Oh Snap! Onefive got fat!

[Onefiver]

Just booked a spring break cruise with the brood. A last minute sorta deal.

Between fall travel and the holidays, I was cruising in maintenance mode for a while. The diet waned over the holidays and the gym has tapered off hard since right before Christmas break. Got hit with the flu hard last week, too. So, I am looking pretty chubby and starting to feel flat and weak (I swear I can feel the atrophy over the last few days in my arms, chest, shoulders and legs).

My plan was to take a few weeks and get some strength and muscle back then start shedding fat, but I am out of time for that. 32 days and counting... ugh. Trim down now, deal with the rest upon return.

I am going to take the next several days and set some baseline weights/reps for a resistance programme I will follow here. The sole purpose of the resistance programme will be to maintain muscle while cutting in the extreme, so I will do a fair mix of free weights and machines. It won't be unlike a generic full body bb'ing routine. Not looking to gain strength, add weight, add reps or accomplish anything else. Maintain all or as much muscle as possible whilst in a severe caloric deficit. That's it. The metric will be whether or not I am able to keep the loads and/or reps pretty much inline with the baseline I am establishing over the next few days - the best indicators of whether or not I am losing muscle I have available to me.

Starting place:

6'1"

~ 200lbs (199.6 this AM, to be exact)

My favorite 33/34 jeans still fit comfortably. But they are a bit more generous of a cut than some of my other pants. 34/34 is probably more realistic. Not to mention, I carry most of my fat above in the love handles and around to the navel area and I don't wear my jeans like Erkle, so this isn't the best thing to use. Right before I start cutting (in 5-7 days), I will measure at the widest part of the ab region and use that as a guide (really, that's the only fat I care about at this point...I know that's not how this works, but I need something to measure! ).

Having done this before, a realistic goal would be a hydrated 190ish with a 2"-3" drop in love handle circumference.

More details to follow. Right up front, though, this will be a sprint and not a lifestyle change or something that I, or anyone, can/should maintain over a long period of time.

 

[Onefiver]

And I just had a Wendy's double cheese to kick this off. No mayo though. Moderation, serenity. Like Aristotle and ish.

 

[Onefiver]

Hit the gym the other day. Still packed with resolutioners. This will be challenging - I need to figure out how to hit it off-hours. Anyway, I dropped my normal weights by 5-10lbs and that was about right. I felt pretty good, but the conditioning just wasn't there after the first set. I'll get another one in and use the results there as my baseline.

Once I get going, the daily plan will be as follows:

200g protein over 4 feedings (lean: tuna, chicken, egg whites, scallops, etc -- protein powders will only be used with the egg whites on occasion (casein) and maybe a scoop of wpi postworkout)
10 fish oil caps
1 multi-vitamin
3-5g supplemental sodium
1g potassium
500mg magnesium
1g calcium

A fairly decent amount of non-starchy, fibrous veggies (spinach, broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower, etc.). Not measuring this per se, the equivalent of about 1 maybe 2 servings per meal.

I will be tracking the macros only from the protein sources and will be aiming to keep total calories from them ~1000 cals. I am not going to bother counting the veggies or fish oil every day - those are locked in.


One reefed per week during a postworkout window of about 5hrs where I will consume copious amounts of low fat, lower sugar carb sources.

One optional cheat meal per week. Nothing overboard - perhaps the equivalent of a normal quasi-sensible meal at a sit down chain restaurant. On such a short run, I likely won't use this but with work and such, I might have to help entertain folks and the like (likely at least one time in the next few weeks).


Full body resistance training: 3-5 days. Low volume, high intensity. No substantial cardio.

Supplements: other than the above, haven't decided yet. I will need some stims for sure. I've done this before and I know that much...

To revise the first post, I overshot the lovehandle circumference change. After looking at the results from last time, ~1.5" is about what to expect. I'd like more, but over such a short time, it be what it be.

 

[Onefiver]

testing 1, 2, 3, 4

 

[Fro Joe]

Have you considered an IF eating schedule? I've been very satisfied with my results.

 

[Ferrari1]

why so much fish oil?

 

[Onefiver]

I've tried it before. I do fine until it is time to actually eat and then I am ravenous. Once I opened the gate, I was insatiable and felt starving despite eating a lot over a relatively short period of time.

