Haven’t updated this in a while, but to update on the last couple of weeks, I got sick a couple weeks back (basically after my last post), and while I missed only one workout as a result, my eating and rest was not very optimal and I actually didn’t track my calories most of the last week. I ended up finishing the week ok, but to be frank, I did not wrap up my 4-week pre-Christmas mini-cut on a successful note. My final measurements are below (along with change from the start):
December 23, 2023 Stats
Weight: 192.4 [- 4.2 lbs total]
Waist: 33.25” [-1.25” total]
I’ll log all the workouts I had at the end of this post, but first, observations on the last 4 weeks.
Stuff that didn’t go well:
- 4 weeks wasn’t a lot of time to lose 12lbs (I wanted to go from 197 down to 185lbs), and I think I may have underestimated the difficulty of losing 3-4lbs a week at this point. Seems like it won’t be as easy to do that as when I was above 220lbs.
- On week 2 I didn’t have a good enough caloric deficit and ended up not losing any weight. And with only 4 weeks, losing a week made things tough.
- Getting sick did not help, although I made the best of this with respect to still making it to the gym, I did let my eating slip a couple of days in that last week.
- I did not add regular cardio in fast enough. I should have been doing bike sessions from week 1. While I liked those bonus light lifting days that I would do on Mondays and Fridays, they didn’t burn enough calories, and I was using them as an excuse to skip the bike some days. I don’t think cardio is necessary if you are trying to lose bodyfat, but if you are giving yourself a short timeframe like 4 weeks, it becomes much harder to skip unless you want to lower calories a lot.
- December was not a good month to try something like this.
Stuff that did go well:
- My strength overall went up despite losing a few lbs. I consistently hit PRs on lifts throughout
- I didn’t lose more than a workout when I got sick. This is much better than before when I would sometimes miss several days and even more than a week at the gym when sick.
- Weeks 1 and 2 were good from a recomp perspective even if the weight loss wasn’t great. I looked better in my pics than the small weight loss would make one think.
Next Steps:
- I took a short break from the gym from Dec 23-26 (and gained a couple of lbs from Christmas eating), but I’m back now and I’m going to keep at this until the end of January.
- For the rest of December, the plan is to simply not gain any weight, but no tracking food intake. I’m confident I can manage that as I did that all summer basically and lost weight while doing that. From December 27-31, I want to hit weights and cardio on the exercise bike every single day. So far I’ve done that for 2 days, 3 more to go. I’ll log my workouts, weight, etc again.
- For January, I won’t stress the 185lbs goal even though I’d like to hit that weight. I’ll track calories and macros, hit weights and cardio consistently (especially cardio – I’m consistent with weights already), and try lose at least 2lbs a week with proportional drops in my waist measurement (maybe 0.5” a week?). Any more is a bonus.
- I’m confident January will be a much easier month to hunker down and eat clean, and train a ton. It’s a pretty dead month socially for me. The only thing that might be harder is that we are working in the office an additional day a week starting in Jan (previously I was working from home 4 days a week) but that won’t be a big deal.
- Whatever I end up at the end of January, I’ll still shift my training focus away from fat loss after that. Wherever I end up is where I end up. I want to focus on strength and cardio after that without the stress of trying to lose weight as well.
Workouts from December 14-22:
December 16, 2023: Upper Body
Lat Pulldowns – 130x10, 150x6, 180x9,7, 165x9
Chest Supported Rows – 45x8, 90x6, 135x8,6
Incline DB Bench Press – 45x8, 70x6, 95x5
Seated DB Shoulder Press – 50x6, 75x10,6
Cable Reverse Flyes – 20x8, 30x6,6
Cable Lateral Raises – 10x8, 20x8,6
December 18, 2023: Lower Body
Seated Leg Curls – 130x10, 180x6, 230x8,6, 205x10
Leg Press – 270x6, 360x6, 450x5, 540x10,7 [rep PR]
Standing Calf Raise Machine – 300x20, 400x21,18
RDLs – 45x10, 135x6, 185x6, 225x6, 275x8,6
Leg Extensions – 160x8, 210x8, 250x6, 310x6
Captain’s Chair Leg Raises – 20,20,20,10,20 (long break before the 5th set)
December 19, 2023: Upper Body
Chest Supported Rows – 45x10, 90x6, 135x9,6
Lat Pulldowns – 120x8, 150x5, 180x6,5, 165x6
Incline DB Bench Press – 45x10, 70x6, 95x8 [rep PR],3
Seated DB Shoulder Press – 50x6, 75x8,6
Cable EZ Bar Pushdowns – 50x10, 75x10, 100x6,5
Cable EZ Bar Pullovers – 50x8, 60x6, 70x11,7 [rep PR]
Cable EZ Bar Curls – 40x10, 60x8, 80x6,5
Cable Reverse Flyes – 20x10, 30x10,5
Cable Lateral Raises – 12.5x10, 22.5x6
December 21, 2023: Lower Body
Seated Leg Curls – 130x10, 180x6, 230x8,6, 210x10
Leg Press – 270x6, 360x6, 450x5, 550x11,7 [weight PR]
Standing Calf Raise Machine – 300x20, 400x20,15
RDLs – 45x10, 135x6, 185x6, 225x6, 275x10,7 [rep PR]
Leg Extensions – 160x8, 210x8, 250x6, 310x7,5
Captain’s Chair Leg Raises – 20,20,15,13,13
December 22, 2023: Upper Body
Chest Supported Rows – 45x10, 90x8, 135x6,5
Incline DB Bench Press – 45x10, 70x6, 95x5,4
Seated DB Shoulder Press – 50x6, 75x8,7
Cable EZ Bar Pushdowns – 50x10, 75x8, 100x5, 90x9
Lat Pulldowns – 120x10, 150x6, 180x8,5, 165x8
Cable Rope Curls – 40x10, 55x6, 70x12,11
Cable Reverse Flyes – 20x10, 30x8,5
Cable Lateral Raises – 10x10, 20x6
.