Congrats on not being morbidly obese!

If you're looking to up your bench press (which, if I'm reading correctly, you're looking to increase from your current high of 95 kg to a new high of 95 kg -- ambitious), mix in some weighted dips -- doing endless sets of 15 bodyweight dips isn't going to be super productive. More weighted pull-ups in too.

thanks - can't tell you what a relief the second reading was.

thanks but I'm not looking to up my bench or strength in general. I'm hoping to maintain as much of my muscle mass while I cut weight. And I figure the best way to do that is actually to do more body building type work in terms of higher reps, more sets etc. Feel the burn bruh! The Pull up and dip numbers should rise purely on account of the fact that I'm going to be lighter. Pull ups in particular get so much easier even dropping 5lbs.

as an aside, have you done Smolov Jr? That's my prescription for a short and highly effective means of improving your bench - I did it twice in 6 months a few years back and got up to 112.5. My mean seems to be right around 100kg though - has been for years. I've never been a big bencher and there was a 5 year period during my crossfit years where I didn't bench at all.

My passion was always the lower body and explosive stuff - back squat, squat clean, clean and Jerk, Snatch etc. It gives me the sads that I've probably had to put those on the shelf permanently. I'm doing an MRI in a few weeks and am going to commit to an exercise physiologist/physio//chiro guy to look at and improve my movement and I'm hopeful I may be able to get back underneath a squat bar again but...we'll see

Breakfast!

Won't be posting food pics all the time, only when I eat something interesting or new. This is steak seared with pepper, carrot and almond and then briefly cooked in salsa. 10 mins to cook last night and easy to warm up and eat at work this morning

Well that's some nice news. Glad he let you know about it and said to redo.

My go to salad when I'm at work - grilled chicken with avocado, sw potato, feta cheese, red pepper and about three mixed leaves

Not cheap but v tasty

didn't train this morning as I was up for 2 hours in the night and couldn't face the 5.30 wake up call for the gym.

day 3 and am super hungry - it's always the worst day when you're cutting out sugar. am working from home, so it's gonna be a real challenge to avoid all the food in the pantry - I found myself stuffing a slice of my daughter's toast into my mouth, chewing it and then spitting it out! plan is to drink loads of water and then just have veggies and nuts to snack on today

will weigh myself at the gym tomorrow and am expecting to have lost as much as 2kg of water - it's incredible how it just strips off in the first few days without carbs/sugar

Day 5 update

I did hot flow yoga at end of day 3 which was both really difficult, but also incredible for my back. Slept well too.

Rest day yesterday and some of the huge carb cravings I had on day 3 were a lot less.

I did crave alcohol last night - I think because I was hungry and also that Friday night, end of the week thing. Got through it though

Day 5. Got another decent night's sleep, got up and trained at the gym.

3x Strict Press Drop Set - 8x50,7x40
3x Upright Row, Lat Raise Super set - 10/10
3 x Dips, Tri Extension Super Set - 15/15
3x Close Grip Chin/Hammer Curl Super Set - 8/12
3x Max Hanging Knee Raise


Weight - I have a consistency problem in terms of tracking my weight loss, because all scales are different and I had 3 weigh ins

My 2 Dexa scans I weighed 89.5kg on the first erroneous one and then 87.8 on the second one Day 1 pm (which was 12 hours later and I'd been carb free so had lost a lot of water)

I'm going to use my weigh in at my gym on Day 1 am (directly after DEXA 1) as reference for the next 6 weeks. On that one, I was 89.2 and this morning, I was 87.8kg, which is a loss of 1.4kg or about 3lbs. I'm fully aware that this is mostly water but it's still a nice result

Eating has been pretty good. I've made the decision to allow myself a low calorie ice cream in the evenings - having something sweet at the end of the day is really important (to me at least). It's not ideal from a pure weight loss perspective, but it'll help keep my sanity.

Any other ideas on sth sweet at the end of the day that is more 'paleo'?. I guess I could have a protein bar?

Am going to have an active day today - I may play poker this evening and then I may try to have a double day tomorrow, with weights in the morning and yoga in the afternoon.

sausage, tomato and pepper omelette

I use protein bars and plain greek yogurt with flavoured whey protein and berries as a dessert substitute. It's really hard to replace ice cream but the yogurt can come close. It really doesn't come close.

I'm trying to avoid all fruit and sugars but Greek yoghurt is interesting. Thanks

My wife makes a chocolate flavoured ice cream thing in her Thermomix

Smh at avoiding fruit.

Because.....?

You think fruit is a good thing to eat if you're trying to lose weight?

Because it’s delicious, nutritious and relatively low kcal.

So yes it’s great food to eat when trying to lose weight.

Tapatalk update just made 2+2 completely unusable for me

Took me forever just to find any thread I visit - found yours first!

Seems like a good start. I have to wonder how absolutely accurate the Dexa scans are if they can be so out of calibration?

Yeah fruit is great. Obviously veggies and lean meat rule the kingdom, but fruit is fine to hold down the fort.

rAv,

Trying to convince a Paleo acolyte that fruit is good is likely not actually achievable.

Wait, I thought fruit was Paleo ?

