DAY 51:

Yesterday's cals:

In:     1666 (42% carb, 15% fat, 43% protein)
Out:   3192
48% deficit

Today's workout: Quads/calves

Quad-blaster   5x10
Squat              10x10
Seated calf:    10x10
Situps                x50

After a conversation in a thread on the BTF forum, I decided to go back and look for trends over the first 7 weeks to see what I could see. One thing jumped out at me right away: All of my best weeks had one thing in common: 2 quad days. All the less-than stellar weeks had one thing in common: 1 quad day. Hmm....

I missed half of one leg workout this past week with a tweaky groin but I noticed another trend with the program I've been basing my leg workouts on: Too many different exercises, not enough basic ones with a heavy-ass barbell on my back. So today I took a bit of my own advice and got back to the simple stuff that works for my wheels: Squats! And after that, more squats!. My leg extension machine kind of sucks anyway, so while I love the upper body workouts I'm doing and the 4 day split seems to be going well for recovery, etc. I'm going to drastically simplify the leg portion. Considering that the weight I used for the squat 10x10 is the same weight I was using in week 4, I'd call that minimal progression. 50 reps right before them on the Quaddie might have something to do with it, but hey, it's called progression for a reason, right?
Might take some interesting fiddling with the rest of the body parts, but for me to get to where I want to be, it's the leg workouts that drive everything, so I'll work on a way to get them worked out twice a week every week, methinks.

WEEK 7 PROGRESS:

Yay, halfway point!!!! Unfortunately, I'm still about 5 pounds of lard heavier than I wanted to be at this point, so buckling down and getting it done is the priority.

Lost a little over 2 pounds of fat this week, but lost a total of 5 pounds so that means there was some significant lbm loss as well. Looking at my "highly active" time this week, it plummeted from over 4% to less than 1% with me eschewing some of the morning walks in favor of HIIT cardio. It looks to me like I burn more muscle than fat doing it too often, so I think that'll get dropped back down to maybe 2 times a week and resuming my regular steady-state. I've got some shows to catch up on anyway, lol.

OK, on with the stats and comparison pics from start to today:

Day 49

Yesterday's cals:
In:   2110 (40% carb, 23% fat, 37% protein)
Out: 2842
26% Deficit

Ah, tomorrow's the halfway point and I'm curious how the numbers will be. Except for Tuesday, I went with more moderate deficits so we'll see how things are. Woke up weighing 203 today so we'll see where the numbers fall.

Got to use the handy little leather strap handle my teammate Nieves made for me today. Padded leather loops make it much easier to concentrate on your triceps than grabbing a rope, that's for sure! Plus it just looks cool as hell. Thanks, Nieves!!

Today's workouts:

Cardio: 60 minute walk, 3.5mph @ 3% incline

Weights: Shoulders/triceps

Bent lateral:         4x8*
Side lateral:         4x8*
cable lateral:       4x12
Front raise:         4x20,18,16,13
Rev pushdown:   4x8*
tri press:              4x12
Close Bench:      4x8**

*triple drop set
** 5 drops

Day 48:

Ooh, was a bit lax in my posting, Bad Jerrod!!!
Playing catchup:

Tuesday's cals:
 In:    0
Out: 3055
Deficit: 100%

Wednesday's cals:
In:   1843 (45% carb, 19% fat, 36% protein)
Out: 2271
Deficit: 19%

Thursday's cals:
In:    1760 (33%carb, 17% fat, 50% protein)
Out: 2762
Deficit: 36%


Workouts:

Wednesday had a bit of a groin pull that working quads was aggravating, so I aborted that one to let it heal a bit. Seems fine now.

Thursday had a KILLER chest/biceps workout.

Incline DB press:    4x10
Landmine press:     4x10
DB Flye:                 4x10
Bench                     4x20,13,18,28 (dropped weight on last 2 sets)
 BB Preacher curl:  4x8*
DB Preacher curl:  4x8*
Hi-pulley curls:      4x20

*Triple drop set at end


Today was HIIT cardio scheduled, so I did a tabata-style training circuit in it's place to give the groin a little less pounding, plus I figured some light, fast work for my upper body instead of cardio being all legs, all the time was a good thing.

All exercises were done as fast and explosive as I was able to get the heartrate in the stratosphere. Reps varied between 18-30 depending on the exercise. It worked...

