man oh man
obviously have not been keeping up with this thread at all. Real life has been fucking nuts the past month or two, and I've barely even had time to pick up a video game. I've been getting a lot more into Rich Piana videos and advice and whatnot, and took something he said really to heart: There's no such thing as over-training, just under-eating and under-sleeping. Obviously a bit of a controversial topic, but I agree with it to a decent extent. I'm not saying you can do the same muscle group every. single. day...but I don't believe in rest days, and I haven't had one in awhile, unless it's needed because I'm just busy or something. If you rotate muscles intelligently, you don't need a rest day - IE if I initiate muscle hypertrophy on my biceps on Monday - my chest, triceps, legs, etc. don't need to rest on Tuesday lol. But, that's what works for me (yes, I do regular, extensive doctor visits and am fully healthy). Do whatever works for you and doesn't compromise your health. Also started using a vast amount of 5% (Rich Piana's brand) supplements over the past month and a half - so if any of you have questions on it let me know. It's actually really good stuff for the most part.
Anyways, I got totally off topic - the point I was getting at is that I'm forcing myself to actually sleep 8 hours a day, minimum. I'm used to getting 4-6 just from the military lifestyle, so it was a struggle. With sleeping that much, work, school, housework, etc., I barely even have time to do basic shit on here lol. I think stuff is sort of settling down for now, but we shall see.
In regards to my current fitness plan, I was gonna make a thread once I get the garage officially done, but I'll post a small update on where I'm at now:
Brother had about 10-15k worth of gym equipment in his garage that he was getting rid of, so I ended up buying it all off of him for 4. I wasn't really looking to set up a garage gym, but for all that equipment, couldn't say no. So I've kinda slowly been in the process of cleaning the garage out top to bottom sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, repeating, etc. I laid horse stable mats down (very thick material and very sturdy), put 3'x5' mirrors up all along one of my walls, then on the other wall mounted an extra TV I had and am currently in the process of mounting the squat rack. Ended up getting a ton of equipment though: prostyle dumbbells from 5-130lbs in pairs, three large racks for said dumbbells that sit along my wall, stationary bench, adjustable bench (both quite nice), squat rack w/ pullup bar, barbell, EZ bar, assortment of kettlebells, assortment of medicine balls, assortment of slam balls, seated calf raise machine, two-in-one leg machine, landmine, few plate trees, and an assortment of plates from 2.5lbs up to 45lbs. On top of that, I already had a heavy bag / speed bag, row machine, and some other stuff that in total makes the setup pretty fucking sweet. I'll post pictures once I get the squat rack mounted and I'm able to sweep and mop again one more time.
Diet / exercise wise I'm on a cut. It's horrible. Low weight high rep is the worst thing in this entire world. Lol seriously though, I've never really been much into it, so it's a fucking ass kicker doing it every day now. I feel like I'm starting all over again, and am pretty sore every day. I'm sitting at about 190lbs right now, maybe shooting for 180. My diet is about 1200-1500 calories, mostly of chicken, greens, and a reasonable portion of fruit early in the day. I'm not doing 'no carb', but I'm just actively monitoring what I eat and keeping it low. I bumped up my fiber supplement intake, and also started getting back on an intermittent fasting with a 10 hour window of eating. I feel pretty good tbh. Because chicken is only like 230 calories a breast, I can pretty much eat every two hours during my window and be fine.
But yeah, I'll probably post another thread when I get all the equipment fully set up and shit.