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FIT.Y.E.R.O. (Meathead, wellness, fitness, diet, exercise) Thread

- life is too short to forgo all delicious food that happens to cause Chonkening. Moderation atkot.

- I wish I was one of those women who could keep up 4-5 days a week of workouts through pregnancy, but I ain't. And that's okay. Baby boy is getting big. Pretty much feel like I'm walking around with a basketball strapped to me at 29 weeks. My obliques are hanging on for dear life. Box squats and sumo deadlifts still feel pretty damn good, but things like tying my shoes or rising from the couch? GTFO. Wheezy F Baby over here.

- Have to admit I'm getting pretty pumped about the light at the end of the tunnel now that I'm in third tri. I know plenty can happen in delivery that could significantly complicate my recovery and the resumption of my normal fitness routine (not to mention a newborn), but now that there's a delivery date looming, I can actually contemplate an actual return. I had to scale back training after my last meet in August 2022 because I had to stop the fun vitamins for a bit before we started trying, then it took a year to conceive, and now I'm large marge growing this baby. I am very much looking forward to Return of the Mack Pretzel, whatever that looks like post-partum. I have a couple goals in mind by kid's first birthday, but I'm not getting too attached to those just yet. I don't know if I'll logistically be able to compete again, but I feel optimistic about being physically able to do it, and that's huge. In the meantime, trying to stay grounded in keeping up sufficient fitness/mobility to try to facilitate a smooth-ish delivery, at least as much as one can. Hopefully I can just yeet this baby right out when he's ready. Fingers crossed.
I am new to this thread and believe something I ran across earlier today may be of interest to you. The speaker is a preacher that is discussing Fetal Microchimerism. An amazing benefit of motherhood that is an eye opener.

 
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I get it considering where you're at in the process. However, only childs are weird most of the time. Siblings are good for you. Plus, the world needs a many good people reproducing as possible. Lean into it.


Hank, haven't used that feature because i have trainer mapping my workouts. I'm probably about done with whoop. I don't care for wearing it and a watch now that the 8S is tracking my sleep. I like the recovery portion but probably not worth it.
 
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I haven’t wanted to post in this thread until after the holidays but I kinda feel like I need to to not self explode and stay on track. Can’t remember what thread it was (maybe a New Year’s resolution one if not this one) about my goals being to be generally healthier - maybe drop 5 lbs and workout 3 days a week(from my 1 from the last 5 years). I started with the peloton 2 days a week in January and did that until April (did 18 weeks in a row) and lifted one day a week. After casually following this thread and realizing I averaged around 10-12k steps a day at work I decided to stop the Peloton and just lift 3 days a week (1 a really good hour lift at the gym and then 2 shitty 15/20 min ones at home).

Anyway after doing that for the last 5 months I’ve been able to achieve my goals. I stopped drinking my protein shake as a food lunch/snack and subbed it with 2 hard boiled eggs. After May I was able to cut down on my drinking (though that’s still a huge vice), I started creatine about 6 weeks ago and have noticed a huge difference in my strength/endurance. Overall heading into Labor Day weekend I felt about as good about myself as pre-kids. Was consistently 163 lbs (which to toot my own horn I was very proud of at 43), which was down 5 - 10 lbs over the last 7 years but was stronger. The summer tan helped my appearance tremendously as well.

The last two weeks have been a disaster - Napa for 4 days with 16 wineries and tons of good restaurants and the start of football season and wings/burgers/pumpkin beers has been incredibly tough. It’s my favorite time of the year and filled with the biggest hurdles. Sept-January is brutal. Love old fashioneds and manhattans, love pumpkin beer, have a major sweet tooth, so this is going to be a huge 4 month stretch to not revert. Currently it looks like someone stuck an air pump in my stomach and blew it up so I’ll need to clean it up the next week or so to get back to where I was. Decided I should probably add some cardio in so I did a 20 min peloton today for the first time in months and thought I was going to die.

This thread has been huge for me and extremely helpful and inspiring, thanks for all.
 
Football season right into the holidays is definitely the most challenging time.

Like anth said before, try to make 17-18 of 21 meals per week solid (the so called 80-20 rule; meaning 80% of the time you stay on point, 20% you relax the standards a bit). I’m not a 3 meals per day guy, but I stay within that relative protocol. You have to let yourself go wild a couple of times a week.

