Sub 10% by April

[danzik17]

Ephedrine @ 37.5mg/day (Day 1)

Even though I'm taking a half dose, I still got very very jittery about 30 minutes after taking it the second time. I split it into 25mg in the morning w/ coffee, and 12.5mg in the afternoon w/ another cup of coffee. After my afternoon dose, I could definitely feel my heart rate rise slightly and I couldn't sit still at all. I did get a bit lightheaded at one point, but that passed within a couple of minutes.

The appetite suppression was incredible though. I'm usually not hungry during the day anyway, but I had to FORCE my 3PM meal down my throat. I just was not hungry at ALL.

Ran out of time on my workout tonight due to some errands I had to get done beforehand that were time sensitive, so I'll be loading a bit more depletion tomorrow. I figure it doesn't really matter since Lyle claims that you can do a single day depletion if you want to anyway.

I'll be sticking with this half dose of Ephedrine for at minimum a week and we'll see how my body has adjusted at that point (next Monday).

 

[sexy_animal]

It's April. Are you ever going to post progress pictures?

 

[danzik17]

It's April. Are you ever going to post progress pictures?

Fiiiine. I'll post some later this week when I'm more depleted. Right now I'm overfull on glycogen and retaining some water since I just came off of an off-week. I was forced to eat more than I wanted (i.e. just at or a tiny bit above maintenance) to help my joints heal up in addition to doing a de-load. The way I had been going was hurting like hell with a combination of low fat, heavy weights, and the fact that I'm on accutane.

I did pick up some glucosamine earlier which I'll be taking to try and help out with that problem. It should resolve itself even more once I'm through with accutane around May 5th.

I do believe I have a couple of shots on my cell that I can post up sooner though that I took right before doing my off-week, maybe I'll put those up. It's not 8% though but it's closer.

 

[danzik17]

Day 2
-----

Nothing much to report. No sides like yesterday. Probably because I wasn't looking for every single little twitch that my body made after taking it, I just fired and forgot pretty much.

Goddamn I am fried from depletion workout #2 though, thank god it's a rest day tomorrow.

 

[danzik17]

Day of PRs (Post-Refeed):

Squats: 215lbs (PR since I hurt my hamstring a few months back, old PR was 225)

Leg Press: 655lbs

DB Press: 75lb DBs

Shoulder Press: 55lb DBs

Incline DB: 65lb DBs

 

[danzik17]

Pics from Thursday 4/16 (Immediately before refeed)

 

[danzik17]

I think I'm leaner on the back, not positive though. Still 2 weeks out from my target date so we'll see what happens. I'm ramping up Ephedrine dosing to 50g/day next week, then 75g/day for the final week. Maybe that will give me the slight push I need, who knows.

 

[danzik17]

Read through P-Funk's book briefly and thinking of things I have read on his blog and whatnot.

That in mind, I'm going to start incorporating some exercises that I have been dreading for a long long time. It may seem basic, but I will admit right now that I can NOT do step ups, even body weight - I lose my balance on nearly every rep.

The same going for walking knee hugs, I cannot do them.

I will start incorporating short sets, maybe as little as 3-4 reps per set with 2-3 sets during my warmups. All bodyweight for now of course. Just posting it here so I stay honest and don't just shrug it off yet again.

 

[Built]

One trick I've noticed with stepups is to kinda "stamp" (not brutally, but you know, a definite "step!") your foot to the UP position. You can check with Patrick to see if this is appropriate, but I find it helps me activate the right muscle sequence.

Seeing some excellent progress in here - you look lean and still "thick". Nice work!

 

[danzik17]

Thanks. Hoping that I will reach my goal by my target date, but again we'll see. The absolute worst thing that happens is that I will overshoot it by a few weeks

I attribute that to me screwing up the PSMF though, something I will not do when I run this again next year.

 

[danzik17]

Ugh well, I don't think it's going to happen unless I'm already at or below 10% (not positive exactly where I stand). If anyone has estimates from those pics feel free to guess.

