off.

Things I lifted this Week: Peak Week

The intro this week came from my mindset here at week 13 of my current program, the peak week. I don’t have a meet I’m preparing for. This peak is just for me to prove to myself I held most of my strength while dropping 25-30 pounds. Focus has been on deadlifts. Below are the 6 working sets I have planned for this week on deadlifts.

This week, I deadlifted 410lbs Friday. It came up pretty slow, but I believe I can hit the numbers above.
I also plan to test squat and bench on a separate day. Bench press is feeling great, I’ll be shooting for 250lbs or 255lbs on that and hope to hit 345lbs or 350lbs on the squat.

The key challenge will be managing fatigue more than I have been. 400 walking lunges every day, making sure I get 15,000 steps, eating in a calorie deficit are not ideal conditions for a peak week. So, I will need to dial things back a little bit and plan to eat more calories as the test day approaches.

Beyond managing fatigue, the only question is what Halloween costume to wear while hitting the lift for maximum comedic effect, because we ordered a few!

Ideally, I will hit the 425lbs deadlift in normal clothes, as planned, then shoot for a higher number with grip assistance in a costume.

Dad Report: Please, Not Cardio!

I shared this on Twitter and Instagram already, but here’s a little run down of what I’m doing to keep my lazy kids active these days. Also, what they are doing to stay as lazy as possible!

All three of them have FitBits, and while they sometimes try to not wear them to avoid the step counts, most of the time they wear them. The daily mandate is 10,000 steps.

However, to encourage them to pursue strength, they also have the option of doing 5 sets of 5 reps of any of the following: barbell squats, deadlifts, barbell overhead press, banded pull-ups. Each 5 x 5 they do counts as 1,000 steps towards their daily total.

My daughter may have a future in powerlifting, because she hates cardio so much that she’d rather do 100 pull-ups than go for a walk! See below for her little check box paper from last week.

The mandate is only as good as the enforcement, and the enforcement is exhausting… I can’t wait for their training motivation to be more internally generated!