GreenMachineX
Well-known member
7 overhand pull-ups today 
Still have a long way to go to my best of 19, but I weighed 175 back then lol
Still have a long way to go to my best of 19, but I weighed 175 back then lol
Building Back Up
- Thread starter GreenMachineX
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GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Weight: 209.0
Can I hit a new low by Saturday…?
Can I hit a new low by Saturday…?
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Got 405 x 3 on DL, followed by a couple singles at 415. Not too shabby even with all the weight loss. Seems like my pressing got hurt more than pulling.
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Yessir, another damage control weekend ahead…hoping to still hit another low Saturday.
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Weight: 208.2
Feel like trash today. Only difference between yesterday and previous weeks…ate green beans. Ridiculous.
Feel like trash today. Only difference between yesterday and previous weeks…ate green beans. Ridiculous.
Dustin07
Legend
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Weight: 207.6
Did not hit a new low this week, but hit 3 x 315 on squat today which is substantially better for this body weight. Followed by pull-ups, rows, etc.
Then 1.5 hour mountain bike.
Birthday dinner tonight, so will be exceeding my caloric limit for sure.
Did not hit a new low this week, but hit 3 x 315 on squat today which is substantially better for this body weight. Followed by pull-ups, rows, etc.
Then 1.5 hour mountain bike.
Birthday dinner tonight, so will be exceeding my caloric limit for sure.
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Went overboard again in 2 meals…birthday celebrations 
Crazy pump in the gym today. Quite possible I look bigger in chest and shoulders too aside from glycogen storage. Maybe some recomp happening…decomposition over
Crazy pump in the gym today. Quite possible I look bigger in chest and shoulders too aside from glycogen storage. Maybe some recomp happening…decomposition over
MrKleen73
Legend
Just remember, those crazy pumps and everything looking bigger and a little better is exactly what happens before a big spill over. So try to get a grip on it quick or the cool part will turn to squishiness. At least for me that is how it works. I get that look that gives me a lil confidence that I haven't gone to far when that look is actually the sign that hey, this is the fullest you can look without going overboard and looking softer.Went overboard again in 2 meals…birthday celebrations
Crazy pump in the gym today. Quite possible I look bigger in chest and shoulders too aside from glycogen storage. Maybe some recomp happening…decomposition over
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
May have went over on kcal…did the best I could weighing and making a protein plus spaghetti and ground turkey meal, but with what I calculated to be the serving size, seemed huge lol
Got 7 clean overhand pull-ups tonight though. W00t.
akboom87
Well-known member
Nice work on the pull ups!
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Weight: 209.0
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Well, I can only do that many fresh, away from a workoutCongrats man, I think you and I are close to the same bodyweight and doing right around the same amount of pull ups in one set. Not bad company to be in!
After sets of DL, today, I was only getting 3. Fatigue got me bad though. I’m increasing kcal closer to maintenance the next few days until we head out of town for thanksgiving.
MrKleen73
Legend
I always do my pull ups fresh, I think I maxed out last week at 8, but doing them like EOD and not maxing out every time, I am not getting that high every time I do them. I am just trying to get more volume of pull ups throughout the week to try to strengthen upper back. Hoping that once a week when i do an AMRAP on my first work set to test that the number goes up.Well, I can only do that many fresh, away from a workout
After sets of DL, today, I was only getting 3. Fatigue got me bad though. I’m increasing kcal closer to maintenance the next few days until we head out of town for thanksgiving.
Dustin07
Legend
Well, I can only do that many fresh, away from a workout
After sets of DL, today, I was only getting 3. Fatigue got me bad though. I’m increasing kcal closer to maintenance the next few days until we head out of town for thanksgiving.
its funny to me how all of AM goes on kicks at the same time. the biggest thing holding me back on pull-ups right now is my hands. I've been pulling out my gymnastics grips lately when I do throw down otherwise we're talking blisters.
MrKleen73
Legend
Yeah, I remember a while back we did a big pull ups challenge, and a lot of us got up into the teens over the period of doing them. Right now it just a functional pull I can do that also happens to help strengthen a lot of areas that I currently need to give a lot of attention to. However it is cool that we have a few more people concentrating on them now so we can feed off of each other. Nothing wrong with using something to stop the blisters. My wife doesn't like my hands to be too rough or scratchy so if not strength training I often use versa-gripps. Although, I have just been raw dogging it lately and using a callous shaver to bring them down once a week.
