Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Home Stretch

And we have officially entered the last week of this season's CFCC BCCC.

Like last time, it's now time to crack down and eat only the cleanest crap imaginable. Lean meats and greens only, baby, other than my up-to-thrice-weekly leptin refeed. No more snacking in the afternoons (this will save me about $20-30 in buffalo jerky).

What's a leptin refeed? To borrow a great explanation from Mark Sisson:

"The purpose, as I see it, of carb refeeds is the restoration of leptin levels in the dieter. As we know, caloric restriction reduces leptin levels. With lower leptin comes increased hunger and reduced adherence to a diet. Cravings arise. Energy wanes, immunity suffers. The lack of leptin elicits the cascade of hormones that down regulate metabolism and energy expenditure. Your muscles use less energy and become more efficient – but weaker and less effective. Menstruation and fertility become issues. Dropping calories even more just makes the problem worse. You need to restore leptin, at least for a bit, to right the path. A carb refeed can help you achieve this."

The rest of Mark's post and the comments are very informative - I highly recommend you check it out.

Anyway, what this translates into for me, at the recommendation of my oh-so-wise coach, is to have something starchy on the same day as a longer metcon - over ten minutes. Usually, this is a sweet potato with cinnamon, cayenne pepper, chili powder, paprika and salt - no butter necessary, and it's goddamn delicious. Last night, I had about 3/4c of baba ganoush (eggplant, lemon juice, olive oil, tahini, paprika).

(Incidentally, I had that baba ganoush, together with chicken shwarma meat over a salad, around 9:15 after a 24-hour fast AND a 12 minute metcon that kicked my ass. Nothing has ever tasted so good.)

So, here we go. Until next Tuesday, I'm suspending my love affair with all kinds of red meat (steak! lamb! ground beef! pork [no, contrary to what the Pork Council's ad campaign would have you believe, this is NOT white meat]) and replacing it with plenty-o-smoked salmon, fish, chicken, shrimp and scallops (most of which I have in my freezer). My love affair with collard greens and kale will continue. Bacon...I'll miss you this weekend, but we'll be back together soon.

And you better believe I'm going on a bender at Sweet Freedom bakery when I'm done.

Workouts:

- Monday, January 30: greasing the groove with pull ups. 2 strict pronated grip pull ups, with mini band, every minute on the minute for ten minutes. 20 pull ups, easy. Next week, bodyweight for these. Back squat, peak of 20 (yes, 20). I did two sets - 115 was really fast & easy, so I took my second set at 125. Still pretty fast, and while it got tougher for the last 3 or 4 reps, I didn't see Jesus, so if we ever do this again I'll start higher. Doing 20 reps with 66% of my max doesn't suck.

- Tuesday, January 31: strict muscle-up skill work. Couple false grip ring pull ups with mini band and with no band - not there yet unassisted. Couple band-assisted muscle ups - these feel REALLY weird. Light + mini easy, light band less easy but still up. Metcon: 12 minute AMRAP of 3 forward rolls, 6 burpees, 12 double-unders, 15 air squats. Lesson 1: when you do a lot of squats Monday, air squats on Tuesday are kinda painful. HOLY CRAP. Lesson 2: my double-unders go to crap when I fatigue. 5 rounds + 6 burpees, as RX'ed.

1 comment:

  1. Can I join you on your Sweet Freedom bender? I can't stop thinking about their donuts. and their cookies sandwiches. and their cupcakes.

    ReplyDelete