This Week's Gym and Food

Location: My House and Woodcock Sports Centre, Aston University
Date & time: about 7 am - Tuesday & Thursday - 16th & 18th November

Tuesday (30 mins)

• dumbbell chest - 2 x 10 @ 27.5kg, 9 @27.5kg (took a lot to get that 9th)
  
• dumbbell shoulders - 5 x 5 @20kg
  
• upright row - 2 x10 @37.5kg, 10 @35kg
• 3 x 20 ab crunches (1-2 second hold)

BCAA before and after session during the morning.

Cucumber, sardines, tuna & coconutty egg for lunch; slow-cooked chicken bones with veg for dinner

Thursday (20 mins)

• Romanian deadlift - 3 x 10@38kg
• weighted chins - 5 @12.5kg, 4 @12.5kg, 4 @5kg, 2 x 4 @bodyweight
• one-arm dumbbell rows - 3 x 10 @24kg

BCAA before and after during the morning.

Coconutty scrambled egg and cold pork for lunch; tuna steaks, fried sweet potato, steamed broccoli & kale for dinner

I worked pretty hard this week. I had no training partner, so the sessions were pretty bisk. My main goal is to avoid strength loss while I lose a little fat.

This is the second week of fast stripping, which I am trying to achieve via more frequent full day fasting. This week I managed Monday and Wednesday, but was too hungry on Friday and caved into some supermarket chicken and fish, which left my mouth tasting nasty from the added salt and sugar.

I plan to carry on leaning up for another couple of weeks, then (assuming I have trimmed off enough) go back into a gaining phase again. But I will be mixing it up in the following ways:

• More 24-hour fasts & breakfast on gym days
  
• Different exercises (e.g. pistols, hand stand push ups)
• More rest between sets (perhaps 2 minutes instead of 1)...
• ...but fewer exercises overall (since I want to keep to 2 x 30 mins per week)

By having breakfast on the gym days I will be able to return to my Paleo roots by not taking branch chain amino acids before and after gym session. But by doing extra 24-hour fasts, I ensure that overall fasting time is the same as Leangains recommends.

My training partner has been talking about trying creatine for a while. I am considering it, if only to shut him up. Again, it would be only on an experimental basis. Perhaps 3 months. I need to do some reading first, to be sure I know the facts.

Either way, nothing's going to happen before Christmas. It will take all my concentration and focus to steer clear of dietary collapse during that time.