This month…
W: 206
BF% approx. 25.3% (still getting variances with this handheld, but this is an average)
This is about a two pound gain of muscle and a two pound loss of fat difference from last month. Not much, but the low change is on me. It’s been an interesting month with lessons learned.
After the first week, I was exacly the same weight. I got frustrated, so I went into a carb reduction the next week where I had about a max of 40-50g of carbs a day. I lost about a pound the next week (maybe more, as I only checked the scale difference) and thought I was on to something. This also made me feel justified to go beyond the six hours for the cheat meal…I thought I could make up for it later in the week. Probably not a good idea.
I started the same thing the next week, and then got sick, and then had my first non-Saturday cheat night as my willpower goes out the window when I am sick. I had stopped the 5-HTP about a week before because my discipline had been so good…loooks like I still need it, so I’ll be taking that for a while to come. It’s cheap anyway. The past couple of weeks were damage control and I’m probably lucky to have any bf% reduction at all.
So some lessons learned…don’t stray too far from the plan. Keep 5-HTP going for an indefinite time. And pay attention to each meal. I was more concerned at first with reaching the numbers at the end of the day…this made some meals too big and others too small. I will try to manage each meal a little better.
I’ve also changed the workout. The oly moves are great but as I started to add weight, I questioned my technique. I don’t have a mirror and I have never been coached on these, so I decided that I have enough injuries and will save these for another day (plus the t-mag article a couple of weeks ago helped convince me). I’m doing one of the EDT for fat loss workouts now and I love it. I’m also mixing in some HIIT-type of cardio as it seems you can get more bang for the buck.
I also have to work on some muscle groups to strenghten the core exercises. My squats and bench are not good, because of weak hams and tris. I know what exercises will strenghten them, but the tris are having trouble. Specifically, my elbows…seems like my tendons are sliding all over the place and all the tri exercises I do seems to be a strain. I’ll have to figure that out, as I can bench much easier with elbows out still.
Tough lessons learned, but I knew I would be in this for the long haul. I planned on taking the entire year for fat loss…now it’s time to make adjustments for all I’ve learned this month to make next month better.