Apparently, I am stuck at this 226-227 mark and it has been irritating the shit out of me. I brought it up to a friend this last weekend while celebrating yet another year closer to death and he had some solid advice.
Was the advice profound? No.
In fact, it was very obvious and so he basically was playing Dr. Phil (who never seems to have profound advice but is logical and usually tells you what you know you should already do).
I'll get to the advice in a minute but I wanted to point out that it isn't that I can't get to 230 because if the only thing that mattered was the number, I would be there with no problem. I want a clean 230 and with my condition as it is now and as it was when I was just under 220.
Someone said the other day, "Why don't you just start eating everything you can get your hands on?" and the answer is simple: I don't want to get fat.
I have been incrementally (and very carefully) pushing my calories up slowly and it is paying off huge. The only issue is that the last 2 changes have not allowed me to get over this 226-227 mark and I only have about 3 weeks left before I cruise on TRT for 8-10 weeks.
The advice I was given was simple: Why is it that important to get to 230 and even if you do get there in the next week or two, are you going to hold it going into a TRT cruise, anyway?
The answer is, of course, no. So, I would get to 230 only to drop back down a week or possibly two, anyway.
The other part of the advice was that the 24-week off season phase that I am finishing up right now (before taking this 8-10 week cruise and then going another 24 weeks) has been incredibly productive. I have remained injury free, am sitting in great condition at this body weight and still am not even halfway through my off season phase for 2019.
Of course, I have to wonder now that I am not going to be so focused on the 230 mark if it won't come, anyway. Isn't that always how things work? If not, though, I am very pleased with the results so far and I will still be pushing as hard as possible for the next 3 weeks to see what progress I still get in these last few weeks. I'm not giving up on that goal as much as I am putting it into perspective that the 230 number was arbitrary.
I will, of course, detail the changes that I make in my training and nutrition as I transition into the TRT phase. I have not even begun to think about it yet, but I do know that I will decrease training volume, for sure. I am likely going to end up needing to lower calories as I will not have as high IGF blood levels, as well. I speculate that if I didn't drop my calories back, I could gain body fat during this TRT phase. I have 3 weeks to figure out the plan moving forward and will first want to see how I respond for the next 3 weeks.