Pecca fortiter

Today marked the one month mark without cheese. So i had some. Came home and she had a pizza, so i had a slice of pizza (with extra cheese melted on, as otherwise it'd've been a stale slice of gross bread), and then i made a salad and put cheese on that. Then i had a spoonful of Baskin' Robbins pb& chocolate ice cream. Now i'm having a beer.

It was all kinda disappointing and anticlimactic. Excepting the beer: Hop Rising from Squatters is darn good.

I'd guess abstaining from cheese for a goodly span has been educational. I really wasn't sure i could do it--never had before really. Thought it might be the key to weight loss for me. And while i still think it's gunna end up being important to cut down on from my usual Sam's Club quota, i didn't lose an ounce by cutting it out. Just managed to replace the calories with other stuff--mostly nuts i expect. Really been fairly strict with food quality and quantity otherwise.

And i am getting in better shape. Ramping up to start a training season in about another week, and i've been doing a lot of endurance stuff. Did two 30 min ARC sessions today, and it felt much easier than last week.

But i know that weight loss is going to be the crux if i'ma see just how hard i can climb; and i'm afraid that's going to involve counting calories. But i'm still over 17% bodyfat, and that's a lotta lard; and it ain't (apparently) gunna go away by making dietary tweaks and substitutions.

Bleh.

But then, hiking 5.12 will feel very, very, terribly nice.

Campus Board

Finally got the campus board done. i'm looking forward to using it. I'm looking forward to not looking like a n00b on it. I'm looking forward to seeing what it does to my climbing toward the end of the season. 

Moon board's coming. I'll post pics up when that's done. 

dead

Gotta admit: i'm in a quandary concerning dead lifts. They're the only real lift i'm any good at, and in reality super-heavy deads don't contribute to the greater goal. And even though i really believe they have a role (and i really don't wanna give up my hopes and dreams for 'em just yet) i don't know where to fit 'em in my program. Climbing-wise everything else fits less problematically into the program. There's a Base Fitness bit, a Strength phase (where, as you'd expect, most of the hypertrophic sorts of exercises should occur), a Power phase where you demand fast-twitch, mass-recruitment sorts of things out of all that muscle, a Power-Endurance phase where you take all that recruitment out for marathons of pain, and a Performance phase which is what you've done it all for. And it's understood through most of it all that you're still doing strengthy stuff--working core and large muscles, etc.

But it's difficult to justify a constant, non-macro-cycled 5/3/1 workout; and more difficult still when i totally know it's cutting into the quality of all my other workouts.

All that to say i didn't do 5/5/5 today. And that i wouldn't mind locking out 600 lbs.

"There is now a level zero" --Massa Shifu

So there it is: Starting point. 200.5#. 17.5% body fat. I guess that's sorta encouraging 'cuz it means i really could lose 25 lbs of fat without dropping a gram of muscle. Probably couldn't <i>realistically</i> do that, but i could fer shur drop a stone's worth o' lard without losing my deadlift.

At the moment, i'm trying to coax my diet/metabolism in that direction. I've been off cheese for over two weeks now. Honestly, it seems to be doing nothing. Thing is, i think i'm unconsciously replacing those calories with other stuff--probably nuts. That measurement was taken last week, and i weighed in this morning at 199.5, and (by my EI bathroom scale) 17.5% BF. So no ground gained.

But that's ok. This is by far the longest i've ever gone without cheese, and that's something. I honestly don't think cheese is the problem, or is particularly bad; only i really need to know i can live without it, even if it's temporary. It's made me realize how easy it is to grab a piece when i'm hungry, and that i don't really have another go-to snack when i'm dying off. Trying to figure out how to fix that. Main thing is i feel like i'm at least shining some light on some tenebrous hidden corners of my diet, even if i haven't entirely gotten a firm grip on it yet. If i can cut out the cheese, nuts, sugar and booze all at the same time, i might actually see some meaningful results.

On a different note, if i want to peak around the front of October, i'll need to start the actual training plan about the very beginning of July. That means i still have a couple of weeks to go before it gets real.  So i am trying to get as many enduro routes in as possible so i'll be sorta fit for the Base Endurance bit of the plan. I think i'm more worried about the base stuff than i am about the rest of the training. It's supposed to be the easy bit, but it calls for moderate sessions (i.e. just below lactate threshold) of, e.g., traversing for 20-30 mins without stopping, then resting and doing it again. That's the same thing they prescribe for active rest days. Sounds neato, but i don't know if i can stay on a staircase for 30mins without dropping. But i'm getting better.

I've (temporarily) stopped production on the moon wall, mostly cuz we're broke. Maybe next paycheck. But we're thinking mighty seriously bout moving in the nearish future, so it does make hauling a few hundred extra pounds of plywood unattractive. But i think i'll build it anyhow if i can. Super amped about it, and that's worth the $150 or so in materials, even if i end up leaving it behind.