Nutrition Returning to LP After a Long Layoff

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello, I am a 26 years old male, 5’7", 180lbs ~22.4% bodyfat (calculated from Navy Method calc online), neck 5.5", waist 36.5".

I ran SSLP for several months about two years ago, later moving onto Candito Linear LP for about a month. Unfortunately, I ended up having an injury after falling off a bike as well shortly after another wrist injury from the gym, and due to life circumstances, did not actually make it back to the gym until recently, about 10 months later. I unwisely gained a lot of bodyweight hoping it might accelerate my progress and ended up at 220lbs. I knew I was going to be losing muscle from being away from the gym, and wanted to move in some productive direction, so I ended up going on a deficit for many of those months. I found myself at 181lbs, which is where I started to rerun SSLP (with some minor tweaks like swapping Power Cleans for Inverted Rows and introducing the Lat Pulldown in early to help progress to chinups) along with 40-minute LISS walks 3-6 days a week. I’m currently still in the first phase where I can PR every lift, and it’s felt relatively easy such that no set has ever surpassed RPE 7.5. I’ve been happy to see much of my muscle return, despite lifting far from my original numbers.

Since I’ve run through the program before, I think I generally know when I will have to modify the programming for each lift to progress (e.g. to Advanced Novice), which I think should be helpful to getting back to my strength from before, and at a lower bodyweight, for the most part; the big caveat is that I am not sure to what extent lack of coaching has held back my lifts, and I know for my bench press it definitely has as I was unable to unrack the bar past 145lbs without a lot of wrist pain, but my end of LP numbers ended up looking like: Squat 3x5 270lbs, Overhead Press 3x5 125lbs, Deadlift 1x5 295lbs, I swapped the bench press with more difficult pushup variations that I made sure to progress.

Hopefully I haven’t added too much detail, my first question is, should I be continuing to eat a deficit or just maintenance given that I want to ideally keep losing fat? I think that since I might have some muscle memory, I might be able to get by with a deficit, but I don’t really know if that will work out. I’ve been logging my food intake over the past few weeks and have aimed to hit 1.2x BW for protein, 20-25% for fat, with the rest in carbohydrates, having a pre-workout/post-workout meal with lots of those carbs, and having protein before bed. It comes out to about 1750 calories on non-lifting days and 2100 calories of lifitng days on average, which has lead to really miniscule scale weight loss (taking a 7-day average of two weeks, I see 0.3lbs lost). I’ve informally seen and felt that there is less fat on my body, so I know I must have recomped a bit despite the lack of weight change, but I don’t know if I should try to sink the deficit in more to get 1% of BW lost a week.

My second question is more of, are there any resources or tips you have for working through sleep issues when eating at a deficit? I think my deficit has been pretty small, but even then, I’ve had at least 3 days the last two weeks where being hungry seems to get in the way of my sleep, once from failing to fall asleep for hours until I listen to the dull feeling I hunger I have which is often hard to pick up on (which has generally happened to me before), and twice from sleep interrupted to use the bathroom at night, for example, only to fail to fall back asleep at ending up with 5-6 hours of sleep, and whenever this happens, I do feel a dull hunger and think it might be related to my failing to fall back asleep, especially as I had a day when I woke up after 3-4 hours of weird sleep hungry, and after putting together a small meal, was able to fall back asleep and try to get more hours in. It’s not great for my recovery and I know I probably need the sleep, but I also want to lose fat, and I think I have fat to lose. I’ve tried to have 36g worth of protein through a shake and some fruit (150-300g worth) before falling asleep to try to help it, but it doesn’t always seem to work.

I hope this was not too long, and thank you! I did read the “To Be a Beast” article, though I was not sure where I fit in at 22% BF and if my situation was different, having been trained before, thank you for your patience also!

2

CB,

Thanks for the post and detailed history. I have a few thoughts here, though I understand some of them may not be well received. Try and go through these with an open mind :slight_smile:

  1. If you want to lose body fat, the fastest way is going to be through a Calorie deficit, not maintenance. You’re likely to lose some via maintenance + exercise, but not nearly as much. It’s up to you preference wise.
  2. You do not need to eat 1.2 g or protein per pound bodyweight per day. This likely displaces carbohydrates and/or fats, which are far more useful for your training than more protein at this dose. Would recommend 1.6g of protein per kilogram total bodyweight per day.
  3. Your Calories for maintenance are ~ 2800/day and I’d probably target ~ 2300/day for loss without low and high days. I don’t think you’re hitting the reported energy intake given the weight maintenance. I would not advise 1% weight loss per week unless you need to lose weight quickly. Would be looking more for ~ 2% starting BW per month.
  4. I would not advise weight gain.
  5. I would not advise Linear Progression (LP) for a program. There are a number of limitations to that program including lack of exercise variation, exposure to different rep schemes, violation of progressive loading principles, no conditioning, and association with a community that has generated potentially harmful narratives surrounding many different topics, body weight management in your case. If you’re returning to the gym, I would advise our Beginner Template or similar. A good program would have varied exercises, rep schemes, use some form of autoregulation, meet current guidelines for conditioning, and be modifiable based on the individual’s response.

-Jordan

3

Hi Jordan!

