End of Week One

...And I feel good. Better than I've felt in awhile.

I still have some intermittent chronic right knee irritation that bothers me when I'm walking, but for lifting, it's fine.

This first week was very easy and one of the notable features is that my squat stance has (intuitively?) changed. My feet are a bit wider, which is better since they are approximately where they are upon receiving the bar in the classic lifts. I think one of the mistakes that led to my hip injury in April is that I wasn't this specific in my training. I was leaving that foot spacing to the lifts themselves. Anyway, it feels better.

My experiment with the carb rotation plus one cheat meal feels ok. Still too early to tell, although visually waist is smaller, abs are more defined, and scale weight is down. (I know, it's supposed to be going up but I'm not concerned about that in the short run. It'll take another 2-3 weeks to evaluate this strategy.) Muscularity is up, so I'm guessing there's a net gain of muscle and a net loss of fat. The key of course is not to provoke a serious threat response in my body so that progress comes grinding to a halt. The key is provoking positive change.

Interestingly, this is really the first time in my entire training life where I'm not in a hurry. I know where I want to be and when, but I'm in no hurry to get there. Strange. I'm just trying to enjoy the ride. This, I think, may be key for my long term success both health wise and performance wise. I'm pretty sure this is what Alfonso was trying to teach me all those years ago.

I'm looking forward to next week.