Ahhh red eye! Everyone loves a good eye pop. Only blown mine once and it was much like yours, aspiring to one day go full zombie.
...manages to keep down lunch...just. I vote to put gross body part posts "illegal" in the TOS. :ban:
It's time for the quadra-annual training log update*!!! As some of you know I damaged my knee by foolishly attempting to manhandle a smurf*. This is not something I would recommend and I've learned my lesson now! [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm-SsY381Mc"]Sim Day 4 First Bar Scenario - YouTube[/ame] I managed to sprain my ACL which has meant 6 weeks away from lifting and a couple on crutches. At the moment I'm building strength in my knees and I'll be doing some light calisthenics to aid that. I should be back to training by April if it all goes to plan. Since I've been fairly immobile for a while, barely moving at all while I was on the crutches, my weight has crept up a little. I kept my diet pretty clean but I'm now sat at 215lbs and 11-12% body fat (edumacatish guestimation). I've got a holiday planned for June and for the sake of vanity I'd like to get into shape for it. I'm going to give Martin Berkhan's Leangains approach a trial. I'll be having two meals a day within an 8 hour period. On training days it'll be about 3000 kcal and on rest days it'll be about 1800 kcal. Protein will be 200g+ a day and carbs will be high on training days and low on rest days where the calories will be replaced by fat. It means I can keep my meals really simple and stick to a basic and easy plan. It'll be higher carb and lower fat than my usual approach but it's good to get out of my comfort zone once in a while. From an exercise perspective the approach wants three heavy weight sessions a week which obviously isn't a problem, plus they don't ask for cardio so any conditioning is going to be a bonus. My performance at the DART simulation day demonstrated that my MA skills have gotten rusty and as the day progressed I transitioned from hitting people to lifting people. I'm hoping to start a striking art like boxing or muay thai again which will obviously help a little. Even from just a calories in/out perspective I should lose weight and the carb cycling does appeal to me. Hopefully muscle loss will be minimal and I'll at least look like I train in 13 weeks time! *aka when I remember. *actually just one of those things that unfortunately happen and probably more my fault that anything else!
Sorry to hear you've been injured (I seem to have missed that little fact)! As you are probably well aware, I can empathise deeply with injury annoyance! Good luck with your recovery and getting back into shape!
Cheers! Tbh it's just a sprain and fortunately nothing more serious. I'm about and walking on it already, just being cautious since the ACL is like rotator cuffs in that group of things that can give you a lot of grief.
I'm almost a week into leangains now and it's time for some initial observations. The low calorie days are easy, the diet is a little low fat than I'm used to but that's no real issue. The high calorie high carb days are a bit harder. I'm splitting my feeding time into two meals, and I'm finding the volume hard going each meal. Considering its not unusual to eat 250g of pasta then 300g quinoa later plus a kilo or so of lean meat and green veg in too it feels like a clean bulk instead of a cut. Also my gut is still adjusting to getting more carbs in a day than I usually get in a week! Weight is dropping well, about 5 lbs so far and without the usual muscle body flatness that comes with a low carb diet. I suspect a little is water weight as I'm on the high carb day today. Energy is up, I feel leaner though it's way too early to judge and no issues with hunger, in fact on the high calorie days I feel completely stuffed. I'm only training light body weight still but my knee has stopped playing up so it's looking good for April.
10 days in and my first cheat meal. I wasn't planning any cheat meals but we bought a flat yesterday, or at least they accepted our offer. It was also my wife's birthday but instead of the restaurant meal I had planned we needed to sort out solicitors, surveys and get our mortgage offer into an actual mortgage. As a result I cooked a meal, ribs, wedges and veg with a tiramisu to follow. My wife is also doing her own diet thing and felt bad breaking it, even for her birthday so I agreed to join her. I still don't have the gut flora to digest large quantities of sugar it seems, and it's been giving me some 'discomfort' today. On the plus side it makes it very easy to stick to my diet!
Your comment about gut flora is interesting! I've found that since I went lower starchy carb when I go back to a diet based round bread, pasta etc I end up with really bad acid indigestion. Now I realise that it doesn't count as a double blind randomised clinical study but the times I had the acid issues always seem to coincide with a higher starchy carb intake (Christmas, working away from home and having to modify my diet etc).
Thirded! I find that when on high fat/low carb 'diet' if i have a night of munching sugary crap (usually cookies and choccy bars) I feel generally ill the next day; lethargy, sniffles and headaches. It also isn't as satisfying as i remember it used to be before i changed my eating habits.
Fourthed! Can't go back to wheat/gluten based products anymore, heartburn, stomach pain, even puked most recently. Hope I can still drink beer...
LOL at the beer issue - fortunately I'm not much of a drinker! I find I'm OK with rice and potatoes (which I often eat in the evening post workout) and the occasional piece of cake (life wouldn't be worth living without cake!), bread or pizza etc, but when I start eating a diet based round bread, that's when I get problems. I only recently connected the dots to the possible cause! I noticed real problems over Christmas and last summer when I was in Sweden and, due to work requirements, I was eating a lot more bready products - sandwiches for lunch, pastries for breakfast and snacks etc.
