Wow, I just time traveled 4 months. I apologize to anyone who actually reads this thing. It's been busy on my end.
What's new with me? Let's see.
First, the baby is doing great. he's in the 97% of length, and 77% in weight. So he's long and lean. Like his dad.
I'm still doing 5/3/1 as a base strength program. I still love it. I've finally hit my wall in a few lifts. I missed my OHP 5 reps yesterday. I have been doing a lot of manual labor and not sleeping enough, so I feel like that's probably partially to blame for my misses.
Here's my current progress and maxes (calculated)
Deadlift - 382
OHP - 148.5
Squat - 302
Bench - 221
I started here in early November.
DL - 303
OHP - 126
Squat - 233
Bench - 206
I have been religiously following Dan John's principles for my assistance lifts. My off days are filled with KB swings. I'm doing overhead squats and front squats every workout (w/ a stick), lots of hinge stuff, and weighted carries. A slosh pipe is in my future as well.
I have definitely fully shifted my obsession to lifting. When I first was forced to stop training MMA, I felt the pangs of having to miss nearly daily. Now, I only have that feeling every few weeks. I don't want to lose the desire to return. I know how important it is to the overall game, and I really feel like it made me a better person.
In the shooting realm, I have been given a great opportunity. My friend Sean started a company http://centermasstacticaltraining.blogspot.com/ and asked me to be an assistant instructor. I have creative input in the curriculum, and he's open to suggestions. The second class was held 4.28.13, and this was the first one I was able to attend. My mom was able to take the class, and I'm happy she was able to see what I love doing, and learn to use a gun. It's an unpaid gig, but Sean is a friend and hopefully it grows to the point that I can get some scratch for my time. I have a lot of thoughts rolling around in my head, great mentors, good access to a wide variety of information, and a mind for it (at least I think). Another upside is that the other instructor owns an MMA gym in Marietta, and offered for me to come train whenever I want. I will take him up on that. Having a baby makes it so I'm lucky if I could get more than 1 day of skills training in a week. Having to pay for a membership to a gym wouldn't be a smart use of money.
I was able to shoot the Shield 9mm during the demos. I love it. It shoots like a bigger gun, minimal recoil for such a small gun, and the trigger is a dream compared to a PF9 or a snub (both of which I could shoot very well). I installed Ameriglo I-Dot orange sights, and the POPPED in the dreary conditions. I made every hit during my demos, which included lateral movement and a retreat to cover drill. Reloads were smooth and I can't complain. I may texture the frame of the shield a bit, but that's just because I like messing with my guns.
I'll stay on my dryfire program. It's a combination of doing Claude's dryfire cds http://www.dryfire-practice.com/ and TLG's dryfire training program. www.pistol-training.com
Lastly, shooting steel is a blast. I recommend it.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
The Summary Part 1: The Diet
At the urging of my friend Jeff, I am going to write out a broad overview of some of the ways that I've used to improve myself over the last 3 years. This will essentially be a review of methods and approaches to diet and exercise that I've tried, with success (or failure, which is sometimes more useful). I will include links to the original works and sources so you can read more about the topics that you want to research more deeply. If you're reading this, you know me, so you know my history of losing 60 lbs and maintaining the losses, and so forth, so I won't rehash that. Just know that the original reason I started researching these things was for fat loss, then my interest slowly evolved into sports performance.
The first rule is, be a skeptic. Don't trust what I say. Research it for yourself, and give something a try.
So I'll start off with the fat loss portion of the journey, since that's what Jeff asked about specifically. I'll lay this out in the logical progression I used to structure my diet. Where am I? Where do I want to be (goals)? How can I get there? How can I measure my improvements? How do I look/perform/feel? Then feedback to the beginning of this, and keep going through the cycle.
1) Where am I right now?
First, the only scientifically proven method for fat loss is caloric restriction. That is, eating fewer calories than you're using. You can get deep into trying to calculate your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) based on your activity level and job description. However, what I've found for myself is that I always tend to overestimate my energy output level on a given day, so I like to UNDERESTIMATE my base caloric needs so that when I do train, it's just bonus Calories burned. In order to do that, I use my basal metabolic rate to get an idea of how many Calories I'm using just to be alive.
So just for instance, let's say I'm a 6' tall 29 year old male (and I weigh 220 lbs) and my near-term weight goal is 190 lbs. I will use the BMR calculator and use my GOAL weight to calculate a BMR of 1680 Cal. So, if I'm able to eat at a daily average of 1680 Cal, I will tend to trend downward from my current 220 lbs towards my goal of 190. Easy, right? If you eat less than the amount required to maintain your current weight, then your body can't sustain its current form, and you will trend towards the body that you are eating for. And make no mistake, you can't out-exercise your fork. "Abs are made in the kitchen" is a truism.
