The end is near, progress is back on track, and we’ve entered the “digging phase.”

There are exactly 24 days left in this cut as I write this article. As I see the days wind down, it means just one thing to me: it’s time to dig.

It’s time to work harder and be more disciplined than I ever have. I’ve been pretty darn disciplined so far, so kicking things up a notch should really be a challenge.

Training

Training is going well, but well isn’t “good” or “great” so it’s a sign that performance has taken a slight drop.

It’s hard for me to quantify, to be honest. There have been a lot of positives and negatives.

Throughout this cut I’ve actually seen some exercises — my chest/pressing exercises, specifically — see a performance increase as my weight has dropped. I’m lifting more weight on these presses in the 170’s than I did in the 190’s, and doing it with proper form.

Others, like some of my pulling movements, have seen a rep or two fall off, or I’ve dropped the weight because it straight up just feels better.

That ‘feel’ is a big item, too. My muscle contractions aren’t as strong, and sometimes my shoulders or knees just aren’t happy to lift on certain days. After my workouts, I don’t quite have the same pump in my muscles as I’m used to.

It’s all part of the process and to be expected. At a certain point when you’re losing weight, you’re just not going to be able to lift the same amount of weight you’re accustomed to. Leverages are a big element of lifting weights, and those change with changes in body composition. We’ll also inevitably lose some of our muscle as weight loss becomes more significant. I’ve lost 14 pounds to date, which is getting close to being a significant amount of weight.

None of these developments are surprises (well, maybe the increased pressing strength is). They do require slight tweaks to the program, though.

My workouts are largely going by feel now. The structure remains the same. The goals for each workout remain the same. The actual execution is autoregulated based on how things feel that day.

In terms of my squat, bench press, and deadlift, I haven’t lost any strength. I’m still hitting my heavy singles at 80-, 85-, and 90-percent, and I’m happy with the speed in which the bar is moving.

To enter a “digging phase” with my training means to add every last bit of intensity I can to each day. It means to increase my effort in my cardio sessions as well.

This, with a tweaked approach to nutrition, will give us the last few bits of progress we can muster out of these 24 days.

Nutrition

My nutrition has been surprisingly easy throughout this entire cut. It’s the one element of dieting that is the most likely to derail progress.

Restricting our nutrition gets in our heads. It makes us doubt ourselves. We have so many urges to eat through each and every day that it’s inevitable our nutrition will challenge us in a diet.

Unfortunately, eating fewer calories than we want normally results in us quitting our diets. I never expected to quit this diet. That’s not how I operate. But I couldn’t have expected it to go this easily.

I started by dropping my calories down from around 3,000 to 2,400 a day. This lasted me quite a while and I was able to sustain progress through the first month-plus of dieting. Eventually, I needed to cut that number down again, and I decided to make things simple and drop down to 2,000 calories per day.

The plateau was difficult. It messed with my head. But for whatever reason, eating less calories has never been an issue.

Surprisingly, that second drop in calories did not immediately result in weight loss. Rather, it resulted in a two-week plateau where my weight didn’t budge. Eventually, I broke through that plateau and have experienced significant progress since.

I credit that to my structure. Whether I’m dieting, maintaining, or bulking, my eating schedule remains largely the same. I eat breakfast, and then again generally around the times of 10 a.m., 2 p.m., 6 p.m., and 8 p.m.

There’s no magic to that meal timing (in fact, there’s no magic to ANY meal timing). Eating frequently is just a matter of preference for me, so I did my best to maintain that schedule throughout this diet.

Most recently, I eliminated my breakfast in the morning. If there’s any time of day I feel least hungry, it’s breakfast. It just made sense to eliminate that meal and use coffee to tide over my hunger until the 10 a.m. meal.

I also chose to eliminate the 6 p.m. meal by having a sizable protein shake around 2 p.m. and a larger meal at 3:30 p.m. That combo (protein shakes tend to be very filling) has made waiting until 8 p.m. for my last meal relatively easy.

To enter a “digging phase” with my nutrition means to make one more calorie drop and squeeze every last bit of weight loss out of this cut. Heading into next week, I’ll be dropping my calories down from 2,000 per day to around 1,850-1,900. That’s the lowest calorie total I feel comfortable with, given my body composition and the amount of training I’m taking on.

The plan is to do this for 2-3 weeks and then bump my calories back up before the cut ends. I’d like to actually eat my way into the end of this cut and start the reverse dieting process (yes, there’s a new series coming and it’s on the concept of reverse dieting!).

Conclusion

• 

• 

I’m really happy with where I am right now. I’m 14 pounds down two-thirds of the way through this diet. That’s just about exactly on pace with where I projected myself to be based on my 20-pounds-lost goal.

Will I get to 20 total pounds lost? I’m not sure. Recently, I’ve noticed that since my last cut it’s very obvious I’ve put on a significant amount of muscle.

I cut down in 2017 when I was truly at a poor body composition (the busting out of your pants kind…). This time around, I was happy with my body composition to start, and the weight loss has been a little more difficult. I think that’s a testament to the consistently smart training and nutrition plan I’ve employed over the last two years.

Moving forward into these last 24 days, I’m just looking to make as much progress as I can, feel good, and look good. That’s the plan, and I’m ready to dig to the end!

—

CG