TLDR: Establishing Consistency

Too Long Dad Recap

Here we are with a second consecutive weekly recap blog post. Like I have with developing consistency in training and (more recently) daily lunges, this weekly post is my effort to build something here. If I can build this habit of posting weekly, eventually it will be so ingrained in my life that it won’t feel right when I don’t post, so I will keep posting.

As a reminder, this post is sharing the fitness content I consumed, the weights I lifted, and things I did as a father or husband.

Stuff I Read This Week:

• Risks of Returning to Training (Stronger by Science)
  • I’ve been seeing lots of articles about how to get back into training after a long lay-off as folks get back to the gym after lockdown, but this one is really good.
  • I am already thinking of how to ramp back up after surgery and a month or two of rehab, so will revisit this one.
• Father’s Day Gift Guide (Upgrade Dragon)
  • This fellow Dad lifter and blogger is worth a follow, and his guide to gifts for fitness dads this week is really good, so check it out 
• Words we Use Matter Again (Tony Gentilcore)
  • This is one of the O.G. fitness bloggers and online trainers that I have followed for a while, posts like these are why he is good to follow.

Stuff I Watched This Week

• Can’t say I came across anything earth shattering on YouTube this week as it relates to fitness, although I did burn through several Greg Doucette videos and a couple Remington James Fitness ones, just because I like their personalities.
• Bruce Lee 30 for 30: Be Water
  • I did catch the Bruce Lee documentary that aired this week. He had a incredible impact for such a short life
  • He also lived in Hollywood during a super fascinating time in the late 1960s, such a vibrant era.
  • The racial discussions in the documentary regarding the black and Asian communities are more relevant today than ever. 
  • Bruce Lee also compared being famous to being a monkey in the zoo with people poking at him, that it felt like being in jail. It was very much like what Jordan was saying in the Last Dance after he became uber famous.

Stuff I listened to This Week

Iron Culture Podcast – I listened to an episode from a few weeks ago where they talked about the supplement business.

The episode featured three different supplement company owners, include Mike Matthews and Ben Esgro, in addition to Omar Isuf (who is one of the regular hosts of the pod and also has a supplement brand. 

Mike’s story was fun to hear, because his ebook was one of the first things that unlocked a lot of the basic fitness and nutrition knowledge for me that I wish I knew but didn’t when I read it back in like 2015. To learn how he published it on his own in 2012 and then eventually built a supplement company as well was pretty interesting. 

The episode was also a bit discouraging when it comes to thinking about my dream of someday marrying my passion for fitness with a venture that produces income. Everything feels so saturated, especially when it comes to supplements and protein. 

Weights I Lifted This Week

This Thursday is my surgery to repair a torn meniscus.  I’m training right up until the final day prior, because it will be a month or two before I can squat or deadlift again, so even not at full strength I am still getting some work in. 

This week, I wrote out a plan for training post surgery that is 3-4 days of upper body work and one day with single leg and core work that hopefully I can do with my brace. I’ll perhaps share the program in a separate post.

The plan is to not wallow in self pity over the fact that I can’t lift full body, and instead focus on building a bigger bench and a bigger back.

This week, I hit 315lbs on the slingshot bench, which was great, and I hit 375lbs for 3 reps on block pulls without straps. Grip is feeling really strong lately. See this video here for highlights.

The highlight of the week was training my kids, who are becoming more consistent with training.  By switching things up a bit and focusing on what they enjoy, the buy-in has been much higher.

My oldest (daughter) is focused on pull-ups, my older boy is focused on lat pull downs and overhead press, and my youngest is really enjoying the strongman workouts and deadlifts.

Things I Ate This Week

Broke through on the cut in a big way this week.  Broke through 180 lbs on Tuesday and stayed there for the rest of the week, recorded a low daily check-in of 177.3 on Saturday morning

Had many treats available to me, but did not partake Saturday, and I felt really good about the decision not to be satisfied with the progress and blow it with a big slice of ice cream cake or a bunch of fresh cookies.

…then on Sunday, I did blow it a little bit on some cake and ice cream, but I contained it enough and my activity levels were double what a typical day is, so I didn’t feel so bad.

I’ve been eating popcorn, celery, bags of spinach and other filling foods. Been avoiding calorie dense foods like nut butter, fatty meats, fatty cheeses. Sparkling water and coffee have been my friend.

Eating at 2,000 calories per day for now.  If progress continues, I will stick at this level.  If things stabilize, I will cut back another 100 calories. The challenge will be how to adjust to a lower activity level in the coming weeks, but I should be able to adjust.

Dad Report: “…as a Family”

Sometimes, my wife gets very much focused on making sure we “do things as a family”. These mandated aggressive family togetherness periods are usually fleeting, but occasionally last an entire day. Today (Sunday) was one of those days….

Wife wanted to add “…as a family” to the following activities: walking, eating breakfast, hiking, reading books, playing pickle ball, riding bikes. So we did all that and also added in eating cake to celebrate my daughters pending birthday.

As a husband who would at times like some free time to do things on my own (besides the morning training session), these sudden family bonding mandates can be a bummer. But, a couple of things:

1. I can’t really push back, lest I foster discontent among the kids and make them feel like they can also push back; and
2. Spending time with my kids rather than doing what I want to do usually ends up being more rewarding and memorable, once me and the kids stop bitching about it.