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.

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

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.

Experiment with 18/6 IF and 'bulletproof coffee'

So I'm not training this week. I'm fighting a wicked little head cold and on some meds. So I can't report on the training I'm doing. However, I'm when I'm not training, my mind is still mulling over how to become better. I don't seem to be able to help it. Probably a personal problem.

Instead, I'm going to try a month long experiment. I've been reading this guy's blog. www.bulletproofexec.com He basically is a body-hacker guy who is ripping off paleo dieting, leangains IF, and some other biofeedback stuff to try to squeeze more performance out of his body. I have no issue with the ripping off other than he's trying really hard to monetize it. He has some pretty far-out hippy shit that he talks about too. 'Earthing Mats' and stuff... Not sure what to think about that stuff.

One of the most captivating things is his 'bulletproof coffee' which basically amounts to butter, coconut oil, and 16 oz of coffee in the A.M. His logic is that the short/medium chain triglycerides are brain fuel, filling, and allow you to make it through to your first meal more easily and with more energy. He talks about how sluggish you can feel doing an IF and grumpy, etc. I have experienced this with my 2x a week 24 hour fasts that I've been doing for several months. I'm intrigued enough to try this method.

In conjunction with this, he uses a 18 hours fasted, 6 hours fed IF protocol. This is done daily. So you just don't eat till 2pm, then you eat the foods on this diagram in the 'green section' until 8pm. I don't expect that I'll be eating only grass-fed beef/butter/ and broccoli, but I will comply to the feeding window.

Another weird thing he recommends is taking salt immediately upon waking. 1/2 Tsp with 16oz of water. He argues that it helps in the AM when your body needs sodium to help 'wake you up'. I haven't dug into this at all, but salt is good so I'll try it.

He also talks about myotoxins and fungi on coffee beans. I'm going to go ahead and disregard that as well. The crux is that you feel fed and energized during those crucial waking hours when you feel like having a bite.

I am a little concerned with the extra calories that 2 Tbl of butter and 1 Tbl of coco oil adds. I'll see how it affects me. I'm going to attempt to not change anything else to see if the daily fasts mixed with calories from butter change anything for the better.

The greatest reason I expect it to work is that my fasted state goes PAST my jobs standard lunch hour. I'll miss out on a LOT of lunches at restaurants. More savings, less crap food, more fat loss. If the coffee keeps me sated for those first hours until 2pm, then even better.

His main gripe with non grassfed butter is that it has lower amounts of D, CLA, and assorted other vitamins. I supplement Vitamin D, take a multi, and have Conjugated linoleic acid, so I'm not sweating that too much. Also... come at me myotoxins.

My current weight is 190.4lbs.

Daily supplements (when I remember):

multi, D3, fish oil, ZMA before bed

Will report back.

week of 10/15/12

Monday: feeling sick rest

Tuesday: not too back, jumped rope for 30:00

Wednesday: MT, ropes, leg check to knees
sparring was legit. I sparred Will. He made me feel like a little kid. "glad you're feeling better, spar will" jesus.
It was great

Thursday:
Armbars from mount:
go to S mount. If you can trap both arms, attack the main arm by posting off hand, and swing leg around. Try to finish without falling from top position. If he breaks free, swing around and attack the other arm.

Kimura stomp thing.
Usually comes from guy w/ hands on hips trying to break guard. Pry elbow away and lift that side foot onto hop to keep arm away from body. Get kimura grip. Sling that leg across back once grip is established. Finish if possible. If he posts his leg, grabs pants and traps his hand, you can use that top leg to stomp away while you rip the grip on the pants. Must have explosive movement.

KesaGatame and side control and N/S:
Side. Really sink hips, knee by his hips, other leg sprawled trying to bury that hip on the ground. preventing him from getting his near arm under your sprawled leg to make space. arm near head should try to cradle the head. other arm should be either by his far hip, under his arm, cradling the shoulder. If the near arm exposes itself, push it across, and work for an arm triangle. use body weight to keep that arm trapped while the grips change around.

switching to kesa:
over hook near arm and yank up. step lowest leg under. Try to keep butt on ground. now that switched hips, keep lowest leg bent and on foot, other leg sprawled high above his head, try to tuck your head against his chest to pin. The overhooked arm and hips are the primary method of control. Your other hand can either scoop the far arm or the head.

going N/S. keeping chest contact, use bottom arm to weave under near arm and to opposite side of his head, pinning the arm and amking him look away. your weight will sometimes trap that arm on his face or chest. This can be used to set up the arm triangle, so you can either mount to finish, or go all the way around and start walking around.

Transitioning side/kesa/NS/KoB drilling. on a heavy bag (mma drill). Side, Kesa, side, reverse Kesa, mount, reverse Kesa, side, Kob, mount, Kob etc etc.

Guillotine drill: head on same side, practice hopping to other side to relieve pressure.

standing Guillotine defense: reach arm that is inside up and over his far shoulder. reach outside arm inside his outside leg, get hips in, posture up, slam and land in side control, out of danger.

Then you can work your escape by using shoulder to pressure and post up on his neck.

Week of 10/8/12

Monday: "flow yoga". I continue to be humbled and made tired by yoga. This was the last class of my 4class package. I had different instructors each time for this short yoga experiment. It was good to get varied approaches to teaching and to how to describe the positions. I'm going to visit paul soon and take a hot yoga class.

Tuesday: Gi:
arm bar practice.

Sweep off of this attempt:
flower sweep. The key is pulling his weight on top of you. If he's lighter, use your leg underhook to pull him on top. If he's heavier, bring yourself to him, and get under him to break his base. The leg that's across his back is used to off balance him. Attack for the arm bar a few times, if he defends or locks his arms up, then use the leg that would pass over to kick out, and go out and under with that free leg. Chopping his base while lifting his base on the underhook side. End up in mount. If you keep the arm, then go straight to the mounted arm bar.

Good rolls. I just got done listening to a Gracie talking about having fun and it really helped my mindset during the rolls. I'm debating doing NAGA, but it's coming December 1. Not sure if I'm going to sign up or not. That's $100 I don't have to spend.

Jamal did an awesome job coaching us tonight. Great details and explanation of WHY we were doing stuff. Framework stuff. This is a welcome refresher. Raph is in Brazil for 2 weeks. I'm stoked that Jamal is teaching.

I pulled off a few cool sweeps that I've been studying (tripod sweep), and a choke from the mount (sort of a neck crank front naked choke thing). As usual, G was aggressive and kept ending up on top. He was yanking his arms out of my attacks. I need to keep tighter when I'm attacking. I survived pretty well against Ron and Jamal, stalling their submissions. The arm bar stall works really well. basically you hide your arm behind your arm as if you were doing a RNC.

Wednesday: MT
Good workout, good sparring. evade technique

Thursday:
armbars from mount
variation 1: cross hands around arm, post on chest, swipe leg around head while falling back into arm bar.
variation 2: get high mount, trap arm, use other hand to post off of face, go to S-Mount, swing leg round
variation 3: get high mount, trap arm, post off face, shift weight back onto his ribs, swing leg around, then fall back into arm bar.

Friday:
Deadlifts 5x5
kb warmup, jump rope 3:00, dl 120x12
220,270,270,270,300 x 5 3 minutes rest minimum between sets