September update

Numbers

Started the month at 178 lbs. Aimed to end the month somewhere between 173 and 178. For resistance training and BJJ, the goal was just to keep up the weekly habit.

How did it go? The weight loss was very successful. I got all the way down to 171 (a new record - my lowest weight ever as an adult!). I did BJJ every week, and I did resistance training every week of the month except one - there was a week where I was fighting off a cold when my joints were feeling extremely achy and sensitive and I decided to take the week off.

Reflections

I lost considerably more than I really thought I would this month, and what makes it even cooler is that I tried (pretty successfully too!) to be at maintenance calories for a couple weeks in the middle of the month on account of a stubborn cold that I was trying to fight off. A calorie deficit weakens the immune system from what I hear, so I tried upping the intake for a bit and during those weeks didn’t see any weight loss but I did manage to hover right around that same weight for all that time, which is encouraging insofar as it suggests I’m getting better at guessing how much to eat to stay in a mode other than “lose as fast as I can” or “gain as fast as I can” which are basically the only two options I’ve had to work with so far this past year.

I was thinking this month about what a good combination my three goals are. Building muscle and losing fat are an obvious combo - both important, each generally in tension with the other. It makes good sense to go back and forth from one to the other, practically and also psychologically and probably hormonally. But then pairing that combo with BJJ seems to work well in a way that I’d never anticipated. I find that in pursuing, eg, weight loss, it happens slowly enough (and muscle gain even more so) that I want something to distract myself with - and BJJ is a great distraction. Even when I’m not in class, I can watch YouTube videos about it or run through scenarios in my mind, and it’s often only too easy to find motivation to spend my time along those lines. So it’s a good distraction. But the thing about BJJ is that you also don’t need to do all that extra work, and the most important variable for getting better is probably just to keep showing up and making an effort in class. That’s why my goal for BJJ here every month is just the consistent weekly class attendance. Do it for months and years and you’ll get better; don’t, and you won’t. That linearity can be boring in its own way, and that’s where I think weight loss and muscle gain are a good complement to it, a good distraction in their own right, with their ups and downs, and with their constant, unrelenting demands, so unlike BJJ’s scheduled intensity. I don’t think I’ve quite named as clearly as I’d like what it is that I see that makes this triad work so well together, but hopefully that gives some sense of what I mean. It feels like there is a kind of psychological synergy to this combination of goals that’s working really well for me, at least at the moment.

I could be overestimating myself, but I think my body has made some decent progress toward adapting to the unique stresses of BJJ. I think my cardio is generally up to snuff already at this point; I still run out of energy midroll sometimes and need to stall/survive/lose for a bit to reset, but I get back to a ready state pretty quickly now. More importantly, the soreness has decreased quite a bit; I’m still feeling some soreness in my ribs sort of in my upper back (maybe intercostal or subcostal muscles?) after someone big gets chest to chest on top of me and I have to carry their weight; I feel it afterwards in soreness in that region whenever I take big breaths. But overall, I seem to be mostly adapted. So I’m still fueling up with plenty carbs beforehand out of fear of running out of energy, and protein too so the muscles and connective tissues can keep adapting as needed for the sport, which probably slowed down the weight loss every week (though I don’t actually know how the extra calories consumed compare to calories expended in and after class), but I think I’m getting closer to the point where I could experiment with training in more of a deficit if I had to, which I was moving toward as the month progressed, though I don’t have to worry about that as much now. Because-

I’m now at the point where I’m ready to make the switch back to a calorie surplus. In terms of that side of the equation, my next goal is to get better at the slow bulk or lean bulk. I’ve gotten pretty good at losing weight, and I have no problem putting weight back on very quickly, I’ve discovered, but finding the in-between point - where I’m eating enough that I gain weight, but not so much that I gain it extremely quickly - is not a balance that I’ve yet managed to strike. So that’s the big project this coming month.

I haven’t managed to submit a fully resisting opponent of my level or higher, yet, at BJJ. I’m totally okay with that; I hadn’t expected to (I’ve heard it can take up to a year of training twice a week to reach that first success), and at this point I’m more interested in gaining and holding good positions anyway - I feel like that’s a goal more suited to my current level of ability and something that will pay a lot of dividends into the future. But I don’t totally neglect submissions either. The biggest one I’m working on currently is a choke from mount - arm triangle or Ezekiel or some kind of a combination (I have an idea I’ve been experimenting with a bit, and we’ll see how it goes). When I get the back (usually off a takedown from the back), I’ll attempt the RNC (I hear in Brazilian it’s called the “lion killer” choke - so much cooler!). If someone goes for a leg lock I might opportunistically attempt a cross body ankle lock myself. Similarly depending on the position I might attempt the odd kimura, maybe the occasional darce. And that’s pretty much it for submissions I’ll generally attempt at this point. Sometime in the future when I’m eager to add in something new, I suspect I’ll want to look into guillotines; I don’t have much knowledge or confidence of them at this point but I know they can be very effective and versatile, even just as a threat, so that’s another thing I’d like to have in my arsenal. It’s been interesting to observe how certain submission options have risen to the surface over these months on account of my style and my body type, and I’m sure it will continue to be interesting to watch how that selection of options evolves as I continue to improve and roll against different people.

Predictions

I’m gonna try to gain weight this month, after spending the last four months losing weight. I don’t know precisely what to expect. Broadly I’d say I hope not to gain more than abooout ten pounds this next month (and I’ll be hoping to do much less than that in subsequent months - most of the weight this month should be the more transitory stuff like glycogen and water and intestinal contents, as well as extra water from going back onto creatine). So the number to shoot for this next month will be something no higher than 181. The first time I ever tried a “bulk” was half a year ago, and that time I put on 35lbs in 28 days and had to go right back to losing some serious weight again afterwards; I’m really hoping to avoid that outcome this time around. But trying a new approach to bulking is kind of scary, like stepping out over the abyss without knowing what your foot will land on, so over the next couple months we’ll find out how well my new approach is going to work.

Along with the increased calories, I plan to up my resistance training volume substantially. Part of that volume I’d like to have as lengthened isometrics. I’ll report back on how it goes.

And continued weekly BJJ, of course. Looking forward to that very much.