2) Where do I want to be?
The single most important key to success in losing weight is to have a goal. Have a metric. Hold yourself accountable to your goal, or ask a friend to hold you accountable. You can make a bet between friends (who can lose 20 lbs the fastest?) This is one of those things that will depend almost completely on your current situation. If you're super inflamed, have a lot of visceral fat, and have trouble getting up the stairs, you are going to take a much different approach than an already reasonably active person who has 20 lbs to lose, or an athlete who is already at the top of the game. You need to make challenging, yet reasonable goals. Get out a piece of paper and write down what you want in the next month, 3 months, and over the next year. I do this ALL THE TIME, to the point of being obsessive, but it really helps me get what I'm after.
3) How can I get there?
This section is going to be a laundry list of arriving at your caloric deficit. All of the following will assume that you're not changing how you're eating at all. That is, you're still allowed to eat at McD's for lunch if that's what you usually do. I'm going to treat meal composition as a separate section. The meal composition is most important to performance, not to fat loss. You can lose as much fat as you want without having to do without your favorite junk foods. You'll just have to eat a lot less of them, overall.
Very few of these ideas are mine, but I'll lay them out and try to give credit where I can. Despite what method you use, there is no free lunch. You will be hungry at some point, you will be cranky, you might feel brain fog, you might fall off the wagon and eat a large pizza and box of hot wings. This is a reality, and we have to allow for this. If your diet plan doesn't allow for a little human-nature, you're setting yourself up for failure from the beginning.
A few tips, regardless of what method you use:
-Don't look at calories on a daily basis, instead use a weekly overview. This will allow you to realize that a night of beer and wings isn't the 'end of the world and I might as well give up'. Instead, you can make up for the excess of that day by eating less the next.
-Look at hunger as 'fat burn mode'. When you are truly hungry (and if you try intermittent fasting, you'll learn what actual hunger is) just view it as the times when you're truly scorching through that stored flab, and relish it.
-If you go out to eat, ask for a to-go box when your food comes out, and put 1/2 of your meal in the box right away. Then you can't overeat, and you'll have less to regret later.
Simple Caloric Restriction: This is the classic method of calorie counting. This WORKS. Make no mistake. It requires loads of attention to detail (which some people love and crave) which I personally find tiring. Folks are also prone to yo-yo-ing since people feel enslaved to their daily diet. If they mess up a day, or over eat one day, it's very easy to fall off the wagon. You will also feel a low level hunger almost all the time (Depending on how restricted you're going). One phenomena of prolonged caloric restriction is stalling in weight loss, despite people eating below their maintenance. Here's the LeanGains guy's article about that. There seems to be benefit from cyclically (once a week or so) refeeds off a calorically restricted diet. This is most needed when the bodyfat is sub 10%, which is already for a very small population. This gives a cheat meal (or day) good merit beyond just helping you keep your sanity. I know I've read lots of theories on why, I just can't seem to find the sources right now.
Intermittent Fasting: This is a catch-all term for the method of using periods of fasting (no eating) to hack out large portions of the day when you traditionally would have been eating. There are many ways to structure this time. If you're first coming to this from a traditional dieting perspective, READ THIS before discounting this method of caloric restriction. I'll outline some of the popular methods and discuss my favorite.
Eat/Stop/Eat -
This is a great method. This method is a 2-3 day a week 24 hour fasts. For instance, eat lunch on a tuesday, and don't eat again until lunch on a wednesday. Go about your life as usual. Train, sleep, work, drink plenty of water, and enjoy your weight loss. Brad Pilon's book is fantastic at laying down the groundwork and the research regarding fasting and it's benefits. Benefits from the caloric restriction angle, as well as some of the purported hormonal and mental benefits that come from fasting. It's for the working man (and lady) who just wants to shed some extra pounds without having to severely alter their meal compositions (only the meal frequency). I love this method, and it's the one I currently use to maintain at my current weight. The trickiest part with this IF method is to eat your fast-breaking meal as if you had eaten the previous meals. That is, don't gorge because you didn't eat breakfast or lunch. That is the hardest part for me. I love the feeling of being really full after a big meal. To realize the most loss with ESE, I have to consciously control that urge to stuff myself. Do this for about 3 months, and you'll notice a change. It will be hard for the first month or so. You'll be learning what real true 'body hunger' feels like. Remember, that's just fat burn mode. It might also mess with your bowel movement timing. So what. poop later. You might get sort of grumpy. Apologize later and hope the people in your life are willing to deal with your mood now so that they can enjoy your healthier body later. You might feel a bit loopy if you're insulin insensitive or a bit obese. As long as you don't get wildly low blood sugar, ride it out, and keep going. As you lose the visceral fat, you'll become MORE insulin sensitive (a good thing), your blood sugar levels will be more stable, and you'll be less affected by the fasts.
