Weekend, Monday, and Some Thoughts

This weekend I was all over the place.  Up to Green Bay for my Mom's side family Christmas Celebration, down to Chicago to ring in the New Year with my girlfriend and her family, and then back to Stallis for some relaxing before the work week begins anew.

Here's how today's training broke down (literally)

Pin Squats (about a 1/3 squat so not very deep)
worked up to 485x1 and my back had enough

Barbell Split Squats:
3x8 each leg

45 degree Back Extensions:
3x10

Glute Ham Hypers:
4x12

The caloric deficit and my general laziness when it comes to recovery work is starting to take it's toll.  The biggest culprit I don't feel is my training however.  It's my sleep.  Friday and Saturday night were horrible in terms of amount and quality due to varying reasons.  Sleep is by far the most underrated recovery tool out there.  7-9 hours with as much of that coming before midnight as possible is the gold standard.  Less than that and you start running into problems.  And as I'm finding out right now it doesn't take more than a few days in a row to start seeing the negative side effects of a lack of sleep.  So get to bed on time.  It'll make a world of difference.

The diet has a little less than five weeks left to it.  I'm going to be dropping my intensity over the coming weeks.  With the drop in intensity will probably come a slight increase in volume and an increase in the volume of cardio work.  I hate walking on the treadmill and 20-25 minutes at a pop is about I'll I can stand outside with the dog so I'll put a little more effort into the sprint column.

Speaking of the diet, I've been experimenting with Intermittent Fasting (IF) and have been liking the results so far.  IF is essentially alternating periods of fasting and eating.  I've been doing mostly 16/8 fast/eat ratios but have sometimes gone into the 18-19 range with the fast.

This weekend I knew I was going to cheat so I gave myself a four hour window on Friday night from 6-10 pm to eat and drink whatever I wanted.  After 10pm it was just water until about 2pm the next day.  There was no drop in energy (crappy night of sleep not withstanding) and some coffee took care of any hunger pangs.  I stayed good the rest of the weekend and feel that I came back Monday a touch leaner but at about the same weight as I was on Thursday.

I'll have more info on this way of eating tomorrow but might become my standard way of eating in the future.

Until tomorrow, train hard.