First proper week done, and it went better than I expected.
Training
Three sessions, all completed. The best bit was hitting a new PR on the incline chest press machine: 107.5kg for 8 reps, 3 sets. That felt solid.
I did skip one exercise during the first session. Crunches on the machine. I had barely slept the night before, and I just was not feeling it. Rather than forcing everything and making it miserable, I did what I could and went home. I would rather do that than skip the session altogether.
Food
This is the part I did not expect to go this well.
Nutrition was on track all seven days. Every single day within my 2,000 calorie budget. Some days I did not even use all of them. I have set my protein target at 100g a day, which is lower than what a lot of people online would tell you. But you do not actually need as much protein as people used to think. Having less gives me more room for carbs and fats, and I think that is going to make this a lot more sustainable.
I meal prepped twice. Chicken and bacon pasta bake on Sunday, then chicken and rice on Wednesday. Only dinners for now because we do not have enough food containers and I wanted to keep it simple to start with. The pasta bake ended up being dinner four nights out of seven. I am not sick of it yet, but give it time.
Easter could have been the obvious excuse to go off track. We had lunch with my wife’s family, and there was plenty of food. But I planned for it. I swapped my usual breakfast for a protein shake and a banana to keep protein up while saving calories for the meal later. I tracked and estimated everything at the party. It worked.
I learned that trick years ago from a Romanian fitness creator called Radu Antoniu. His approach to nutrition has influenced how I think about food more than anything else. My current training programme is one of his free ones as well.
The numbers
- Starting weight: 78.4kg
- Day 7: 77.2kg (weekly average 77.6kg)
- Waist: 90cm
- Daily steps average: 6,200
- Gym sessions: 3 out of 3
- Nutrition: 7 out of 7 days on track
- Calories: 2,000kcal target
- Protein: 100g daily target
Down 1.2kg in week one. Some of that will be water, and the normal fluctuation you get at the start. I am not reading too much into it, but it is moving in the right direction.
The hard bit
Jazmine, my youngest, was poorly for most of the week. The first decent night of sleep any of us got was Saturday. Sleep this week was a 5 out of 10. That is not great, and it showed.
When I am tired and stressed, I lose my patience. I snapped at the girls more than I should have. I am not proud of that. It is the same pattern I wrote about in the first post. Stress spills over. You get blunt. You get short with people who do not deserve it. No point pretending that did not happen.
The environment plays such a big role in everything, and it has a domino effect. Poorly kid, no sleep, short temper, guilt, more stress. It all connects. The fact that the food and training still went well is probably the only reason the week did not feel like a total write-off.
Next week
For next week, I am not looking to improve on this in some dramatic way. If it is as good as this week, I will take that quite happily.
The plan is the same. Three gym sessions. Keep calories around 2000. Keep protein around 100g. Keep dinner sorted so evenings do not turn into guesswork. And hopefully, all of us are well this time, because that would help more than anything clever.