LeanGains:
This is a 18h fast/6h fed IF regiment that also has a carb cycling aspect and pays pretty close attention to macro-nutrient timing and composition. It also requires you to do heavy weight training at least 3x a week. To stick to LG very strictly is an exercise in weighing food and calorie counting. It's really for a person who is sub 12% bodyfat, trying to break the 10% barrier.
Alternate Day Fasting:
Eat one day, don't eat the next. Simple enough.
The Warrior Diet
This is a 20 hour fasted, 4 hour eating window method of IF. Get your day's calories in one big epic meal, once a day. It's for the dudes who love stuffing their face. I need to read this book. I only have read summaries online, and want to be able to speak more intelligently about this method.
Measuring Improvements:
A weekly weigh in. Monthly photographs. and a tape measure on the areas you're interested in monitoring (thighs, hips, around belly at navel, around chest at nipple height, and the limbs are all good places). Write it down in a book. Set yourself a google calendar reminder, and monitor yourself.
Maintaining:
It seems that it's easier to maintain than it is to lose. Once the difficult work is done, it logically follows that holding your ground is easier. You can probably throttle back to 1x a week IF or whatever your method. Just have your line in the sand. If you're maintenance method fails you, and you creep above your threshold, batten down the hatches and go back into loseit mode. Don't let your line in the sand creep, or eventually you'll lose all of the ground you fought for.
How I'm doing it:
This is really the least important thing, but I'll list how I'm currently finding success. I'm maintaining at 190-195#, and currently in a strength building phase. I'm allowing myself a little bit of excess calories so I make sure to max out my strength gains. I have my mind made up that I'll not go over 200#. If I do, I'll diet back down to 185 using ESE protocol and by making my portions smaller. For now, to maintain, I'm using 2 a week 24 hour fasts a la Eat/Stop/Eat. My diet is primarily a paleo (no dairy/grains/legumes) diet.
That sums up the first part of diet stuff. Next I'll outline the foods that I've been eating in order to perform at the highest level that I've ever been able to. I'll also write about the method I use to cycle through my performance goals and manage an infinite list of goals to a finite amount of time.
Thanks for reading,
Mark
The first rule is, be a skeptic. Don't trust what I say. Research it for yourself, and give something a try.
So I'll start off with the fat loss portion of the journey, since that's what Jeff asked about specifically. I'll lay this out in the logical progression I used to structure my diet. Where am I? Where do I want to be (goals)? How can I get there? How can I measure my improvements? How do I look/perform/feel? Then feedback to the beginning of this, and keep going through the cycle.
1) Where am I right now?
First, the only scientifically proven method for fat loss is caloric restriction. That is, eating fewer calories than you're using. You can get deep into trying to calculate your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) based on your activity level and job description. However, what I've found for myself is that I always tend to overestimate my energy output level on a given day, so I like to UNDERESTIMATE my base caloric needs so that when I do train, it's just bonus Calories burned. In order to do that, I use my basal metabolic rate to get an idea of how many Calories I'm using just to be alive.
So just for instance, let's say I'm a 6' tall 29 year old male (and I weigh 220 lbs) and my near-term weight goal is 190 lbs. I will use the BMR calculator and use my GOAL weight to calculate a BMR of 1680 Cal. So, if I'm able to eat at a daily average of 1680 Cal, I will tend to trend downward from my current 220 lbs towards my goal of 190. Easy, right? If you eat less than the amount required to maintain your current weight, then your body can't sustain its current form, and you will trend towards the body that you are eating for. And make no mistake, you can't out-exercise your fork. "Abs are made in the kitchen" is a truism.
2) Where do I want to be?
The single most important key to success in losing weight is to have a goal. Have a metric. Hold yourself accountable to your goal, or ask a friend to hold you accountable. You can make a bet between friends (who can lose 20 lbs the fastest?) This is one of those things that will depend almost completely on your current situation. If you're super inflamed, have a lot of visceral fat, and have trouble getting up the stairs, you are going to take a much different approach than an already reasonably active person who has 20 lbs to lose, or an athlete who is already at the top of the game. You need to make challenging, yet reasonable goals. Get out a piece of paper and write down what you want in the next month, 3 months, and over the next year. I do this ALL THE TIME, to the point of being obsessive, but it really helps me get what I'm after.
3) How can I get there?
This section is going to be a laundry list of arriving at your caloric deficit. All of the following will assume that you're not changing how you're eating at all. That is, you're still allowed to eat at McD's for lunch if that's what you usually do. I'm going to treat meal composition as a separate section. The meal composition is most important to performance, not to fat loss. You can lose as much fat as you want without having to do without your favorite junk foods. You'll just have to eat a lot less of them, overall.
