More Fasted Lifting. in The Napkin.

Lifts still going up. Energy through the workout maintained. It still boggles my mind, given how I used to always have preworkout nutrition.

Then again, we “fast” during the night and somehow don’t die. Ha ha. If your small child decides to strip naked and do a half-mile glory run through a crowded mall in Jersey, it’s not like you’ll say, “Hey, kid. Let me eat first, stretch, and warm up.” No, you just go.

So, for the purpose of maintaining LBM, so far, I’m staying the course.

A thought I had. Let’s suppose you lift every two days. That’s roughly 48 hours of recovery, right? Okay. When did the recovery occur? The last hour? The last five minutes? Mostly the previous 47 hours. So, assuming adequate overall nutrition and sleep, you should be recovered by 47 hours.

I’m not running a marathon or hitting up a powerlifting meet.

There’s a a bit of semantics that come up when you do enough reading around. One is the concept of a “cheat meal”. Which, I feel people abuse. I understand looking forward to tasty food to keep your sanity. If I can fit in six cheesy poofs, sure. If I can fit in some string cheese, cool. But I don’t consider it cheating, really.

I consider it calorie redistribution.

Words matter.

Whether it’s a “weight loss” forum or a gymrat forum, it’s the same story. A cheat meal, and someone just fucking gorges themselves uncontrollably. It’s a binge, just like any other binge where you get a dopamine rush.

So far over the past 3 weeks, the highest caloric intake for a day has been around 2300. I won’t get into my spreadsheet of numbers, as there’s always someone who overanalyzes when I didn’t ask for analysis.

I sometimes get caught in the mental game of being in a caloric deficit. You need calories to maintain LBM. Yes. You need a caloric deficit to drop visceral fat. Yes. Yet, I’m maintaining LBM.

In other words, there’s a difference between a caloric deficit, and undereating.

Similarly, it’s the difference between bulking and overeating. (Some bros might call this a “dirty bulk”.) Gaining 10 lbs over 10 months? Wise slow bulk. Gaining 20 lbs over 2 months? Might want to ease up on the poptarts, broseph.

I like the concept of Intermittent Fasting, but I’m not sure how practical it is. I like to lift in the morning. And I still believe in eating something after training. A 18:6 IF would mean eating after I lift, and then having my final meal waaaaay earlier in the day. I don’t know. As well, fitting it around a work schedule would stress me out. Eh.

Have I mentioned I’ve stopped farting? Apparently this is a thing when you drop carb levels low. Google-fu says that flatulence is caused by sugar fermenting in the intestines. Mind you, all carbohydrates are ultimately broken down into sugar.

Boy, am I expecting to bloat when I have beans and rice again. Nom nom.