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!