Friday 13 April 2012

Power Week

Saki is going away for a week because its her last chance to spend time with family and friends before she really starts to get big before the boy arrives in mid June. Normal guys would spend the week going out boozing with their friends but I'm using the alone time for another body experiment.
Organ meats!


It's the superfood work and rest plan
Experiment to find out how I would feel if I lead an optimum VLC lifestyle.

Rules

10 hours of sleep a night
Heavy on the protein
Intermittent fasting (16hrs off 8hrs on)
No cardio
Heavy weights
Less than 50g low glycemic index carbs per day
Eat lunch outside in the sun

Sunday April the 15th starting stats

How do I feel?: Something torn in my back from front squats, the workout really helped the bloated feeling I had from all day Saturday eating gyoza and 3 beers.
Weight:78.7kg
Bodyfat:13.2%
Total calories for the day: 1308

protein: 62g
fat: 25g
carbs: 99g
6.5hrs sleep




Monday

How do I feel?: Left side of back still feels torn, other than that, normal.
Weight: 76.75kg
Bodyfat: 12.5%
Lunch
Pork liver 555g, pork belly, fried onion

PM workout: http://www.fitocracy.com/profile/Kiedrea/

Dinner

Pacific Cod 310g, broccoli







Total calories for the day: 1906
protein: 210g
fat: 122g
carbs: 48g

8 hours sleep





Tuesday

How do I feel?: Back muscle feels worse than yesterday, got more sleep but I could so easily go back to bed. Feeling the dumbbell hang power cleans, but not feeling the bench press. Weight/BF has dropped very fast, this must be an initial thing (perhaps to do with water? Or returning to my pre-wedding set point?), I see this levelling off.
Weight:75.45kg
Bodyfat:11.4%

AM workout: Cindy


Lunch


Steak 450g, onions & button mushrooms


PM workout: Leg press / Leg curls


Dinner
Prawns 200g, macadamias, cauliflower

Total calories for the day: 1578
protein: 198g
fat: 66g
carbs: 30g

7.5 hours sleep





Wednesday

How do I feel?: Back feels a bit better. I think it helps that I don't do strict pull-ups on it. Scorpions in today's warm-up were painful though. Strangely dead lifts were fine. Woke up before my alarm so maybe I'd had enough sleep? In 24hrs I lost 400g in weight but my bodyfat is the same. I predicted some levelling off after the initial quick losses, but does this mean I lost 400g of lean body mass? Surely not as I have been stimulating muscle with weightlifting twice a day to prevent this.
Weight:75.05kg
Bodyfat:11.4%


AM Workout: dead-lifts, dips, toes-to-bars.













Lunch
Pork liver 340g, pork belly 200g, pork heart 150g, onion, asparagus 4 stalks, salt




























PM workout: Poor man's Diane
Dinner
Salted cod 400g, asparagus 4 stalks, lemon juice, spinach
Casein


Total calories for the day:2010
protein:251g
fat:87g
carbs:50g

8 hours sleep














Thursday

How do I feel?: Felt groggy and was looking forward to bed last night. Back is slowly getting better this morning, Kelly is 150 wall-ball shots, and that's a similar movement to the front squat that tweaked it. Weighed in, then needed a poo before leaving the house. Interesting that weight and bodyfat went up very slightly. During Kelly I felt fine, no crash due to lack of carbs, and afterwards I feel energised!
Weight: 75.2kg
Bodyfat: 11.6%


AM workout: New record of 29m47s on Kelly

Lunch
Pork heart 150g, pork belly 200g, parsley, broccoli

PM workout: Backsquat 5-5-5-5-5


Dinner
Prawns 200g, broccoli, parsley, macadamia
Casein

Total calories for the day:1838
protein:168g
fat:116g
carbs:43g

7 hours sleep

Friday

How do I feel?: Feeling good, legs are fine after PM squats
Weight: 74.75kg
Bodyfat: 11.0%

AM Workout: Nancy
Lunch


Chicken liver 200g, pork belly 100g, onion
Dinner
Salmon 200g, a carrot
Casein

Total calories for the day:1732
protein: 167g
fat: 100g
carbs: 40g

8 hours sleep

Saturday morning conclusion?

How do I feel?:
I feel great and am really looking forward to getting down to the box for a good workout. Part of feeling great is down to feeling happy that I planned quite a hard experiment to stick to and carried it out. The rest is down to just feeling quite good.

Eating low carb and with power foods is good for you, and I felt no down sides to being low carb. There was no depression, or fatigue during workouts etc. The only drawback is that pork liver doesn't taste nice. Chicken liver isn't too bad and heart is a tough meat.

I have no way to know if I was in ketosis or not, that is something I would have like to have measured.

