Ace mission impossible

[acerimmer22]

1. Starting point:
Ex triathlete and runner - I will keep some amount of running/cycling/swimming no matter what. I'm not buying 'running is catabolic' stuff as I have seen many bulky ironman triathletes. They we're slower but they managed to finished many races.

1,86m 75kg@14% fat - My goal is not to get big and bulky. Short term, I will keep same weight but try 'the impossibile' - recomposition. Till this summer I want to get to 75kg@10% fat. This means I have to burn about 3kg fat and build 3kg of muscle during spring.

2. Training
I used to train everyday and nothing will change this. No 'rest' days bull****, I enjoy training!

MON
Squat, bench, power clean 3x8 working sets
prone bridges and reverse crunches
Bike trainer after weights - 20min moderate tempo, 10x10sec sprint/30sec easy, 10min moderate tempo

TUE
swimm - 800m moderate, 10x50m sprint/50m easy, 1000m moderate, 200m cool down
45 min walk/hike

WED
Squat@80%, military press, deadlift 3x8working sets
weighted pull ups/chin ups, reverse crunches
Run after weights - 20min moderate tempo, 10x10sec sprint/30sec easy, 10min easy tempo

THU
Bike - 30min moderate temp, 10x30sec sprint/1 min easy, 30min moderate tempo
45min walk

FRI
Squat, bench, power clean 3x8 working sets
weighted push ups and prone bridges
Run after weights - 30 min moderate/steady

SAT
Bike - 20min warm up with 'the bear' barbell complex (20min)
Swimm - 800m warm up, 2000m steady, 200m cool down

SUN
Run - 15min moderate tempo, 10x30sec@80% sprint/1min easy, 25min moderate tempo
Bike 75min easy or 60min walk/hike

3. DIET
Now things get interesting....anabolic diet.
I will eat high fat/low carb during weekdays and high carb during weekends. But I will not go overboard with calories and try to keep paleolish foods.

Weekdays exam.
meal1 eggs, butter
meal 2 ground beef, eggs, cabbage
meal 3 ground beef, butter, cabbage
meal 4 ground beef, eggs, butter cabbage
around 3000kcal - 230g fat/50g carb/170g prot

Weekend exam.
meal1 sardines, eggs
meal2 potatoes, dried fruit, apples
meal3 eggs, potatoes, dried fruit, apples
meal4 eggs, carrots, cabbage, butter
around 3000kcal - 120g fat/450g carb/120g prot

If I experience major overkill with this 5/2days carbloading approach I will consider more frequent 3/1days carbloading.

Let the party begins!

[acerimmer22]

Wake up at 5am, did my monday workout 6-7.30am. Only power cleans gave me little trouble so I will keep same weight next workout.
I prepared ground beef, eggs and cabbage for next 2 days. With this training load I think my glycogen stores will be empty very soon but I will try to avoid doing carbload this week.
So far, so good...

[acerimmer22]

Ate my eggs with little butter at 5am an 6 am I was already in the swimming pool, ready for my 3k training routine.
Suprisingly, this time there were 50m tracks only and for the last few months I did my routine in 25m tracks so I expected interval part to be harder than usual.
But, seems all went quite fine...after swimming ate my breakfast and went for a 1 hour walk.
I feel really good without carbs, mental clarity is amazing, no energy chrashes so far, no nervous during day. I like this so far.

[acerimmer22]

Yesterday after I came home from work, I was really hungry. Dinner was ground beef, eggs, butter and cabbage but I was still hungry after all. So I ended with few tbps. of sour cream, some bacon bits and camembert. I estimate I ate 300kcal. more than I planned but what the hell, it was all fat with little protein. I will do some additional hiking to burn that.
I don't know how can I be still hungry after eating all that fat during day. I hope those hunger feeling will fade out as soon as my body get used to fat as primary energy source. Then, I will probably cut intake for about 300kcal and see what happens.