It’s a huge motivation when you’re slogging through the boring shit, and those flex meals (I hate the term “cheat”) can keep you going.
 
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This old man trying to lose fat, not muscle. Therefore slow and steady with about 300 calorie deficit reduction and about 120 grams of protein per day. Lifting weights 4 days per week. Lost 11 pounds in last 7 months. I have type 2 diabetes, but can’t afford the ozempic med that was prescribed. My A1C has been controlled using this eating and exercise program. This thread has been extremely helpful.
 
Yep.

I have been at a 95% clip of orthodox clean eating since June 21. This thread and the gym regulars are a great support along my journey. Nobody saw this coming…. Certainly not me. My wife is kinda annoyed with my rigidity to the whole thing. But I always tend to go all in/obsessed on most things I focus on.

30+ years of desk jockey atrophy have been usurped by motivation and confidence. Reshuffling of priorities.

Sounds weird, but just looking in the mirror is enough evidence that effort works. I got a bulging vein in my forearm today that got me stoked.💪🏻

Nowhere close to my goal, but the change in me is significant already. Entering year three of my gym membership. I look forward to going every morning.
 
Yep.

I have been at a 95% clip of orthodox clean eating since June 21. This thread and the gym regulars are a great support along my journey. Nobody saw this coming…. Certainly not me.

30+ years of desk jockey atrophy have been usurped by motivation and confidence. Reshuffling of priorities.

Sounds weird, but just looking in the mirror is enough evidence that effort works. I got a bulging vein in my forearm today that got me stoked.💪🏻

Nowhere close to my goal, but the change in me is significant already. Entering year three of my gym membership. I look forward to going every morning.
I have to buy new clothes. Shirts went from XL to medium.
 
thats awesome.

I’m clearly out of the 2XL realm. Sinching my old belts tight with 15 yo pants. Kinda look like MC Hammer for now.

Went to Bloomingdale’s last week to look for some new clothing items, got ambushed by the smokeshow fragrance ladies and ended up buying cologne instead🤣… idiot. So not investing in new clothes, yet. Gonna wait.

Moncler Le Solstice… highly recommend.🥰
 
-Moving from splits to whole body has been a really nice change. I've done whole body before but not close to the same level. Easier on the muscle groups but overall hard af. I'm worn tf out at the end of each workout. That pleases the former cardio junky in me. Recovery seems to be great. Need to make sure I'm allowing a solid recovery day in there, which is a real struggle for me.

-HRV(hitting 70s on the reg now) and recovery keep slowly clicking up since the 8sleep. Other than the nights where UK loses a heartbreaker and I stay up until 2:30a watching UFC.

-Keep crushing the goals, y'all.
 
Anth, what’s your take on increasing the HRV? Mine varies anywhere from 35-55 (today it said 17), but yesterday was 54. Looking through my history I can’t figure out what drives the changes. For example, it doesn’t go up with my VO2max.
 
Booze is #1. Anymore than a single drink and I'm lucky to get out of the 30's. I was pretty low that week I was sick. I've been hitting mid to high 70s on the regular the last month or so. Which is apparently good. I can definitely tell when I get that high.

Apparently consistent sleep and wake times are key. As well as hydration, not over training, stress, late use of screens.

So, recently I've actually been staying up a little later on Sunday-Thur so my weekend bed times are typically in range of my week night. LMNT for hydration. Sauna has been consistent. Back to reading for 30+ minutes before sleep and trying to avoid looking at the phone after that. 8Sleep has been great. Feels like it's just a lot of little trial and error changes helping out rather than some drastic shift.


BTW, WS's HRV is superhuman.
 
Anth, what’s your take on increasing the HRV? Mine varies anywhere from 35-55 (today it said 17), but yesterday was 54. Looking through my history I can’t figure out what drives the changes. For example, it doesn’t go up with my VO2max.
What are you using to measure it?
 
My Apple Watch and it measures the HRV several random times a day. I read that you should only really measure it when you are in a rested state. So on my flight just now I did the mindfullness app which triggers the capture of HRV. I kept coming in at 90+. But who knows if this is the real number I should focus on or the random ones that app records.
 
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