Its Summer, I’m Cutting

Well I’m still at it, I’m pretty close to two months of cutting now.  I hit a bit of a wall last week and had to take 4 days off from training in a row, I also changed up my diet a bit and incorporated more carbs for those days (I have not been taking any cheat days or cheat meals).  I started exhibiting all the signs of some one in an overtrained state - tired all day, not wanting to train, depressed, and generally unfocused.  The break helped me feel better and I’m back at it again.  I am not sure that I will be able to see my abs by the end of August as I had previously calculated, I may be looking at the end of september at this point, it’s hard to tell.  I am making very nice progress though, dont get me wrong, it has just been a tedious process for me.  My body seems to have a set point of about 15% or so BF that it likes to stay at.  I have dipped to about 195, and it seems to be getting more difficult.  A few things though, I haven’t been using thermos very aggresively, I only take one or two a day when the labels say to take four a day.  I also started taking sesamin yesterday and am hoping that it will reap more results along with the napalm, of which I will be starting my second bottle tomorrow.  My diet has been very tight the entire two months, and my cardio has also been up to par.  I have managed to maintain nearly all my muscle mass I beleive, and that is encouraging.

  Until next time.

Okay, well it has been 39 days and I’m frickin ready to see those abs!  It feels like I’ve been dieting for 39 weeks, not 39 days!  I have done very well since my last report, I’ve been dieting and hitting the weights and cardio like crazy.  I’ve found that a day or two a week I have to add in around 30-50 carbs to keep my focus, but I’m still making progress that is visible in the mirror despite the extra intake.  My average carb intake is running around 150 carbs/day.  The cutting is slow, I’m losing about .5 to .75 pounds per week, but I think this is allowing me to hold onto most of my muscle mass.  I have some ‘primal eaa’ on the way that I will begin drinking during workouts to help salvage more muscle mass…I just hate the thought of losing an ounce of what I’ve worked for.  I’ve ramped my cardio up to around 4 hours a week (4 days, one hour)  This seems to be helping.  I’ve also started using ‘napalm’, but its too early to report anything on that.  I am still thinking that my abs (the top 4 anyhow…)  will be very visible by some time in August.  August seems to be creeping nearer and nearer though!  I am thinking though that with my new increase in cardio frequency, and the addition of napalm that my results will rapidly increase for the next month.  I would say that this first 40 days, the first 10 or so of which were pretty mild, I accomplished probably a third of what I needed bring out some rocked up abs!  This time table puts me another 40 days (August) to a decent 4 pack, and another 40 to really define the top 4, and begin to bring out the bottom two.  I’m thinking my genetics are predisposing me to not have a very defined lower ab region - but that is not to say that I don’t beleive that it cannot be done with a little more hard work and cosistency.  In the end of August I will add in some MMV2 to harden up a bit, and hopefully restart fat loss and aid in anti-catabolism of the muscle tissue, I’ll run it at a lower dose for the last 6-8 weeks of the cut to really bring out some seperation. 

Yeah baby, I’m definitely seeing some results now.  I’m down to 199lbs (I weighed the last 3 days coming in at 199 and a 1/4 to 199 and 3/4, so its a reliable weight).  I beleive that is about a 6 or 7 pound loss in 31 days.  I’m struggling to keep my workout energy (not to mention my focus at work).  Cutting is hard work!  I guess that’s why there are so few people who are ripped huh?  This morning I really needed to focus at work so I went ahead and drank some coffee with a couple packs of sugar in it to boost my blood sugar for a while…but I’ll put a few more minutes on my cardio tonight to ‘try’ to make up for it.  On another note, my bench strength has jumped up a bit, I’ve gone from repping 225 6 or 7 times to 11 times!  It really suprised me as I’m working out with a very low carb intake.  The only thing I can attribute this to is the novedex, cell mass and activate stack Im running.  I began loading creatine when I started the cut, and this is the second week of novedex.  I beleive that novedex takes about 2 or 3 weeks to up test - so that would put it right on time. 

I’m still thinking that the top four abs could be very visible by mid August.  My napalm is in the mail, and should arrive sometime next week.  I have read some good reviews on the product and I think it will speed the process a bit.  I feel like I am doing about 90% of what my body is capable of as far as my workouts go.  If I worked out with any more frequency or intensity (training length)  I would be cutting into my 8 hour sleep period.

 While my focus is to bring out my abs, I have also been directing the focus of my weight training toward bringing up some of my weak points:  Thighs, calves, lower and upper chest, and middle back (rhomboids) and the forearms. 

 My diet has been VERY consistent except for the addition of a gatorade (the small one) and some sugar in my coffee on busy mornings (I dont go over board though, one or two small packets is where I draw the line for the day) to bring up my concentration level…my job is more improtant than cutting!! Haha.

I have run out of the Zero Impact bars by VPX - I have two more boxes on order.  I’m really missing those extra calories that I was getting from those!  I haven’t replaced them with anything else as my options here are limited when it comes to healthy snacks.

Things are still going quite well, I’ve stuck to the diet exactly except for a small gatorade that I drank two days ago. (It was very hot and I was really feeling the carb deprivation!)

I am still seeing visible results every 3 or 4 days - I am thinking that by mid August I will have the top four abs pretty defined.  I think I will have to really fight for the last two, they don’t look like they are going to show up without a lot of struggle! (I am hoping that the napalm will help with that last bit). I have upped my cardio to a half hour every night after about an hour weight session (that gives me 5- 30 minute seesions a week).  I am laying off the leviathan for a few days so that it will keep its effectiveness.  The diet is getting easier to stick to, I don’t really have to think about it anymore, so that’s nice.  My strength has decreased somewhat, but I have switched over to doing 3-4 sets of 12-15 reps..I’ve read a lot of material that discusses the pros and cons of high rep versus low rep…but let me tell you that the high rep stuff is exhausting and burns way more!  Going to failure with 225 on the bench and landing in there around 7 or 8 reps feels easier than holding on to 185 for failure on the 16th or 17th rep! The pumps have been awesome though.  I was probably in need of a good workout change up to shock the muscles anway…