Nutrition 03/09/12 - 04/09/12

Monday 04/09/12

1750 Calories

220g Protein
130g Carbohydrate (poor effort)
45g Fat

Tuesday 05/09/12

2000 Calories

235g Protein
180g Carbohydrates
50g Fat

So obviously the thing I need to work on a little bit more is simply getting up my protein and carbohydrate intake to reach 250P/200CHO/50F consistently. I'll simply add in another shake with water I think, because at the moment I'm not even feeling that hungry or getting cravings like I was before.

I'm going to put my 60kgx6 PR on press down to increased carb intake recently, which has obviously made a big difference in my day-to-day and ongoing energy reserves. 

Just a quick cut update too: I only lost 200g in the past week, which I'm fine with because obviously increased glycogen and subsequent water retention is a big factor in that from my upped carbohydrate intake. That puts me at 77.2kg, and so I'll be aiming to continue on my weekly losses of around 400-500g from next week onwards. 

Nutrition: 31/08/12 - 02/09/12

Friday 31/08/12

245g Protein
180g Carbohydrate
45g Fat

Saturday 01/09/12

180g Protein
230g Carbohydrate
75g Fat

Sunday 02/09/12 (Fathers Day, go easy on me)

190g Protein
180g Carbohydrate
75g Fat

Ok, so these last few days of properly outlining everything I eat tells me a few things (keeping in mind I'm aiming to hit 250gP/200gC/50gF each day):

1. I need to get more protein in. 
2. Fats need to be kept in check.
3. Until now, I was not getting in 200g of carbohydrates a day, no wonder my workouts have gone the way of the sewer rat.

I'll put this in perspective by saying that yesterday was Fathers Day, so I realised I was not going to hit the appropriate macros. I had eggs benedict for breakfast, roast beef and roast potatoes and sweet potatoes for lunch, and a chicken paella for dinner. Not bad for a 'falling off the bandwagon' day. The day before that I screwed up my fat intake by having 40g of fat in one meal, will not let that happen again. So in the end my only obstacle is getting in enough protein, which I can fix by upping my nightly intake. Apart from that, I was rather pleased with these results considering I'm still fine-tuning my necessary diet. Onwards and upwards

A NEW PROGRAM

I'm a pretty big advocate of letting others take care of your training for you. Sometimes we lose sight of the forest for the trees and can no longer see what is actually good for us. I managed to convince a very clever guy to check out my current status and write me up a program to take me to that next level while I'm still in the midst of my cut. He's also thankfully advised me on what macronutrient levels are ideal at this stage and what to be eating. I'm very excited to leave my training in the lap of the gods in a sense and give up some control to keep progressing. Without further ado, here's the program:

Day 1

Bench x5-5-5-5-5+ {Press on alternating weeks}
Flyes 2x15-25 (each set to failure) {Lateral raises on alternating weeks}
Chin ups x max reps x 3 sets (sets across ie 3xBWx20)
Squats x5-5-5-5-5+
Curls 2x12-15

Day 2

Press x5-5-5-5-5+ {Bench on alternating weeks}
Power Clean - working up to heavy doubles
Deadlift x5+ (working up to a max set of 5+)
BB Row 4x8

Day 3

Bench x4-6 PR, 12-15 PR {Press on alternating weeks}
Chin ups 3x6-8
Squat x4-6 PR, 12-15 PR {Front squat on alternating weeks}
Curls 2x12-15

The next question is: What's with the x5-5-5-5-5+ rep scheme?

The concept is pretty straightforward. On either the first or second set (your choice) you're aiming to get a top set of 5 (close to your 5RM but not a PR), and the remaining sets are 10% below that, with the final set (5+) aiming to get to 8-10. So any exercise with the x5-5-5-5-5+ tag will look like this:

Squats:

Warm ups

90kgx5

100kgx5

90kgx5

90kgx5

90kgx5+ (aiming for 8-10)

Pretty simple right? I hope so, I'm very excited to try it out and see how I fair, the volume will make it a very intense program but I'm looking forward to that. The macros he's suggesting is 250g Protein/200g Carb/ 50g Fat. I'm quite close to that level as is but I will need to up my protein by about 50g a day to reach it. He's keen for me to continue to eat lean meats (tuna, chicken etc) and good carbs (potatoes, rice, oats), trying to minimise fat intake obviously and cutting down on poorer carbs like breads and sugars.


He's also suggested 3 days of conditioning, one long and one short. For the short day I'll be doing barbell complexes in an intense fashion, and it's yet to be seen what I'll do for the long day, I'll work it out though. 


LET'S DO THIS 

Cut update - Week 6

Been trying to stick to my plan more stringently the past week, as I felt my motivation and strict diet starting to wane in the two weeks preceding that. This week that paid dividends, with more weight loss than expected. I'm also starting to see some more physical manifestations, including separation through my quads as well as my obliques starting to come through just a tad. Still far from satisfied, so I may extend the cut from the 8 weeks planned to 9-10 weeks. This is simply because I don't seem to be at the stage I thought I would be at by this weight, so instead of going down to 76kg I may keep going until I'm satisfied.