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
That’s kind of similar to how I’ve been doing it. Twice per week has been straight set volume, 1-2 sessions 1 AMRAP set.
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
We’re the opposite…my hands never hurt lol
Wait, but I think you DL barehanded more than me right? I usually start wrist wraps anything above 315.
MrKleen73
Legend
Yeah, on that day it is 3 Max Rep Sets. I just go for the gusto and leave it all on the bar. Those days I will even hang a couple seconds like a rest pause and squeeze a couple extra out per set if possible.
Dustin07
Legend
I do everything barehanded, I lost my straps like 3 years ago so all my DL PR's were 'raw'. but grip isn't my issue. my buddy could probably pull 525+ if he had the grip strength, I think he is otherwise stronger than me, but from the ground I have him beat at 485 right now. If I can break the ground with it, it's going up. I don't have weirdly large hands either, no idea why my grip strength is good tbh.
I used to use my straps for RDL's but I also felt that using straps caused me to really get lax in other areas like t-spine posture etc
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Weight: 209.4
Been tracking my sleep recently with a Fitbit and using Grok to help me through solutions.
Top picture is 2800 kcal last week, bottom is last night, 3300 kcal with most of the difference coming from honey and rice/pasta.
There doesn’t appear to be much difference except an hour, but boy do I feel the difference.
Plan to eat just a little under maintenance the next few days, if my maintenance is truly 3500, or higher if I do cardio.
Off today, 6k step goal, 3k calories.
Been tracking my sleep recently with a Fitbit and using Grok to help me through solutions.
Top picture is 2800 kcal last week, bottom is last night, 3300 kcal with most of the difference coming from honey and rice/pasta.
There doesn’t appear to be much difference except an hour, but boy do I feel the difference.
Plan to eat just a little under maintenance the next few days, if my maintenance is truly 3500, or higher if I do cardio.
Off today, 6k step goal, 3k calories.
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
The longer term plan when cutting weight will be to increase kcal to just a few hundred under maintenance and keep most cheat meals on weekends to maintenance or just above. What I didn’t realize…still…is how much higher maintenance is for me. I feel like I keep “refiguring” it out 
But through ongoing discussion with Grok, on a hard training plus cardio day, TDEE might be close to 3800 kcal, so that’s how I’m going to operate.
But through ongoing discussion with Grok, on a hard training plus cardio day, TDEE might be close to 3800 kcal, so that’s how I’m going to operate.
Dustin07
Legend
lol I don't remember the last time I saw 10pm on the clock. I'd love to be a night owl but I've become such a creature of habit I'm usually asleep by 8:30 and alarm at 4:40. If my nutrition is on tight and I don't have a nightcap then I am now waking up around 4:20 feeling pretty rested/recovered. 6hr sleep nights would crush me lol. Now, when I first met my wife and was running off hormones alone, I think I lasted months off about 3hrs
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
lol I don't remember the last time I saw 10pm on the clock. I'd love to be a night owl but I've become such a creature of habit I'm usually asleep by 8:30 and alarm at 4:40. If my nutrition is on tight and I don't have a nightcap then I am now waking up around 4:20 feeling pretty rested/recovered. 6hr sleep nights would crush me lol. Now, when I first met my wife and was running off hormones alone, I think I lasted months off about 3hrs
That night started the conversation with Grok about how to finally really fix it. It gave me a score of 80, but I felt sooooo bad that day. My alarm isn’t set until 6am, but calories that low wake me up feeling I took 3 caffeine pills.
But yes, I tolerates any amount of sleep just fine in my 20’s to early 30’s…then something happened lol
Bear in mind…all of those sleep scores are with 3mg lunesta.
Dustin07
Legend
I remember driving home around 5am after a rager and my mom texting me because she was already up for the day and I was on my way to bed, lol. I also remember when my buddy was headed to the marine corp, we got trashed on a tuesday and I was throwing up on my way to work. Now days, my wife and i try to be "turning off the brain" around 7-7:30 if we can. maybe catch an episode of our current sitcom, hit the hay around 8:15 and probably asleep by 8:30-8:45. I'm not sure how we developed this routine but its worked really well to get us consistent 8hrs and be up at 4:30 every day during the week. it feels pretty good. I did struggle with insomnia briefly when I was in Tacoma learning how to live as a single man again. stress was very high and that probably was a contributor but I did a lot of reading and tried to develop routines that would to falling asleep better. dude I tried every girl trick in the book including taking a bath, candles, book anything at all that tricked my brain into believing it was sleep time..... eventually something worked...
my wife has noticed that drinking wine at night can really disrupt her sleep too. I notice when I fast on mondays I sleep incredibly well monday night and wake up feeling the best of the whole week on Tuesdays. this week I got up 20 minutes before my alarm feeling like a million bucks, that was awesome and a little unusual.
