I’m not sure what’s going on but I hope someone else has been in my shoes and can offer some insight. On week 7 of the press template and things are going okay. Making gains little by little. I’ve come off the Bridge and before that two rounds of Layne Norton’s PH3. Made great progress on all of them. Before that I was the typical high rep cardio bro. I’ve had some issues that I’ve dealt with and continue to deal with that has hindered my progress in the past but at the moment those are being managed and shouldn’t be my issues. TLDR: Cut programs got me in some very bad eating habits. Lately I’ve been feeling consistently like garbage both physically and mentally. Constant fatigue and exhaustion and the 6/7 day per week 2 to 2.5 hour sessions aren’t enjoyable like they once were. I’ve also had some issues with pre workout not working. (C4, Kaged, Jym, Animal, etc). I can take a “generous” scoop chased with a large cup of high test coffee and struggle to stay awake between sets at times. I am hitting my numbers but I know I have more in the tank as far as strength potential. Typical day is as follows:
Wake at 4am, do some housework and get myself/my son ready for the day. Drink copious amounts of coffee along the way.
Work a sedentary job from 7-5:30.
Start eating window at 12pm for IF. Prior to noon it’s just water and coffee.
Home around 6pm. Dinner/family until 7:30-8
Training with some steady state cardio 730-8 to around 1030. Followed by a quick shake.
Bed and do it all over again.
Sorry for the long post but getting pretty frustrated as of late. Actually I still can’t find that collar I threw across the basement gym last night.
Pre-workout doesn’t really do anything outside of any caffeine it has in it, so it not working is to be expected, haha. It also sounds like you’re in a caloric deficit, intermittent fasting, and doing cardio every day. I am really not surprised at all that you feel this way when doing all that, especially in combination with the press template.
@dherko Yeah… I just put the daily food you listed into MyFitnessPal exactly as you said… You’re barely eating 1000 calories per day… That’s no where near enough food. On top of that you’re doing IF, the press template, and doing cardio every day. Are you trying to kill yourself!!!
We need to fix this. What is your sex, body weight, height, waist measurement, approximate body fat percentage (look up Navy Method calculator if you aren’t sure, that’s a decent enough approximation), and your list of goals in order of priority?
The first things we need to do is get you up to maintenance calories for a couple of weeks to help your metabolism and hormone levels recover. After that I can help you plan your macros/calories out for whatever goals you have in mind in a way that is sustainable long term. What you’re doing right now is simply not sustainable, and it’s no wonder you are feeling so terrible. Your hormone levels have to be just an absolute mess right now. Your body thinks you’re starving.
I used MFP to excess back in the day. I had no idea that the caloric intake was that low. It felt like I ate about three whole cows yesterday. I felt pretty full.
Male, Between 165-175. I haven’t stepped on a scale for about 3-4 months. That tends to lead me down some pretty dark rabbit holes. 5"10, 34" waist and at the beginning of the summer I was at 8.1% bodyfat as measured by a bod pod/calipers/that fancy new machine at GNC.(all were within a % point) I don’t trust that figure though. I’d say more in the 15-20% based on the mirror.
At this point my goals would be to get my numbers up to a point where I could comfortably submit a form check. Right now they are at a pretty embarrassing S-325, DL-405, PR-150.
Not sure what’s embarrassing about these lifts at this weight. I weight about 30 pounds more than you, and I’d say I probably am a little bit above 15% currently with 34’’ waist. You are probably overestimating the BF measurement a lot.
If you have body image issues, I think what would make you feel better is to gain some substantial muscle. I don’t think you are able to make long term progress in either gaining strength or improving body composition with this caloric intake.
We all want to be lean and look like we lift, but if you feel terrible every day something needs to change. Read Jordan’s TBAB article and his Optimizing Protein article and start fueling your body. Also, your lifts are greater than 95% of gym-goers so they are not bad at all. They will continue to go up if you eat a reasonable diet. Austin’s squat ended up around 285 at the end of LP and he’s squatting over 3x bodyweight now.
If I were you I would start using MyFitnessPal again, at least for a few weeks to establish a baseline. Jordan mentions that he tracks one to two days a week because he eats similar foods each day, it just helps him to make sure he is sticking in the area he wants to be. So you don’t have to track every day for the rest of your life if you don’t want to, but you do have to get an idea of what you’re actually taking in. If I were you I would cut the IF as you’re going to have a hard time eating enough calories in that short time frame, cut the cardio down to what is recommended in the program (1 day LISS & 1 day HIIT per week), and then I would do the following for macros/calories for at least the next 2 weeks in order to get your metabolism and hormones back to normal again. I would also cut out most of the supplements as you run out. There is a sticky thread in the moderated nutrition forums up above about what supplements actually have evidence of working. Right now you’re wasting a lot of money on snake oils. Even if you took all the legal supplements that are proven to work, you might get 1-2% max out of them. Supplements are really not important. You could just take caffeine and creatine and call it a day.
Calories: 2550
Protein: 175g
Fiber: 35g per day from whole food sources
Carbs & Fats: doesn’t matter, just fill out the rest of the remaining calories as you see fit, provided you hit your protein and fiber targets. If you want to skew one way or the other definitely skew towards carbs since you are lifting 6 days per week on that program. For maintaining weight I see no reason to get super anal about carb:fat ratios. I think you would benefit from a little flexibility here, so you can learn more about your body and learn how to diet sustainably without getting overly anal and starving yourself.
If you want to get stronger you will have to gain weight eventually. It sounds like you have some issues that need to be worked out. So maybe just taking a few months at maintenance might be a good thing. I would even throw in some cheat days here and there. That will help you build some trust in the process and in your body. You’ll learn that your body actually fights gaining weight, just like it fights losing it. You’ll learn that your diet isn’t some fragile balancing act, that your body is very resilient and it adapts to what you give it (within reason of course). You’ll learn that maintenance calories isn’t a specific number, but a range of calories that you can eat in while maintaining weight. Then if/when you decide to start gaining weight, do it slowly, like 200-300 calories above what I listed above. I definitely would not have you lose any more weight right now. But you need to track your food again, because right now you’re under-eating, starving yourself half to death, and not even realizing it. You need to be aware of what you’re putting in (or in this case, not putting in) your body.