Finally, a week where I can sleep without getting up and having to walk around the house for 10 minutes to decrease the pain from the periformis syndrome. I am, what I believe to be, out of the woods with that.
I have been training without a belt for about a month and I have trained without a belt in the past and actually prefer it this way. However, I do know that even though this allows me to keep my torso strong and tight, I do worry about the vulnerability of my back so I am going to be using this sexy new EliteFTS (old school) belt that just arrived today. It's like Christmas ... but in January and ... ok, no it isn't but it is still cool that I got it and I am excited to use because I haven't used a leather belt in probably 20 years.
I sometimes don't like to do my coach logs on Fridays because I still have Saturday and Sundays to drop scale weight and even though scale weight isn't the last word as to whether I am progressing or not, I do like to see the weight fall and report it in my log. I am baselined at 201 now and as most of you know I made my original goal to drop below 200 and I am damn close. I anticipate hitting it this weekend before I Skipload but ... who knows. It would be even better to drop below it but ... no matter, my condition has continued to improve every week quite dramatically the last 3 or 4 weeks.
At the same time that I am continuing to get leaner my strength is - rather bizarrely - going up on a lot of movements. It isn't like "off season" gains but it is damn sure not common when I am on low calories and high amounts of cardio. I do believe it has something to do with my weekly use of what some would call a strong "glucose transporter" during my Skiploads. It really is the only thing that has been changed with my plan since my strength (and muscle fullness) has taken an obvious positive turn. Visually, it is awesome to see so much fullness and I am holding less water due to this (from the Skiploads).
Moving forward I see myself continuing to focus on dropping more body fat though I am getting pretty lean right now. Being so close to 200 has me eyeing an even lower body fat level as this is kind of an experiment for me to not only get as lean as I can but also to be able to maintain it without doing an ass-ton (that's a lot for those that recognize that term) of cardio and starving myself. Right now my schedule and protocol is ridiculously easy whether it be the cardio, training or dieting so I am really in no way tortured or even remotely miserable or run down. As I type this it is Friday and I am getting ready to go to the gym to train arms and delts and my hunger and energy don't feel different than a Tuesday after loading on a Sunday, all day. I am a bit flatter but certainly not deflated or grossly depleted.
I do have a little bit of old-man-loose skin but ... that's normal when you are ... you know... old.