40 seconds work, 40 seconds rest, 2 total circuits in 28 minutes:

Incline db press
goblet squat
pulldown
jump lunge
db row
step-up right
step-up left
db shoulder press
mountain climbers
run in place

Day 45:

Yesterday's calories

In:    1954 (40% carb, 15% fat, 45% protein)
Out: 2931
33% deficit

Today's an off-day for the weights, so I got a wild hair and decided to see if I could manage a day without food to see how it feels. So it's been about 3 oz of lemon juice, a few cups of black coffee, some unsweetened tea, and a buttload of water today. Didn't figure any HIIT cardio would be a good idea the way I was feeling, so I walked a third of a marathon on the treadmill and called it a day.
My conclusion? Fasting sucks!!!!! Whole different ballgame doing fasted cardio before breakfast. That's easy. 5-6pm? Definitely no fun. It might very well be effective, but I don't think it's something I'll be doing on a regular basis by any means. Then again, if I put on 5 pounds of muscle and drop 10 pounds of fat this week I'll reconsider, lol.

All I know is that I'm gonna sleep like a baby tonight and I'm very much looking forward to breakfast for once!

DAY 44:

Yesterday's cals:

In:   1774 (26% carb, 22% fat, 52% protein)
Out: 2941
40% Deficit

Let's see, I missed recording yesterday's workout so Sunday was Shoulders/Triceps

Cable laterals:     4x10
Side laterals:       4x20
Front raise:          4x10
Rear raise:           4x15
DB press:            4x10

1 arm Tri press:          4x10
Overhead rope press:  4x20
Skullcrusher:              4x10

Today's workout: Back/Hamstrings

Superset:
Underhand row:          4x8 Superset w/
Underhand pulldown: 4x10
Bench DB row:           4x10
Parallel grip row:        4x20

Leg curl:              4x10
hammies still beat from running, so stopped there.

WEEK 6 REPORT:

Okie-doke, one week til the halfway point and all's looking pretty good.

Went into full build mode the last two weeks and it's definitely feeling good. Not quite as low as I'd like to be as far as bodyfat percentage, but I'm seeing steady progress and I'm pretty sure I can hit the gas the last few weeks and drop it to where I want it to be after I've built up as much as I can. 1-1 1/2% a week would be awesome so if it's in that range I should be good to go!

Day 42:

Yesterday's cals:

In:    1743 (40% carb, 15% fat, 45% protein)
Out:  2441
29% deficit

Today's workout: Legs (well, quads and calves anyway...)

Leg extension: 4x8
Squat:              4x20
Quaddie:         4x7,6,6,6
Lunge:             4x15/side

Seated calf:    4x8
Standing:       4x10

Had trouble walking up the stairs for a few hours afterwards, so mission accomplished!
Check-in's tomorrow and I'm pretty sure I made some solid lbm gains this week, though I doubt I lost much if any fat due to the refeed days.

Day 41:

Yesterday's cals:

In:   3461 (34% carb, 28% fat, 38% protein)
Out: 2827
18% SURPLUS

Yes, I finally managed to have a true surplus day for the first time in the last 6 weeks, yay me!!!!
Of course, I feel like a bloated piggie, but such is the process... It's weird in a good way that I usually find it harder to not be active these days than last year when it was an effort just to get off the couch. Today's another somewhat higher day as I'll end up somewhere in the neighborhood of 1800-2000 calories leading into the weekend.

Exercise:  NONE!!!!

Yes, no cardio, no weights, no sneaking in a few sets on my big blue exercise ball, nothing!!!!!
What is this telling me? Well, first off, I still feel bloaty from yesterday. Second, I don't feel like getting up and doing anything. I don't know if it's the junk food from yesterday, the lack of exercise, the lack of a nap while I was getting some school stuff taken care of, or bad luck for Friday the 13th or whatever. I just feel poopy. And I used to do that stuff for over a decade straight? It's not an exaggeration that I started reclaiming my life during last summer's challenge.

Things I've learned from this little mini-break/reset/whatever:
Junk food makes me feel junky, period. For the occasional surplus days, I need to get my calories from better sources. The over-processed crap on the value menu tastes like slime on a bun these days.

