Thanksgiving Challenge

 

Today starts Day 1 of my 2800 push up challenge. Each day for the next 7 days, I am going to attempt do 100 more push ups than the day before. So today I am going to do 100, tomorrow 200, Wednesday 300 and so on and so forth until Sunday when I need to be able to complete 700.  It doesn't matter if I do 10 sets of 10 or 100 sets of 1 as long as at the end of the day, I have hit my goal.

As an added bonus to myself, I am going to do some mini-challenges as well. For example, today I am going to do 100 pull-ups. Tomorrow might be 100 body squats or 100 burpees.

There are two reasons I am doing this challenge. First and foremost, Thursday is Thanksgiving and I want to be able to enjoy all the wonderful food that will be prepared. Secondly, I will not have access to my companies corporate gym so weight lifting is out.

So there you have it. My official challenge is out there. If you follow me onfitocracy.com, you can see my updates. If not, then check back here early next week to find out if I completed it.

If you feel like joining in on the challenge, feel free to do so either anonymously or in the comments below.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

 ***** UPDATE *****

Recently I was asked if I completed this challenge. Well....it didn't work out quite as I had hoped. I managed to get through the day after Thanksgiving but them my wrist started to get quite sore and I stopped. I think I managed 1500 over the course of 5 days.

Power Lunch - 11/11/11

Just polished off the rest of my power lunch.  This lunch follows a 17 hour leangains type fast and a heavy squat, pullup, bicep day. Here is what I ate (in no particular order)

• Chocolate covered donut


• Chocolate chip cookie dough pop-tart (2)


• 2 potatoes


• 12oz of chicken breast


• 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese


• 5T of ketchup (give or take)


• 1/3 cup Ocean Spray Craisins

I think that is about it.  I have a protein shake in my lunch box for later and then I will chow down on a small protein enriched salad tonight. Should be epic.

Manly Lifting Stats

According to Martin Berkhan, as an advanced lifter I should be able to do the following lifts:

•  Bench press: body weight x 1.5 = 285lbs


•  Chin-ups or pull-ups: body weight x 1.5 = 285lbs


•  Squat: body weight x 2 = 360lbs


•  Deadlift: body weight x 2.5 = 475lbs

These are all for a 1RM

Even though I cannot do these amounts (yet) I still consider myself advanced because I have been lifting for so long. I have been lifting incorrectly but that is a whole other post.

As of right now, here are my starting stats. They are not my 1RM but rather my starting set of my reverse pyramid sets.

My stats:

•  Current weight of 190


•  Bench press = 205x8


•  Pull-ups = 235x6


•  Chin-Ups = 245x5


•  Squat = 275x4


•  Deadlift = 225x6


•  Standing Military Press = 95x6 (threw this one in on my own)

Here is how far I am away from hitting those goals

• Bench = 80lbs


• Pull-ups = 40lbs


• Chin-ups = 10lbs


• Squat = 85lbs


• Deadlift = 250lbs

As you can see, with the exception of deadlifts I am not that far from hitting my goals. My goal is to hit all of them within 6 months.

Carb Nite Wrap Up

I officially finished my carb nite protocol experiment last Friday, 2 days short of a month.  My overall experience with the protocol was mediocre at best.  I stuck to the plan 100% but overall lost nearly no weight. My appearance did seem to change a bit which makes me think I was doing more of a body re-composition than weight loss.  But that wasnt my goal. My goal was weight loss, pure and simple.

I chose to end it on Friday because that was the day I did my weigh out for my company's weight loss competition. Leading up to that day, I did a water cut in which I drank 2 gallons of water a day starting on Monday and continuing that through Thursday at noon. Then I cut the water off completely until my weigh in Friday at noon. Over the week, I dropped 9lbs of water weight which put me 2lbs below my starting weight 1 year ago.

I mention the water cut because I was hoping that, it, combined with the carb nite protocol would have helped me cut about 15lbs in that last month.  Heck, I even stopped lifting serious amount of weights in order to cut weight. Nothing seemed to work.

I think the carb nite protocol might work great for someone that's quite overweight and wants to lose weight fast. But for someone like me who has at best 10lbs of excess fat, it might not have been the best way to go. I am starting to get frustrated with my quest to be a lean mean fighting machine.

 

Reverse Pyramid Setup

Spent a few days tweaking this and I think its just about ready. I am pondering this setup for my new “Reverse Pyramid” scheme.

Got Sick?

The day after my Carb Nite feast, I started to not feel well. Then it hit me. Tuesday night, I awoke with a fever so I decided to stay home from work and skip that days workout. Two four hour naps later and I started to feel a bit better. Today I was back at the gym doing a nice short but high intensity shoulder and arm workout. In and out in 30 minutes. Now that's the way to get stuff done!

