Why I’ve been M.I.A.

First of all, my apologies for not posting a lot of content the last couple of weeks. Since February, the fever has been hampering me a lot. Which made me enter a spiral that didn’t really seem to end.

  1. Coughing really affected my sleep. I’d wake up gasping for breath in the middle of the night and during the day I’d cough for a good ⅓ of every hour. Medicine didn’t work and the doctors told me I just had to sit through it. 
  2. This translated to my recovery capabilities in the gym and this meant I couldn’t give my full 100%. It’s very hard to breathe and brace when your cavities are completely clogged. See the way I train, I always aim at progress and with this fever it was pretty much impossible. So it makes sense that my motivation went down quite a bit. Add to that, that our gym got new equipment and I had to get used to all new materials.
  3. I also found interest in another hobby, which is exploring more artsy stuff. If you follow me on Snapchat or Instagram, you may have seen that I went to quite a lot of musea and orchestras. You’ve got to understand that I usually go to the gym to get rid of energy or receive gratification for my input. But when the motivation is low and you don’t seem to get the results you want, you will have to find other ways to satisfy those needs. For me, that was going to these cultural events.
  4. And in that same period, my diet was on point for the majority of the week. However, I really had become a work-week dieter. This is kind of an indirect result of not being satisfied with the progress in the gym. I see it as a deeper emotional reason. So what happened was, I’d eat around 2200 kcal for 5/6 days, then go all out with booze and snacks once or twice a week. And when I say all out, I mean 6000-7000 kcal all out. I think I had around 6 weeks in the last few months where this happened. This resulted in gaining about 2-3 kg in about 3 months. Now, this doesn’t seem a lot, but it sneaked in very gradually. Luckily, I came to senses and concluded that I had to switch up a couple of things.

Usually, these problems can easily be solved or reduced. For example: reduce training volume, use a smaller deficit, switch up the training routine, optimize sleep, etc. But these are all factors that affect motivation and progress. But when you’re ill it doesn’t help too much, because coughing and clogged cavities will still compromise recovery and sleep.

So yeah for me, the last 3 months haven’t been optimal at all. I lost a bit of strength and gained a bit of weight, but I have the knowledge to get back on track and I know what has to be done.

My current approach to dropping down 5kg:

  • For now, my sleep is starting to get a lot better, due to not coughing too much. This will definitely help improve my recovery capabilities. This already takes away about 80% of the problems I had. Yes, kids, sleep is important!
  • Also, to even further improve recovery, I’ve greatly reduced my training volume and frequency. This will make sure I get back to my normal strength levels as soon as possible. I will only do resistance training 3 times a week with a frequency of 2 for upper body and 1 for lower body.
  • Due to a lower volume/frequency, I will train less, allowing for a better implementation of both hobbies. I see this as a bit of lifestyle implementation.
  • To avoid binging and to minimize the damage from these social events, I will get back to Superhuman Fasting. Basically push my first meal to later in the day, allowing for bigger and fuller meals and to give me the freedom to have a few drinks every now and then.

In the upcoming weeks I’ll promise to post a lot of content again and of course, share my progress.

Andries Bautista

Ik ben begonnen met Superhuman omdat ik mij realiseerde dat het tijd was dat ik meer uit mijn leven ging halen door mijn potentie voor succes, maximaal te gebruiken. Ik werk samen met jou om de Superhuman in jou - vrij te laten. Ik geef je tips, tricks en technieken die nodig zijn om te slagen, ongeacht jouw visie.