The cheap digestive enzyme thingies from Trader Joe's work very well for me when I'm eating plenty of beef. Tried it both ways a few times, and no bloaty, just swallowed a basketball feel if I use them, and the stuff sits like a rock in my stomach for hours if I don't. Lesson learned. Also that cinnamon and ginger seem to help quite a bit with the food coma when eating grains. Doesn't eliminate it, but definitely blunts the edge. Not big on eating the ginger slices soaked in rice vinegar that my lady is so certain cures everything, but it's not the end of the world for someone who used to chew raw garlic cloves just for fun. Yeah, I'm weird. Sue me....

Hmm... Long post for a total off-day. I've got my eating modifications planned out for the next few weeks and tomorrow's back to my usual lower carb/calorie/high protein approach. This has been about as much of a refeed or reset as I can stomach (pun intended, lol)

Day 40:

Yesterday's calories

In:   1561 (17% carb, 29% fat, 54% protein)
Out: 2832
45% deficit

Today was a scheduled shoulder day, but I'm playing it cautious with it since the right one is acting a bit fidgety. Instead, I'm moving my schedule up a day with next week being a bit of a higher-rep kind of week so today is all about breaking the 3,000 calorie barrier. So far, so good. It's just before midnight and I think I made it by about 200 or so. Didn't imagine that it'd be so difficult to actually eat that much, but I'm way due for a metabolism reset. Tomorrow will be a serious leg workout, so I'm planning to hit at least 250 grams of carbs as well. Might impact my fat loss numbers for the week, but I need my burners going full-blast to hit my goals long-term.

Today's exercise was a nice 63 minute treadmill walk at a leisurely 3.5 mph and 3% incline.

I'm guessing I'll be limping around soon enough come Saturday, lol....

Day 39:

Ah, missed posting a few days, my bad! Monday was a somewhat overdo on the cardio and yesterday was spent recovering from Monday's fun little excursion and walking around on a tour of Stanford with Ellie and Dre for several hours. Forgot how much that sun and driving a few hours saps you.
Or I'm just getting old, take your pick.

Monday's calorie count:

Cals in: 1369 (32% carb, 17% fat, 51% protein)
Out:      3259
58% Deficit

64 minutes cardio in the am (3.5mph, 3% incline)
15 minute ab circuit, 30 minutes CardioX, 15 minutes HIIT, 30 minutes steady cardio (3.5mph, 0% incline)
After doing quads/calves the day before, I felt it come Tuesday big-time...

Tuesday's calories:
In:    2149 (29% carb, 17% fat, 54% protein)
Out: 3077
30% deficit

No exercise Tuesday, though I ended up burning over 3K calories with all the walking during the day. Had a pastrami sandwich and a chocolate shake that I thought would make it more of a cheat day, but the long gaps between meals didn't end up cutting it.



Okay, finally down to today's activities:

No cardio since legs are seriously needing a day to recover.

Weights: Chest/Biceps

DB Incline press:   4x8*
DB Incline Flye     4x8*
BB Bench              4x8**
Cable crossover     4x8*

BB Curl:                4x8*
Rev. cable curl:     4x8*
DB seated curl:     4x20

*drop set **ridiculous # of drop sets...

Seriously fried some parts today, in a good way!  Chest was already pretty fried from the flyes, but I went ahead and kept doing drop sets on the bench until my last set was a whopping 9 with just the bar. Total reps for that extended set was somewhere between 45-50. I'm thinking sore boobs come tomorrow evening....

Day 36:

Yesterday's cals:

In:     1771 (36% carb, 23% fat, 41% protein)
Out:   3099
43% Deficit


Today's workouts:

No cardio (I'm making myself do this. I think I'm addicted...)

Weights:  Legs

Squat        4x8
Quaddie:  4x8
Lunge      3x15

Seated calf:   6x8
Standing:      4x10

And that was enough to thoroughly wreck the wheels today!

WEEK 5 PROGRESS:

Weekly thoughts:

Well, after last week's little side-trip, I went back to my original plan and things went much much better. Lift to build, cardio and calories to burn. This week's fat loss numbers were pretty much paint-by-numbers, with a 7300 calorie deficit and just over a 2 pound fat loss. It's a bit scary how accurate those numbers have been, but I love consistency, so it's all good.