Very few of these ideas are mine, but I'll lay them out and try to give credit where I can. Despite what method you use, there is no free lunch. You will be hungry at some point, you will be cranky, you might feel brain fog, you might fall off the wagon and eat a large pizza and box of hot wings. This is a reality, and we have to allow for this. If your diet plan doesn't allow for a little human-nature, you're setting yourself up for failure from the beginning.
A few tips, regardless of what method you use:
-Don't look at calories on a daily basis, instead use a weekly overview. This will allow you to realize that a night of beer and wings isn't the 'end of the world and I might as well give up'. Instead, you can make up for the excess of that day by eating less the next.
-Look at hunger as 'fat burn mode'. When you are truly hungry (and if you try intermittent fasting, you'll learn what actual hunger is) just view it as the times when you're truly scorching through that stored flab, and relish it.
-If you go out to eat, ask for a to-go box when your food comes out, and put 1/2 of your meal in the box right away. Then you can't overeat, and you'll have less to regret later.
Simple Caloric Restriction: This is the classic method of calorie counting. This WORKS. Make no mistake. It requires loads of attention to detail (which some people love and crave) which I personally find tiring. Folks are also prone to yo-yo-ing since people feel enslaved to their daily diet. If they mess up a day, or over eat one day, it's very easy to fall off the wagon. You will also feel a low level hunger almost all the time (Depending on how restricted you're going). One phenomena of prolonged caloric restriction is stalling in weight loss, despite people eating below their maintenance. Here's the LeanGains guy's article about that. There seems to be benefit from cyclically (once a week or so) refeeds off a calorically restricted diet. This is most needed when the bodyfat is sub 10%, which is already for a very small population. This gives a cheat meal (or day) good merit beyond just helping you keep your sanity. I know I've read lots of theories on why, I just can't seem to find the sources right now.
Intermittent Fasting: This is a catch-all term for the method of using periods of fasting (no eating) to hack out large portions of the day when you traditionally would have been eating. There are many ways to structure this time. If you're first coming to this from a traditional dieting perspective, READ THIS before discounting this method of caloric restriction. I'll outline some of the popular methods and discuss my favorite.
Eat/Stop/Eat -
This is a great method. This method is a 2-3 day a week 24 hour fasts. For instance, eat lunch on a tuesday, and don't eat again until lunch on a wednesday. Go about your life as usual. Train, sleep, work, drink plenty of water, and enjoy your weight loss. Brad Pilon's book is fantastic at laying down the groundwork and the research regarding fasting and it's benefits. Benefits from the caloric restriction angle, as well as some of the purported hormonal and mental benefits that come from fasting. It's for the working man (and lady) who just wants to shed some extra pounds without having to severely alter their meal compositions (only the meal frequency). I love this method, and it's the one I currently use to maintain at my current weight. The trickiest part with this IF method is to eat your fast-breaking meal as if you had eaten the previous meals. That is, don't gorge because you didn't eat breakfast or lunch. That is the hardest part for me. I love the feeling of being really full after a big meal. To realize the most loss with ESE, I have to consciously control that urge to stuff myself. Do this for about 3 months, and you'll notice a change. It will be hard for the first month or so. You'll be learning what real true 'body hunger' feels like. Remember, that's just fat burn mode. It might also mess with your bowel movement timing. So what. poop later. You might get sort of grumpy. Apologize later and hope the people in your life are willing to deal with your mood now so that they can enjoy your healthier body later. You might feel a bit loopy if you're insulin insensitive or a bit obese. As long as you don't get wildly low blood sugar, ride it out, and keep going. As you lose the visceral fat, you'll become MORE insulin sensitive (a good thing), your blood sugar levels will be more stable, and you'll be less affected by the fasts.
LeanGains:
This is a 18h fast/6h fed IF regiment that also has a carb cycling aspect and pays pretty close attention to macro-nutrient timing and composition. It also requires you to do heavy weight training at least 3x a week. To stick to LG very strictly is an exercise in weighing food and calorie counting. It's really for a person who is sub 12% bodyfat, trying to break the 10% barrier.
Alternate Day Fasting:
Eat one day, don't eat the next. Simple enough.
The Warrior Diet
This is a 20 hour fasted, 4 hour eating window method of IF. Get your day's calories in one big epic meal, once a day. It's for the dudes who love stuffing their face. I need to read this book. I only have read summaries online, and want to be able to speak more intelligently about this method.
Measuring Improvements:
A weekly weigh in. Monthly photographs. and a tape measure on the areas you're interested in monitoring (thighs, hips, around belly at navel, around chest at nipple height, and the limbs are all good places). Write it down in a book. Set yourself a google calendar reminder, and monitor yourself.
