PSMF/Weight Cut Week Review

Day 1 (July 29) Weight: 136

PSMF. Easy peasy today. Bloat from the weekend has set in, as well as irritated skin (my body doesn’t react well to sugar), but so has energy from all that food. My afternoon lifting was GREAT; I decided to redo a session from last week in which I’d had fallen quite short, and today I hit all the lifts pretty easily. Broke my fast at dinner with 12 oz. grilled venison steak and a final cup of black iced coffee with some Jordan’s Skinny Syrup. The two keys to fasting are 1. adequate sleep, and 2. stay busy!

Five days until I test my 1RM!

Day 2 (July 30) Weight: 133.6

PSMF. Harder today. Did Insanity Max30 first thing in the morning, which was a good idea, considering my energy lagged as the day went on. A poor previous night’s sleep and a challenging overall day in general, combined with an afternoon-onset headache, led to me sipping some black coffee after dinner, while staring longingly at the bowl of cold watermelon on the table. Now that dinner is over, I’m looking forward to an early bedtime. (Broke my fast at dinner with 3.5 oz. leftover venison, 5.4 oz chicken breast, and 18g collagen in my final cup of coffee.) The third key to fasting: COFFEE.

(It’s usually the second day that the devil on my shoulder starts prodding: why are you doing this? On Day 2, temptations loom everywhere, vacation bloat is still present, energy is lacking, and honestly, there hasn’t been enough “fasting time under my belt” to dissuade me from saying, forget it. Once dinner is over and the day draws to a close, however, there’s never any regret in sticking to the plan.)

Day 3 (July 31) Weight: 129.2

PSMF... ish. Skin has cleared, bloating down. Broke my fast at dinner with 11 oz. braised venison shank and a plain can of tuna, as well as collagen and Jordan’s in my dinner coffee. (Then... half a serving of sweet potato chips and a peach. I justified those carbs by this morning’s unexpected scale dip.) Overall, I felt good today. Fantastic workout (no missed lifts), few tears, and no headache. 

Day 4 (August 1) Weight: 128.6

Reverse Day 1 (1200 cal goal). This was a great day- a day for focusing on things more important than nutrition. It was also, however, an untracked day. I’m pretty sure I went over 1200, but not by too much. Brian and I had a couple afternoon appointments to take care of, so my wonderful mom took a workday to babysit. When we finally made it home (unexpectedly late) at 6:30, I broke my fast with an entire watermelon. (Well, almost.) Insanity Max30 in the AM. I’m solidly within my 60kg weight class again, and very excited to test my 1RM on Saturday. My personal powerlifting meet. 

Day 5 (August 2) Weight: 129.2

Reverse Day 2 (1500 cal goal). Honestly, another untracked day. Broke my fast at dinner with… dinner (chicken parm casserole). I’ve been trying to get used to Lifesum for tracking macros. It’s not a bad app, and I think I’ll get used to it after a while, but MFP was like breathing, and dozens of my recipes were stored there. But if I really had a meet tomorrow, weigh-in would have been this morning, and I would’ve nailed it, and I would’ve been going heavier on the carbs tonight anyway. No workout today, just resting for tomorrow. 

I’m looking forward to crushing some numbers tomorrow. I definitely think I’ve made progress in bench. In May, my form was dismal and I couldn’t get comfortable with getting full-body tension until Brian showed me a different way to position my feet and... yes! My squat progress... meh. I’ll be happy if I can hit the same number I could in May. As I’ve leaned out, my squat seems to have suffered most. But as for my deadlift, I’m really hoping for an increase. I’ve worked hard for it. 

Day 6 (August 3) One-rep max test day!

Wow. Talk about disappointing.

Here were my numbers in May (~138 lb bodyweight):

Squat: 225 lb. 

Bench: 150 lb. 

Deadlift: 265 lb. 

Here were my numbers today, after another 9-week prep block (~130 lb bodyweight):

Squat: 225 lb. (failed 230)

Bench: 150 lb. (failed 155)

Deadlift: Attempted 265 and then 255. I could barely get either of them off the floor an inch. 

So... stayed the same, except for my best lift, which got weaker. 

Oh, gosh. When I struggled with that last 255, I felt like crying. Which would be stupid. I did not cry. But I’m not exactly sure where to go from here. Here are my random thoughts. Am I too old to gain strength? I’ll be 32 this September. Maybe I’ve peaked. If so, I certainly haven’t peaked at a competitive spot. So there won’t be any meet in my future. Still, I can’t say this was wasted effort. It was hard work; it did something. Maybe it kept muscle mass while I leaned out. It wasn’t wasted. Was this week’s PSMF too depleting? I certainly felt good during my workouts. I hardly slept on Thursday night- Will couldn’t sleep and kept panicking, so I laid next to him as he talked to me all night- maybe that caught up with me today (Saturday). I’ve been all over the map emotionally lately; maybe this wasn’t a good time to go for new strength goals. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

You spend so much time on something and it ends abruptly, without the outcome you expected. That’s life.

I’m going to have to reassess my goals; I don’t want to lose sight of more important things. Fitness should enhance my life, not make me feel like a failure. This wasn’t failure - it was feedback. That’s all. 

