Cut progress update: Started around 230lbs and I have lost about 26 lbs since end of November so roughly 5 months. Three of those months have been using Tirz at relatively low dose. I am up to 3 mg a week and food noise is still very low to none. My macros started around 220P/200C/50F and have been lowered since to around 210P/180C/40F due to stagnating a bit which worked really well to keep the scale moving. All of this has been done with almost no sacrifices to my lifts which I am really proud of. The problem: I have noticed some negatives recently like a drop off in sleep quality, waking up early around 3-4 am instead of 4-5 am and not going back to sleep. My lifts are still going well but recovery and energy starting to struggle severely. I put everything into my lifts then feel like a zombie for the rest of the day. Zero energy all weekend was the worst. Even my fitness tracker is showing HRV has gone to shit along with sleep and I probably should have paid attention to that sooner. After researching all of these symptoms, I think my body is running out of glycogen in the middle of the night. I may also be consuming too little fat to keep proper hormone balance. The solution: I think I am going to move carbs to 280g/day for this week to give my body a breather and perhaps replenish glycogen stores. This is likely going to include a before bed snack of something like yogurt and berries to provide a bit of night time protein and some sugars so that this waking up at 3am BS can stop. I plan to pair this with a bit more strict workout plan to guarantee I am only lifting 5 days per week instead of some weeks with 6 along with adding 2 dedicated short HIIT cardio sessions on off days. I am just going to take this one week a time for now because I am still not super close to the bf% I am looking for before actually moving onto calorie surplus for an extended period of time. Trying to prepare myself for scale number to go up in the meantime because I know it will piss me off with how hard I am working.

One year of nothing but chicken, rice, avocado, egg whites, and Ezekiel muffins. Nothing fun.

With summer right around the corner, those abs BETTER be popping... If not, welcome to ab training 101: - All I've done for years is 2 sets of cable crunches 2-3x/wk - Like anything else, you must progressively overload - Make sure you think "chest up & flex your spine" on the way up for a good stretch - And think "bring chest to hip" on the way down to really hit em - Most important step...lose body fat!!! Voila! 🪄 (Honorable mention to crunch machine and leg raises *when done correctly*)

If you are not doing leg curls BEFORE your heavy quad movement, you are acting a fool (again) Why? 1. Warms up the knees 2. Gets some blood in the hams and almost acts as a spring out of a deep squat/hack/leg press, etc. If you haven't already, give it a shot your next leg day, and you'll never go back. These should be hard, working sets of leg curls