Faro's Training log

[Faro]

I intend to keep a basic progress log on here. I also will include general thoughts and feelings on the process.

Starting Program: General Mass Template, skipping BB
Starting Weight: Lean, 70kg/155lbs
Goal weight: 75kg, then I'll go back to strength focus for a cycle or two while maintaining that weight, and then move up to 80kg.
Diet: Strictly vegan for roughly 5yrs, lifelong Lacto vegetarian before that, mostly whole foods, aiming for 0.8-1g protein/lbs of BW, instead of recommendations in the book.


*Estimated 1RMS:
Squat: 105.5kg
Bench: 73kg
WPU: 103.5kg (inc. BW)
DL: 142kg

*Some of these were before a shoulder injury I had, but it feels mostly fine now, and I feel strong again.

First time training bench ever, used to do OHP before now instead
Haven't trained squats hard before because they always hurt my back, but I changed my technique and they seem fine now.



I'm just a regular dude, but I love martial arts and used to compete in Judo, and I've found the TB programs perfect for balancing work, family, and martial arts. Before TB, I mainly did body-weight stuff and cardio.

Haven't competed in a while, as I was out due to auto-immune disease, but now that that no longer controls my life, I'd like to get back into competing and training in Judo eventually, and am also considering getting into MMA.

I've used Operator/black for a little while in the past, but I ended up getting an injury which put me out for a while (shoulder). When the injury healed up, I had lost a lot of weight and was down to 66kg/145lbs from 70kg/155lbs. So I ran a couple of submax cycles of operator again taking it easy so as not to re-injure my shoulder and got back to 70kg.

I want to add mass for aesthetics, to prove to myself that I can, and to increase my overall potential strength so bought the mass program.

[Barkadion]

Good luck!

Would you mind share your vegan protein sources?

Cheers.

[Faro]

Okay, so a couple weeks in, here is my First week's recap.

Lifts: All the lifts felt pretty easy, like really easy, too easy. But I decided to stick to them anyway, which thankfully I did because by the end of the week I was feeling it due to the increased volume, and lack of sleep acquired due to having a new baby.
DLs in particular felt stupid easy. I was using fat grips for my WPUs, and my DLs to make them harder.
I am not going to continue with my DLs because I won't be able to once the weight goes up, but with WPUs I will keep using them for the remainder of the program.
Was using flat bench pull-overs as a finisher, and plan to keep doing it for the remainder of the program too. I did some planks and side planks for 5 minutes on my off days for a bit of core, thinking of adding a dedicated core exercise into the mix.

Cardio: I didn't do any of the cardio as prescribed. I figured that my work has me walking around, moving, lifting things, etc. for at least 1.5-3 hours most days that I could get away with not doing the cardio. I really didn't have the energy or motivation for cardio either due to the sleep situation.

Diet: I was eating over 3000 cals a day, I met or exceeded my protein requirements, I went slightly over my fat requirements most days, and I undershot my carbs a bit on a few days. At first it was really.... reaaaaallyyy hard to eat so much, but by the end of it, it was physically easier, but still mentally hard to eat when I didn't feel hungry. At the end of the week, I then decided not to worry too much about specific macros, because tracking them is a pain in the butt, so now it is fine so long as I get my protein requirements, and stay in a calorie surplus.

One trick I found that helped me eat more calories was to decrease the vegetable portion of my foods (normally the biggest portion for me) and increase calorie containing foods. I also started eating some fruit between meals due to the undershooting of my carbs, so now I am getting more carbs in, plus I still get to keep the benefits of fruits in my diet which I am happy about.

Edit, forgot to include... Weight gain: 0.5kg/1.1lb by the end of the week.

[Faro]

Good luck!

Would you mind share your vegan protein sources?

Cheers.

Thanks for the well wishes!