Maintaining:
It seems that it's easier to maintain than it is to lose. Once the difficult work is done, it logically follows that holding your ground is easier. You can probably throttle back to 1x a week IF or whatever your method. Just have your line in the sand. If you're maintenance method fails you, and you creep above your threshold, batten down the hatches and go back into loseit mode. Don't let your line in the sand creep, or eventually you'll lose all of the ground you fought for.
How I'm doing it:
This is really the least important thing, but I'll list how I'm currently finding success. I'm maintaining at 190-195#, and currently in a strength building phase. I'm allowing myself a little bit of excess calories so I make sure to max out my strength gains. I have my mind made up that I'll not go over 200#. If I do, I'll diet back down to 185 using ESE protocol and by making my portions smaller. For now, to maintain, I'm using 2 a week 24 hour fasts a la Eat/Stop/Eat. My diet is primarily a paleo (no dairy/grains/legumes) diet.
That sums up the first part of diet stuff. Next I'll outline the foods that I've been eating in order to perform at the highest level that I've ever been able to. I'll also write about the method I use to cycle through my performance goals and manage an infinite list of goals to a finite amount of time.
Thanks for reading,
Mark
Thursday, January 3, 2013
My Year in Review 2012
Here's the year in review 2011 - http://getinmyguardbro.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-year-in-review-2011.html
This might be a long post... here we go.
These were my goals:
What do I want t|o do in 2012:
[*]run a 5 or 10k - Why? Since I always feared running and figured I’m not ‘built’ for running. The fact is, I was too fat and out of shape to run. no mas.
[*]Begin 8 week blocks alternating between either running or weights. 2- 1 hour a week sessions.
[*]touch pistol (or sirt) at least 2x a week for 10 minutes with a regimented dry fire session. I still don’t have the time to make it to the range regularly.
[*]Shoot at least 4 IDPA matches. The time pressure is invaluable.
[*]enter a Muay Thai tournament. Even if it’s just an intra-gym tournament, I’ll be happy.
[*]enter at least 2 bjj tournys. Grappling is most complex part of the game I’m trying to play, and tournaments are like compressed training time. Compete.
[*]train more wrestling/takedowns and an integrated MMA game.
[*]continue bjj/mt (duh), and start taking daily notes about training. A log of techniques would be very helpful.
[*]Orchestrate and train with the training group more regularly.
[*]Take ECQC again to see where my game needs improvement
[*]Take AMIS (may be in 2012)
[*]Train with Tactical Response (maybe an hrcc?)
[*]READ for at least 2 hours a week. This can be on the shitter or a dedicated time. Read things to exercise the mind and gain insight into the history of what I’m doing.
[*]Begin doing something related to ‘art’. At least 2 hours a month. Whether it’s writing or taking photos. The samurai understood the need for balance between martial arts and regular art and I’m afraid I’m not balancing myself. Hopefully it will keep me from burning out.
This might be a long post... here we go.
These were my goals:
What do I want t|o do in 2012:
[*]run a 5 or 10k - Why? Since I always feared running and figured I’m not ‘built’ for running. The fact is, I was too fat and out of shape to run. no mas.
[*]Begin 8 week blocks alternating between either running or weights. 2- 1 hour a week sessions.
[*]touch pistol (or sirt) at least 2x a week for 10 minutes with a regimented dry fire session. I still don’t have the time to make it to the range regularly.
[*]Shoot at least 4 IDPA matches. The time pressure is invaluable.
[*]enter a Muay Thai tournament. Even if it’s just an intra-gym tournament, I’ll be happy.
[*]enter at least 2 bjj tournys. Grappling is most complex part of the game I’m trying to play, and tournaments are like compressed training time. Compete.
[*]train more wrestling/takedowns and an integrated MMA game.
[*]continue bjj/mt (duh), and start taking daily notes about training. A log of techniques would be very helpful.
[*]Orchestrate and train with the training group more regularly.
[*]Take ECQC again to see where my game needs improvement
[*]Take AMIS (may be in 2012)
[*]Train with Tactical Response (maybe an hrcc?)
[*]READ for at least 2 hours a week. This can be on the shitter or a dedicated time. Read things to exercise the mind and gain insight into the history of what I’m doing.
[*]Begin doing something related to ‘art’. At least 2 hours a month. Whether it’s writing or taking photos. The samurai understood the need for balance between martial arts and regular art and I’m afraid I’m not balancing myself. Hopefully it will keep me from burning out.
I'll admit that this was a pretty ambitious list. I fell short on a few of the points, but I feel like I was able to complete the most important (to me) ones. Let's start with the failures and missed goals, then work into the success. Finish on a high note.
