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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