Building a Better Jay

Please note: I can put a smilie in the title still because my body hasn’t started going bonkers due to the low carbs yet.  LOL! 

It has been a great week off.  The family time was priceless and the extra sleep was nice.  We headed up for a long weekend at the cabin and spent some time at a friend’s lake house, too.  I spent plenty of time fly-fishing.  I even have the sunburn and mosquito bites to prove it.  Seriously, if your life is ever stressful, you need to find a quiet river and learn to fly fish.

Back to reality.  Today is my first day back to training and I have a new plan.  I’m eating 2500 calories / day and macros are 294g PRO, 120g CHO, 90g FAT.  All of the carbs come from fruit or vegetables.  (Big change from my bulking diet where I ate oats or ww bread at nearly every meal.)  Every 3 days I get a carb-up meal which adds about 400 cals.  My training split is simple:

Mon: Chest and Abs
Tue: Back
Wed: OFF
Thurs: Shoulders
Fri: Arms and Calves
Sat: Legs and Abs
Sun: OFF

Because today was my first day back, I did chest & abs today and will do back tomorrow.  Then I’ll be back on track for the week!  FUN!!!

Yesterday I received my plan for the 17 week cut of insanity.  I’ll be starting out at 2500 cals/day with only 120g carbs and all of that from fruits & veggies.  I get a carb up day every third day, which will be nice.  It’ll be interesting to see how my body reacts to this because my bulk was rather carb filled (3x the # of carbs/day)!  I imagine I’ll lose a lot of water weight in the first week or two.  I know training is important to gain muscle, but it always seems to me that diet is just as important when you’re trying to lose fat without losing muscle.

Training starts anew on Tuesday (I’ll be out of town on Monday - fishing in the middle of nowhere).  The split is similar to what I’ve done in the past:

Day 1: Chest and Abs

Day 2: Back

Day 3: OFF

Day 4: Shoulders

Day 5: Arms and Calves

Day 6: Legs and Abs

Day 7: OFF

There is currently no HIIT in the plan and the cardio is just low intensity stuff.  That’s not a problem for me.  I am used to grinding out LI cardio for hours and hours on end.  Fun!!!

I am just curious to see what’s underneath this layer of fat and see how competition ready I am.