Todd_A’s BodyBlog

Last week I decided I would try something different to see how it goes.  I dropped my calories by approximately 500 below maintenance from roughly 3000 to roughly 2500 a day.  I swapped my macronutrients to a lower carb and a little lower protein and high fat made up of almost exclusively ECA’s. The percentages were 34 fat/38 protein/28 carb.

I also walked briskly after each day’s lifting and that was 5 days a week.

The results were nice - I lost 1.9 pounds, dropped my bodyfat from 15.5 to 14.5, a full %.

I would assume that some of the results were becasue of the change because my body responds to change, and everyone else’s probably does too.

This week I am switching again. Upping the calories and doing HITT training after some of the workouts and jogging after others. Hoping to see some lean mass gains with the bodyfat staying the same or possibly dropping still. We’ll, see.

I have been working at this for some time now, but in the past 4 - 5 weeks things have taken a turn in a great direction.

I started eating more calories and it appears I was starving myself before. Not feeding myself enough calories and things were definitely not going well. Once I made that change (thanks to several folks in the OVER 35 forum beating it into me) everything is taking off now.

I have lost significant bodyfat while maintaining my weight which equates to less fat and more muscle but at a rate that isn’t causing weight fluctuation. In addition to that, I have also been adding strength. I don’t do a test for 1 Rep Max or anything like that, so in order to judge a strength gain I just add more weight to my lifting and see if I can hack it.

Last monday on Chest day I achieved a new best on Bench Press - I stepped to 250 for my final set and managed to get 5 reps out at that! Unfortunately, the next day I injured my back, then a few days later my neck, so the workouts I did get in last week were not very impressive and I was expecting to have a setback this week.  That doesn’t appear to be the case as today was chest day again and I did 250 for all 3 sets (plus a couple of warm up sets with 185 and 205 first). My first set was a full 6 and the last 2 sets were 4 , but with 2 additional partial lifts which someone on the board had told me in the past helped them gain strength in the past, so I went for it. We will see how it goes next week. If I can manage 3 full sets of 6 at 250 I may increase it again the following week to 260!!!!

My incline bench press has also improved similarly, and also my triceps exercises including Skull Crushers.  Even with a hurt neck I managed to lift one set with the new weight that I stepped up to last week. 

My back and Neck are a lot better today, but they are still in rough shape. I am jsut attempting to really watch form and not do anything that will effect that part of my body for now.  Hopefully they will have healed up enough by the time their day gets here to work them. If not then I will have to skip them for this week.

Well, that is my "book" for today. Thanks for tuning in, and if you are still reading this at this point then you are a real trooper!

Todd