I failed to touch my pistol for my goal time. I did try to regularly pick up the sirt and do a few presentations and trigger presses. I also tried to dry fire. It's getting harder and harder to get to a range. Plus, the current influx of retards to the shooting lanes makes me want to stay home. There are so many untrained mo-fos waving guns around at ranges. This dovetails into my failure to do IDPA this year. I hope that I can eventually get back into it. It's so good. The financial and time expense is too much at this time. Given the recent madness in ammo and gun prices, I guess I don't feel so bad sitting on what I have. Dry fire will be my friend moving forward. I think I should take the SIRT into the basement in my gym, and do dryfire as a 3-5 minute cooldown. I already have photo-realistic bad guy posters on the walls. I might as well use them.
I didn't get a Muay Thai fight this year. But I did get to spar with some MT fighters, which was plenty... Plenty enough to know that I'm probably not ready for a MT fight! Manu told me on several occasions that I had the best technique of any of his regular students. He also said that if I went to train in Thailand, they'd surely ask me to fight. So that was a great compliment. Since I had to take a hiatus from it in October (until ??), I'll be set back a lot from my MT but it's something I will eventually resume. I have the heavy bag hanging downstairs, so I will put in at least one MT heavy bag workout a week going forward.
I got in only 1 BJJ tournaments this year. The IBJJF Atlanta open. I got crushed. I was going to do the NAGA, but the wife needed my help with home stuff during her pregnancy. All of my classmates were promoted about a month after I left, which is sort of heartbreaking. I should have had my blue belt by now. As long as I don't get fat, and do some floor exercises and solo drilling every once in a while, I should be OK to make my comeback. I miss jits very much, but at the same time, it's great to be able to cycle that to the background and concentrate on other weaknesses.
I didn't get to take AMIS, as the $$$ and timing was off. Nor did I get to a TR class. These were outside hopes anyway.
Those were my failures. Now for the successes:
I actually did run 2 5k's in 2012. On top of that, I was able to run them with my lovely wife. We did the two runs, then shortly after the 2nd one, we found out wife-unit was pregnant. This year I feel like I became a better partner to her. I tried to be less selfish and more understanding of her needs. I also tried my best to find a hobby that we both could do together, and would allow us to get active. The jogging did that for us. This is something that is easy to overlook when you're selfishly trying to accumulate cool guy points. So I feel like this was a huge victory. I'm still not a strong runner, but I know I can run if needed.
I took ECQC in March. Another wonderful learning experience. AAR is on the blog, of course.
I adopted the 8-week training blocks this year. From January 2011 to late October 2012, I was full martial arts mode, with my supplemental training being either a day of LSD running, or a day of deadlifting. I wasn't always super strict about this. After October, I went into lifting weights really heavily. My supplemental training/maintenance training is therefor striking/solo grappling drills, or LSD running. I'm not at a point yet where I'm 'good enough' at one thing to put it on maintenance mode. I know I suck at everything, so I just throw myself into whatever I'm trying to train and just do a little of the other skills until it makes sense to switch my primary focus. I learned a lot about my body this year. Finding limits in nutrition, training volume, intensity, recovery. I am getting better at realizing when I can push through, and when I truly am overtrained and need to take a day off. I learned what foods I can perform well with, and what slows me down. It's a constant evolution.
I trained the martial arts as hard as I could, while I could. I knew my time was limited once I found out we had a baby on they way. I kept good notes that will help me to remember my experiences as well as my techniques. I am VERY HAPPY I kept notes. They are all available on this blog. I did the public accountability route and that worked out for me again. I can't suggest this highly enough.
I read a LOT this year. I read a lot of diet books. 'Wheat Belly', 'The Paleo Solution', the MobilityWOD website, lots of exercise articles, martial arts books, warrior philosophy stuff. Oh, and a TON of baby stuff. I made good on this one.
I think I can count this blog as my 'art'. It made me think about what I was feeling and thinking. I also shared it with the internet, which gives it an aspect of public scrutiny. I think that's the stuff of art. I don't know.
I think I can count this blog as my 'art'. It made me think about what I was feeling and thinking. I also shared it with the internet, which gives it an aspect of public scrutiny. I think that's the stuff of art. I don't know.
I definitely didn't train with the training group enough this year. We had a great meetup a few months ago, which was wonderful. I guess this was a failure, but since we got to train at least one good meetup, I'll put it in the win column.
OK! so that's how I did on my goals from 2011. How should I move forward?
I think this list will have a lot more body and health items than in years past. I have acquired a level of fitness and health that I do not want to squander or let degrade going forward. It was a lot of hard work to get here, and it would be silly to let myself go. It's very easy to come up with excuses, but I don't want excuses for myself. I want to perform. Here's the list.
What are my reevaluated (self defense) strengths after this year?
