Review Phase 1

I originally tried to cover my thoughts on this in my workout post, but it was getting a bit cluttered so I decided to reflect a little more in a proper post on the subject.

The first question to answer: Was this Phase a success?

At this rate I'll be the strongest twig in the world.

Yes

• I lost weight
• Lifts are still going up
• My face looks leaner
• It wasn’t difficult

No

• 66% of the weight I lost was lean mass
• My torso still looks like shit, shit on sticks, because my legs are tiny

So, yes!

After the first couple weeks I dropped the obsessiveness I thought was implicit with dieting to a low body fat percentage. I know I’ve been favoring carbs pretty heavily, as per my strength goals, but I think that I’ve been too “oh I’m at maintenance today I don’t need so much protein” devolved into not eating much protein ever. There aren’t really a lot of protein foods I enjoy that I can eat on a regular basis, so I just… don’t worry about it.

But now I’m worried about it.

What worries me about continued lean loss is if it’s really only coming from muscle.

I like training fasted, I’m pretty used to it by now. The day of my workout I’m rarely hungry, though, and I think that’s contributed heavily to lean catabolism. (However, I do consider “the day after” to be post-workout as well, and I DO eat substantially on this day.) In combination with my PWO cardio dabblings, I really should not be surprised.

The second question to answer: Given the results, what’s the goal for the next phase?

I really liked how much fat I lost. I do NOT like how much lean mass I lost. So that’s what I’m going to change.

If lose half as much lean mass in Phase 2 as I did Phase 1, and lose the same amount of fat, I will just BARELY lose more fat than lean mass. That’s the direction I want to go in. I want to lose at least two pounds of fat, and less than that of lean mass.

So if I lose 2lbs of fat and 1.999lbs of lean mass, Phase 2 will be a success.

Final Question: What is being changed?

Just two meals added to my routine:

1. A protein-in-water shake before I leave for a workout (it will probably muck up the effects of my preworkout EC. I don’t know, and will find out.)
2. A cup of cottage cheese or some eggs in the last meal of the day, training or not.

I know next-to-nothing scientifically about the protein requirements of anything. I’m still not going to try to hit some calculated protein target per day. That has made me fatter in the past, as I slowly trend to paying attention to those grams rather than total calories. This seems like an easy thing to fix, but I’ve fucked it up frequently enough to not want to risk it.

But I don’t see the value of STARTING with too much.

One thing about difficulty: I can’t think of any immediate complaints, because I don’t constantly worry about it. If there’s one major pro to all of this, it’s that the mental load is relatively minimal.

Yes. This is minimal for me.

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Thanksgoal

I’m setting a goal for Thanksgiving.

I was mulling over my dieting strategy throughout my fast today, trying to decide at what point in my strength-gain quest I should chase after fat loss once again. It got annoyingly abstract as I do not really know what to expect as far as strength gains. I said, initially, that when I could do eight bodyweight chin-ups, then I would be strong enough to consider strength-retention a worthwhile effort while dieting. I’m not that strong now, why bother maintaining strength if I can regain what I’ve got in four weeks anyway?

So I stopped for a moment and decided to look at the “after this, then that” part, then-that-being fat loss. It was my decision that I would initiate the resumption of the fat loss goal by introducing a slight, 10% deficit, while building my present lifts not to a greater weight, but simply to the ceiling of the rep range (or maybe one more) of the present weight. If I lost strength on lifts much to the point of hitting the floor of the range or necessitating less weight used, I’d do a refeed and hope I wouldn’t miss a lift on the next workout in the cycle. Two missed lifts would immediately result in a diet break (it’s possible to lose reps for lack of focus, which is common for me on a deficit, so I would allow myself a small margin for this type of error.)

I determined that I’d pick a key lift for each workout (except B2) to monitor, just to keep sane. Less than 2 x 6 on Bench for A1, less than 2 x 3 on Deadlift for B1, and Chins (I presently cannot even do any, and I was planning to build up to at least eight before cutting, but the floor would be 1 x 6.)

But then I looked at how much weight I have to lose right now.

My body weight ceiling is 170lbs. At last check I was 169 (165.5lbs after sauna) and that’s dangerously close to where I don’t want to be. I could foresee a lot of “mini-fix” weeks to drop a pound in the likely event of lean gains. That’s a lot of back-and-forth and, ultimately, probably good for composition-revision purposes… but not that predictable and thusly not that interesting to me.

So I decided to look at how much I have to lose. It will have to be revised somewhat on Monday, as today (Friday) I’m fasting, and the weekend will be decidedly low-carb and may result in below-maintenance eating as well. Will I lose fat? Probably not. But I’m going to try and get as dry a weight measure post-workout (that means sauna) to truly understand where I’m starting from. However, I’m in a fast-induced-frenzy of productivity and so I’m planning it out with what I’ve got.

May 18th: 169lbs. @ 17%; 28.73lbs. fat, 140.27lbs. lean.

I decided on phase-length of dieting on two points: the fact that I don’t trust myself to last through six weeks of dieting as I get leaner, and Independence Day overlap. Fireworks Day isn’t a huge holiday in casual-binge world, but it is a day that I’d be comfortable feasting on if the opportunity arises. I’d rather not risk a nervous breakdown weighing risk vs. reward and just eat some goddamn barbecue.