Workouts went amazingly well. There's just something about a big heavy chunk of iron in my hands, a loud drumbeat, and some blistering guitar solos that gets me going!

Changes this week: Getting back to basics, pure and simple. Bumped up the number of sets and exercises, dropped the reps to mostly in the 8 range, and changed up the bodypart pairings to work only 2 bodyparts a day spread over 4-5 days. Seems to help really hit on the parts I'm doing that day and offers better recovery in between.

Cardio changes this week were to cut my steady-state cardio down to once a day most days and add in 20 or so minutes of HIIT cardio on my off-days. I also moved my steady-state from cruising the neighborhood to my treadmill for most of it. There's something to be said for changing scenery and getting out in the sun, but there's also something about being able to maintain a constant incline and pace without worrying about a minute or two lag at every stoplight, hehe...

Diet-wise, calories were very similar to previous weeks, but I focussed a bit more on bracketing my carbs around my weight workouts. Around 70% of my daily carbs came in the hours following my workout, with most of the rest coming a few hours before. This approach seems to be helping me with the LBM gains while still losing some fat.

All that said, I was feeling pretty tired the last two days, probably from 3 days of pretty steep deficits, so I'm looking to adjust my eating to more of a 2:3 ratio of high/low days rather than the current 1:3. I believe I can make similar results this way, and it should hopefully pay some dividends down the road to keep my body from adapting too much to the high deficits I've been doing. I thinks I also relied a bit too much on the protein powder to keep my counts up at the expense of real food. I really don't like the full, bloated feeling I have sometimes after eating a good-sized meal, but I get the feeling that that's my mind going into "protect your fat-loss" mode more than anything else, as it rarely bothered me before and my progress has gone just fine with those occasional big meals. One trap I intend to avoid is doing less because I'm eating less and having it get stale. Since my body seems to like fairly frequent change, I'll do what I need to do to keep the engines roaring.

Day 35:

Yesterday's cals

In:   1552  (32% carb 15% fat 52% protein)
Out: 2935
47% Deficit

Today's workouts:

63 minute walk on treadmill (3.5mph, 2% incline)

Weights: Back/Hammies (45 sec rest between sets)

Pulley Rows:         4x8*
1 arm rows            4x15 (continuous)
BB Rows              4x8
Wide pulldowns   4x8

RDL:              4x8
Leg curls:      4x15


It's now 10:15 and I'm deciding whether I've got the energy to hop back on the treadmill with the stat day coming up tomorrow. Frankly, I'm a bit beat so I'll probably be snoozing and looking forward to tomorrow's refeed day.

Day 34:

Yesterday's cals:

In:   1552 (31% carb, 16% fat, 53% protein)
Out: 2922
47% deficit

Underate a tad bit yesterday. Need to get breakfast in sooner, but I'm really not hungry in the morning.

Today's workouts:

3.2 mile walk in the am

Weights:  Chest/biceps

Incline DB Press:     4x8*
Landmine press:      4x8
DB Bench:              4x8*
Dip:                         1x3 (Shoulder felt off, so not chancing it)

Cable curl:        4x8*
BB Curl:           4x8 (descending sets)
Incl. DB Curl:  4x8*

situp/vacuum circuit

All in all, excellent workout. Curious about how it'll feel doing back the day after biceps tomorrow, but we shall see.

Day 33:

Ah, officially a third of the way done already. Seems to have flown by!

No report yesterday due to the holiday, so I'll just continue. Today's an off-day, so that means lower carbs and two cardio sessions.

Yesterday's cals:

Cals in:    2087
Cals out: 2806
 26% Deficit

Yesterday's workouts:
3.8 mile walk in the am

Weights: Shoulders

Lateral Raise:    4x8*
Bent Raise:        4x8*
Cable lateral:     4x8
Mil Press:          4x8*

*triple drop sets



Shoulder felt a bit tweaky afterwards and it's got that dull ache saying that the bone spurs were digging into something a little, so I think that's the last of the barbell shoulder exercises for the summer. Mostly died down after icing it, etc. so we'll see how it is after tomorrow's chest and Saturday's back workouts. 

Day 31:

Yesterday's cals:

In:   1466 (17% carb 25% fat 58% protein)
Out: 3163
54% deficit


Well, as expected I slept like a baby last night! That extended HIIT cardio took a bit more out of me than I thought. Will definitely be limiting that to about 3 times a week and see how it goes.