 

[Fro Joe]

I've tried it before. I do fine until it is time to actually eat and then I am ravenous. Once I opened the gate, I was insatiable and felt starving despite eating a lot over a relatively short period of time.

Have you tried a shorter eating window than the traditional 16/8 like 20/4 or 19/5?

 

[Onefiver]

why so much fish oil?

Your body gets saturated with at least one of the EFAs (forget which one or if more than one) with about 10 of your average fish oil caps. I want to be maxed out during this period and get the full benefit of all the magical things fish oil does.

 

[Onefiver]

Have you tried a shorter eating window than the traditional 16/8 like 20/4 or 19/5?

No, I haven't. To be fair, I could have probably picked better food choices such that I had a larger volume of stuff to digest. But I thought the whole fun of IF was to be able to have a burger and that sort of thing.

 

[Dirt27]

More interested in where your cruise is going, I know you are knowledgable enough on the subject to achieve your results!

Btw, still need to send you those studies/that study on the macro intakes for the distance runners, never think about it while I'm on the laptop.

 

[Onefiver]

Hit the gym this past weekend and I have general idea of where I will be with loads.

I have an old groin/hip injury from a few years ago that's flared up pretty bad. It's basically been with me ever since the injury. I have been to a doc, an ortho, a chiro and 2 rehab joints with marginal improvement. Long story. Anyway, I'm going to have to work around this during this period.

Diet starts today - I'll summarize macros here with maybe a sample of what I eat for a day or two.
Starting weight: 200.2 lbs
Couldn't find the tape measure, but this is likely the blubberiest I have been in a while. I'm up to the next hole in my belt, so there's that...

Just to clarify, the gym will be 1x every 3-5 days.

 

[Onefiver]

More interested in where your cruise is going, I know you are knowledgable enough on the subject to achieve your results!

We stop at Cozumel and another spot in Mexico. Starts with a P, I think. Wife is handling the specifics - I just pay and am told when to show up.

I just learned the average temps around this time of year is in the 70s, so I am a little disappointed. While it would be perfect weather to visit some ruins, I am a little uneasy taking the kids that far inland or that far from the dock.

 

[Onefiver]

1065 cals
204 pro
15 fat
18 carb

Foods:
Bag of chicken fajitas meat
Package Hormel flame seared turkey
Grilled chicken breast
1lb egg whites
2x Kroger carbmaster yoghurts
1 can of tuna - chunk white
2 salads

Condiments:
Walden Farms Balsamic (cal free)
Walden Farms Pancake Syrup (cal free)
Tsp wasabi

A tad hungry at the end of the day, but today was pretty easy all things considered. No major pangs or wooziness. Still early though...

 

[Onefiver]

1/2 through today and it has been a breeze so far. I was a little lightheaded before my first feeding at 1:00 PM, but even that wasn't bad. I forced the second feeding down.

Plan on hitting the gym tomorrow, which will likely make the next day or two pretty miserable with hunger.

 

[Onefiver]

1070 cals
202 pro
13 fat
27 carb

Powerful Yogurt
1x can tuna
Hormel Flame Seared Turkey
2x carbmaster yogurts
1lb egg whites
2 scoops casein

Buncha cole slaw made with Walden Farms sauce.

I did this in 3 meals. Generally felt fine all day. Carbs were a littler higher than I am aiming for here, but that is a result of eating the Powerful yogurt before it went bad.

Slept like crap - 3 hours but generally feel fine. I'd like to hit the gym today after a nap, but I got a lot of other stuff going on so it will be tough. I will likely get a L-dopa based supp to help with sleep as this tends to be an issue for me in general and especially on a crash diet like this and the velvet bean extracted stuff seems to help. I've built up quite a tolerance to phenibut or I'd get on that, too.

I seem to be retaining water - feel bloated. Drinking a lot, peeing a lot. No scale change despite no carbs. I kind of expect at least some water loss with no carbs to this point.

 

[Dirt27]

We stop at Cozumel and another spot in Mexico. Starts with a P, I think. Wife is handling the specifics - I just pay and am told when to show up.

I just learned the average temps around this time of year is in the 70s, so I am a little disappointed. While it would be perfect weather to visit some ruins, I am a little uneasy taking the kids that far inland or that far from the dock.

Understand your concern with taking the kids too far inland. If you were still interested in visiting the ruins, take a cruise sponsered trip only. They would not do the trip if there were extra risks involved, in fact at one point when the danger level was high, I believe they stopped doing the ruins excursions.