MrKleen73
Legend
I too wake up at 4:45, and over the last year I have gradually dropped bedtime back to me normally being asleep by 9:30, but I still see a 10PM at least once during the work week. My wife laughs because often on the weekend 10PM is my cut off where I am like okay, I am ready to lay down. Some days i will fall sleep by 8:30, it just depends, but my bedtimes have creeped earlier and earlier. We tend to go to wind down about 8:00-8:30 most nights. Sometimes I am passed out within 10-15 minutes of going to the room. LOL
Dustin07
Legend
ahaha thats us too. sometimes I wish I could stay up later on the weekend but I do love how "sleeping in" on a saturday is like 6am. if we have an event like last weekend we hit the comedy club, we did get home late on saturday, I think around 10 lol.
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Well, another night of awful sleep. I even hit great macros yesterday and didn’t matter. I did try to cut my Lunesta dose to 1.5mg, but I guess that’s not enough. Dropping testosterone back to 7mg. I can’t think of anything else that would be doing this.
I was actually awake at 4am, not 4:38am.
Yesterdays macros:
I was actually awake at 4am, not 4:38am.
Yesterdays macros:
Segansational
Well-known member
Green, remind me, what's your test protocol? Is it oral that you're doing 7 mg? Typical injectable doses are around 150 mgs?
Also, would be curious to know what type of prompts/questions you're having with Grok about your sleep. Also, can it "read" your sleep charts? Or do you have to feed it the info (eg, type out the #s)?
Also, would be curious to know what type of prompts/questions you're having with Grok about your sleep. Also, can it "read" your sleep charts? Or do you have to feed it the info (eg, type out the #s)?
MrKleen73
Legend
He is doing micro injections if I remember correctly but say anything higher then 8mgs a day seems to get him side effects. I think Hyde was also saying a daily dose tends to allow you to take a lower dose than usual. Something to do with less aromatization, so less testosterone is converted to estrogen and DHT.
You can upload files into grok, so that part should be easy as long as not a special file type Grok doesn't have the ability to open. Stuff like documents, spreadsheets and stuff are no problem.
Dustin07
Legend
is there any chance that the lunesta dosing could also have a mental aspect? I am someone who has used melatonin to fall alseep in the past to "force" sleepiness but there were times where I would wake up feeling high, like a thc high, and groggy and I hated that even though I slept at least 8hrs I did not like the quality of the rest. I cut back to half the melatonin worried i'd not get to sleep well, and over time I had the same groggy again in the morning. then I finally stopped using anything and just started hitting the hay, and I'd be nervous that I might not sleep well without "help" but before I knew it was falling asleep pretty decently and waking up without any of the grogginess from helpers.
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
@MrKleen73 is right. I was doing test cyp 8mg daily for a few months there, with the occasional 7mg daily instead. 8mg daily test cyp puts me literally at the top of the free test range using Quest. Compared to 80mg twice per week which would have me at similar free test even though the total weekly dose is WAY different.
Other things to note, 7mg daily has me close to a free test similar to 50mg daily per week, but my e2 is too low to stay there. I might need to alternate between a 7mg to 8mg daily.
I’ve been asking Grok “why do I sleep and feel like trash?”, followed by uploading my routine, steps, diet, and screen shots of my macros and sleep overview from Fitbit. I’ve also put in all the symptoms I’ve discussed. So far, it all comes down to being too far in a deficit and completely depleting liver glycogen. Considering every other fringe road I’ve been down has been fruitless, this makes sense. Although, like I’ve said, it’s a little hard to believe my TDEE might hit 3800 kcal some days.
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Not exactly sure what you mean by mental aspect, but I went 6-12 months with barely any sleep before starting the lunesta, and the first couple months I was getting 0-30 minutes. I’ve taken a complete day off a couple times and got 4 hours or so, with super high kcal though. It was a horrible 4 hours though.
