As the weight on the bar has gone up, so have the numbers on the scale and stretch in my waistline. Last week, during Thanksgiving, I felt terrible. Toward the end of the week, I was at the gym and went to deadlift, so I grabbed my belt. It was too tight for me to wear it comfortably. That right there was an eye-opener. I distinctly remember the company asking me before I bought it if I would be changing weight classes because the sizing for the lever belt was right in the middle. And here I am.
The good news is that I am going to try not using a belt during this phase of training. This week I pulled the 2 working sets of 8 without a belt. I feel like that is some type of a PR.
I took a long hard look at the number on the scale and thought about how I ended up there. I am 17lbs up from my goal weight and 20lbs up from the lowest I was at when following WW. Ironically, all of my clothes still fit. The waistline is uncomfortable, but everything else is good. My shirts are very tight in the chest, shoulders, and back. Some shorts are tighter in the quads. I don’t think every pound of this weight gain is bad, but overall, I don’t like it. The plan was to sit down and analyze where I felt like I was dropping the ball. I liked WW because there were items I did not have to track. I like macros because of the precision and boundaries offered, but hate how tedious it is. I like making breakfast and dinner but rarely feel hungry for lunch. I snack too often.
Moving Forward
What I did was use the nutrition calculator with Precision Nutrition to get some baseline numbers according to where I am right now. I then took those numbers and worked them into a nutrition plan offered via BodyBuilder.com. That was the plan I followed and saw a drastic drop in my BP. WW helped with weight but didn’t factor in the sodium intake like I needed. Looking at the macros would help me do that in MFP and the BodyBuilding.com plan was a really clean plan. I took that plan and then changed it up based on what I wanted to eat, shifting food around so it still fit within the boundaries. I gave myself a big breakfast and big dinner, 2 snacks, and a lighter lunch. The lunch was something super easy to fix so that I would have no excuses. My oldest downloaded an app called Plant Nanny which is a fun way to track how much water you are drinking. It shocked me how little water I was consuming. The app is silly and the reminders are annoying, but I obviously needed them.
I went grocery shopping and got everything that I needed. Even though I work from home, it still makes sense for me to prep as much as I can just because I get lazy with this stuff. If it takes too much time, I will either skip what I should do or eat something off-balance and off-program. That has brought me to where I am 17lbs heavier than I want to be.
As of this blog post, I am only on the first week but shocked at how much better I feel. My wife thinks it has a lot to do with the water intake. I don’t disagree. I was eating more poorly than I think she realized. What I like the most about this plan right now is that I like every meal and every snack. I don’t feel restricted. I like that I am eating cleaner and that I am also considering sodium to help with BP. I used MFP once to get all of the meals right but I don’t have to log every single day since they will all be very similar. I am going to give myself some time on the weekend to break free from the program a bit but not go too far overboard. Last week, we ate at a local wings place and I had 12 wings. I normally never eat those and I felt so terrible after. No more of that mess.
Weight
I don’t want to set up a specific day/time that I absolutely have to weigh in. I also do not believe in weighing every single day. I am probably going to hop on the scale on Saturday mornings just to get a gauge of where I stand.