Cuerpo Aztlan

OK, so I'm entering the NASA New Mexico Christmas Regional. My goal is just to beat my previous lifts. It's a drug free powerlifting event. I figure that's good for me.

I decided to add one more HIIT sprint. So now I'm doing 5 sprints. I hope it helps me burn off some more fat. My A1C is 5.1, which is really good. To be clear the fat loss is so I can lift at 148 lbs. Otherwise I'm in the 165 class and I'm definitely not strong enough to compete there. So, I'll have to see how I respond to weight loss while lifting.

Last week I had lots of family stress. I had three people in my family going to the emergency room last week and lost lots of sleep. I am behind on some of my side work. Hopefully I catch up quickly. I'm eating more salad. If I do a "typical" day I have 3 scrambled eggs, 2 slices of bacon, a banana, and a couple of handfuls of nuts with water for brunch (sometime between 7 and 2), and then for dinner usually some salad with lemon, and a banana.

I had lost 4 pounds the week before and zero last week. So I'm behind and hopefully I can get to weight a couple of weeks ahead of time. That will give me a good idea on where I'm at. Today I had a work lunch, lucky they only provided salads. So I went ahead and got full on three plates, then had chicken, salad, and a banana for dinner. I did break down and have one cookie and one Reese's at lunch.

Tomorrow I'll know how I'm doing and if I need to fast for the day.

So I've added about 12 minutes of total time on the bike per week and my weight workout will be very basic.

I'll be doing
5-10 minutes on the bike to warmup. Then simple full body workout after that.
I'll do one set of 5 with 135lbs for each exercise, then 3-4 sets at the workout weight. I won't be able to lift 3 days a week each week. I'm not going to worry.

Week 1 (This week, I'll only get to lift twice because of an out of town family event.)
Squat set 1, 5x135, set 2-4 5x175
Bench set 1, 5x135, set 2-4 5x150
Deadlifts set 1, 5x135, set 2-4 5x190

If it feels easy on day 1, then I'll add one set on day two for 5 total sets. One day three for the last sets I'll do a 5+. That means if I can do more than the 5 reps with the lift then I'll max out. This will let me know whether to go up 5 pounds or 10 pounds (or more on any lift for the following week).

If things go perfect I'll squat 185, 195, 200, 205 for sets of 5 by Turkey Day week. For bench it will be 155, 160, 165, and 170. Deadlifts will hopefully be 200, 215, 230, and 240. Actually for "perfect" bench it would be 155, 165, 180, 190. That will be tough. I'll increase by feel and will be doing a lot of checking in with myself and Lee from The Power Plant.

As of today I'm at 160.2lbs. A bit left to go!

KEEP GRINDING!

I once did a presentation on "Dealing with Diabetes Without Medication" and people who came were mostly disappointed that I talked about fasting. Maybe they wanted some herbs or something similar to medications. Some people were intrigued and wanted my recipes.

It was an interesting process and I'll continue to share. I'm hoping to find a doc in Albuquerque who's willing to talk about this approach. I know part of the difficulty lies with thinking on the motivation of patients. I think there is a percentage of people able to do this and that is better than just not trying.

In some public health work things need to be tried by someone as a pilot to get things going. I think the study talked about below may be the beginning of a small breakthrough.



Then there is this. It's about keeping the diet simple. I think for some, like myself, that works better. For others having lots of recipes is the way to go. It's also about the amount of time you spend on something. My workouts can range from super simple to complicated 6 way splits (in the past). If you love recipes share away! There are people who will benefit from that. Then there are people like me who can eat the same thing for a long time. Do what works for you!




KEEP GRINDING!