Week 3 was officially the first true frustration I’ve felt with this entire cut.
It started with an injury, which led to a plateau. In the end, I’m still progressing so there’s really no need to worry. The week finished on a positive note with a couple solid training sessions and my weight dropping down to a new low. BUT, those small frustrations are the things that can get in your head and can be really discouraging when dieting.
Cause for concern? I don’t know… Maybe a little? The most important thing you can do when this stuff happens is monitor the day to day. It will provide you with reasons why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling, and reasons why your progress is slowing (or may have stopped).
I’m mulling over some slight tweaks to the program. Let’s dive in and look at the week that was.
Training
Overall, training is going well. However, a flare-up with an injury effected my week, as did scheduling issues on a number of days.
Let’s start with the injury, as it’s top of mind for me and happened in literally such a stupid way.
In my first cardio session of the week, I did my normal 200-calorie spin session. Afterwards, my legs felt pretty tired — like more tired than usual — to the point where I needed to roll out my left calf/shin area. That’s not typical.
The next day, I was snowed in and worked from home. I did a squat workout in The Pitt (my home gym) and as I worked up in weight, I felt a pretty significant amount of pain shooting down that same area — left calf and shin. I completed the workout, but at that moment I knew I had a problem.
I think the injury was from poor form while cycling. When you spin, you can both push down and pull up on the pedals, since there’s a cap that goes over your toes. I think I spent the majority of my spin pulling up, and that placed unnecessary stress on my calf throughout the session.
Unfortunately, this had a negative effect on the next few days and I spent considerable time treating the injury. I had to push back my cardio to the weekend, and therefore my weight fluctuated wildly in the middle of the week (I’ll get to that in more detail below).
Luckily, rest and treating the injury helped, and I was able to get in my heavy squats and deadlifts on Sunday (90% of one-rep max) as well as two 200-calorie spin sessions.
I went from pretty down in the dumps on Wednesday to riding a high again on Sunday. That, my friends, perfectly depicts the emotions of dieting.
All in all, it was a weird week from a training perspective. When it comes to the injury, I have to hope it doesn’t continue to flare up throughout this cut. That would cause significant problems as I attempt to reach my goal.
Nutrition:
To contrast my training, the nutrition aspect of my program went smoothly in Week 3, and it has been pretty easy to manage thus far (aside from adjusting over the first few days).
Nothing has changed. My macros and calories all remain the same (approximately 2,400 calories: 190 grams protein, 60 grams fat, 270 grams carbohydrate).
The routine once again messed with my progress a bit, but it’s not terribly concerning. On both Wednesday and Thursday I consumed the majority of my calories later in the day, which in part contributed to higher weigh-ins on Thursday and Friday mornings (187.8 pounds each day). Both of those weigh-ins came after a new low weigh-in of 186 pounds on Wednesday morning.
But now I’m down to a new low of 185.6, which is seven pounds down from my heaviest weigh-in. Continued progress is the name of the game. I finished Week 3 strong and managed to continue that progress.
Conclusion:
Initial Weigh-in 
Week 3 Weigh-In
My average weight came down about a pound from the previous week. I think in order to continue progressing, I’ll need to add in slightly more cardio in Week 4.
Week 3 wrapped up my first block of training. As I move into Block 2, I’m going to add a third 200-calorie spin session. Additionally, I’m adding in “heavy” singles at 80, 85, and 90 percent of my one rep maxes for the squat, bench press, and deadlift.
These “heavy” singles will occur on Week 4 (80 percent), Week 5 (85 percent), and Week 6 (90 percent). This is all in an effort to maintain as much strength as I can during this cut.
In Week 3, I managed to hit 90 percent for a single for each lift at around seven pounds down from my starting weight. I don’t expect that to last the entire cut, but I’m interested to see how long I can hang on!
I think that about wraps things up for Week 3. Thanks for reading, and let me know if you have any comments, questions, or feedback!
On to Week 4!
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CGF