Join the Dull Club if you are an interesting person and feel like nobody agrees!

As I just typed on a snap seconds ago:

Had my unhealthiest food day yesterday. 3 meals. 3,300 calories - pure junk food. Morning: Tim's cafe wrap & coffee. Afternoon: Subway wrap & chicken bits. Evening: Burger King meal, a big one.

Mental.

But I've struggled with sustaining healthy meals for a long time. I'm perfectly fine straight up going without food for extended periods, but given my latest spree of trying to avoid dying from various health diseases I figured it's not good enough.

I'm currently at my heaviest weight I've ever been - 98kg. It wasn't too long ago I was writing on here that I had gotten down to the mid-80's. But as I got more and more into strength training I realised calorie deficits just weren't going to cut it so to speak.

Instead I decided to just eat whatever I felt like and focus on muscles. Now if my calculations are correct I've probably gained a good 5kg of solid muscle so I'm hoping a lot of that record weight is all that. It's not like I've been totally pigging out or something.

But now I'm kind of at my limit when it comes to bench presses at home, as safety becomes a serious issue at this point and I just don't want to start going to a gym, I figure it's time to switch to maintenance mode and just work on improving form, flexibility, smaller muscle groups, posture.

Meanwhile, with little emphasis on growth, I can go into a nice calorie deficit which might even be easier now my extra muscles are burning about 100 calories more per day (I guess).

I can't say I feel GREAT as a result of this journey so far. Usually my muscles are recovering from the workout the day before so at least half the time I actually feel weaker lol. BUT, there's certainly visual changes starting to peak through all the fat, and my health ring has shown very real internal benefits. I've logged the last 3 months of heart rate data and charted it out:

Doesn't look like much but it shows about 0.005bpm reduction in my resting heart rate per day, on average. Meaning my heart is getting healthier, stronger. That's pretty exciting! (Ignore the red bit - I don't wanna talk about it...)

I am also subtly noticing a variety of things; easier getting out of cars, easier moving chairs and picking up mugs, fewer headaches, that kinda thing. It makes me onder how I'd feel if my brain was immediately teleported back to the version of me 6 months ago, would I notice it being particularly horrid and uncomfortable?

The New Diet Plan

I innovated my work food plan again. I rarely have time or energy to prepare things at home so I've become overdependent on the takeout and I hate the school provided food. No good.

I've gotten myself this portion-sized thermos bowl I never knew existed which will, without power, keep things hot all day.

With that, I'll just pour some hot water and oats w/ flaxseed in, a spoon of honey (or peanut butter), a spoon of protein powder and maybe a Greek yoghurt on the side.

I've had similar before but I always got sick of cold lumpy oats. This takes seconds to prepare in the morning, and will partner well with my 2 litre thermos flask of Yorkshire Gold tea.

Then as always I'll eat nothing 'til I get home where I also plan to eat the same basic meal with small variations for the next month: Homemade Pesto & sundried tomatoes Chicken Pasta. I might shake it up with less carb-heavy things, but for me the most important thing is to stop thinking about it and trying to enjoy it. Just overcome low energy and hunger shakes and I'm good to go.

I've lost weight successfully numerous times without much of a struggle but never in a way that was visually noticeable. Now I have muscle, I hope this time will be somewhat different. I might even have a beach body by Summer.

Before waking up from said happy dreamland and chuckling to myself about the absurdity of it. I'm middle aged - get over it XD

It's not really about aesthetics

To be honest, the preventative nature of what I'm doing is far more motivating. Just the other day my wife's grandmother collapsed and broke her hip. She will likely be in a wheelchair now for the rest of her presumably short life; broken hips in the elderly is a fairly reliable marker of when things start to rapidly decline.

This is generally a result of losing bone density as a result of never putting any strain on them to renew and regrow. This is what strength training is really all about. These three cross-sections of people's legs are very illuminating:

The 70-year-old athlete's leg is indistinguishable from the middle-aged athlete's. The idea that we decline as we age is some kind of subversive propaganda making us settle for the Sedentary life because that's just how it is. But notice how much smaller the bones are in the sedentary individual's legs.

I'm too ashamed to show it but I had an MRI once when I did my back in and that fatty leg cross-section looks a lot like my entire body did. Mortifying.

Muscles decay rapidly about 1% a year after 30 - unless you keep 'em alive and working hard. Starting in your 30's will make the difference between jogging up the stairs aged 70, and requiring help to get up every step.

We're never really taught to think that far ahead in life and I think that's a frickin' shame. I'm going in late but not too late.

So yeah, I think I've finally found a mindset in my life where I will likely keep up strength training for a very very long time, indefinitely, so I can age with confidence instead of fear and anxiety.

On the side, time to improve the aesthetics with food. All the muscle in the world won't make a blind bit of difference if it's layered in gooey, squidgy fat.

Well, hope someone gets inspired by this! Mostly just wrote it for myself.