What an interesting title right?

It’s came to my attention that in order to start a blog that mixes what I’ve learned with what I’m doing, I should probably set a baseline of where I’m at currently. Makes sense, right? It does to me at least.

Right now I’m ending what has become my yearly cut. I’ve been using a schedule of bulking all year, going on vacation (usually seeing in-laws) the week after Christmas, then coming home and immediately going on a diet. I’ve done this every year for a few years with some success but I think this will be the last year I structure this way.

Why?

Very plain and simple I’m good at 2 thing: Cutting and bulking. One thing I am very specifically not good at is maintaining. This is why I’ve came up with the 9/3 bulk/cut I’ve been doing for years. I’m not doing this anymore for 2 major reasons.

First – If I’m cutting 3 months a year, I’m not gaining or getting stronger. In other words not only am I wasting 3 months of the year which could be used to make gains, I’m also losing some strength by going on a diet.

Second – If it takes me 3 months every year to lose the weight I put on, I’m probably bulking wrong and eating too much. Its been great for putting on muscle, but I get fat and start to feel horrible. I don’t want to live feeling like that so in turn, I need to diet.

Wash, rinse, repeat…

This coming year I’m going to maintain tracking my diet, getting in extra steps etc… even when I’m back in gain mode. My goal is to make the same strength progress I normally would but only put on 10 or so pounds instead of the 25-30 I have in the past.

Honestly none of this is rocket science but I’m not the only one stuck in this cycle. I’m an eater and controlling my diet has always been hard for me. When I started lifting my goal was just to put on enough muscle to where people didn’t realize I was fat. It didn’t really work, but it was better than sitting on my ass and doing nothing.

I’m telling you all right now, over time you will see me complain about dieting and nutrition. I hate it, I want to eat pizza and ice cream every meal, but nutrition is a massive key to success. Its the cornerstone of your recovery and nothing happens in the gym if you don’t recover.

Training wise, things have been going okay. I don’t feel like I’ve lost as much strength as I did during my last cut, specifically in my lower body because my deadlift tanked last year. Part of this is I slowed the diet down and went against the advice to trim down my volume. As crazy as this sounds, I’m running a higher volume in most lifts than I did when I was bulking, I’m recovering from it and I feel fine. The caveat is I took the time to build up to it. My hope is that when I return to eating in a surplus I’ll put on more muscle because I grew my work capacity.

Food + Work = Gains

I think Einstein wrote that in one of his journals, right???

Either way, when I finish this diet I want to go right into putting muscle back on and doing it without the unnecessary extra amounts of blubber I’ve been adding in the past. I’ll have some cheat meals, I’ll enjoy myself on vacations, but I need to remember there’s no reason to rip through a bag of Dorito’s on a random Tuesday night. Well… no other reason besides the fact they taste good…