Re. today...did my morning session of weightlifting and running after. Failed some reps on military press so will keep same weight next workout. Deadlifting was great, it went so easy today...
Running wasn't perfect, less energy than usual. Steady and slower tempo is ok but as I started pushing tempo and intervals, I felt less ammunition in my legs . I hope I'll have enough energy for shorter intervals during weekdays and longer ones are planned for weekends so those will be covered with higher carb intake.
Now, it's time for some breakfast as I prepared pork roast and eggs for next 2 days and will suplement with plenty of butter and some cabbage .

[acerimmer22]

Riding road bike is fun..but not indoors. The only thing that keeps you sane is either mp3 player or lcd screen with some mexican soap in front of you. Or both . So you start warm up and after 15 min your favorite mexican soap starts, you start hammering intervals. It goes well unless you're doing it glycogen depleted. Ok, after 4 days and morning bike session i have 2,5 kg less. It's water and glycogen loss. I ate beef and few eggs for breakfast and went to work. Today will be busy day without lunch so i will fast till dinner which seems not to be a problem as my appetite seems to fade out. Soon I will have to force myself to eat but this is how the things work on high fat diet. Mentally i feel great, focused, clearminded, i like this aspect of low carbing. I just hope future carb days will enable enough glcogen replenishment for intensity work so I'll have best of both worlds.

[Calvinstudent]

can you ride a road bike indoors? crazy

[PowerChica]

Good job so far! Keep it up!

[acerimmer22]

can you ride a road bike indoors? crazy

Bike trainer or rollers - you mount it on back wheel of your road bike and here you go...perfect thing for bike riders during winter

[acerimmer22]

Yesterday was really interesting after 12h fast. After I came home from work, I ate my usual dinner and bingo! I was still hungry, so I pigged out on almonds, pumpking seeds and cottage cheese. God knows how many additional calories was that, I didn' count anything just ate untill full. This binging is killing me so I decided to see why this is happening.
On the other hand today morning session was amazing, I progressed all lifts without failed reps and running after that was a joke. Obviously yesterday calories and carbs played some role in this . Also I decided to skip my first meal, ate some roast pork and 1 egg after working out and I will fast again till dinner and not binge anymore in the evening.

I just talk to my friend bobybuilding trainer and he got some good points. He said he never experienced major performance gains on extremly low carbs. There are some genetic freaks capable of doing this but most of us can't do it with calories restriction and low carbs. Low carbing people are happy if they can maintain strength levels and usualy their strength even goes down.

I analyzed binges I had and it seems it goes like this: Tommorrow I have training session - And I didn't ate enough today - My training tommorrow will suffer if I don't eat enough - So bring it on....
This is typical performance oriented way of thinking which obviously needs to be changed to physique oriented mindset. From now on diet will be my top priority and performance should be kept somewhere behind. Just keep training and don't feel frustrated about missed reps or performance times!

[acerimmer22]

Did 12k run with intervals today. It was cold outside and running was strugle on low carbs. i had to slow down but i don't care much about performance any more. Fat burning is top priority. Also I did easy bike ride for 75min on my bike trainer to recover my legs. Last 3 days i decided to do morning workouts fasted and it seems this works fine. Till now i ate 3 eggs with tablespoon of butter 30min before working out but it is much easier for me to go without that at the moment. Now it's cup of coffe, water and multivitamin, then fasted workout and then giant breakfast eggs, bacon, butter and some green veggies. Lunch and dinner are some meat and eggs with green veggies. I'm also thinking about 2 big meals as I don't feel hungry on this meat and eggs approach and also found that BB guru Vince Gironda did something similair but with one high carb meal every 3-4 days. I think this could work well for me...

