Its Summer, I’m Cutting

I hit the 1.5 mile this morning in 11.15, a new personal record for me…I’m not a ‘natural runner’, It’s always been something that I’ve had to bust my butt for - so 11.15 is awesome by my standards!  I’ll be hitting in the tens before the year is up.  Oh yeah…and I’m still cutting.

"Never mistake motion for action…" - Hemmingway

I had an epiphany today.  It was this - "There is no day that I’m going to wake up at 0430 and WANT to do cardio."  Groundbreaking?  Inventive? Genius?  None of the above, but I realized today that embracing the pain and discomfort of training is the only way to what I want.  The more pain and discomfort I endure, the more results I receive.  It was just somehow helpful for me to realize that there was no day that it wasn’t going to suck, but at the same time, the suck factor is the silver lining, that’s what lets you know you’re actually causing change. 

  On a side note, while I was running the thought crossed my mind that elite levels of fitness must be a lot easier for people who are ‘Obssesive Compulsive Masochists’.  What a mouthful.

What’s the difference between champ and chump?  You.  (It’s cheesy, but you know you like it.)

Cutting.  It sucks. 

If anything has become easier though, it is my morning runs, I haven’t missed one yet, something of a small accomplishment for me.  I think the running has been a great benefit, more so than the elliptical I beleive.  I am looking better and better in the mirror, I havent weighed in a week or two so I don’t know where Im at.  The diet has been very consistent, I’ve had a few cheat days but it’s been pretty much all business.  I’ll post up some more pictures pretty soon so I can continue to compare changes.

I’m tired today…so that’s all I’ve got.

Well I’m two months and 22 days into this cut, and things are still going pretty well.  I would have liked to see a bit more progress by now, but I’m down 18 pounds (As of August 13, I haven’t weighed in a while…) with no significant change in muscle size or strength.  I still don’t have my calipers in, I think they have become lost somewhere in Southwest Asia, but I would guess myself at around 14% BF right now.

 I have begun to do morning cardio at 0430 before work, and let me tell you, it sucks!  Today was my second day of doing a mile and a half run upon waking, and it has been pure suffering the entire run!  But the sense of accomplishment later on makes up for it.  My goal is to do 1.5 miles every other day, and eventually work up to 3 miles every other day.  It’s funny how much harder the morning run feels than it does in the evening.  I can run 1.5 miles NO problem in the evening, but when I do it in the morning it adds a couple of minutes onto the run time - it surprised me how much harder it felt.  I think it must be a combination of being tired, dehydrated, and not having my usual preworkout arsenal fueling my system that I do in the evenings.  This new addition is bound to jump start my fat loss again, and hopefully by the end of september I’ll be down another 8 or 10 pounds, and a few more BF% points.  Slowly but surely!

"You aren’t going to ‘find’ yourself, you are here to MAKE yourself"

I’ve been bringing the HEAT in the gym the last couple days, I’m expecting my transformation to be really nice once Im finished.  I’ve really been pouring myself into my training and diet.  I was pulling a shirt on today and I noticed some new ripples and hardness that I’ve never seen on myself before, I had to stop and do some flexing, haha!  Yeah shutup you do it too. 

On my supplements - I haven’t been using fat burners heavily yet..Im holding out for another month or two and then I’ll start hitting the fat burners hard to keep the ‘ripped-ness’ coming on strong.  So far I’ve been depending mainly on cardio, diet, sesamin, cla, and napalm for the cut.  Once I’m around a solid 4 months in, I’ll add in some stims and fat burners.  I’m gonna be RIPPED!  Say good bye to the puffy ‘ITS-GO-TIME’ (Yes, I know it’s a grammatically incorrect name) and say hello to the shredded ITS-GO-TIME…

Train HARD!

Alright, I’m a couple months and some change in to my first serious cut.  I’ve lost around 16 pounds, and quite a bit of fat.  My mid section is looking better and better, but I have come to the conclusion that I haven’t been working the abs either, A.) With enough frequency or B.) Enough intensity.  Something is missing somewhere and I’m determined to find it!  I’ve been working them like any other muscle, about twice a week, but I have generally saved them for either after a long bout of cardio, or after a weight session.  I think I’m going to change up and devote a whole workout session to abs, that way I’ll be mentally fresh to punish them.  It’s just hard for me to not pour all my energy into my big muscle groups, the same way I’ve done for years….it is hard to break old habits!  I’m going to throw this change in and ride it for a while and see if it doesn’t improve my mid section. 

"If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always received"

I’m still hangin’ in there!  I’m down to 194 on the scale, and the body fat continues to creep lower.  I’m not quite sure where I’m at, but I should have access to a caliper in a week or so, I’ll update that when I get the numbers.  My strength and muscle mass seems to still be all there, and I’m down a total of around 16 pounds since I started this in June.  I’ve upped my cardio slowly, and I’m doing a half hour after every strength training session, and on my off days (2 days a week) I hit the eliptical for an hour and do abdominal training.  I have to say that although I wasn’t very lean to begin with, trying to bring out my abs has been a much longer process than I had anticipated.  They are looking better every day, and my stomach is getting very flat, but it still seems that to actually have ‘abs’, I could be as far as two or three months away at this rate!  I have tinkered with my diet,training and supplement program, and I seem to have everything finally optimized, so maybe I’m wrong, and I’m only looking at another 6 weeks or so?  I guess time will tell.  Time isn’t really an object, I’m in the sand until Christmas anyhow, with really nothing to do other than workout…so if it takes longer than planned it isn’t a big issue to me - the biggest thing is that I continue to see improvement, and I have been.  I took a few photos a few days ago, will take some more in September so I can better gauge the changes.

Until next time - train hard!

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.