Radu's Insights
My Training, Nutrition, Stats, and Goals
November 13th 2016
My physique is improving rapidly and I think I'm one or two months away from my previous best condition.
My current stats are these:
Weight: 75.5 kg / 166lbs
Waist: 80cm /31.5 inches
Arms flexed: 38cm / 15 inches
Chest mid-point: 104cm / 41 inches
Shoulders: 115cm / 45.2 inches
The stats are pretty good but I know my body fat is higher and that contributes to size. I want to keep gaining for two or three months, finish my treatment and then bring my body fat back down to 10-12%. I should be around 80kg at the beginning of January and I suspect at the end of the cut I'll be around 75kg.
My Training
I'm now using the Intermediate-Advanced Routine from ShredSmart. I'm progressing well.
My Nutrition
My nutrition is still very flexible.
I eat based on hunger on most days and eyeball my calorie intake to be slightly above maintenance. I've gained about two kilograms in the last 6 weeks.
One major change in my diet is that I started eating less meat and more eggs, cheese, fish, and vegetable sources of protein. The reason for that is because I've learned that the meat industry is one of the biggest causes of global warming. I think this is one of the most urgent problems of humanity.
Producing one kilogram of beef requires ~15.000 liters of water, ~6 kilograms of corn, and around 300 square meters of land. That releases around 16kg of carbon into the atmosphere. To that you add the cost of slaughtering the animals, treating the meat, packaging it in plastic, and shipping it to the supermarket.
It may not sound like much but apparently if you eat one less burger per week, it's like taking your car off the road for 300 miles. I find this fascinating.
To get 130-150g of protein per day I currently eat like this:
30-50g of protein from chicken or fish (rarely pork or beef)
20-30g of protein from dairy products
10-15g of protein from eggs
25-35g of protein from rice or pea protein powder
20-30g of protein from carb sources and veggies
Going vegan would be the best choice because eggs and dairy are costly to produce as well. I'll keep researching this and will make a video guide on how to get your protein with the least impact on the environment while still maintaining an enjoyable lifestyle.
Insights
I like listening to audiobooks when I travel, commute, clean the house, etc. It's a great way to learn while also doing something else.
A few weeks ago I started listening to the book "Influence" by Robert Cialdini and it is definitely one of the most eye opening books I ever came across. Here is a summary in video format:
My favorite chapter was the one on commitment and consistency. I was blown away by the insights the author shared. One insight I found very interesting is how toy companies use the principles of commitment to keep sales up after Christmas.
We as a society admire consistency. We like people who are dependable and do what they say they will do. We also dislike people that promise something and don't deliver.
Naturally, this makes us want to be consistent ourselves so we are seen as dependable and trustworthy. That's great. But certain groups or salesman can take advantage of this natural tendency and profit.
Toy companies obviously make the biggest amount of sales around Christmas. But they noticed that sales in January and February were very low because of that. So they came up with a nice trick to keep sales up in those two months.
In the months of November and December they advertise a specific toy as much as they can on television and posters. They know that kids will see it and ask their parents to buy it for them. Knowing that Christmas is just around the corner most parents are happy to say yes.
But here's the trick. Right around Christmas time, they supply only a very small amount of those toys to stores. So most parents find themselves in the toy shop not being able to fulfill their promise to their kids. To make up for it, they buy a different toy as a Christmas gift.
Then, in January and February that advertised toy is supplied to stores in great amounts. Because the parents made a promise to get it for their kids a few weeks earlier, they end up buying it later instead of not at all.
What a trick!
The book is filled with great insights like that. I highly recommend you read it.