Cut: Week 10 — Show Your Work

I’m reaching a point where I know that I need to be done. I had a pretty great training session on Monday — logistics finally came together to allow for a heavy barbell and a few hours outside in the sunshine — but it also felt like a ‘peak’ of some kind. Ever since then, I’ve had a hard time shaking off a new level of persistent fatigue — a low-level burning in my legs when I stand up, occasional lightheadedness, persistent tweaky soreness in my traps, a subconscious preference for the elevator rather than the stairs. I’ve needed ‘emergency candy’ in 4 out of 5 training sessions this week, and the scale also hasn't stopped dropping — even though this was my fourth week on the same set of macros, my average still went down by over a pound and a half, and I’ve even seen two weights in the 149s (!), which is hella close to my ‘hard stop’ mark.

#noracknoproblem — was ‘forced’ to PR my power clean (150#) in order to hit my heaviest set of 5 front squats. 😈💪

Psychologically, the toll of the calorie deprivation has also reached a new level — I don’t necessarily feel the hunger in my body to a more significant degree, but my brain is starting to say ‘fuck it,’ which it hasn’t really done until now. It’s not that I’m craving anything in particular, but sometimes, when I open the fridge or pantry and see something tasty, there’s an instant where my hand ‘wants’ to flash out and grab it without my consent. I remember this feeling, because I wrote almost those exact same words two years ago, regarding the early stages of marathon training, when I was just starting to figure out that these mental ‘nudges’ were a clue that I was under-fueling.

I can also tell, aesthetically, that it's time to stop. Outsiders wouldn't necessarily notice, but to my own eye, the familiar subtle signs of my ‘leanness threshold’ are showing up — that weird little ‘hollow’ at my xiphoid process, the sense of unease over how ‘small’ my legs seem now. I won’t lie, I’m thrilled to have finally gotten my C cup back, and I also fully admit that it’s really fun to be able to see a few hints of some abs — but I also know that I’m not genetically predisposed to a visible ‘washboard’ no matter what my bodyweight is, and I’m not looking to lose all my awesome lean gains in pursuit of that. It’s a much harder, longer process to build significant muscle than it is to lose significant fat, and I know from my 2019 DEXA scan that I gained over ten pounds of lean tissue last year. That's ridiculously good — and also means I don’t have any business getting lighter than 148-150# if my goal is to preserve the good stuff. As ever — this is about function. The ‘form’ is secondary.

April 2019 vs. April 2020. I’m ten pounds heavier on the right. But — be honest — would you have known that if I hadn’t told you? 😉

Macro-wise, I already said last week that I’m not planning to reduce any further — but even if I did, that’s typically only done when the rate of loss slows to less than 1 lb/week… and I'm (somehow) not there yet. Things are finally stabilizing this week thanks to ovulation + the fact that the bulk of my condo-to-apartment move is finally over, but the scale has been moving strangely fast for the past month; it took six weeks to lose the first 5#, but then just three weeks to lose the next 5#. I’m not sure whether to point the finger primarily at coronavirus/work stress, condo sale stress, training changes, increased low-intensity physical activity due to the move, or all of the above — but whatever the culprit, the speed has seemed abnormally quick lately, and therefore has me suspicious that there may now be some muscle being sacrificed along with fat.

And while there are plenty who might disagree, my individual experience also tells me that two weeks of relative ‘pain’ at the end is both necessary and sufficient. In other words, that has consistently been my risk-benefit analysis. This current bit of ‘overshooting’ is what's going to allow me to ultimately maintain in the zone that I want to stay in, and not rebound too far past it — but pushing the threshold by more than two weeks probably doesn’t serve much purpose except to increase injury risk (and overall misery).

I will NOT be checking daily numbers like this once I’m back at maintenance calories — but my instinct is that anything in the 150-154# range will probably feel pretty comfortable as far as a long-term sweet spot.

So this upcoming week (Week 11) is going to be my fifth week on these same macro numbers, my second week of relative ‘pain’ — and, therefore, in all likelihood, also the last week of this cut. I may still carry it a couple of days into Week 12 depending on how things are going at that point — but, objectively, I know that I felt utterly exhausted in training this morning… and I’m getting tired of feeling that way. I’m still executing reasonably well, but — I’m just really ready to feel good again.

And it helps to remember that that is the goal — not a number on the scale, not a number on a tape measure, and not a certain number of abs — because I’m aware that I’m now at the point where the cutting process can potentially get a little ‘addictive’. Once progress becomes visually obvious, deliberately reversing away from it — even to just a slight degree — can be scary. (I’m actually already feeling that ‘anxiety’ a little bit this week, because hormones/ovulation are making me ‘look different’ to myself right now than I did just a couple of days ago.) I’ve been at this point before and I know a sense of hesitation is normal — but I also know that I can’t let it be the driver of my decisions. Part of why I write these weekly posts is because the process of gradually composing them reminds me that how I feel can be very different from day to day, even from minute to minute. I feel pretty okay right now, sitting on my butt in front of a computer, but I absolutely did not feel okay this morning when I was PRing my push press and doing 60 strict pull-ups. And those are the metrics that matter.

I do have one relatively ‘shallow’ confession, which is that I’m a little bummed that (because of coronavirus closures) I’m not going to be able to get a DEXA on the last day of this cut. There obviously isn’t anything I can do about that, but in a weird way, it feels like being ‘unable to acknowledge’ these weeks of effort — like failing to stamp your passport on the way out of the airport. I’ll still do it once circumstances permit, but this data point will inevitably be a slight outlier now (my three previous scans have all been on the final day of a cut, under virtually identical conditions, and therefore they're precisely comparable to one another).

But, realistically, I’m well aware that it really doesn't matter. Having a fixed ‘label’ for a result doesn't change the fact of its existence. (And hey, we’ll get to test how accurate my eyeball is; I’m ballparking myself at about 16% body fat based on previous results... stay tuned.)

I’m going to toot my own horn for a second and say that I'm pretty damn proud of how well I’ve managed myself through this process — not just this cut, but the long mass/maintenance phases that preceded it. I’m almost exactly three years into this journey of nutritional manipulation / learning how to eat for body composition and performance goals, and it feels really good to see that I finally have the necessary maturity and ‘distance’ to truly do it well. I’ve been objective, patient, and resilient — without being obsessive. Not that I don't still ‘feel my feelings’ — but at this point, I can acknowledge them as familiar and expected phenomena within this context, and use that data to contribute toward the overall plan.

...Which, right now, is: ONE MORE WEEK of all the sugar-free Jello, pickles, zucchini noodles, banana peppers, Skinny Pasta, and cucumbers.

Then we’ll take the first step into the reverse-diet — and start the (much more enjoyable) process of seeing how far upward we can go.