I do like your avatar though rAv! I'm not totally anti fruit at all btw. But I listen to my wife on things like this given what she does for a living and she just believes there's far better ways to navigate around getting good carbs into your body. It is a problem for me though because my default raw carbs are carrot, red pepper, cucumber and celery and they get really boring over an extended period.

Yeah Bip, definitely a little weird but am gonna let it pass - the fact that he called me back after feeling bad about the reading and that it was a brand new machine etc etc

Day 6

Played poker last night + 600

Only got 5 hours sleep and really felt it this morning as I was doing the kids breakfast etc

Gym

4 rounds drop set Dumbbell Bench 10/6
3 rounds SS 12/10 Incline Flye/Push Up

2,4,6,8,10,10,8,6,6 Pull Ups

10 mins mobility

Gonna roast a chicken and some vegetables this evening for family dinner and then my breakfast and lunch tomorrow

Roasted a lemon chicken and some veggies last night for a great dinner and enough leftovers for breakfast and lunch today - roast sweet potato is almost my favourite thing in the world, also roasted carrot and capsicum (red pepper) and steamed green beans. D-Lucious

Training this morning was fired by 2 coffees - I woke up at 4am to watch 90 mins of Redzone before leaving home

3x8 - light Kettlebell Squats - 16kg KBs
3x20 steps - Kettlebell walking lunges - 14kg DBs
3 laps (approx 50m per lap) of 110kg sled push
1x100 calories on the assault bike - 7.45.

First time my back has been good enough for me to do the KB squats, so stayed light. Will be interesting to see what kind of DOMS I have this pm/tomorrow

Incidentally, have major pectoral DOMS, I think from the flye/push up finisher yesterday.

Status

I feel like I'm through my craving stage now, which is great..albeit while I was roasting the chicken yesterday evening after a hard day at the gym, doing yard work and with the kids, it felt wrong not to have a bottle of red to drink. The psychological addiction to drinking/'eating bad food' occasions is very strongly ingrained in me.

Sleeping has been heavier and less interrupted and my mood & anxiety has been more under control, despite having a horrific day on Thurs, when two deals that would have made up 75% of my Q4 revenue fell over within 60 minutes.

Plans

I'm going to initiate a 1x per week 18 hour fast, where I don't eat between dinner at 7 pm and lunch at 1pm. I'm generally fasting 14 hours per day anyway, because I don't eat breakfast before 9, but I'm going to have one longer day.

And I'm going to get a little stricter - I've had a cup of tea with half a spoon of sugar first thing in the morning a few times last week. That goes and I'm going to aim to cut out the slurps of milk I take from the bottle a couple of times per day after I spoon the nut butter in.

Training is going fine - just gonna keep doing what I do at the gym, get in at least one yoga session and try to stay active. The 100 calorie Assault Bike was humbling - I haven't done any conditioning for ages and that time is really slow but it hurt a lot - it did come after the sled push, which is tough on the metcon too, but no excuses. I'm going to commit to doing that 2x per week, which basically means Mon and Weds, because I only go to the gym that has those bikes on Mon to Weds

today is gonna be a challenge. my son has a vomitting bug (all 3 kids have had it now) and he 'slept' on a mattress in my room last night. I got approx 4 hours sleep in 1 hour increments.

didn't go to gym this morning and took an extra hour in bed.

also won't be fasting. major car incident along my commute and huge road delays. I've stopped off at McDonalds to do some work while it clears.

2 x sausage and egg mcmuffins without the bun. not bad tbh. No pics - sorry

wowee, the DOMS in my legs is brutal. Those first few squat/lunge sessions back after an absence really hit the quads and hammies

only 5 hours sleep again last night - just couldn't switch my brain off.

Heroically went to the gym anyway.
3x7/6 Strict Press strip set 50/40
3x15 Machine Seated Shoulder Press
3x12/10 - Wide Grip/Close Grip Pull down Super Set
3x10/8 T Bar rows wide and then Close Grip

I think I'm eating too much fat. I'm warding off the sugar/alcohol cravings I get n the evenings by eating spoons of natural peanut butter. It's so delicious and I need fat given I'm not eating many carbs, but I'm not limiting it and it's calorie dense.

Having said that, I'm in survival mode given how tired I am, so I need to give myself a break - the big no nos for me right now are alcohol, sugar and complex carbs

not a brilliant week to date.

Was so tired on Weds after 3 consecutive sleeps of 5 hours or less with some v difficult work days that I needed a release and used a Mulligan. 2 beers, half a bottle of wine, a chocolate bar and a small bowl of potato chips.

tasted great! Slept well too.

Didn't train Thursday but had a great day of nutrition. Payed poker last night - bubbled a $2500 satellite (sad face), then -300 in 90 mins of 5/10.

Wife now has the vomitting bug, so no gym for me this morning. Plan is to have vg 3 days of nutrition and then train Sat and Sun to rescue the week.

Good session in the gym this morning

3x12 bench
3x12/8 superset incline db bench/incline SB flye
3x12 dips
3x10/8 Tricep push down/tri extension
3x10 hanging leg raises to 90 degrees
10 mins in sauna

Went home and did 45 min walk with my daughter - walking and talking is a really cool way to get your kids to open up more, they are far more honest/open when you're not facing each other

Decent day of food too - prolly not eaten enough the past two days tbh. Am weighing in tomorrow and then Mon on my two sets of gym scales and want the results to be good