Thank you for your reply, it looks like I’m a little off in places with how I’m handling my nutrition. I admit I am surprised to think I may be under-reporting my calories as I weigh and record everything I eat (whole ingredients before cooking) into a spreadsheet I have, but at the same time, I think it is also not impossible because I’ve eaten socially the last week (weekends, birthdays) and even when I try to be conservative with what I pick, I don’t really know how much is in what I’m eating. I accept that since I am confused, there’s something I’m probably not seeing or doing wrong. I know a year ago when I tackled LP, what I had recorded was ~2970 calories daily at maintenance, though that was when my appetite had skyrocketed once training become actually very difficult (hitting RPE 9-9.5s constantly). Since it’s been about a month since I started and I started with nearly the bar for everything, I thought that was why I was eating so little and maintaining my weight still.

It sounds like coming back to SSLP may not be the best idea. I am open to learning and I think there is still very much I do not know about this sport and programming. I will look into the Beginner Template, especially as something I’ve been trying to do is learn how to use RPE, but the most I’ve been doing is recording RPE after each set to try to get my mind in it.

Thank you again for your reply, I realize that this was a lot, and I am very grateful that you took the time out of your day for this. It genuinely helps to have some input after trying to make sense of many resources and attempting to figure out what to do next!

4

I do think that the free meals likely contributed to some inaccurate accounting, as it’s been a month and I would expect a decent drop in that time frame if the deficit was obtained. Exercise doesn’t really use a ton of energy, so I suspect that you’re more or less eating at maintenance right now on average.

Regarding training, I want to assure you that although LP is AN option, it is not the superior choice for reasons I mentioned. In truth, there are a lot of ways to get stronger, gain muscle, and support fat loss. LP has been widely used and people, once bought into that system, tend to have a tough time letting go. I think the sooner people get out of that tribe, the better.

5

I did read the “Progressive Loading” article just now as I realized it was linked, and looked over “The Beginner Prescription.” I did find myself agreeing to many of the points, I thought the reasoning was sound, and found some of it relatable from experience of running LP before, mostly towards the end. I understand also what you mean in reference to the community associated with NLP.

I have to admit something, in that I’m not quite running SSLP, but I thought it was the most concise way to describe my programming. I started with Greyskull LP and liked the AMRAPs, and that program was my first exposure to the SSLP, and when I read PPST and saw that frequency and progression could be modified in a more efficient way, I ended up switching my programming over to something closer to SSLP. However, since I had some other goals, I added inverted rows (progressing by adding sets and reps). The reason why I bring this up is to say, I haven’t been quite doing “The Program,” and I do this intentionally as a way of trying to learn more about what “the rules of the programming game are.” Outside of having a personality type that tends to like to prefer why things work the way they do instead of just doing them, I find that the advantage is that I can learn to program other movements which may not be in a pre-written program (like barbell curls or L-sit isometrics). I am not too dogmatic on SSLP as a result. Regardless, I’ve made plenty of mistakes such as with my bodyweight and realize that coaching would have probably accelerated my learning curve, but I didn’t have the financial resources to spend on it.

I know in the long-term, I would like to learn how to use RPE. However, I wish I knew more about program structure. I liked PPST, but wished it was more specific, and did not discuss RPE. I think that I might unfortunately be a bit in over my head trying to program for myself as I know that individual response varies to programming, and it would just be trial and error for me. In the long-term, I know I will want to invest in coaching because I will hit a wall, but I am hoping to progress with what I think will work to bring me to a stronger place.

I do have a question, though, are all LP-esque programs not good? I read over the PowerliftingToWin Novice Program which incorporates conditioning, different rep schemes via rep ranges with RPE, and conditioning. Candito Linear doesn’t explicitly use RPE, and the reps/sets are the same weekly, but is autoregulated with the increases. My guess is that, as long as you’re not hitting the grind of RPE 9.5-10 twice a week, you can get stronger and have a decent program, or is more complex periodization necessary for superior results (which is what I’m assuming is in the Beginner Template)?

6

You can use RPE (or RIR, or other subjective feedback) today without knowing anything more about programming or reading a book. Rate how many reps you have left in the tank and use that scale each time. Voila!

Linear Progression is, as its name implies, a progression model, where the reps, sets, exercises, etc. stay the same and weight is added at some fixed interval. SSLP adds weight session to session, whereas other programs use different intervals. A program could include RPE and then use a dynamic interval, e.g. add weight when you’re stronger, which looks like our programs…though most wouldn’t call this LP.

Periodization is the organization of programming over long periods of time. All programs are periodized in one way or another, even if nothing changes…that’s still a form of periodization.

7

Ahhh, alright, that helped clarify that. I’m very grateful for your responses, thank you again, I genuinely appreciate your time, and I learned a few things about Barbell Medicine’s programs that I did not know before. As someone who is still learning, I cherish the kindness and patience extended to me.

You gave me a lot to think about, and at the end of the day, I just want to accomplish my goals and get stronger. If there is a better way to reach those goals, I don’t see why I wouldn’t take it. I am more seriously considering trying to switch to a program with RPE and autoregulation already built-in like the Beginner Template instead of trying to restore my numbers the same way I got there. I hope I can continue to learn more in the future!

8

Hey, we’re all learning and trying to get stronger little by little. Best of luck and let us know how we can help.

-Jordan