[acerimmer22]

Today morning weight was 72,5 kg...so after 1 week I lost 2,5 kg.
Just finished my breakfast which was eggs and bacon,butter and some cabbage. I feel good after this, now I know why they call it breakfast of champs.
Fasted workout was great, improved on squats and bench, had some form problems on power clean so I'll have to work on technique. I also did 40min ride on a trainer with short 10sec intervals.
I put last 3 days into fiday and it seems I'm around 2600-2700 calories. I dropped some calories unintentionally as I just don't feel hungry.
During weekend I read about Vince Gironda and seems guy was genious for nutrition. I'm going to keep with his approach of meat, eggs, butter/cream with some carb only meal every few days.
Tommorrow morning I have early swimming session so I will need some quick solution for breakfast and lunch and seems Gironda had some perfect solution...
blend:
12 oz half&half
12 raw eggs
1 tablespoon of eggs&milk protein powder for the taste (I will put some cinnamon or cocoa powder instead of powder)


I will try this tommorrow, half of it for breakfast and other half for lunch. And then some meat for dinner.

[acerimmer22]

Woke up at 4.40am, got some coffe and went for a swimm. At first I thought I will be tough. Actualy it went fine, my body seems adjusting and energy levels are going slightly up. I felt ok even during intervals. I think coffe before workout helps alot when low carb.
After swimm I got shake and then went for 1 hour walk. It is so damn cold outside...
Btw. Gironda shake rules! It is really tasty if you add some cocoa powder. Still I'm little sceptic about using raw eggs every day because I don't buy organic stuff. Organic is damn expensive so I can't afford it. Still, I will probably use this shake few times a week for breakfast and lunch when in a hurry.

[swimmer2010]

Glad you had a good swin! My face workout, hehe. Great work!

[acerimmer22]

Few months ago I started with Madcow 5x5 strength training with the last set max. 5 rep on major lifts. As I plateaued soon, last set was always lifting to failure. I was constantly trying to push weights over my limits and didn't care much about technique. Typical beginner mistake ...Poor deadlifting blasted my back so I had to reset all lifts and start from the scratch. I choose 3x8 and so far this fits better my needs as I feel it is somewhere between strenght building and muscular endurance. Also doing 24 reps with same weight keeps me more focused on proper technique. After I can do all 24 reps, I add weight to bar.
Basically there isn't much philosophy in lifting, just do more workload within same time or same workload in less time.
Today I progressed in military press and deadlifts. Still feel little aches in my back so I will do some stretching and resting in the evening. Running after lifting was ok, doable but felt little sluggish. Muscles look smooth so I plan first big carb meal for friday or saturday.
Yesterday my diet was:
12 oz half and half + 12 eggs + tsp. of cocoa powder (splitted in 2 shakes for breakfast and lunch)
about 1 lbs ground beef + 1 tbsp mustard + some cabbage for dinner
I had to force feed myself during dinner. I really didn't feel hunger after those 2 shakes and could go without dinner but I knew my body needs those calories.
Today breakfast after workout was 6 scrambled eggs mixed with sliced blood sausage, 1 tbsp butter and some cabbage
For lunch I prepared some ground beef and 1 egg and dinner will also be ground beef with few eggs and a piece of something green.

[acerimmer22]

Yesterday evening I felt like crap. Back pain, knees pain, joint pains...from my experience, when I feel like this and continue with the same workload, I always end with some kind of injury.
So I decided to make little experiment. After dinner I ate extra: bunch of cream, full fat cottage cheese, some almonds and dark chocolate to add some serious calories. The point was to check if more fat(especially saturated) will bring better recovery and stop those aches.
Hell no, I woke up 5am and felt even worse, aches+bloated. I'm not concerned about extra calories I ate yesterday as I'm going to skip lunch today+I will still be at deficit till the end of week as I keep eating below maintenance.
In my world skipping workouts is not possibile (skip only if both of my legs are broken ) so i did 80min indoor bike ride with intervals as schedueled and also will take 1 hour walk later. During bike ride, didn't have any energy related problems, only this damn aches all over my body.
Obviously ground beef, eggs, butter diet isn't good for the purpose of fast recovery if you're doing intensity workouts every day. Few days ago little imflammations started creeping up and getting worse.
I'm not taking any omega3 or multivitamin/mineral supplement. I only take 1 vitamin c pill with zinc and one magnesium pill and that's it. Fitday shows I'm below RDA for many micronutrients like calcium, vitamin d, vitamin e, pottassium etc. This also can be reason for those aches.
I read about acid alkaline food but didn't care much about it. They said it is important to eat more alkaline food which is anti imflammatory, like more veggies, fruit, almonds, olive oil etc.
So I will try this approach but still keep low carb, and also up efa (fish):