1)Mindset
2)fitness
3)empty hands
4)pistol
5)deescalation
6)tactics
I added the self defense parenthesis because now that I have a son, I'll have to add categories like 'family time', 'cooking', and other Mr. Mom stuff. Anyway, here's how I plan on getting better this year. As always, it's a work in progress...
OK! so that's how I did on my goals from 2011. How should I move forward?
I think this list will have a lot more body and health items than in years past. I have acquired a level of fitness and health that I do not want to squander or let degrade going forward. It was a lot of hard work to get here, and it would be silly to let myself go. It's very easy to come up with excuses, but I don't want excuses for myself. I want to perform. Here's the list.
What are my reevaluated (self defense) strengths after this year?
1)Mindset
2)fitness
3)empty hands
4)pistol
5)deescalation
6)tactics
I added the self defense parenthesis because now that I have a son, I'll have to add categories like 'family time', 'cooking', and other Mr. Mom stuff. Anyway, here's how I plan on getting better this year. As always, it's a work in progress...
- Care for my body with diet. Minimize Wheat/Grains/Legumes/Dairy. I'll allow myself some wiggle room, but if my main drive is to keep these foods to a minimum, I'll do better overall.
- Keep up the intermittent fasting to keep between 185-190. I'm 191 after all the holiday madness, so I feel like I'm doing OK on that front. I'll be able to tighten back up here in a bit.
- Be a good husband and father. This is not difficult, but I guess I feel obligated to put it down.
- Get stronger. I will continue on with the 5/3/1 program and break PRs. I will also not neglect my cardio and keep up with the road work. I'll have two jogging buddies, so it will be great.
- Try to get back into Jits and or MT at some point this year. If this doesn't happen, I will train solo in the basement at least once a week.
- Practice dry-fire, and implement a regular dry-fire program (this one is important to me). I will also practice lots of one hand work to help me deal with possibly having to hold my son while dealing with a gun problem. Admittedly, shooting has gone down as an interest for me. Now I feel obligated to maintain and improve, but not as much because it's new and exciting, more so because I know just how perishable it is.
- I'll maintain the relationships I've built in the training community, and stay up to date on my information and try to contribute as I can. I still feel like a total newbie on nearly all the subjects I'm interested in, but I love to help someone who is less knowledgeable than me find some light.
- Take AMIS
- Read for 2 hours a week. Any topic, try to make it a book or blog, not a forum. Can't be directly gun related.
Did I forget anything? Thanks for reading, now go write your own!
-M
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Tacticool Father 12/2/12
Man, lots has been happening over the last few weeks. I'll start with the fitness and diet stuff and work into the baby stuff.
I'm finishing my first month of 5/3/1 this week. It's the deload week. In my first month back, I went from the calculated 1RMs of:
Press: 130
Squat: 231
Bench: 203
Deadlift: 315
To a New estimated 1RM (based on liftsxreps in the program)
Press 132
Squat 233
Bench 203
Deadlift 338.5
That is actual, quantifiable progress. That excites me so much. I really forgot how much I like lifting. I have been doing 1 day of LSD a week since starting weights. One of the days I did LSD with shadow boxing and jump rope to try to remember how moving and boxing feels. It's amazing how quickly you start to feel rusty. I'm going to try to go next saturday for a NO GI class and some MMA sparring. That should be fun. Getting it once in a while will be a change of pace from having to grind every day at MT or Jits. I love them both, but feeling that I HAD to go was wearing on me, as I've mentioned.
The 'diet' is going well. Really limiting my wheat and sugars does so much for my performance and overall sense of well being. I'm still getting through wheat belly, and reading the section on lymphoma gave me chills. My mom's blood pressure has dropped 20 points and shes off her BP meds after 2.5 weeks of going paleo. I'm trying to balance paleo with sanity as I'm surrounded by a pregnant wife who I don't want to get in the way of. Some of her digestive ailments can be attributed to gluten sensitivity, and since being pregnant and cutting beer out of the mix, she has shown significant improvement in her digestive health. I think this might be the ammo I need to give full paleo/ gluten free a try with her post-pregnancy. I legitimately think it might help us both. I'll keep leveraging that angle.
I've been going pretty heavy into the crock pot cooking, since it's easy and turns out great meals. I was using www.paleopot.com and did the stuffed peppers and the kielbasa and krout recipe. Both winners.
My weight was 187 earlier last week. I don't have a recent measurement. I'm pleased with that. Under 190 and I'm good. I'm reasonably confident I can dial it in even more and get to see legit abs. I might just keep it under 190 and see the 'mono-ab' (another first for me). I feel like I have more energy when I'm above 185. It's a cool thing to have such detailed knowledge of your energy levels at different levels of food and weight. It's something that can only be had with experimentation and attention. I love this game.
