Minor illness and training break; neck tight after handstands; diet slightly better with good calorie average now

Cold or flu

I have nasal congestion but all else is fine. It’ll put back my training a couple days. Plenty to stay busy otherwise, though. Mood is good and appetite is great. I bet in 3 days I’ll be 90% and probably a week 100%.

Training-related soreness / tightness

My right side neck was tight down towards the shoulder blade and massaged it which helped. I have minor tightness along the upper side of the leg and stretching makes it feel great. I haven’t moved around much like cardio or walking in awhile. That can contribute to the tightness. There is obvious lack of use of the glutes which supposedly contributes to tightness in that area. I get nervous about the neck but I don’t do handstand pushups and I have a pretty solid handstand. There was very slight tingling in the hand. I might drop handstands for 2-3 weeks and use the decline pushup, which is very intense and a great way to back off the intensity on the shoulder but also the wrist pressure goes way down. When feeling better, of course the squats are most important.

I can potentially do pick pushups, also. Those are the obvious progression prior to handstand pushups. I can build a good base. I’ll consider each those exercises as a temporary measure.

The squats stay in the routine. They are key. I need to have full energy and no cold or flu to do that at this stage in the game. I don’t want to risk getting worse. It is a very intense exercise the way I perform it with a lot of inflammation caused. This reminds me of what Mike Israetel has stated in a couple of his videos: squats can really tax him. He says there’s an overall maximum effective dose for exercises and big compound movements, especially squats and dead lifts, push towards that maximum a lot.

Diet steady / calories tracking back to break-even from surplus

The diet continues as whole wheat pasta and black beans with 5 ounces of raw spinach daily as the goal. On average, slightly less on the raw spinach but I’m picking it up on that. Drinking tea, 6 a day, and homemade hot chocolate made from cacao powder and sugar cubes-3 a day. Recently I ate a lot of granny apples over the course of a few days. Very tasty. I think a better way to get sugar is through fruit than through sugar cubes. Bananas are quite cheap, but apples are good. Oh, I bought blueberries and ate 12 ounces today, which is an expensive amount.

Considering dropping the cacao powder after this bag and sticking to fruit. Also I’m going to by salt free beans, and cut out the salt once again. The only reason I added it was my bread was tasting bad without, but I’m not cooking bread. Tasks:

• Drop cacao and granulated sugar drink.
• Use fruits / berries for sugar craving from here onward.
• Buy salt free beans after this.
• Discard remaining salt / sugar.
• Keep bean consumption at 2 cans daily with the whole wheat pasta.
• Keep raw spinach at 5 ounces.
• Keep calories at break even.
• Groceries: Buy tea, fruits (bananas possible), pasta in the next day or two.

Consistency / Tenacity

Training will continue and I have some things I can do even now with this cold. I proceed with other endeavors steadily. I’m keeping my eye on the tasks as hand. bIt feels good to write up everything and think it through to maintain motivation and focus.