What's New?? ETP/Nutrition updates, Fitness, etc...

So my last post was over a year ago!  WOW this blog is clearly not a priority in my life.  lol  Its all good. 

Here is the low down: 
ETP, currently not doing it.  Doing my own "fat loss" phase and trying different foods.  Trying to find what foods make me lethargic vs energetic.  Some foods I were eating to hit macros were leaving me dragging (YES, I'm looking at you my beautiful 3PM PB & J sandwich!).
On ETP I went from 182lbs down to 159.9lbs while ramping up my calorie consumption to about 3500 calories per day.  Insane right?  What you couldn't see is my calorie consumption was so high and I had to eat so much food, I wasn't making great food choices.  I would eat nearly 600g of carbs PER DAY (yes, almost 2400 calories of glorious carbs) yet you'd be hard pressed to find a damn vegetable in my food logs.  Shame on me. 
I hit 159.9lbs on July 4th 2017.  I'm currently 172lbs'ish.  Some would consider this a failure, however I do not.  My goals aren't to see how low I can get the number on the scale.  Actually I could care less what the scale says.  ETP taught me a lot of good things and taught me how to look at food to fuel my body.  It gave me nutritional targets and taught me how to seek out foods that make me feel better.  Food that give me energy to do the things I enjoy doing.  I'll always be grateful for that.  As a lifetime member of ETP I can go back at any time, but right now I just needed a bit of a break from the process.  I'm working on finding my foods for me, keeping my protein up and applying what I've learned.  I'm not shying away from fat.  I'm certainly not shying away from carbs - but trying to keep my calories between 2100 - 2400 daily.  Consider this my "cleansing" period.  hahaha

Fitness:
Well when I got down to that really low weight and probably 15 - 18% body fat, I had been doing a program called TRX Force.  Obviously all TRX based and workouts were between 30 - 75min.  It was tough, but I enjoyed it.  My goal for sometime has been to make sure my workouts and strength training are bodyweight only.  TRX checked that box.  When I completed the TRX program I kind of wandered aimlessly a bit.  I had signed up for an app from a site called "Calisthenics Academy".  The app was eventually released and called "The Movement Athlete".  The creators have some fantastic ideas about how they envision the app working.  It will work your mobility.  It will give you strength training.  Everything.  The problem?  The app is very buggy.  I very much wanted to love that app, but the workout timers weren't working.  The algorithm used to generate the workouts based upon your skill level sometimes worked, but there would be days you wouldn't even get exercises for half your body.  Buggy.  I havne't revisited it. 
From there I started my first fat loss phase (cutting calories back to about 2700 - 3000).  To try and minimize and recover my body from the stress level I switched to yoga for 3 months.  Some yoga strength training, but mostly flexibility training.  It was absolutely challenging, just not in the ways I was accustomed to.  Flexibility has always been an area I could greatly improve on.  The workouts were short and I'd only commit to 30min per day and maybe 5 days per week.  I enjoyed it, I truly did.  It was peaceful, you worked, but I needed more... so back searching I went.  That led me to this program that I had visited before I went Yoga, called Roamstrong Progressive Bodyweight Workout (PBW).  Good program and you work on whatever progression of the different movements you can only perform 4 reps of and you build off of that.  Never performing more than 3 sets of 8 reps.  Once you can do that for a certain progression,  you move forward to the next hardest progression.  The problem with the workout is I didn't get ANY sort of volume work at all.  No high rep counts for "easier" exercises and to me, that made my joints weaker.  I found knees hurting a lot more... then my traps were getting pinched and having trouble turning my head.  It was a bit of a nightmare.  lol 
Where am I now?  Well, I've switched to the Kavadlo brothers book/program "Get Strong" and liking that.  So for 3 days per week I'm strength training with that.  The workouts take anywhere from 40min to 1hr, depending upon how many "extra" sets I throw in.  My "off" days I've been spending doing Mark Lauren's Mobility RX routine.  Its about 40 - 45min.  My last 15 - 20min I spend my time learning to jump rope.  I still suck at it, but like anything... the more you focus on the basics and practice, the better you get.  I'll get there. 

Ninja Course:
I've made some changes to the Ninja course.  Added a 12' 4x4 post and then used that and 3 existing posts to make parallel bars.  I used 2 of those 4 posts to make a pull up bar I couldn't reach with my feet on the ground.  Lastly I added a 13' climbing rope.  My goal is before fall to have that course completed so it can become my outdoor workout space.  Still left are applying the roofing tar to the bottom 1' sections of each post (16 I believe).  Then stain the whole course.  When that is done, dig up all the grass on the course.  Level the ground a bit and put down horse stall mats.  Its a lot of work.  A lot of work that I don't want to make the time to do it.  lol  It'll hopefully get done by fall so I can protect this investment and use it this fall/winter.  Its a great space for strength training.  I've got plyo/jump boxes, gymnastic rings, peg board, pull up bars, parallel bars and lots of other fun things.  Fitness should be fun!  Yeah - it should challenge you and make you better.  Anything that is worth doing should do that.  Hey... I just realized my kids fit that description, they challenge me and make me better.  ;)

Speaking of the kids, I've roped them into doing Get Strong workouts as well.  They don't get up at 5 (or usually earlier than that) like dad.  They do them after dinner and it typically takes about 45min with them.  They are stronger though and enjoying it.  I enjoy doing it with them. 

For me, I'm going to continue to ride this out.  Some components may change (likely the mobility routine if I get bored).  The strength training routine has a clear progression to get me to strength moves I've always wanted to do, but couldn't.  Those are handstands (free standing), handstand push ups and pistol squats.  Oh and 1 armed push ups.  I've done a couple before, but my body was all twisted.  I'm looking to continue to get S.A.F. (strong as fuck) without touching weights.  My opinion (which I know I should keep to myself, but never do).  Folks that use weights are perhaps unaware of how they can make bodyweight movements more challenging.  They mistakenly view bodyweight strength training as ineffective, let alone superior to other forms of training.  Which obviously MY opinion, it is superior.  Typically what I see with people working out with weights is their mobility isn't great and they are using weights to try to compensate for that poor mobility.  Mobility is a big issue for them.  I applaud them for doing something that they enjoy and I encourage them to keep doing that, if that is what they enjoy.  That being said - mobility is HUGE HUGE HUGE deal for me.  I want to be able to move, do cartwheels, round offs, handstands and all the cool shit my kids can do, run, play and do it pain free.  I'm 46yrs old and have ZERO interest in slowing down or doing less. 

That's it for tonight.  Active recovery day tomorrow.  Lots of littles here to play and have fun.  I still need to get some mobility and jump rope in tomorrow morning.  ETP taught me how important rest is, so off to sleep I go.  Later.