Let the games begin!

This is me Jan 3 - before I started the cut.

Ok, I'm on day 7 of my 12-week cut with Andy Morgan and I'm feeling good. Days 1-3 were pretty brutal as I adjusted to the wakeup call of very low calories. My first workout, which fell on Day 3, was absolutely horrid - and it wasn't even fasted. My lack of energy and poor performance was probably related to a number of factors - diet, sleep, stress, etc - but I was weaker than I had been in months.

Then, just two days later I headed to the gym for what would end up being my best squat workout to date - this time fasted and on hour 17 with only BCAAs and 200mg caffeine on board. 


Those of you who have been following my journey know I only began squatting a couple of months ago due to a knee injury, so my weights aren't all that impressive. At about 119.6 lbs, my back squat on Sunday was 135 x 5 (top set) - still a new record for me. And I went below parallel for each - super low. I also added a third drop set to each movement that day - back squats, split squats and standing barbell OHP and hit new bests on top sets of each.


Now I'm about a week in and I feel great. I won't weigh myself until Friday, so I can't tell you what my initial weight loss was as of yet - but this is probably best as the first few days is all water anyhow. And boy can I hold water!


I'm still dialing in my macros - it's hard to eat exactly as instructed when I'm not always home - work, friend's/boyfriend's house, restaurants - but I think I'm staying very close and this should get easier. The hardest is when out with friends. Restaurants don't serve s#it for protein. I'm also hungry a lot - but not the "omg my stomach hurts" kind of hunger - though I did have that the first super low-cal night. I'm just always a bit grumbly and feel the hunger hormones at work on my brain. Then I'll have a training day meal and it will go away until the end of my rest day...and so the cycle continues.


Stay tuned for more updates as I chronicle my experience. I'll post photos and my week 1 weight sometime this weekend if I can. I'm traveling for business - another challenge to the diet - so it may not be until week 2.