Long-Term (Powda's Homecoming)

Training Bodybuilding
1

What’s up T-Mag forumites?

It’s almost time for me to become a professional student once again. This means that I can go back to lifting and eating as usual with the added benefit of being more disciplined. So stemming from this I just recently read LL’s Yo-Yo diet article and Chris’s FFB handbook. Couple this with me being a vet on this forum and having read most of the nutritional articles on the site and I think it’s time that I grow up and create some long-term goals and eradicate my bad dietary habits consisting of rapid dietary and weight fluctuations.

So, I’m formulating atleast a 10 weeks plan here; and depending on how it goes (this is sort of an experiment) and whether or not I have to adjust it, I will decide what to do afterwads.

So being that I’m in a rather lean state at the moment I would of course like to stay like this. I look and feel great; even at only 190lbs I look much larger b/c my waist is that much smaller and everything else is more pronoucned. But based off of Shugs FFB handbook I think I want to enter a leaner state before I start a “bulk.” Though in this case it will not be a typical bulk; but I’ll get to that.

As Shugs stated when you lose weight your adipocyte cells shrink; but they do not lessen in number. Sadly though; as the fat cells become smaller they become more insulin sensitive by having an increased number of receptors on the surface of the cell (I think; I’d have to check my lecture notes to precisely verify this). This is not a good thing. Through all my years of going up and down (I’ve fluctuated 40lbs the last 2 years and generally around 20 in the years before that) I haven’t made a ton of progress.

Granted I do look better than my original “Softer Side” photos, and I credit much of the transition to CW’s programs, but I should be larger than I am based on how much I’ve read and how many years I’ve lifted.

So learning from my mistakes in the past I am going to focus on long-term cycles now.

Here goes:

My first week back in AZ I’m not doing anything note-worthy. I’m going to catch up my friends and enjoy myself. This will probably involve alcohol so it’s a hard foot to start off on. I’ll just mainly focus on calories this week and keep them in check.

Weeks 1 and 2 - Velocity Diet

Week 3 - 3200 kcals

Week 4 - 3300kcals

Week 5 - 3400 kcals

Week 6 - 3500 kcals

Week 7 - 3600 kcals

Week 8 - 3700 Kcals

Week 9 - 3800 Kcals

Week 10 - 3900 Kcals

Week 11 - 4000 Kcals

For these weeks I’ll be maintainig Berardi/Massive Eating Principles. I’ll do one cheat meal at Sweet Tomatoes per week. If I choose to party, aka be a college student I’ll just plan ahead and factor in the calories and for once just not obsess that OH MY GOD! My testosterone levels are plummeting! The world is ending and Scientologists will soon run T-Nation! AHHHH!

After this I’m going to evaluate myself. If I’m gaining too much fat at this point I’m going to reverse the cycle and add HOT-ROX in (with the 100 kcal/week drop).

If things are going well I might continue on this cycle; once again I need to evaluate it and see how it goes. I just know that when I bump my calories directly up to Massive Eating levels that I gain a significant amount of fat.

Further I’m going to perform more cardio and active activies than before. Probably some HIIT and some slow jogs b/c I love the way I feel now and I wish to stay this way. Biking back and forth to school (7 miles/day) has just not been enough.

Also I just might let Foopa loose once a week and chase her around Tempe as a substitute for CT’s Running Man. On the other hand…Nahhhhhh; she’s too fast.

You might be wondering why I’m choosing to do the VD upon returning. It’s a simple reason actually; I want to be really really ripped or lean to give myself more of a cushion (hahah the antithesis of being lean) in case I gain weight too rapidly. This way that even if I gain a little bit of fat I’ll still be in a state I’m happy to be in. It’s similar to the old Anabolic Diet; if your body fat went over 10% (no longer able to see your abs) go back to cutting.

Thus I want a larger margin of error. Instead of starting at 13-16 and bulking up to 20 or so I’ll start at 6-8 and not go above 10% or so.

2

If this is really your plan you would do well to buy Berardi’s DVD set.