I think the initial drop in weight was due to my body adapting to low carb. I'm used to eating yoghurt, sweep potatoes, raisins for a snack, glass of milk etc. Without these insulin spiking foods my body dropped down to about 75kg and 11% bodyfat quickly. Once it was there it stabilised for the remaining 3 days.

I'd like to see what would happen if the experiment had continued for another week. Would this be maintained, or would there be a further drop in bodyfat to nearer 10%?
Weight: 74.9kg
Bodyfat: 11.4%


Future Experiment Idea

For the next experiment I would like to spend a month trying Tim Ferris's "Slow Carb" diet. This is basically eating clean and training all week, then you binge on Saturday. Could be fun to have 4 Saturdays in a row of binging in the name of science.



Earl's Power Week
Earl is joining me on "power week". He bought in a load of organ meats but after cooking them off he did the week on steaks and seafood. Sounds like organ meats are really cheap in the UK like they are here in Japan.







Earl's Sunday April the 15th starting stats 

How do I feel?: Feel good.
Weight:100.7kg
Bodyfat: N/A

Monday
How do I feel?: Feel good
Weight: 100.7kg
Bodyfat: N/A
12 Noon Workout

2000m rowing in 9m 30s
45 pullups (50kg assisted = lifting 50.7kg)
45 dips (45kg assisted = lifting 55.7kg)
30 lat pull downs (66kg)
30 machine fly (73kg)
50 squats (no weight)
10 min run (slow pace)

Lunch
Bacon 400g, Hadock 200g, onion

Dinner
Nothing

Total calories for the day: 1088
protein: 109g
fat: 66g
carbs: 15g

10 hours sleep








click to zoom on Earl's macros for Tuesday
Tuesday
How do I feel?: Feel good
Weight: 100.6kg
Bodyfat: 29.5%




Lunch @ 2pm:
steak (400g)
Spinach (50g)
1 avacado



Workout at 7pm:
Rowing 2000m (season best of 8m 50s)
30 pull ups (assisted 50kg)
15 pull ups (assisted 45kg)
45 dips (assisted 45kg)
30 lateral lifts (55kg)
30 seated dips (60kg)
20min run (avg pace 8.2k/h)


Dinner @ 10pm:
Haddock (200g)
Broccoli (150g)
Pork fat (50g)

Total calories for the day: 1333
protein: 210g
fat: 45g
carbs: 24g


9.5 hours sleep




Wednesday


How do I feel?:Generally I felt very good. The morning workout was ok, I felt quite strong but stamina felt quite low. The evening workout was very poor. Felt weak and no stamina. I did have a very active day walking round town and cleaning the flat so will have burned a lot of calories by the evening workout. Maybe worth noting it rained all day today so no exposure to sun???
Weight:98.7kg
Bodyfat:31.6%

Workout @ 11am:
2000m rowing (9m 10 secs)
50 lat pull downs (66kg)
50 upper back extensions (125kg)
50 squats (no weight)
50 abdominal crunches (35kg)
30 bicep curls (32kg)
10  min slow run (avg pace 8.2k/h)
30g protein shake

Lunch @ 2.30pm:
200g roast pork
200g bacon
1 small onion
30g protein shake

Workout @ 8.30pm:
50 squats (no weight)
30 pull ups (54kg assisted)
30 dips (50kg assisted)
30 machine fly (73kg)
60 tricep presses (55kg)

Dinner @ 10pm:
200g salmon
200g broccoli
150g spinach
30g protein shake

Total calories for the day:1748
protein:225g
fat:75g
carbs:43g

7 hours sleep


Thursday

How do I feel?: I definitely think I’ve been stronger, good workout tonight, I felt very strong. Stamina not been great
Weight: 99.1 kg
Bodyfat: 29.4%

7AM workout: Squat & Bench on Smith machine.
Lunch
Fish

Dinner
?

Total calories for the day:
protein:
fat:
carbs:

? hours sleep


Friday



How do I feel?:

Weight: 98.3kg
Bodyfat: 28.3%



Lunch

?



Dinner

Red wine, cheese, pickled onions & gherkins, olives with a bag of crisps
Total calories for the day:
protein:
fat:
carbs:

? hours sleep
Earl's Saturday morning conclusion?

How do I feel?:
I'm afraid I have to report I'm out of the game. Felt crap yesterday, tried to go for a workout in the evening and I had nothing. So I gave up and had a dinner of red wine, cheese, pickled onions & gherkins, olives with a bag of crisps. So that puts me out of the experiment. I feel ok today.

I'm not putting how I felt entirely down to power week. This is only my 2nd week of working out at any sort of serious level. I'm sure someone in better shape than me would have been ok so I'm still gonna do another power week
soon as I've really enjoyed it.

Weight: 98.3kg (same as yesterday)
Bodyfat: 28.7% (Up .4 on yesterday)