Business trip for 2 days next week and vacation the following week. I'll still be eating clean but I have to be realistic, there is no way I can follow a diet/training program as strict as UD 2.0 while on a business trip. Even though it's only two days it would be on both of my depletion workout days

Will be dialing back to the generic high protein, mid-high fat, low-mid carb diet probably until the 2nd week of May. I'll pick up then to see what I can do, but I missed the deadline.

Just a side rant: dropped a fking 30lb DB on my forefinger on Thursday. That shit better NOT screw up this power workout tomorrow or I will be pissed. At the minimum I'll be pushing max loads on my legs and I'm hoping my grip will be up to the task.

 

[Built]

Hmmm... well, you're not ten%, but you're not 15% either. You look pretty damned good to me!

Sorry about your finger.

 

[nkira]

Just a side rant: dropped a fking 30lb DB on my forefinger on Thursday. That shit better NOT screw up this power workout tomorrow or I will be pissed. At the minimum I'll be pushing max loads on my legs and I'm hoping my grip will be up to the task.

Man....that's got to hurt!! Btw looking nice

 

[danzik17]

Man....that's got to hurt!! Btw looking nice

Thanks. It's not TOO bad, but things that put direct pressure on it like weighted pullups I may have to skip this power workout and replace with pulldowns. That is unless I go pick up a set of straps so I can take my grip completely out of the picture for this one workout.

Yes I'm leaner but still not where I want to be. Can only hope that this will get easier after I do it the first time.

 

[Built]

It's different every time.

On one hand, you know you CAN do it. On the other hand, because you know you can do it, it's easy to rationalize your way out of doing it LOL!

 

[danzik17]

Well good news, my finger did not affect my lifting for the most part. I had to be careful of where the weight was positioned on it exactly, but I put up just as much weight as I normally do.

Back onto the diet thing though, I'm evaluating progress on UD 2.0 to decide whether to stick with it or try something else. I have not tried doing a steady diet with targeted carbs that has been debated so heavily recently, so I'm trying to decide whether or not to give that a go or stick with my current plan.

Funny thing about that though, on UD 2.0 if you average my calories per day (including the refeed) I'm eating more than I was on my previous cut. It comes out to around 2100 calories/day which is 200 higher.

 

[Built]

Well THAT's nice - a non-fucked finger and higher cals. Cool!

 

[danzik17]

Question for ya:

After 5/9 when I'm back from vacation, I'll have been eating above maintenance for probably a good week. Not absurdly, but I refuse to track foods during vacations....they're vacations!

Anyway knowing what you know about how much fat I'm carrying from those pics and knowing that I'll be a good 1-2lbs heavier and coming off from eating a lot of calories, would it be safe to run a PSMF afterward?

Interested in trying it again (and NOT screwing it up this time) but only if it's not risking excessive muscle.

 

[Built]

Yeah, that would be the ideal time to do it, wouldn't it, after an extended diet break?

 

[danzik17]

Oh I agree, was just confirming. This time I know the importance of the supplements AND I'm going to be ordering some medical grade fish oil to run with the PSMF.

Done with accutane, so I'm going to use top quality stuff and then get tested to see if my liver enzymes are screwy, but I may as well run them while I'm on the PSMF.

 

[Built]

Does the accutane mess with your liver enzymes? I can't remember if I asked you that.

 

[danzik17]

Does the accutane mess with your liver enzymes? I can't remember if I asked you that.

Only at very high dosages - the dosage I've been on for a while barely touched them.

Fish oils screwed with them majorly though, spiking them to sometimes over 4x normal levels. It may have been that the quality in my oils just wasn't there though which is why I'm going to try medical grade oils.

 

[danzik17]

Well, back from vacation. Let's just say I'm uhhh....a bit juicier. And the definition of bit may or may not be negotiable here. Probably on the cusp of being a Type 2 for PSMF. That's what I get for having a "business" trip to Florida followed by a vacation.