Most certainly. I'll include some additional details on what I eat in case anyone is interested as well.
I primarily am using Legumes, Nuts and nut butters (100% nuts only) some seeds (also my primary fat source), and I include one meal a day that contains either Tofu, Tempeh (sometimes non soy variants), a mock meat that I enjoy, Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP), Seitan, or whole Soy beans, or Lupini beans. I take a protein shake if I need to top up on my protein at the end of the day, which doesn't happen often. I do include about 1/4 to 1/2 of a serve of protein powder with my porridge in the morning sometimes. I use a dirt cheap unflavored pea protein.

Whole grains also have a fair bit of protein in them and I include whole grains or whole grain bread at every meal, unless it's a really lazy day where I'll eat some quicker to cook white rice or noodles in one of my meals instead.

I am going one cheat day a week too, the rules I follow for that are anything goes (still vegan for me though) so long as I get my protein for the day.

Some of my Common Meals are (but not limited to)

Breakfast: Almost every morning I eat rolled oat porridge with berries, flax seeds, a banana, some soy milk and spices like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, optional protein powder. If time doesn't allow, for example on early shifts where I only get a 15 minute break for breakfast, then it is weet-bix instead of porridge but all the extras stay the same.

Lunch/Dinner: Interchangeable meals here, I include 1-2 tablespoons of nut butter (peanut is cheap), or some whole nuts or seeds here

Legume based meal Curried lentil soup (Indian style dahl), Hummus, Burrito style wraps. I have these with a whole grain like brown/black rice, buckwheat, whole grain breads or flat breads or bread wraps, corn etc. and vegetables.

Soy/Mock meat/Lupini/etc. meal Grain bowl salad, stir fry, burgers, Wraps, Pasta/spaghetti, noodles, curry. I once again still include grains and vegetables here too.

Snacks: fruit, small smoothie, protein shake or a scoop of nut butter. I only include these if I think I'm going to need to to push up my cals or protein.

I know soy is a bit touchy with some people, so here's my stance. I used to think soy was bad, for a long time, after looking into the research though, there really isn't any good evidence to suggest that it is bad, and there is a fair bit of evidence to suggest a handful of health benefits associated with legumes of all kinds, and soy in particular. That and the easy source of protein means that I now eat soy without any concerns.

I also take a B12 supplement just in case. That's the only supplement I am taking.

[Barkadion]

Thank you for sharing your diet. Appreciate that.

[VenomousCoffee]

Okay, with a name like Faro, I have to ask if you're a Deadwood fan.

[Faro]

Okay, with a name like Faro, I have to ask if you're a Deadwood fan.

I am not, sorry. I didn't know what it was until you mentioned it. Looked into it though, and it does seem interesting. I am aware of Faro as a card game, as well as a flourish/shuffle in cardistry used by magicians and gamblers. Honestly though, I chose this name for an entirely unrelated reason to those.

[Faro]

Week 2

Lifts:
Overall, this week felt pretty easy compared to the first. The last training day before DL day was a bit hard, but that was because I had very little sleep the night before and was feeling a bit drained, this resulted in my not using fat grips for my WPUs, and doing less Pull Overs at the end of my work out.

Squat was easy all throughout, and I kept to the program.

Bench was waaaay too easy. As I said earlier, this is my first time training bench, so I do expect faster growth here. On my first session I accidentally did 2, then 3 extra reps on bench on the 2nd and 3rd sets respectively just because I was focusing on my form and forgot to stop at 6.

WPU a little difficult still, but that's to be expected as I am using fat grips. towards the end of the last couple sets I need to take a quick re-grip, but I keep the pace the same between reps so I am okay with that.

Deadlift feels way too easy, but keeping to the program as I don't want to burn out.

Cardio:
Still being pretty slack, using my cardio days more for a little ab work, or playing with my kids and telling myself that that's good enough, haha. I plan on getting into cardio more on week 4, I want to do at least 2 Cardio sessions a week as a baseline with a 3rd optional. I might just do some skipping as that is what I enjoy the most, despite the fact that it is a more high intensity form of cardio.

