In the runnings for best maintenance phase winner if nothing else
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I wish this was a category. LOL
I am pretty sure I will finish at exactly the same weight with maybe a slight recomp (if I am lucky)
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A couple weeks left! How are we bringing it home? Who’s got big plans or wants to foreshadow a big reveal?
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Dude, i wish.
Lots went right for me this year, but not really any progress around the midsection. Just haven’t been able to prioritize it.
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No big reveal here. Hopefully I can burn through a little of fluff over the next 2 weeks and at least show some minor recomp. More importantly I am feeling great and training is in a good place right now.
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I was on a pretty good track gaining, like I set out to do. Up a little over 10 pounds from January.
But I also wanted to be leaner for a thing in June. Not exactly sure what the tipping point was (probably all the dieting methodology conversations in here), but a few weeks ago I switched directions.
I started out with a pure V-diet approach, then read Lyle McDonald’s Rapid Fat Loss and made a few substitutions here and there, and made some further changes around energy levels and performance, and now I’m somewhere in a hybrid V-diet/RFL/carb-cycling thing. Seems to be hitting the right balance of “real life eating”, recovery, muscle building, and leaning myself up.
The most significant thing I got out of all this is making sure I have protein/amino-acids in my blood stream all the time. Is it necessary? Probably not. Some of the intermittent fasting stuff suggests not. But it also seems to be a pattern you see with a lot of successful lifters. I finally crossed that line to use a strategic mix of shakes AND food to do that.
Other things to revisit from earlier in the thread. Switching to the V-diet with the fish oil and curcumin has actually made my joints feel a lot better. Is it the fish oil? Is it the curcumin? Is it the increased protein? Is it that something else got eliminated? I don’t know. But it’s definitely helped with some chronic connective tissue stuff at my knees and shoulders.
I’m still not quite as lean as I want to be, yet, but should be by photo time.
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Still stuck at 126 but the weekend was total chaos so I guess that’s a good thing.
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Basically at goal weight and hit a big rep PR yesterday
Deadlift 255 for a set of 11
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Loving this for you, Anna! Congratulations!
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Lots of awesome stuff going on! Potential winners all over the place!
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Context is so key on this. So much of the information regarding the benefits of intermittent fasting is speaking to the benefits as it relates to the AVERAGE person. Well, yeah: the average person is very sick. The baseline population is not a healthy population. Literally ANY dietary intervention is going to benefit the average person. It’s why “The Twinkie Diet” worked: at least the guy was controlling portions. So yeah, an average person isn’t going to need a steady stream of protein while fasting in order to still obtain the benefits of a fast: just the act of fasting is enough.
But you take an athlete, someone actually concerned with building or keeping muscle? Yeah, for them, long periods without protein probably aren’t great. Dr. Kevin Stock has talked about this, as have a few others, and it’s why a protein sparing modified fast, like your approach, tends to be far more viable of a fasting strategy. When we consider that a ketogenic diet is considered a “fasting mimicking diet” and how a PSMF fulfills a similar role, one SHOULD be able to receive the benefits of fasting while ALSO sparing muscle during the period of eating restriction.
I came to a similar conclusion as you. I tried traditional fasting, and it was pretty underwhelming.
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Yeah it’s nice for a “diet reset” but i don’t see benefit long term for muscle building. In fact i would think it would be detrimental to muscle building as you are catabolic for extended periods.
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Brag away girl, its really motivating to hear how positive you are finding your training and how much you are loving the results. Quality
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@EmilyQ finding new muscles daily is my new crackup.
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Holy crap, I’ve been meaning to respond to this for 16 days! Time flies!
Honestly eating has gone on the back burner because of how much I’ve been eating. Almost like a intuitive feast/famine. Pretty much stripped back to protein shakes and 2 big meals a day during this week (finals week). I’m getting lean again and walking around at roughly ~185 still while making progress on lifts, which is awesome progress considering last years starting point.
I did get featured in the event announcement for my gyms next comp (pic taken a day before the pic above)
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This is just awesome. Well done
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I’ve been weighing in over 202lb in the morning, for the past few weeks, so that’s roughly 7lbs up from the start and I’m actually seeming to be getting leaner… With close to 400g of protein a day. I’m thinking I can still make some slight improvements from this point by the end of May.
No matter what, I’m super happy with my consistency in both lifting and diet lately.
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I look better this way than i look mostly naken in front of a mirror right now, so here’s a non-progress pic:
Taken around rep 151 of 160 deadlifts in a session.
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Looking great mate, just get a spray tan before your final pics 
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