Will be starting the PSMF on Monday morning since I don't have anything in the house at the moment and stores are closed. That will also let me follow the same schedule as last time. I'll likely be following very close to the same diet as last time with maybe slight modifications, but nothing huge.

 

[33sun33]

Damn, good job Danzik. You definitely look leaner with each photo, and you are doing great with the diet. Im also "trying" to get sub 10%, but seeing your progress really has made me feel lazy! Ive only been on my diet for a couple of weeks, and Im just following the basic guidelines in the Jodi sticky.

 

[danzik17]

Quick Update:

PSMF is going well. Went from ~174 -> ~169lbs so far. Much easier to follow this diet on the second go around. The only two issues are the same as last time, I WANT MY DAMN COFFEE WITH CREAM, and the super low fat/carbs makes me thirsty as hell.

 

[danzik17]

Posting this here so it's easy for me to find when it's refeed time:

I'll be doing essentially the same refeed that I would on my UD2.0 diet. That's going to work out to a bit under 1100g carbs in total. Last time I did the PSMF refeed I did 1200+ but ended up feeling REALLY bloated with a lot of water retention.

The second thing is that I'm going to deviate a bit from doing the pure PSMF and do the refeed UD 2.0 style. That means that I'll be doing a tension workout Thursday night and then immediately beginning my refeed into Friday. I may even do a power workout Saturday. That means my PSMF will only be 10.75 days instead of 11, but tough shit - it makes more sense to me to begin reglycogenating during the post-WO period rather than waiting just for the sake of making it to 11 days.

 

[danzik17]

As far as progress, I'm just about at the point that I was before my vacation(s), which is good - only took 1 PSMF to drop me back there.

 

[danzik17]

So results day:

Beginning weight: 174lbs
Ending weight: 166 and change

PSMF dropped me almost precisely to where I was before I went on vacation. Not a bad deal. Thank GOD it's refeed time though, and that last tension workout was a bitch - much harder than on UD 2.0. Just had NO energy at all, but I got it done.

 

[danzik17]

While I'm waiting to get my thyroid checked (who freaking knew it would take so long to get an appointment?!?!), I decided to run a little experiment.

There was a pretty big argument recently about the merits of carbs in the D&N forums, and I decided to be a guinnea pig. As a former fatty, I felt that I was a pretty good candidate to fit the bill.

The cut started off pretty well with the first few days being pretty uneventful. After about 3-4 days, that's when the fun started. I noticed that I was no longer able to get "full" when I ate. Carbs seemed to beget more carbs. The only way I could be satiated was to eat carbs, but the more carbs I ate the hungrier I seemed to get at the next meal.

The end result was that for me, I don't think this diet would be sustainable. I'm sitting here pretty hungry at the moment despite the fact that I ate probably half a pound of chicken, veggies, and a couple pieces of bread not two hours ago.

I'm going to be reverting to a UD 2.0 style diet. Surprisingly even with the small amount of food on depletion days, I think I've been more comfortable on that diet than any other. The good results I seem to get from that diet is another bonus.

Just figured I'd post this up in case anyone was interested in a small case study for that argument.

 

[danzik17]

Quick update:

I need to start a new journal. The title of this one is kind of....outdated now.

Pretty much maintaining at ~170lbs. Some days heavier, some lighter - whatever. Thyroid check is July 1st so I'm really just hanging out until then (cue convenient excuse).

Just wanted to throw this tip out there for anyone who has problems deadlifting:

Was in the gym and a guy who used to be into powerlifting noticed that I had really shitty deadlift form, but excellent squat form. His advice was to forget that I was doing deadlifts, squat to the floor and just pick up the bar and stand as if I was doing a normal squat. Did that and holy shit my form just snapped into place - it was just a mental thing all this time.

Just figured I'd shoot that out there in case anyone else is/was in a similar spot with good squat form and poor DL form.