Tacticool Father 11/16/12

We're 8 weeks out of the arrival of Mark III. He's in the 99% percentile of body size. He's going to be a big boy. There's no explanation for him being so large, other than genetics, since mama-bear tested that she doesn't have gestational diabetes.

I've been cooking 'paleo-ish' for us. She had put on a significant amount of weight during the first portion of the pregnancy. Enough that to docs were telling her to watch how much more weight she put on. Part of me stopping the MT/BJJ was so I could cook for her and make sure she was getting a healthier meal composition. Of course I can't control what she eats at work, but she says she's been pretty good about keeping away from wheats and breads.

I've been doing lots of fats and proteins, lots of veggies, and carbs from tubers and squashes and so forth. After implementing this, she didn't gain any more weight. She hasn't felt hungry, and she certainly isn't not getting enough nutrition. I'm pleased.

She mentioned to the doctor that we were cooking 'paleo', and looked at her sideways and said "ok, just make sure you're only eating lean cuts of meat'. It's pretty obvious that the medical community is still not tracking. I just told her to tell the docs that she is eating healthy and that we've got it under control.

Nesting instincts in full swing. I've been assembling furniture and cleaning clothes and toys to prep for baby.

Today, 11/16, I weighed 184.6. I think that's like 6 lbs since I started doing the daily 18/6 fasts. Also, my meal composition has cleaned up quite a bit. The biggest thing has been having a hunk of protein, some veggies, and a piece of a baked sweet potato or something. Maybe a piece of fruit if I get peckish. I really do feel better when I limit my wheat. Admittedly, I'm still eating some legumes and some cheese. I have loads of energy, so I'm going to continue on this deal and see where it leads.

My first week of 5/3/1 will wrap up this week. It's awesome. My calculated 1 rep maxes look like an infant's scores, but I'm ok with that. Some of the hilarious stuff I see at Georgia Tech's gym is priceless. I saw a guy doing behind the head shoulder press, then letting the bar fall onto his shoulders. I think he must have been trying to chip his cervical spine.

My calculated maxes:
Squats: 231
Deadlift: 315
Press: 130
Bench: 203.5

I'm all about starting lighter than heavier, perfecting form, and sticking to a program. The guys I lift with are still ego-tied to their numbers, form is mostly horrendous, and they're basically asking for an injury or doing half reps and not getting full R.O.M.. I am trying to drop subtle hints, but since they're engineers, they're confident they know the proper way and there's NO WAY they could be doing it wrong. I'm going to get film of my lifts, to confirm that my body is doing what I think it should when I do a movement. I've been reading a LOT on the lifts, and the kinesthetic memory is coming back to me from when I used to lift all the time about 5 years ago.

TactiCool Father: Starting 5/3/1 and a shift in my training focus

I'm gearing up for the baby and some things are changing. I'm reading books like crazy, assembling cribs, cleaning  baby clothes, and on and on...

I'm working on transitioning out of my bjj and mt gym. It was a hard choice to make but duty calls. My wife is needing more and more help around the house, and I simply can't be away for 2.5 hours every night after work when I should be prepping the house for the baby and cooking meals. So, in order to keep up my pace, not get fat, and get stronger, I'm going to transition into a weight training program. Everything else will get put into maintenance mode.

My S&C guru and friend, Larry L. recommend I start a linear progression weight training program (stronglifts 5x5, 5/3/1 or similar) months ago to augment my jits and MT. I was doing 1 day of dead lifts a week in an attempt to just do something. I tried to be consistent, but only had the energy to train it maybe twice a month.  That will change now.

In parallel, I'm building my basement gym, which will allow me to do the 5/3/1 program in my basement (and several of my friends showed interest in training with me),  and also I joined GaTech's gym as an alumnus. I'll use that to train with my coworkers, and get access to the pool and other cool stuff they have there.

Anyway, I talked with Larry again today, and ran my plan past him. He said go for it, and get started.
I'm doing 4x a week 5/3/1 linear progression. If you don't know what that is, do some googling, but basically it's a linear program based on 4 main lifts (shoulder press, bench press, squat, deadlift) mixed with some support work.

My new goal is to get strong.

Here's the plan (weekly):
Monday: 5/3/1 Press
Tuesday: 5/3/1 Squat
Wednesday: Long Slow Distance work. Some Sprints since my Jits is going to be lacking
Thursday: 5/3/1 Bench
Friday: 5/3/1 DeadLift
Saturday or Sunday: Either MT rounds on the heavy bag, or BJJ drills with heavy bag, or when possible attend an open mat at a gym around town.

When Possible: Dry Fire, using Claude's dryfire cds.


Diet:
As you might have seen in the last few posts, I've started delving more deeply into diet and optimising food composition. I have been doing 24 hours Intermittent Fasting for the last 8 months or so, with great results both achieving my goal weight (180) and maintaining around it. I want to see, just as an experiment, if I can get a little leaner. I have been feverishly listening to 'the paleo podcast' with Robb Wolf and am pretty sold on the 'give it 30 days and see' type thing. I've been eating this way for the last 2 weeks. I'll take before photos, and we'll see what happens after a couple of months. OH and when I fail to keep a super strict Paleo diet, Larry promised not to say he told me so. So I got that going for me.

I'm very excited for a new challenge and a change of pace.

I gotta keep my mind active, lest I stagnate and put on sympathy weight... :D

Later Gs,
Mark