Starting: 82.0kg

Week 1: 80.6kg

Week 2: 79.8kg

Week 3: 79.1kg

Week 4: 78.5kg

Week 5: 78.0kg

Week 6: 77.3kg

So this is a big bump in weight loss, which I cannot complain about at all. At this stage of the game a 700g loss is pretty massive, which dispels my idea that I would need to start adding in cardio 3 times a week.

Overall I'm more lethargic than I wish I was, but nothing that can't be fixed with some water and a long coffee. Can't wait to finish up on this, look good and start smashing out PRs like there's no tomorrow. 

Cut update - Week 5

So after 5 weeks of cutting things are starting to settle in. The cravings for high carb foods are still pretty strong, but I can resist for the most part. My guilty pleasure are some beers on the weekend. I feel like for the last couple of weeks I've been getting a tiny bit lax, so I should be thankful that I have continued to lose weight:

Start: 82.0kg

Week 1: 80.6kg

Week 2: 79.8kg

Week 3: 79.1kg

Week 4: 78.5kg

Week 5: 78.0kg

So it's steadily going down. The only thing that's irking me is that even though my weight is dropping, I'm looking no different than I did a week or two ago. I know better than to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as I'm sure that one day I'll wake up and start looking way leaner and cut up. It's just a bit hard to stick to the gameplan when it feels like I'm not coming out on top.

My diet is pretty much the same, I'm eating 4 eggs/ 3 quiches (bacon, potato, pumpkin, cheese, onion, egg) for breakfast (30g protein), 300g of tuna for a snack (50g protein), and chicken for lunch (50g protein), then whatever is going for dinner to get in some carbs and fats (last night was roast and veg). Still hitting around the 2200 cals mark, sometimes on the weekends going over (going to Montville and eating awesome cheeses and other foods did not help).

I feel much weaker during training, it seems like after squatting I'm tired for bench, and the same with my deadlifts last week; though my pressing and pull ups didn't suffer. On another note, I'm going to start doing OHP twice a week to get it up, going to do some after my bench today. Exciting!

Cut update - Week 4

So I've now been cutting for 4 weeks, and things are going exactly to plan. I thought I had fallen off the wagon when I had 4 beers on Friday and a bit too much to eat on Monday, but today's weigh-in told a different story. 

Start: 82.0kg

Week 1: 80.6kg

Week 2: 79.8kg
Week 3: 79.1kg
Week 4: 78.5kg

So I'm consistently losing over 0.5kg a week, and even though the trend seems to be that the loss is slowing down, I don't think it's a continuing pattern and will probably settle at around 0.5kg a week from now on. This means that I am probably at the halfway point of my cut, so I'm hoping that by mid-September I will be sitting at around 77kg and looking bigger than I did at 82kg.

I was feeling a bit discouraged in the past week because I haven't seen any physical changes, but I should know by now that changes are cyclical. Probably in the next two weeks is when I will really start to see some definitive changes, and will start looking bigger and bigger. I'm pretty melancholy about cutting, but it isn't as ball-breaking as I had heard. Probably sitting at around 14% right now, maybe less. 

Will probably post some pictures next week, prepare for the obligatory NO HOMO. 

Cutting - 3 week update

I started cutting 3 weeks ago, and here are my results so far. 

Start: 82.0kg

Week 1: 80.6kg 

Week 2: 79.8kg

Week 3: 79.1kg

So that means over the past 3 weeks I've lost 2.9kg, with the bulk lost in the first week as expected (from lowered glycogen stores from lack of carbs and subsequent dropped water weight). 

So, by my calculations I should only be cutting for another 5 weeks before I reach a level of leanness which I will be happy to maintain for a while and still improve my strength on a weekly basis. 

This means that in 5 weeks I should hopefully have lost another 3kg, as I will be happy to take a 500g loss every week if it means keeping my strength on upper body lifts and marginally increasing lower body ones. 

Also, I made a whole heap of mini quiches for breakfasts, it turned out to be a great idea because I just grab 3 and eat them cold with a coffee in the morning, saves time and regulates my breakfast intake. Made a batch of 18 with 12 eggs, cheese, corn, 100g ham and red onion. Delicious. 

Which means I'm having eggs for breakfast, tuna for a snack, and 3/8 of a chicken for lunch. Not feeling too much weaker either.

Time to cut the fat

After almost 30 workouts of Starting Strength, gaining 11kg, and putting up quite a few PRs in the process, I've decided it's time to cut down and get back to my lean ways. 

Right now I am guessing I'm sitting around 16% body fat (82kg). I used to be around 10% when I weighed around 70kg before I broke my hand, and probably around 12% when I started the routine (71kg). 