Diet:
Got pretty slack with my diet. Still eating pretty healthy, and meeting protein requirements but not getting quite as many calories as I wanted, just getting sick of eating food when I'm not hungry. Consciously used this week to regather myself to just shovel it down next week.

Weight Gain:
I gained roughly 0.5kg/1lb by the end of the week, a total weight gain of 1.5kg/3.3lbs although a few times that I week when I weighed myself towards the end, I weighed heavier at +3 kgs more than my starting weight. But I am going off of a rough average with my weight. Was still pretty happy seeing the scales at 73kgs though as I haven't been there since I was in my late teens.


Overall, feeling pretty good about the program, a bunch of things feel a bit easy though, considering adding an extra finisher set on my lifts for that extra volume after I finish at least 3 weeks of it, but we'll see when the time comes.

[Faro]

I was a week behind in my logs so I am going to add week 3s log now to bring my logs here up to the present date of my training.

Week 3

Lifts:
I really enjoyed this weeks training. Still felt easy, but it was nice pushing heavier weights. Also broke some PRs as elaborated below.

Squat
1st session. First set this week was dumb easy, so I added some weight up to 90kgs. Even then it was quite easy so the last set I did AMRAP of 8 reps, felt like I could have done at least 10, but I don't have a spotter so kept it safe.
2nd session. As programmed but with the slightly heavier weight of 1st session.
3rd session. Still feeling really easy, so decided to peak and worked my way up to a set of 2 squats for 110kgs/242lbs, which also pushed my estimated 1RM up higher to 113kgs. Very excited to finally be able to progress with Barbell squats.

Super stoked about this as I used to have heaps of trouble with squats where they'd cause me pain and always felt difficult, example, I used to struggle with sets of 5 at 80kgs. But I changed my technique a bit, and started doing them a bit more like low bar squats, and they feel really good and easy now. Falling in love with this once hated, and partially feared exercise.

Bench
Bench felt easy, so I increased the reps to 4 instead of 3 after the 1st session and I did AMRAP with bench on the last set of every workout this week as well, which also pushed up my estimated 1RM. I am not pushing the weight heavier with bench, as I am still not super comfortable with the technique and have old injuries to my shoulders, so I am taking them easy.

WPU
Increased the weight here to my bodyweight + 15kg/33lbs, did AMRAP on last set of the 2nd session, also started doing a dead hang or active hang at the end of the last set of these to get the extra grip work. I just hang until it hurts too much, or until my grip gives out.

Deadlift
I was feeling pretty trashed towards the end of this week from work, and not getting enough sleep (I know I need to work on the sleep thing, probably my biggest drawback at the moment) but despite that, the DL weight was way to easy, so I decided to peak it. I initially worked up to 1 rep of double my starting bodyweight (140kg/308.5lbs) as that was always a goal of mine, but then that felt pretty easy, so I tried a rep of 150kg/330lbs which is the heaviest I have ever personally lifted as well as my new working 1RM, which was harder but not too hard, the weight came up pretty smoothly, and I'd give it an RPE of about 8. I think I could have done at least another rep, or more weight but I stopped there so as not to overdo it.

TL;DR: Broke my own PRs on all my "big 3" lifts. Feeling excited.

Cardio:
Still slack. Just trying to be more generally active on my cardio days rather than doing set cardio. Will change that in the coming workouts.

Diet:
Was a bit more on top of diet this week than last. Not getting as many cals as the first week, but not as few as the second, I feel like this is a nice mid-ground, where I can still enjoy food sometimes.

Weight Gain:
Not much weight gain this week, I mean there might have been, but my weight was fluctuating a lot this week it was hard to tell. Last I checked I am still just +1.5 kgs from my starting weight. Feeling good about it though, I feel stronger, and have noticed small development around my lats, legs and shoulders. Dem sweet noob gains, amirite?

[Faro]

I intend to update my logs with my progress. Life got in the way of writing, but not training. Gonna include pictures if I can find my before shots, haha