Cut: Week 7
Seven weeks down, because this is something I can still control.
I'm not going to make this post all about COVID-19 — nor am I going to talk a ton about my job (for obvious reasons) — but I'm a medical provider, and it would be tone-deaf not to acknowledge that this week has been... difficult. More than difficult. The crisis has really only just begun — and I don’t work in a hospital, so I’m not even in the true thick of it — but I heard someone refer to this as "PRE-traumatic stress disorder," and that feels extremely accurate.
About a year ago, there was a large gas explosion in my neighborhood. It killed two people, burned down a historic tobacco warehouse (not unlike the one I live in), and destroyed several businesses. And right now, I feel very much the way I felt back then — thoroughly shaken, yet also extreme guilt for feeling shaken. After all, I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm young and healthy and therefore not (unduly) concerned for my own safety; my job is not such that I will have to personally choose who gets a ventilator; and goodness knows I don't need to be concerned for job security (as SO, SO, SO many others are right now).
Yet I'm noticing memory lapses, sleeplessness, emotional outbursts, a heightened 'startle' reflex... textbook symptoms of trauma. And I’m judging myself pretty harshly for that, because I feel like I don’t have any right to those feelings. Certainly not compared to what my friends, classmates, and colleagues are currently being asked to bear.
But part of what I’m having to wrap my head around this week is that I’m not just a medical provider; I’m also a human. All of us share some communal worries here (our health, the health of our loved ones), but the individual challenges we face as a result of this fallout are not all going to look the same, and one ‘set’ of difficulties isn’t less significant than any other set. For me, those first few days — at work, bombarded with hourly protocol updates and algorithms and PPE inventories — were actually easier, because I could compartmentalize. Stress was high, but it was about patient care; I was just a delivery vehicle. This past Monday, when I finally had a day off, was my first opportunity to look at the situation from my own unique individual perspective (gym closures + moving into a new apartment this week + a condo that has not yet sold, in the face of a suddenly-crashing market) — and that was when my world promptly collapsed. Because I could probably handle the stress of both the ‘work’ and ‘home’ situations if my other coping mechanisms were intact — but they aren't. Training definitely still helps more than anything else; for the couple of hours during/after a workout, I briefly feel like myself again. But those are temporary endorphins; it's hard to ‘savor the process’ in any kind of larger way when it’s a single 35# dumbbell on my living room floor with no predictable end date. I am missing barbells with a ferocity that is so severe as to feel like a chemical addiction. Truly, it would feel comforting just to hold one in my hands for a moment.
In many ways, this is obviously not the ideal time to be cutting. Cortisol, serotonin, and sleep were already suffering quite enough — and, being in a deficit, the sudden lack of access to truly heavy weights has me frightened about losing my hard-fought muscle mass. I’m connected with a lot of other RP women via the Facebook groups, and I know a lot of people have already made decisions to end their cuts early and go to maintenance, because they don’t feel mentally/logistically capable of sustained adherence under these circumstances. I admire their insight.
But, for me, in other ways, it feels like “in for a penny, in for a pound.” Because… I'm already seven weeks deep. I’m here now. Psychologically, I've done the hard work of getting in the groove. Physically, I’m accustomed to the hunger (and honestly, the added stress makes it easier to not eat). And logistically... well, let’s be honest: speaking from a purely practical standpoint, there are worse times to be doing this. Right now, it's kind of okay that meeting friends at restaurants isn't a Thing; it's okay that I'm in the middle of moving and have very little food in the house. And also, the only silver lining to not being able to train as hard as usual is that my physical recovery may actually not become the limiting factor to this cut — meaning, the full twelve weeks might be reasonable after all.
So, for the moment, I’m sticking with it, not least because it just feels easier not to introduce one more variable into an already-chaotic environment.
One slight bit of reassurance came from the fact that this week (when everything hit the fan, pandemic-wise) was actually my scheduled deload week. I'm incredibly grateful that at least I wasn't supposed to be maxing out, because that would have driven my frustration and helplessness even higher. However, the scale was already starting to stall, so now, with the lower intensity, I’ve definitely had to go ahead and drop my intake again. Training day (total) macros now are 180-220 carb, 180-200 pro, and 55-65 fat, roughly ~2100 calories — which is annoying, but manageable. Rest days, however, are down to a very sad ~1700 (and you'd better believe those days hurt).
Scale-wise, I got two quick peeks into the 155s this week — and then, despite everything, my stupid ovary somehow spat out an egg exactly on its (exasperatingly short) usual schedule — so we're probably looking at two more weeks of relatively stagnant numbers despite the macro slash. This does help me nail down the predicted timeline, though; it means weeks 8 and 9 will be comparatively difficult and then there’ll be another ‘whoosh’ downward in week 10. Not very many things are ‘dependable’ right now, so it’s nice to have even that small bit of reliability.
I write these posts just as much for myself as for any wider audience, so I’m not going to apologize for the comparatively darker tone of this one as compared to the first six weeks. However, I’ll end it by taking note of a few positive things:
Early this week, on my very last day of gym training, I moved really well and savored every minute. Sets of six (legitimate, deep) unassisted ring dips, two sets of 50 unbroken double-unders in the metcon, and snatch doubles up to 85% with no misses (and no belt). Squeaking under the wire with that last session before the mandated closures helped me a lot, because it felt like ‘a chance to say goodbye’. I might not get to do what I love for a while, but I’ve worked so hard to build those abilities, and they’ll still be there whenever I’m able to put them into practice again.
I assumed the casein I ordered from Amazon wasn’t going to ship due to their ‘prioritization’ of purchases. Turns out, their priorities line up with mine (LOL) — it shipped out after all, and I received it a whole day ahead of schedule.
I didn’t tell anyone about this (because it felt selfish and obtuse under the circumstances), but an edited version of my menstrual cycle tracking post was published on the Built By Strength blog this week. I feel rather ‘distant’ from that accomplishment at the moment, but I know it’s something in which to take pride.
And, shameless observation: my back is fucking jacked.
I don’t really know how to end this post except to say: hang in there, world. Watch out for your neighbors, continue paying your box membership, toss some money at local businesses if you can. And on a personal level: find ways to get full nights of sleep (even if that means medication), ways to eat nourishing food (even if that means grocery delivery), and ways to get sunlight on your skin. So much is uncertain right now, and all of those things will legitimately help.
We’ll get through this.