Yeah, I’m into fitness. ‘Fitness’ whole box of ice cream bars into my body.

I’m in a melancholy mood. I’m laying next to William, watching him sleep. He’s been throwing up for the last twenty-four hours. We are in Charlevoix for the second time this summer, and had big plans for our last day-and-a-half here. Those plans did not include the stomach flu for my little guy. His eyes are sunken, lids half open as he sleeps, revealing bloodshot eyes. I’m waiting to see if the water he sipped an hour ago will stay down. I’ve coped with the disappointment and sadness of seeing him miserably sick, during what should be the highlight of his summer, by eating. I’ve been stuffing my face non-stop over the past twenty-four hours, as though I’m eating Will’s calories for him, or as though I’m just daring my body to also catch the stomach flu. I came to Charlevoix proud of my abs, and I’m leaving looking six months pregnant. 

Throughout the night I dozed on and off, watching William lay awake between bouts of vomiting. I had fitful dreams, the main one being that I invited all of my MyFitnessPal friends to my home for dinner. We introduced ourselves in person and talked about fitness and injuries. I woke from that dream, missing that community something fierce. Recent circumstances required I delete my MFP account. I’d had that account since 2011, and had logged in daily for almost the past three years. I didn’t realize, when I chose to delete, the profound sense of loss I’d feel after some time had gone by. That group had cheered me on after tough workouts, had encouraged me during those hectic days after having Mac and trying to balance fitness and homeschooling and four small kids. It was nice that they were strangers; I could vent about things I felt my real-life friends would find obnoxious (fitness). We were all there for the same thing, and no one grew bored of hearing about things my real-life friends might find annoying (well, fitness). I think about fitness daily, but I’m well aware that no one cares about how much I can bench, whether or not it’s Flex Friday, or why I can’t decide between a hypertrophy circuit or powerlifting for my next training block. 

So I’m melancholy, because my little boy is so sick, because I feel disgustingly full, and because my fitness community is gone.

But you know what? This is my void, my space in which to blather on and on. So I’m gonna do that. “Sing to Life and Fitness.”

So please indulge me as I think aloud, about my training goals for the remainder of summer/fall. I often vacillate between prioritizing aesthetics vs. performance. However, I recently cut down to the 60kg weight class for a powerlifting competition I was thinking of doing this month, and I’m very happy with my appearance. So happy, in fact, that I have not been too concerned about my lifts suffering (probably helps that I decided to not compete after all). So I suppose aesthetics trumps performance during this time of year, and I’m okay with that. I’ve also seen an improvement in my cardio performance, which is almost as important to me as my lifting numbers, so I’d like to include that as a focus. 

Goals for Summer/Fall 2019

1. Maintain weight

2. Train for powerlifting

3. Continue intense cardio

1. Maintain weight. It has become much easier to stay within my macros since beginning intermittent fasting. Yes, most mornings I wake up and do not feel like fasting until dinner. And many nights, I snack beyond my macros. But overall, I’ve been able to remain consistent enough that staying in the 60kg class is very doable, even with an untracked day each week. The problem at hand, however, is that I’m returning home from this trip well over 60kg. I’ve decided to spend the rest of July in a protein-sparing modified fast (beginning 7/29). On August 1, I’ll begin a three-day reverse into maintenance calories (1200, 1500, 1800) where I’ll stay through the rest of summer/fall, depending on weight changes.

2. Powerlifting. I still hope to compete one of these years. After reading extensively about different intermediate lifting programs, I’ve decided to stay with the undulating periodization program I’ve been using. My issues with it have been the length of time required lately (over 90 minutes most days, including child interruptions), and the fact that my numbers have been dropping. This is most likely because I’ve been cutting weight and probably taxing myself a little too much with accessories and excessive warmups. I tend to go all-out and approach my lifting sessions with a rather rigid mindset (“if a little is good, more is better- and if I could do it last week, I better be able to do it today”). I’ll leave the intense cardio for my alternate cardio days and keep the warmup sets and accessories to a minimum. 

3. Intense cardio. I could definitely stand to increase my endurance, and I like to have three alternate cardio days to offset lifting. Insanity Max30 pushes me more than I push myself, and schedule changes have recently eliminated running as a cardio option, so Insanity Max30 it is. These half-hour workouts are really challenging for me, so they’re a better option than running in a few ways. I’ll miss seeing the fireflies come out during my evening runs, though. 

So having taken the time to read, research, and think out loud here, I guess I’ve decided to move forward without changing much. Ha! That’s probably a good thing- hopefully it means I’ve been on the right track. I’ll be retesting my one-rep max in about a week, and I’ll be taking some notes during my PSMF/reverse, so I’ll include those here later. 

It’s taken me several minutes, here and there, to write this post today, between packing and taking care of the kiddos. I’m happy to report that William did stop vomiting around 10 AM and ate some potato chips at lunchtime (it was all I could find to entice him- nothing else would work!). We left CHX at 3:30 PM, are almost home, and he has slept most of the way. And I’m feeling a little less blue- clarifying goals always helps me perk up. I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep, a solid training session tomorrow, and the memory of those Dove bars and cheesecake to carry me through the next week.