Week 2 of cutting is in the books, and over the past week I was presented with a relatively large hurdle to work through: elevated stress.

Stress is a dangerous thing. I think we all know that. But when attempting to diet down while balancing this business, my full-time job, grad school twice a week, training six days a week, and everything else that comes with daily life, an extra stressor (even something small) can throw everything out of whack.

Without going into too much detail, I had an elevated level of work-related stress this week. That stress led to poor sleep quality, and when sleep is impacted recovery is impacted. When recovery is impacted, training is impacted. So is cognitive function, energy levels, and more.

As you can tell, stress can really roll downhill and snowball into huge problems.

Our bodies only know stress. The body doesn’t know where stress comes from, or what causes stress. It just knows that it is experiencing stress. So, while heavy squats and deadlifts may seem like a problem because they’re the most challenging aspect of the week from a physical standpoint, that isn’t necessarily what’s throwing your body out of whack.

Rather, it’s due to an accumulation of stress.

That’s what I dealt with this week, and truthfully I’m not feeling great. Sure, my weight came down again this week (I actually feel quite fortunate for that, and a little bit surprised given the circumstances). That’s great. More so, I’m worried about the potential for stress to continue and the impact it may have on all of my current goals.

At the same time, I’m trying to do my best to just focus on the day to day and control what I can control. So, with all of that being said, let’s dive into training and nutrition.

Training:

Overall, training went pretty well this week. After feeling significantly gassed last week, I felt much better in terms of my ability to complete the prescribed sets, reps, and weights for each of my training days.

My big three movements — squat, bench press, and deadlift — all felt strong. I even managed to work in heavy singles of each lift at 85 percent of my one-rep max. Each single moved fast and smooth. And specifically, my leg day felt much more bearable than it did in Week 1.

I moved into Week 2 of this first block of training, which meant the weight went up a touch and my rep scheme dropped from 12 reps per set to 10. Despite the slight rise in intensity, everything actually felt much stronger than in Week 1.

This is something I suspected might happen, and it came true. My body needed a little bit of time to adjust from transitioning into a six-day training split with 400-600 fewer calories each day.

In addition to the weight training, I decided to up my cardio just a touch during my second 20-minute session of the week. Instead of doing cardio based on time, I’m choosing to now do cardio based of energy output in order to better track relative effort given to each workout.

My spin bike tracks calorie output, and while I know it’s not 100 percent accurate it will be accurate relative to the cardio I do since I’m doing each session on the same bike every single time. Cardio moving forward will be two 200-calorie spin sessions. When I need to increase cardio in the future, I’ll increase it based off energy expenditure instead of time.

All told, I’m pleased with how training is going.

Nutrition:

Nutritionally, I feel good about the choices I’ve made to date. My “urges” certainly decreased in Week 2. I found myself thinking about food a little bit less than I did in Week 1.

Again, this is to be expected and was something I suspected might be the case when getting started. Just like with training, my body needed to get acclimated to fewer calories on a daily basis.

So far, so good (and it’s improving).

There are a few strategies I’ve employed to get the most out of my diet (and keep me sane) that I thought I’d share this week.

First, I’ve been trying to stay under my 2,400 calorie allotment each day just slightly. As the week goes on, I’ve been banking these calories up and then on the weekend I redistribute them so that I can have a drink or something special to snack on.

It’s a great way to stay within the diet but still have something to look forward to. If you’re ever dieting, I’d highly suggest trying this.

Additionally, I’ve been experimenting with time restricted feeding on the weekends (also know as intermittent fasting). For whatever reason, when I’m able to sleep in I find that I’m less hungry in the morning and into the afternoon. This past weekend, I went on a 19-hour fast (from 7:30 p.m. Friday night to 2:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon). I didn’t feel hungry at all throughout the fast.

My article last week on the benefits of skipping breakfast was extremely popular. Give it a read if you haven’t already!

This allowed me to really control calories and allow for flexibility in what I ate the rest of that day. I was able to get a bacon cheeseburger for lunch and then have a big, satisfying dinner that night. I stayed within my calorie allotment, indulged a little bit, still hit my calories and protein, and woke up the next day with a new low weigh-in.

It was a fantastic finish to a great week from a nutrition standpoint.

Conclusion:

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My weight came down. Once again, that’s the goal and the main marker I’m using to measure success.

However, I’ll be monitoring my stress levels closely this week and doing the best I can to get a solid 7-8 hours of sleep each night. I think this will be my biggest challenge moving forward. Prioritizing recovery is paramount to my success. I’m confident, knowing that I’ve identified it so early on in the process.

So, it’s on to Week 3! The training intensity will creep up again just a bit, the cardio will increase a bit more, and the calories and macros will remain the same.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’re enjoying these training logs. I know I enjoy putting them together. 🙂

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CGF