I know, I know, it's only been a little over a week, but ... I haven't felt like this - in my head - for a while now.  In fact, probably not since before I had to pull the plug on my shows.

I HATE to train on the weekends and even when I prep for shows, I rarely train on weekends because of, well, balance.  I deserve (and so does my family) to spend time with them, and time for myself and Melissa, outside of the gym.  However - and this is a big HOWEVER (you see what I did there?) - I NEED to train on the weekends to provide more structure right now to feed motivation and it is working.  Well, Mrs Skip (aka "Melissa") isn't a big fan of it, but she is supportive and is along for the ride.  When I broke the schedule to her she was quiet, and to anyone that has been married for a while, you know what quiet means.  She was less than enthused.  

I have less anxiety and I am managing stress easier with more frequent training and the progress so far has been great.

I anticipated that I would be dragging ass without carbs, but I feel remarkably energetic, less bloated and pumps are great - which I have found odd.  My higher fat day on leg day helps tremendously and keeps my metabolism off balance.  I am still "sloppy" by my standards, but ... it's only been about a week and a half and with my training and diet being so sporadic until recently (sporadic defined as less dieting and less training than, well, dieting and training), I am down to roughly 216 from a starting weight of ... oops, bad cell signal.  We broke up there for a minute.

I am sweating like ... something that sweats a lot.  Maybe a whore in church?  An atheist at their Day of Reckoning? It's the best I could come up with.  I digress.

I have also decided to slightly alter my Skiploading that will start this weekend (mildly at first).  I am going to go with moderate carbs and moderate fats for both meals by starting with bagels and lox (a Hill household favorite) and then go to homemade chili made with lean ground beef.  The chili really won't be that high in fat or carbs for that matter but I anticipate finding it filling and should do the job at this early stage of dieting without going too high with carbs (I feel I don't need a ton of carbs yet).  

I am having some lower back pain ... well, not really "pain", but more like ... I can feel a lot of lower back pressure when leg pressing.  In fact, I can feel it resonating from both sciatic nerves -into my glutes and hamstrings - primarily at the top of each rep and the pressure in my lower back at the bottom of each rep.  I have none of that pressure squatting, doing hack squats or other variations of squats, so I am going to leave the leg press out of my protocol for at least the next few leg sessions, opting for squat variations instead.  It could just be that my hamstrings are tight and this is helping to cause the sciatic "discomfort", but the pressure on my lower back is concerning and has always limited my leg pressing poundages.  In fact, Mrs. Skip is relishing the fact that she is out leg pressing me.  I am about as cool with this as she is with training on the weekends - NOT cool.  She hit 10 solid reps with 12 plates with knees to her chest, making the two guys leg pressing in the background do a double-take - as they should have.  They only had 4 plates.  Well done, Mrs. Skip.

My head is in a different place now - a much better place and I am thankful for that.  I am unsure what exactly changed to make this happen as I am sure it is a combination of things.  However, I think it is primarily that I just have gotten to the point that I was disappointed with my lack of mental focus and, of course, the fact that I felt like a lazy, fat slob.  At some point, it just clicks and everything realigns.  Thank God - figuratively.

Now, I have to get myself to the point that I can out leg press Mrs Skip, so if you will excuse me ...