My diet has continued to be spot on and I am learning the tips and tricks to get well below 30 grams of carbs a day without feeling like I am sacrificing anything.

On the downside, the weight on the scale has crept back up to 187.2. That is up from the 186 that I weighed in at a few days ago. I am starting to think that even though my carb count is low, my calorie count might be a bit too high. I was continueling hitting over 2000 calories a day with some days being at 2500. That is causing my body to go into a re-composition state rather than a weight loss state. A recomp state isnt a bad thing though. I am effectively replacing body fat with muscle. I know this to be true because I can see it in the mirror and I can feel it in my clothes. But for the sake of this weight loss competition, I really need to lose weight.

Therefore, today is going to be my last weight training day for about a week and a half. Next week I am going to concentrate on some intermittent fasting combined with some low levels of cardio. The days leading up to the official weigh out will see me doing some excessive water drinking combined with a quick taper at the end. I am also planning on switching up my diet with some low sodium, high protein meats with only low to moderate levels of fats. could be interesting!

Carb Nite Progress – Day 12

I am roughly 30 minutes away from starting my carb refeed on the Carb Nite protocol and I thought I would give an overview of what has transpired since my last post update at Day 5. (just a note. The original article stated to do a refeed at day 10 but that for me was on a Saturday and not a workout day. Therefore, I decided to push it a couple of extra days until today when I do a great chest and back workout)

NutritionI have continued to be low carb with my max intake being right around 30/grams a day.  Calories continue to remain around 2000 but I have gone as far as 2500. Fat intake has been around 100-150 and protein has been around 150-200.  Below is a typical eating day for me.

Breakfast

• 4 egg omelet


• diced ham


• shredded bacon


• 2T of salsa


• 2T of sour cream


• 1/4C of cheese


• Coffee with 1T of creamer

Lunch

• 2 cups of spinach


• some type of meat (tuna, stew beef, hamburger, chicken)


• 2T of Caesar dressing.


• 1/4c cheese


• 2T of shredded bacon

Snack

• 2 scoops of protein powder


• 1/2C coconut milk

Supper

• 2 cups of spinach


• some type of meat (tuna, stew beef, hamburger, chicken)


• 2T of Caesar dressing.


• 1/4c cheese


• 2T of shredded bacon

I have also done a few 16/24 hour fasts to help supplement my days.

Workouts

My lifting workouts currently consist of P90x Phase I. I am doing the M-W-F workouts and have done 1 day of plyometrics.  I continue to take walks with my family and have done some light shooting around at the basketball courts. I also did one 40 minute session on the exercise bike. I am trying to keep the cardio limited because 1) I hate cardio and 2) the original article stated that weight loss could be obtained even without exercise. I will not give up my weight lifting though.

Up until today, my workouts have been intense and my energy levels have been high. Today, though, my energy level was down and my enthusiasm to be there was low. I also noticed a decrease in the amount of reps I could perform on certain exercises. I left the gym feeling run down. I should point out that I entered the workout on a 16 hour fast but this is something I have done many times before with great results and high energy levels.

Weight

My weight was stuck at exactly 187.8 for about a week into this test. As of this morning though, I officially dropped to 186.  I do have a sneaking suspicion that some of that could be water weight though.   My wife has continued to notice an increase in muscle definition and I swear I saw my upper abs in the mirror yesterday.

Day to Day Operations

My day to day life pretty much stayed the same. My energy levels were always high and my sleep at night was always good. I never lost focus on the tasks at hand and I never felt hungry or like I was being deprived of anything. In fact, as time went on, my cravings for carbs diminished to the point where I wasn't really looking forward to tonight's refeed.

One thing I noticed was my recovery time from workouts. I constantly was feeling sore. It seemed like I could never recover from a workout and I always felt like I pulled something.

**Post Refeed Update**

I more than likely I officially done with my refeed for the night. At least I had better be. I cannot imagine eating any more carbs this evening. I feel sick to my stomach. My head aches, my body aches, I have zero energy, and all I want to do is go to bed.  What's crazy is that I didn't have anything that I would consider out of the ordinary from a "normal" persons day. Over the course of 3 hours, I ate a few sandwiches, some rice cakes, a few cookies, a few handfuls of candy corn, and a latte. Compared to what I normally eat in a day calorie wise, that is nothing. It's just what is in that food that is really getting to me right now. This had all better be worth it in the end. One would think that a free pass to eat whatever you wanted would be awesome.  Let me tell you...that is not the case right now.  Once you have cleaned up your diet, doing these refeeds suck big time.