Phases are thusly: four weeks of dieting, two weeks of eating at (new) maintenance. With 26 weeks to play with (May 24 – November 24) I am going to shoot for 14lbs. of fat loss. While this initially sounds like 14lbs. / 26 weeks (and so about a half a pound a week), it is important to note that there are only 18 weeks of specific dieting. That brings me to about 0.78lbs. per week of dieting, not accounting for any kickass magical losses during my diet breaks.

Lifting goals will slow, of course. I’m going to remain with my benchmark idea stated earlier, in that I won’t worry so much if I CANNOT INCREASE weight, but I will be concerned if I lose reps.

A1 Bench Press: 2 x 6 @ 80lbs.
B1 Deadlift: 2 x 3 @ 135lbs.
Any workout except B2, Pulldown: 1 x 6 @ 105lbs.

However, that being the GOAL isn’t going to be my marker for diet FAILURE. For me there are three levels: GREAT SUCCESS (getting or surpassing what I want), SUCCESS (doing well), and FAIL (fucking up.)

GREAT SUCCESS, as I’ve just delineated, will be 14+lbs. of fat loss with no strength loss.

SUCCESS, however, is a bit less. Striking a balance between losing weight and not feeling like a subhuman puddle usually means about a half a pound of weight loss per week. Therefore, success will be set at a minimum of 9lbs. of fat loss. Strength loss on bench is acceptable, but not on anything else.

FAIL is anything less than that and/or becoming an even weaker pathetic bitch. Or gaining fat, which I guess is EPIC FAIL, but I don’t really consider my options for failure in great detail anyhow. I prefer spending my time on success.

According to that, my end stats should look something like:

GREAT SUCCESS: 155lbs. @ 9.5% fat

SUCCESS: 160lbs. @ 12.3% fat

FAIL: gross.

I’ll express my specific dieting APPROACH in another post. This is just to outline the goal and time frame.

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Almost-Fast Training

I have restructured my eating habits once again after an irritating set of circumstances led me to a wasted refeed.

Thursday I refed, Friday I missed my workout, Saturday I fasted, Sunday I worked out and refed again.

Refeeding before a workout has been my intention as I am always strongest the day after a refeed. Furthermore, since I spend most of the day not eating following a workout while I wait to be picked up, I just integrate that as the beginning of my fast. However, this has not proven to be the most flexible way of working things. If I miss a workout, I wind up in caloric excess, as I’ll wind up redoing the refeed. I could just pay better attention (thus solving a variety of problems at once) but I’m trying to condition responses so that I can automate/habitualize this nonsense so I don’t have to think about what I’m doing as often.

I think I’m just going to cut out refeeds from my plan, they are too much of a hassle.

I’ll just re-evaluate my maintenance needs and configure them so that they are more satisfying, and be more vigilant with my dedicated fasting days.

Workout for Sunday, February 7th, 2010

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Goal Revision

I’ve been spending more time away from the gym than I ordinarily would like, but my immune system has been taking hell lately and I’d rather not take more stress than I absolutely have to. I seem to have an inverse gym-to-thinking ratio; the longer I stay away from the gym the smarter and more introspective I become. I have to fix that.

Optimal health over the long-term is the only real goal, after all.

However, I do have three major goals over the next eleven weeks:

1. 10% or lower body fat percentage.
2. Run continuously for 20 minutes.
3. Squat 300lbs.

They’re in a specific order, too. They’re in the order of effort I’m putting in, in order of likelihood to occur, in order of what I’d like to have and INVERSE order of what I would really enjoy doing.

A lot of people get mixed up. Yes I would like to HAVE sub-10% bodyfat, but I don’t really enjoy DOING WHAT IT TAKES to have it. Important distinction. Though honestly I enjoy squatting and also would enjoy having a BW-multiplied-by-whole-number PR.

And to be honest I don’t really care a whole lot about running one way or the other, so sticking it in the middle is accurate. I don’t really care about running, I don’t really think I enjoy doing it, but just having some aerobic fitness couldn’t hurt, and certainly contributes to my caloric deficit for fat loss. Family has a history of heart problems and diabetes, and I’ve already neglected the latter, so might as well take care of a problem before it can happen, you know?

Optimal health over the long-term.

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Birthday Goal

Goal Statement: By my 20th birthday I will have visible abs.

Start: July 27th, 2009
Deadline: January 27th, 2010

Measurements

• Height: 5′ 9″
• Weight: 163.8lbs.
• Upper Arms (mid-bicep): 10.5″ (both arms)
• Waist: 33.5″; 34″; 35.75″ (two inches above; at; and two inches below navel)
• Hips: 38.75″
• Thighs: 24.5″; 25″ (right/left, measured directly below buttocks)
• Body Fat Percentage: 19.5%

Specifics

• 1400-1500 calories per day
• 6 meals per day
  1. Breakfast (320 calories): Bagel with slice of lowfat cheese
  2. Snack (140 calories): Protein shake
  3. Lunch (300 calories): Turkey on whole wheat with light mayo
  4. Snack (140 calories): Another protein shake
  5. Dinner (300 calories): Microwaveable meal
  6. Snack (180 calories): Protein bar
• Drink 1 to 2 gallons of ice-cold water per day
• Workouts are brief and intense, 1 set of 8-12 for the following exercises:
  1. Crunch
  2. Leg Curl
  3. Leg Extension
  4. Palms-up Pulldown
  5. Bench Press
  6. Oblique Crunch

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