What I didn't note (or admit) in my last coach log was that I had lost time as far as progressing during this prep for a few weeks. As I noted in the last couple of logs, I had that time when I had my son come from Colorado to Florida, my Father dropped in for a visit unannounced, and then I dealt with some water retention that, if I am being honest, I downplayed quite a bit. I was far more concerned than I had let on in my log.
I am fortunately not behind as far as being ready for my shows, but I did lose time and am nowhere near being ahead like I was. I have been doing this shit long enough (and especially after last year's issues) I knew better, and I knew that I had to get ahead this year in anticipation of SOMETHING coming up and it certainly did.
The water retention is gone and a non-issue. It sounds simple now that I was very simply (and slowly) dehydrating over time - so slowly that I didn't see it happening. The best way to explain it was that if I was 99% hydrated one day, I was drinking a lot of water but losing 1% a day to the point where after weeks of doing this, losing 1% per day of hydration isn't noticed, but adds up and eventually I was in a bad spot. Because it was so slow over time, I just didn't see it - even with how long I have been doing this. I actually was concerned that I was having some kidney issues because nothing else seemed to make sense.
My weight has now stabilized at roughly 207-208 and has been consistently holding here while condition has improved this last week. For those who have followed my logs, you might remember that I was dropping REALLY fast while on the beta agonist fat burner about a month or so ago and was down to 202-203 at one point. However, that big drop in weight over 3-ish weeks also left me looking a bit emaciated (basically, just flat and over-dieted) primarily from the addition of the double cardio when I came off of the fat burner. Here is what I planned and stuck to over the last 1.5 weeks and it has paid off quite well
Only 1 fasted cardio session on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd day of my 4-day rotation, with legs being on the 4th day (no cardio) and then no cardio on my rest day (5th day) and then I repeat. This has me at 5 sessions of 45 minutes per week of fasted cardio and this has worked incredibly well - not just for getting leaner but also for not feeling too depleted, run down and too low on energy. In a nutshell, I just plain didn't need the added cardio and it was crushing me. I also have 2 days off of cardio (though one day is a leg day) and this has always helped me keep my metabolism off guard vs. doing cardio daily.
I still have not made a diet change. My diet is essentially the same diet that it was almost 3 months ago, other than the brief period of time where I added pre/intra/post carbs for about 6 days a couple of weeks ago and found out it was not working. It DID help to reset my metabolism a bit and had me fuller, but I was not dropping body fat and had I stayed with the carbs, I would still not be progressing.
This means that I went back to the "modified keto" that I said I hated so much because I was too depleted, when in reality it wasn't the diet that was the issue but too much cardio and stretching the Skiploads to 3 training rotations (15 days apart).
I now am Skiploading on a consistent basis after only 2 training rotations (9 days) and that allows me to train very hard and heavy for the first training rotation and then I start to get quite depleted during the second training rotation and then I load. My second training rotation I also add in some supersets. This has also worked incredibly well.
Water intake is about 40% higher than it was when I was having the water retention issues and water retention has not been an issue since increasing the water intake.
In short, everything is now back on track and I had to quit with the "let's learn some shit and see if I can do different stuff" instead of sticking more with my methods that have always worked. Sometimes, it's just better to understand that you have done this so many times and for so long that there isn't any good reason to go changing things around whether you want to learn more or not. In this situation, the only thing I really learned was that everything I was changing was only adding more variables that I had to assess and was getting in the way of my progress.
I start back on the beta agonist fat burner after my next Skipload on Wednesday and anticipate that the weeks that follow are going to have me progressing even better than I am now. I haven't used it for 4 weeks. I am going to keep the diet the same, the cardio the same and just let it work. If progress slows or stalls, I will then finally make a diet change.
Family life right now is stable as my son is here and I have no visitors set to drop in over the next few months. Even if someone does drop in, I will be locked in because I can't afford to lose any more time right now. Stress is low and I am back to enjoying the process on a daily basis instead of dragging ass and being stressed out. My biggest obstacle for the rest of this prep will simply to be keeping everything as is and not wavering and getting curious again. Honestly, I think with everything that has happened I will have little problem doing this.