Diet

What got me thinking about Stonglifts again were the idea of training with my son and this YouTube video I found about Terry Hollands and how he lost weight. He is a strongman competitor from England who was quite large and decided he needed to lose weight for health reasons. My biggest takeaway from this video was that you have to cut calories if you want to lose weight. I've read too many articles and blogs that said it's more about the types of food you eat and that counting calories is not healthy. The bottom line is: You have to cut calories to lose weight and you have to eat the right amounts of the macronutrients to have the right body composition.

I've been using the Livestrong MyPlate app on my phone to track calories. My goal was to lose 1 pound per week and get down to 210 pounds. I used an online caloric intake calculator at https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html and used that estimation to set my intake goals. I ate under this goal for a week and then had a few days where I was really under this goal because of stress (I had turned from a "stress-eater" to someone who didn't have an appetite when stressed). I dropped a lot or weight really fast and I've since tries to slow it down to my initial goal of 1 pound per week.

Starting Again

Starting Again

StrongLifts is a program that I used in the past and liked it at the time. I felt good, I looked good, and I was dunking a basketball easily. I stopped using it when I strained my right hip squatting 275 pounds for 5x5. I switched to a lot other programs over the years because I would stall or get bored.

The main reasons I’ve switched back to StrongLifts are:

• I am too heavy. My knees hurt a lot and I hope less body weight with strong legs will make the difference.
• I have hypertension. 
• And, the biggest reason: I wanted to start a program with my son. He was using the program a couple of years ago but only running 3 sets of 5 reps. He increased from 150 to about 165 pounds, could squat 245 for 3 sets of 5, deadlift 265 for 5 reps, press 105 for 3 sets of 5, and bench press 145 for 3 sets of 5. It was fun watching him get stronger and spending that time with him.

My best lifts over the past year were:

• Squat: 410 pounds
• Bench Press: 290 pounds
• Deadlift: 390 pounds

My current stats:

• Height: 6'0"
• Weight: I started dieting on September 22nd and dropped from 235 pounds to 219 pounds. 

So, this is where I started back on October 24 for workout A:

• Squat 185 pounds 5x5
• Bench Press 165 pounds 5x5
• Barbell Row 135 pounds 5x5

Workout B two days later was:

• Squat 190 pounds 5x5
• Press 85 pounds 5x5
• Deadlift 205 pounds for 5 reps

This is all pretty light compared to what I’ve been doing, but I based the numbers on where I wanted to be in 2 months. I’m expecting to need to change to 3x5 work sets along the way. If I can make the progress, these will be my future numbers:

2 months

• Squat 305 pounds 5x5 or 3x5
• Deadlift 325 pounds x5
• Bench Press 225 pounds 5x5 or 3x5
• Press 145 pounds 5x5 or 3x5
• Barbell Row 195 pounds 5x5 or 3x5

Let’s see how this goes.