You can take M before a night of drinking and, at the VERY least it will ease your mind of the estrogenic effects of alcohol.

3

I’m curious what sort of calories you normally require to gain (will put your outlined plan into perspective)

And just a thought… if your gaining weight faster then you like cut the cheat meal, or at least adjust it and that days calories so its not such a cheat.

4

[quote]RIT Jared wrote:
If this is really your plan you would do well to buy Berardi’s DVD set.

You can take M before a night of drinking and, at the VERY least it will ease your mind of the estrogenic effects of alcohol.[/quote]

I already have Berardi’s DVD. I have not gotten around to finishing it yet. But a few emails back and forth with him along with reading his articles has given me the idea for the most part.

As far as M; it’s probably a great product but I’ve never tried it and I’d like to see an actual study with quantitative data before I invest money in it.

5

[quote]JNeves wrote:
I’m curious what sort of calories you normally require to gain (will put your outlined plan into perspective)

And just a thought… if your gaining weight faster then you like cut the cheat meal, or at least adjust it and that days calories so its not such a cheat.[/quote]

I gained weight rapidly the first time for a few reasons:

  1. Creatine and being a vegetarian
  2. Jumping from under 3k calories to about 4500 and eating too many high GI carbs; e.g. too much yogurt and not enough fruit or veggies.
  3. Not enough cardio or activity other than biking to school and walking around.
  4. 1-Ad threw 15lbs of water weight on me which came off as soon as I stopped taking it.

As for calories; when I was over 220 or so I found that eating 3200/day correlated to 1-2 of lost weight per week. When I was 198 I found that 2800/day and then dropping it 200 per week correlated to a CONSISTENT weight loss of 2lbs/week while taking HOT-ROX.

Also based on lab data my RMR is about 180kcal/hour when I was 217lbs but I was slightly nervous during the test and had an elevated heart rate (it’s normally high 60s to low 70’s and it was high 70s to low 80s). So I think that at my current weight something around 3200kcal/day is my critical point (guesstimate since I weigh around 190 or so now).

So once again this is a slight experiment to incorporate more Beradish principles and less yo-yo dieting. I’m sure I’ll have to modify it as I go; this is just an outline.

6

Powda, I’m not sure qualify as an FFB, unless you are talking 40lbs of fat loss.

None of your pictures on here, in my recollection, have been all that large from a fatness sense?

7

[quote]vroom wrote:
Powda, I’m not sure qualify as an FFB, unless you are talking 40lbs of fat loss.

None of your pictures on here, in my recollection, have been all that large from a fatness sense?[/quote]

I’ve been up to maybe 20% bodyfat at my heaviest, I think I was even too embarrassed to post those pictures. Before I injured my wrist in Feb I was up to about 228 and almost a 40.5 waist (37 belt). So I’ve never been “fat” but my body type has always just been big; not lean. But I fluctuate weight very easily. I used to fluctuate 15lbs a week back in senior year of high school b/c I could not decided if I wanted to bulk or cut.

There was actually one month in HS that really messed me up. I came back after making myself really lean. I had moved to AZ when I was 16 weighing around 190lbs and was just big; nothing overly muscular b/c I hadn’t worked out much before other than a bench in my basement. I could bench 200lbs or so but that was it. So after sports; dieting; caddying that summer I was down to 158 at my lightest but stabilized to 160 or so. I remember how proud I was of myself back then. The horror! I used to make excuses just to whip my shirt off b/c it was the first time in my life I could feel my abs or see the upper two. It was like Peek-a-boo! Say hi to my little friends; the one on the left is named rectus and the one on the right is named abdominus. How things change…but I digress. Anyways I came back and started wrestling again and they needed a guy for the 215 class so I bulked up almost 40lbs in a month between creatine and FOOD FOOD FOOD. Not to mention I actually cut for one week in this period b/c I felt I was getting too heavy. For years after that I never quite lost the fact I accumulated in that cylce.

But overall the moral of this is that I can gain or lose weight very fast if I don’t watch it and I want to break this habit. Shit; I should’ve just written this paragraph and deleted all the rest.