Anyway, here is one of the research articles I told you about:

Beis, Lukas Y., Willkomm, Lena, Ross, Ramzy, Bekele, Zeru, Wolde, Bezabhe, Fudge, Barry and Pitsiladis, Yannis P. (2011). Food and macronutrient intake of elite Ethiopian distance runners. Beis et al. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 8:7

My paper/presentation was on Nutrition of Athletes in Different Sports. If you are interested in the PPT or paper just send me your email.

Have a great time cruising...I'm jealous! (Where are you cruising out of?)

 

[Onefiver]

Hit the gym after a 45min nap and did fine. Was actually stronger this session than my prior session. I'll type in the workout when I get back near my "workout log."

FWIW, my pre-workout was a scoop of OG Noxipro, Hemavol, 1 tab of OG StimForce (1 scoop Noxipro isn't cutting it and these tabs are looking nasty so I am trying to finish them off), 5g dextrose. Looks a little ridiculous...basically finishing stuff I bought to try or got on clearance. I will say I am enamored with DMAA and GPLC/PLCAR. I sipped another 20g of dextrose + bcaas during training - I am prone to going hypo whilst working out and am even more concerned about that whilst eating like this.

I had 2 beers last night - work/social thing. This will count as my cheat meal for the week. Otherwise, I stayed on track.

Slept like crap. I know I said I was going to avoid phenibut, but took 1g last night anyway. Plus, some "hgh boosting/releasing" supp I got because it has L-dopa in it. Still only got about 5hrs. Despite the crappy sleep, I have felt really good the last two days. While I like my carbs, I might actually be one of those people that does really well on a low-carb plan long term. Still, I might try some Benadryl or something - crash diet, bad sleep, kids bringing home the winter black plague from school, etc. could catch up to me.

 

[Onefiver]

Understand your concern with taking the kids too far inland. If you were still interested in visiting the ruins, take a cruise sponsered trip only. They would not do the trip if there were extra risks involved, in fact at one point when the danger level was high, I believe they stopped doing the ruins excursions.

Anyway, here is one of the research articles I told you about:

Beis, Lukas Y., Willkomm, Lena, Ross, Ramzy, Bekele, Zeru, Wolde, Bezabhe, Fudge, Barry and Pitsiladis, Yannis P. (2011). Food and macronutrient intake of elite Ethiopian distance runners. Beis et al. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 8:7

My paper/presentation was on Nutrition of Athletes in Different Sports. If you are interested in the PPT or paper just send me your email.

Have a great time cruising...I'm jealous! (Where are you cruising out of?)

They're pretty young, so I don't know how much they'd dig it anyway. Seems like there are some closer to our second stop that also has some beach time, so we might do that. Not sure yet. Tangentially, I heard you can't climb the pyramid at Chichen Itza anymore, so at least I got to do that before they shut it down.

Thanks for the paper. I came across an interesting one the other day but I can't find the full paper for free online. If I remember, I will dig it up

Cruisin outta N'awlins

 

[Onefiver]

Catching up here. Still hovering around 1050ish cals from protein sources. I haven't been particularly good at eating veggies with every feeding, but I do ~1lbs of salad per day. Staying regular for the most part. Also, have not been good about the salt and from past experience, I know that can really make this deal really miserable. Gotta work on those two things moving forward.

Forgot to mention, found my tape measure a day or two in: ~37" at the widest part. I will measure tomorrow AM. I look leaner, but am about the same on the scale. Maybe slightly flatter, but not too much. Weird. While I have not been good with supplementing the salt, I am eating a fair amount of packaged chicken and caned tuna so maybe that sodium from that as well as my creatine are keeping me hydrated. Will be interesting to see what tomorrow AM shows...

I added Reduce XT earlier this week. I've always responded well to one of the ingredients. Also, I will be adding a topical from a buddy starting today - love handle area only.

I lift tomorrow and refeed after. I will be aiming for 440g of carbs in 5-6 hours after the workout (sugar capped at 100g total) and keeping fat low on the day (ie ~50g).

Starting to have more instances of low grade hunger as the week went on. Tolerable, but being more faithful about the roughage will help.