For those that don't know what body fat percentages actually look like in real life, here's a run down (BEWARE: prepare yourself for bro-talk):

5-8% - Meth addict shredded: veins running through everywhere including lower abs (known as one of the most stubborn areas), striations popping whenever you move. Bodybuilder status.

9-11% - The lowest body fat % most people can get to without hard dieting. Striations everywhere except the 'stubborn' areas are visible at all times, lower abs are almost entirely uncovered, not quite 8-pack though. Not quite 'cut to ribbons' but most certainly 'shredded'.

12-14% Abs are almost entirely visible, and striations and veins are also visible in some places. Not the 'hard' look of a lower body fat, with more rounded edges and a softer overall appearance. What most people would call 'lean'. 

15-18% Abs are covered, no real striations and veins visible unless flexed. Still considered to be lean, but not aesthetically appealing by any stretch. Gathering the beginnings of a spare tyre around the midsection, with fat accumulating around the hips and lower back.

Right now I'm in the latter section, with striations visible only in my forearms and chest, with upper abs almost covered and lack of veins overall. I want to cut down 6% of my body fat, which at my current weight means dropping around 4.5kg. Accounting for dropping water weight and general bloat from food and glycogen stores, I estimate I need to lose 6kg to be 10% body fat. Which would mean that I've gained almost 5kg of muscle in the past 4-5 months, which I'm happy with. 

How am I planning to go about doing it?

Weight loss/gain = energy intake - energy expenditure. 

I've done a bit of hunting around and discovered that my daily caloric needs are sitting around 2600-2800Kcals. That means that to lose 0.5-1kg a week I'll need to keep my calories each day to around 2200Kcals (500 calorie deficit a day, 3500 a week, with 3500Kcals equalling a kilogram). This wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't still concerned with adding to my lifts.

How do I operate on a caloric deficit and still gain strength?

As long as I give my muscles the stimulus to adapt (through training heavy), the protein needed to recover and rebuild them, the fats to keep my hormonal levels in check, and the carbs to stop me from feeling like a horse's ass (and get through my workouts without failing or collapsing), I should be ok. But that's a very difficult balancing act. But because I'm not an advanced trainee and still have a lot of improvement within me, I think I can do it.

Nutrition

Protein - The plan is to eat as many high protein foods for my calories as possible. This is important for 2 reasons. One, to make sure I don't lose muscle mass from my body eating away at my muscles (and so my muscles can even repair themselves from working out). And two, because protein is hard to break down and is therefore better than carbs and fat in terms of energy yield in the process of losing weight. I'll be aiming for 200g of protein a day. To put that in perspective, a small can of tuna has 20g of protein, an egg has 7g, a chicken breast has around 30-40g, and a 50g bag of beef jerky has 35g (dehydrator here I come). 

Carbs - The less carbs the better, but obviously to replenish muscle glycogen and give me energy throughout the day, I do need to include them to a necessary level. I'll try and keep it to around 100-200g a day, with higher levels on workout days to keep energy high and to recover suitably. 

Fats - I'm not even going to worry about my fat intake, as the common misconception is that fats lead to fat, but most of the time it is in fact simple sugars and other carbs that are the culprit. I won't be going out of my way to gulp down gravy, but a few nuts and trail mix here or there shouldn't be too much of an issue. And plus, I'll need fats to keep my hormones at a respectable level and to stop my metabolism from slowing to a snail pace. 

What am I planning to eat?

To keep my calories down and my protein intake high, I'm going to be eating many foods day in, day out. 

Breakfast: Eggs, whether they're hard boiled, poached, scrambled, or in an omelette. Probably will try and eat 4 every morning (300 cals, 30g protein).

Lunch: I'll be aiming to buy lots of Nando's chicken to supplement my protein needs, as well as choice leftovers and tuna (500-700 cals, 70-100g protein).

Dinner: My 'let loose' meal, where I will eat whatever with an eye on high protein meals. This will mean cutting out pasta etcetera where possible and trying to get more steak, roast and veg and the like in (800-1000cals, 70-100g protein).

So in general I'm going to be strict on my daylight hours intake, and try and eat well for dinners. If I'm sticking to my protein intake and not going overboard with the calories, I'll be happy.

How will my lifts be affected?

I am not too worried about my lifts going down, but I won't be expecting daily 2.5kg increases either. I'll still be aiming to be PRing week to week, but not workout to workout. In terms of losing strength/not gaining fast, here are the lifts I'm most concerned about:

1. Press (the lowest lift kg-wise, and the first one to drop in most cuts)

2. Bench (upper body lifts always suffer most on a cut)

3. Dips (losing BW should help me retain my numbers)

4. Squats (don't think I'll have a problem increasing these in all probability)

5. Deadlifts (judging from the speed of my reps I still have improvement to burn on this lift)

Should take around 2 months to get down to where I want to be, and from there I will probably up my carbs to stay the same weight and keep pushing the weekly progress. Let's do this