So , the long term goal is of course to be on nothing, but I’m not there yet. And yes, melatonin is the devil
. The worst for me was when I’d take it (at any dose) and still not sleep…bad, bad, bad feeling…
Dustin07
Legend
I meant the brain is crazy powerful and if I told myself I needed the melatonin... I did. and when I didn't use it, the brain might be too busy thinking about how I should have taken the melatonin to fall asleep, lol. so weaning myself off was a good thing but dude I'm with you. the melatonin groggies the next morning are nasty. I have driven to work at times almost slapping myself in the face feeling high. nasty stuff. I probably should be taking ZMA, I haven't in years but I remember that being a really good sleep aid for me for a long time.
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Gotcha. But actually, I meant melatonin did the opposite. I was wired! Felt like I just had to constantly move along with jitters.
Dustin07
Legend
do you have a.d.d.? my buddy has severe a.d.h.d. to the point that he is constantly changing his medication. I wish it wasn't like this but it is, and I notice that things that are uppers for other people like nicotine, puts him to sleep and things that tend to be downers for other people, seem to bring him up a little.
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
I’ve never been diagnosed, but have been diagnosed with OCD. But yeah, nicotine a the super relaxation drug for me, amphetamine would keep me super calm and hyper focused, and opiates stimulated me the way amphetamines should have. I could never sleep on any opiate except morphine was having me nod. Clean of everything for years though now FWIW.
MrKleen73
Legend
With your attention to detail, and your OCD tendencies I doubt you are ADD or ADHD at all. I don't even know if it is possible for someone with an attention deficit to have OCD since it is the exact opposite. It is paying too much attention to the detail, and obsessing over patterns and changes. I often say an ADHD person can't pay attention long enough to be OCD. They would get distracted and start doing something else. LOL
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
That’s what I thought too, but what was explained to me by one who claims to have it was ADD doesn’t mean one can’t pay attention, it means they can’t pay attention to things that aren’t novel or interesting to them. But, when it’s something novel, they’re all in.
I asked Grok
Grok thinks they can coexist and are frequent comorbidities. The only thing I know is…that I don’t know.
akboom87
Well-known member
All right dumb question incoming… what is Grok??That’s what I thought too, but what was explained to me by one who claims to have it was ADD doesn’t mean one can’t pay attention, it means they can’t pay attention to things that aren’t novel or interesting to them. But, when it’s something novel, they’re all in.
I asked Grok
The only thing I know is…that I don’t know.
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
lol Grok is Twitter’s AI thing. I’m shocked at how accurate it has been on most things, especially walking me through household projects I don’t know anything about
akboom87
Well-known member
Ok that makes senselol Grok is Twitter’s AI thing. I’m shocked at how accurate it has been on most things, especially walking me through household projects I don’t know anything about
there for a minute I was like man I have no clue who this imaginary dude is
GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Oddly enough, the “readiness” metric says I’m ready to go…
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GreenMachineX
Well-known member
Weight: 210.6
Carbed up with clean food the past few days. Squatted 315 for 5 yesterday! Seeing glimpses of my former self
Yesterday’s kcal and last night’s sleep:
I actually feel like I slept better then that.
Carbed up with clean food the past few days. Squatted 315 for 5 yesterday! Seeing glimpses of my former self
Yesterday’s kcal and last night’s sleep:
I actually feel like I slept better then that.
Dustin07
Legend
so at first I was thinking Kleen was right, his response makes sense, but then I think of an old co-worker I had that really struggled severely with a.d.d. what effected him here, as an engineer, was that he'd be deep into something then someone would pull him into a different project then it would take him hours to circle back to the original project that should have been done in minutes. but once he would get into something, he'd be hyper focused in an OCD/Tism kinda way. He eventually went on meds for the a.d.d. (which I am not biased in favor of, or necessarily against, just making an observation) and he said it was life changing. I've known three people who went on meds as adults in their mid 30s to 40s that said it was life changing.That’s what I thought too, but what was explained to me by one who claims to have it was ADD doesn’t mean one can’t pay attention, it means they can’t pay attention to things that aren’t novel or interesting to them. But, when it’s something novel, they’re all in.
I asked Grok
The only thing I know is…that I don’t know.
each of them wildly into impressive feats. One was inventing 3-d printers, one opened up a machinist tooling shop in his spare time, and the other a woman, is both an ice truck driver (like alaska truck testing on the ice highways) and is a machinist, boater, inventor, races off road trucks, etc. Her A.D.D. is probably the worst of all three, but all three of them accomplish crazy impressive stuff. sorta like mini Elon Musks.
all of south dakota is now banned.