 

[Onefiver]

199.2. (-1.0)
36.5" (-0.5)

 

[Onefiver]

Measurements the same this AM, though l would say I looked a tad puffy (water). So the reefed was at least not counterproductive. Strangely, I don't appear to be getting majorly depleted over the course of the week. Some people can have 10lbs swings when going from low-carb to a reefed. That doesn't seem to happen to me. Anyway, I stopped at 400g carbs postworkout rather than 440g - I didn't want to push it considering only 1lbs difference over the week....you know, because those 40g would have made the biggest difference in the world. Slept like a baby and feel warm and fuzzy today. Carbs-insulin-tryptophan-serotonin...feels good.

Left my workout log at home, but I've not lost a rep and even gained a few. The latter is to be expected, to some degree, as I am recapturing what I had lost when I got lazy over late Dec-Jan. The work around I have for my groin has me feeling rather well, so that's another plus.

 

[Onefiver]

Here's my reefed. Consumed over 5 hours post workout. I pretty much felt stuffed the entire time. Ideally, I'd move the protein load from the scallops to earlier in the day so I wouldn't feel so stuffed, but it just wasn't possible with the kids' schedules. But the scallops did pair fairly well with the beer, so.... And enjoying some things in life is far better than being a pedant about likely inconsequential things.

1 scoop WPI
12 oz sea scallops (baked in wine, lemon juice, garlic, onion, salt, black pepper)
1 cup vanilla carbmaster milk

4pkg Kellogg Pastry Crips
2 Pop-Tarts
7 min-bagels
2 bowls Special K
5 dark chocolate dipped pretzel crips
5 pretzel sticks
1 beer (Lagunitas Sucks)

 

[Onefiver]

Diet waned a tad - kids b-day. Basically 100 cals over normal. Light selection at restaurant - tilapia and shrimp. No cake or anything like that - stayed strong!

Have to entertain for drinks tomorrow - work related. Already had my cheat this week, though. Diet will stay on point but for 2 beers tops. Also, I'll try to sneak a lunch workout in....

 

[Onefiver]

195.2
36-1/8"

Feels like Christmas today - carb up day!

 

[Onefiver]

Post carb-up:

196.4
36-1/8"

Didn't do the big protein load in the midst of the reefed and it worked out much better. The boost in weight is generally to be expected, but not all that normal for me. Definitely looking a little watery today.

 

[Onefiver]

Here's my last workout. I have been following it for the most part throughout. Order may change based on availability of equipment. Also, slight modifications if I switch gym locations as they are not identical wrt what is available.

Work sets only

One Legged Squat (or lunge...on a hack machine as I am trying to protect the groin):
280x8
280x6

Glute machine
190x10

Leg Curl:
120x10

DB shoulder press:
70x6
70x5
(the other gym has 75s which I use but my "home" gym does not)

Hammer Row:
210x7
210x7
(all of my gym locations top out at 100lb dbs, so I had to switch to this)

Chest Fly machine:
135x10
180x9

Cable abs:
70x11
70x8

Back ext.
165x10
165x9
(this and/or the squat/lunge have really helped whatever was causing the groin issue - still not 100% but significantly better)

Tri ext
120x11

Bi curls
120x8

Calf raise
300x12

For the most part, I have not lost a rep yet and haven't dropped the load down on anything yet. My left delt was tweaky yesterday so I didn't push it too hard and stopped a few reps short on the presses - slept on it funny (gaggle of kids decided to hop in bed Sat night...) and woke up with it achy.

 

[Onefiver]

Cheat meal last night. I overdid it a little...to put it lightly. I woke up this morning looking puffy and weighed myself - 197.4. Granted a lot of that is water and I wasn't completely voided (ie last night's cheeseburger, few fries and protein bar are still in the ol' colon).

Measured love handle circumference: less than 36". Whew... And comfortably into the next hole on my belt. I am probably not going to get under 35" as hoped - only 8 days to go. I'll take 35.5" or less and be happy.

I was super cold most of the day yesterday. Slept warm last night and am warmer today. That meal might have been just what I needed bring my metabolism back up a little.

Gym tonight.

 

[Onefiver]

193.4
35-9/16"

Training and carb-up today

 

[Onefiver]

Workout was essentially the same as above. Haven't lost a rep or had to drop the load. If anything anything, I have gained a little here and there. Wore a L sized shirt to the gym and my love handles weren't pushing it out...

But I showed my oldest my abs and they were impressed but then said I needed to put more of that "fat lotion" on my right love handle. Always the critic.