In the 1/3 life crisis game: I got a tattoo. Or at least the beginning. It's a samurai meditating under a cherry blossom tree. The warrior philosopher is something that has resonated with me for a long time. Meditating on his mortality, on the battle to come, on his fallen brothers (the cherry blossoms). It's going to end up cool. Plus the art is dope.
www.memorialtattooatl.com Gary is the guy working on it. I will post photos as it becomes more complete. I have 2.5 hours in already.
I'm finishing my first month of 5/3/1 this week. It's the deload week. In my first month back, I went from the calculated 1RMs of:
Press: 130
Squat: 231
Bench: 203
Deadlift: 315
To a New estimated 1RM (based on liftsxreps in the program)
Press 132
Squat 233
Bench 203
Deadlift 338.5
That is actual, quantifiable progress. That excites me so much. I really forgot how much I like lifting. I have been doing 1 day of LSD a week since starting weights. One of the days I did LSD with shadow boxing and jump rope to try to remember how moving and boxing feels. It's amazing how quickly you start to feel rusty. I'm going to try to go next saturday for a NO GI class and some MMA sparring. That should be fun. Getting it once in a while will be a change of pace from having to grind every day at MT or Jits. I love them both, but feeling that I HAD to go was wearing on me, as I've mentioned.
The 'diet' is going well. Really limiting my wheat and sugars does so much for my performance and overall sense of well being. I'm still getting through wheat belly, and reading the section on lymphoma gave me chills. My mom's blood pressure has dropped 20 points and shes off her BP meds after 2.5 weeks of going paleo. I'm trying to balance paleo with sanity as I'm surrounded by a pregnant wife who I don't want to get in the way of. Some of her digestive ailments can be attributed to gluten sensitivity, and since being pregnant and cutting beer out of the mix, she has shown significant improvement in her digestive health. I think this might be the ammo I need to give full paleo/ gluten free a try with her post-pregnancy. I legitimately think it might help us both. I'll keep leveraging that angle.
I've been going pretty heavy into the crock pot cooking, since it's easy and turns out great meals. I was using www.paleopot.com and did the stuffed peppers and the kielbasa and krout recipe. Both winners.
My weight was 187 earlier last week. I don't have a recent measurement. I'm pleased with that. Under 190 and I'm good. I'm reasonably confident I can dial it in even more and get to see legit abs. I might just keep it under 190 and see the 'mono-ab' (another first for me). I feel like I have more energy when I'm above 185. It's a cool thing to have such detailed knowledge of your energy levels at different levels of food and weight. It's something that can only be had with experimentation and attention. I love this game.
In the 1/3 life crisis game: I got a tattoo. Or at least the beginning. It's a samurai meditating under a cherry blossom tree. The warrior philosopher is something that has resonated with me for a long time. Meditating on his mortality, on the battle to come, on his fallen brothers (the cherry blossoms). It's going to end up cool. Plus the art is dope.
www.memorialtattooatl.com Gary is the guy working on it. I will post photos as it becomes more complete. I have 2.5 hours in already.
Friday, November 16, 2012
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.
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.
Monday, November 5, 2012
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
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
Monday, October 29, 2012
IF Bulletproof coffee update 10/29/12
Monday AM weight 187.4
The coffee experiment has been pretty good. I haven't been nearly as ravenous at 2pm as I would have been without the fat in the coffee. I know this because I have been skipping breakfast for a long while, and usually just have some coffee with half/half. I would feel intense hunger by noon in the past.
My flu is on the tail end. Still coughing a lot, though. Being sick is a motherfucker.
Did a lot of reading and listening to IF and paleo stuff over the weekend.
Some of the podcasts are super informative.
The Paleo Solution, and the Bulletproof Exec are the ones I've spent the most time on, recently.
I learned about more MCT (coconut oil) science, including it's high percentage in breast milk and commercial baby formula, it's ability to negate the effects of Alzheimer's disease, and loads of other stuff.
It was a diet-sciencey weekend, to be sure.
The coffee experiment has been pretty good. I haven't been nearly as ravenous at 2pm as I would have been without the fat in the coffee. I know this because I have been skipping breakfast for a long while, and usually just have some coffee with half/half. I would feel intense hunger by noon in the past.
My flu is on the tail end. Still coughing a lot, though. Being sick is a motherfucker.
Did a lot of reading and listening to IF and paleo stuff over the weekend.
Some of the podcasts are super informative.
The Paleo Solution, and the Bulletproof Exec are the ones I've spent the most time on, recently.
I learned about more MCT (coconut oil) science, including it's high percentage in breast milk and commercial baby formula, it's ability to negate the effects of Alzheimer's disease, and loads of other stuff.
It was a diet-sciencey weekend, to be sure.
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