preworkout - coffe, water, vitamin c and magnesium
breakfast (postworkout) - 1 can sardines in olive oil, 5 boiled eggs, 3 tbls. evoo, cup of cabbage
lunch - 8oz ground beef, 1 boiled egg
dinner - same as breakfast

If the pains go away then sardines&olive oil is name of the game...

[acerimmer22]

Had great morning workout. I progresses on all lifts but feel I will plateau soon.
After lifting did 7k run and feel really good and energetic. I don't remember last time I did such a good running workout.
I still feel some soreness in my back but little aches all over my body seems to dissapear. I don't know if diet change is a reason but I decided to lower saturated fats and go liberal with EVOO. I will keep like this to see if there is something magical about EVOO.
Breakfast was ground beef with EVOO and cabbage. I'm skipping lunch again as I have crazy schedule today and dinner will be ground beef, maybe a can of sardines, EVOO, green veggies.

[acerimmer22]

Weekend was crazy, I did all planned workouts but the diet was completly out of control. I ended both days partying so I just couldn't be strict re. diet. I ate loads of cookies, cakes and all other crap. I will just consider this as carb loading weekend .
To summarize, last 2 weeks were crazy with some binge eating, fasting, junk food...but today morning weight is still 72.5 kg.
What I noticed is that I'm experiencing better recovery after I replaced dairy with almonds, pumpkin seeds and evoo. I will keep diet like this. Also, It is damn impossibile to eat too much calories with strict paleo diet. It is really hard for me to go over 2500 calories with diet like this so I will probably lose some weight. I hope most of it will be fat. After I hit below 10% body fat I can think about short bulking cycle but let's hit first those 10%.
Lifting today was ok, progresses on squats and power clean but stalled at bench. I also did 40min ride on a trainer with short intervals after lifting and felt good.
Breakfast was 250g shredded carrots, 1 can sardines in evoo, 1 oz almonds, 1 tbsp evoo
Lunch will be 200g cooked ground beef and 1 boiled egg
Dinner will be 10 boiled eggs, 125g shredded carrots, 150g cabbage, 1 oz almonds, 1 tbsp evoo

[acerimmer22]

Did morning 3k swimming session and after breakfast went for a 60 min walk.
Breakfast was 1 can of sardines in evoo + 250 shredded carrots + 2 tbsp evoo
Lunch is 8 oz ground beef + 125g shredded carrots
Dinner will be 16oz ground beef + 125g carrots + 150g cabbage

I'm really tired of counting and weighting food. I'm thinking about focusing on leaner meats, veggies and a little of evoo for every meal, without measuring and counting. Just eating as much as i think is enough but eliminate eggs, dairy and nuts completly from my diet till I get ripped look....

[acerimmer22]

day 17....thursday I felt really like shi....Can't go like this anymore!
I'm giving up this low carb/high fat approach. It just doesn't work if you're very active. After some inital 'feel ok' period I feel completly burned and drained.
So, I change diet to paleo with moderate carbs but small caloric deficit to shed some fat.
Today breakfast post workout was salad with 250g shredded carrots, 1 can sardines in evoo, handful of almonds, 50g shredded carob and 2 bananas.
Lunch will be 1 chicken breast with carrots and handful of almonds
Dinner - half a chicken (without skin and fat), carrots and cabbage, handful of almonds and 2 small apples
I don't care about macros anymore, just trying to get enough protein and use same principle for every meal: lean protein + veggies + fruit + nuts.
I ate this way on thursday and felt great without any cravings. Today I feel recovered and did morning session of lifting and running.