Portion key. Barley: 1 cup cooked = 160 g cooked = 50 g dry. Potato: 200 g raw = 1 medium yellow potato (about a fist). Kale: 2 cups (130 g) raw or thawed-and-squeezed; cooked weight ~180 g. Apple: 1 medium = 180 g. Mandarin: 1 small = 75 g.
Breakfast is the post-workout meal on training days. You train fasted, so breakfast does recovery duty — eggs, barley, and a full whey scoop hit depleted glycogen and blunt the elevated muscle breakdown from fasted lifting. The 5 g creatine rides in this shake (timing doesn't matter for creatine — daily total is what counts). Eat within ~30–45 min of finishing.
Pre-workout is non-optional on fasted days. ½ scoop whey + 2 g leucine before lifting gives you circulating amino acids going into a fasted session — this matters more at 55 (anabolic resistance). The leucine alone in water is the minimum if you can't stomach anything. Black coffee adds a fasted-training performance and fat-oxidation edge.
Asymmetric deficit logic. Training days run a smaller deficit (~520 vs the ~580-cal training-day burn) with carbs trimmed but kept high enough to fuel lifting. Rest days carry the larger cut, taken from fat rather than protein. Protein holds at ~215 g across all training and low days to protect lean mass.
Reassess at 4 weeks. If lifts are holding, sleep is good, energy is steady — continue. If any of those degrade, pull rest-day calories up by 150. Don't push past 6 weeks at this deficit without a maintenance break.
Cook potatoes ahead and refrigerate. Reheating from cold builds resistant starch — gentler glucose response, feeds gut bacteria.
Sunday prep, ~30 min. Cook 4 cups dry barley (~12 cups cooked). Roast 2 kg yellow potatoes, cool, refrigerate. Brown 1 kg ground beef with garlic and onion, portion. Hard-boil a dozen eggs as backup protein.
Track waist, not just scale. 3× weekly weigh-in (same time/conditions) plus weekly waist at navel. Waist is the better signal that fat — not water or lean — is moving.