Today's workouts:

1.8 mile walk with Ellie in the AM (took off late, had to get back for her shows. Ugh..)

Weights: Back (supposed to be hammies as well, but still sore from running, so being safe...)

Wide-grip pulldown:   4x8*
Low-pulley rows:        4x8*
1 arm DB rows:           4x8*
Deadlift:                      3x8

*Triple drop set.

Ever want a blow to your lifting ego, do deadlifts after you've already totally fried your lats and traps! My grip was gone and I had a hard time keeping everything high and tight with 2/3 of my normal poundages. But oh, the lats/traps are feeling it!!!

Day 30:

Yesterday's cals:

In:   2255 (37% carb 25% fat, 38% protein)
Out: 2593
13% Deficit


Ah, feels so good to be back to my original plan!
Yesterday's refeed went schwimmingly well. Actually nailed my 1:1 carb/protein ratio and ate right about maintenance for the day, so it's all good. One morning walk and a killer leg session has the booty, quads and calves letting me know that they're now alive and kicking. Well, maybe not kicking, since that'd be a bit painful at the moment.

Today's activity:

3.2 mile walk with Ellie in the am

15 minute ab circuit with the p90x salesman. Progressed to 15/25 reps on the ones I suck at, so it's an improvement over last week. I'll have it nailed before the competition ends for sure.

20 minute HIIT on the treadmill (one minute intervals, 3mph and 8mph) followed by 15 minutes steady-state and cooldown.

Low carb day, so I'm hoping that the bcaa/glutamine after the cardio will help me keep my muscle intact. I figure 3 days of HIIT to go with my regular workouts and walks this week and we'll see how things are come Sunday. It's barely 11:30 and I've got a nice, relaxed semi-exhaustion feel and will definitely sleep well tonight.

Back and hammies tomorrow!

WEEK 4 UPDATE:

Flying under the yellow caution flag this week.

  Ummm.... Okay. So I got this "great idea" at the end of last week to alter my routine a bit and concentrate on short, intense circuit workouts and evening out my deficits to a more consistent level to prep myself for the next phase of my summer. By day 5, I realized that I had made a huge boo-boo. I checked my measurements and found that my lbm had dropped off and all my caliper readings were higher after several days of this supposed "fat shredding" plan. I was hitting my macro counts, but there was no variety. I was working out, but the way they're arranged, as soon as I was fired up and ready to go, the workout was over.

The kicker for me was when I looked back at my workout playlist and realized that I was listening to Prince during my last weight session. PRINCE!!! Now I luvs me some Prince, but he's not exactly the most... masculine dude in the world. For someone who thrives on a workout soundtrack of heavy metal and hardcore old-school rap like me, that was about the equivalent of locking up the weights, throwing on the leg-warmers and spending the week working out to old 1970's Jane Fonda videos. It just doesn't work for me. I let my head get the better of my instincts, let myself get side-tracked, and paid the price. I'm not a cute little gazelle flitting around the meadows, sniffing flowers and eating grass. I'm a freaking ornery-ass bull who's snorting and pawing the ground waiting for the next challenger. So I damn sure need to be eating and training like one!!!!

To my teammates, I offer my apology. I waaay underperformed this week and I promise that at week 14, this will have been my least productive week. For the rest of this challenge, it's all Beast Mode, all the time...

So for a little BTF lesson from someone who should know better, let's see how this week got side-tracked, shall we? According to the deficit, I should have seen a fat drop of about 2.5 pounds, but instead lost barely 1.5. And lost a bit of LBM to boot.

2 things jump out and grab my attention: Short, high intensity, low volume workouts that were designed to burn fat rather than build muscle, and a lack of refeed anywhere in there all week. It's really that simple, I think. I reread something Tom wrote somewhere along the lines of, "when you're lifting, lift to build muscle. Worry about the burning fat part when you're doing cardio and setting your caloric deficits." I'm paraphrasing, but it's something like  that.

So two days ago I started my build phase a week and a half early. Lo and behold, the calipers started inching back in the right direction and some of the missing LBM decided to make a reappearance.I guess I'm just wired to burn when I build.

OK, rant over. I'm back on my original plan and will not be deviating from it unless something drastically happens with my feedback loop. Cheers!!