Todd_A’s BodyBlog

A little over a week ago I decided to add morning fasted cardio into my routine each day. One reason to do fasted morning cardio is that Glycogen levels are supposedly low from sleeping all night in a fasted state, so you are not relying on freshly digested food for energy during these sessions.  

I decided to go with Low Intensity Steady State (LISS) so as to burn like 90% stored fat rather than sacrificing lean muscle mass. I got that from reading a ton of studies on the subject. It seems to he the preferred way to loose body fat and retain lean mass.

Also, I am doing a reduced calorie diet with lower carb intake, usually around the 100 grams to 175 grams range and the weekends I allow it to creep up into the 200’s.

Results are that I have lost a couple of pounds but through testing the body fat with calipers, I find that the loss in weight has been almost all fat with a small amount of lean mass, but it is really trivial because it can be accounted for in water loss.

The real test will be the rest of this week lifting - if I can maintain or gain strength on my lifts, then that will support the retained lean mass theory.  

You might be able to guess from all the posting…. I am off work today!  YAY!

I’ve taken this morning and looked back on all the information that I have logged over the last several years with nutrition, lifting, cardio, etc… and I’ve decided to, once again, make some changes.  It turns out that I have been jumping around trying out lots of different types of lifting strategies, and although the change is a good thing as far as mixing things up, I think I have lost sight of the goal somewhat. So, starting next week, I am going to get back to doing what appeared to give me the best results so far which is to not use a bunch of different lifts, but instead do the basic lifting movements with pretty normal rep ranges.  I did have pretty good results with higher reps and lower weight also, so I am thinking about combining all that into a heavy/light type of routine utilizing the basic exercises - regular old bench press, incline press, flies, skull crushers, dips, military press, Laterals, squats, calf raises, pullups, bent rowing, etc…

The only thing that I might omit would be deads, but I am up in the air on that one. I have read that deads will add some mass to your sides which will take away some of that "V" taper look, so I am thinking on that one still.

That is the plan for now.

As hard as I try to stick to my plans for nutrition, I end up screwing them up at some point, and then I let it go too far for too long.  I don’t know if it is that I am bored with the routine eating or what, but it seems to happen just when I am at the lowest body fat%.  I will either decide I am too small and need to add more mass and then end up eating some crap and justifying it telling myself that I am in a gaining phase or something…. or I will just plain screw it up by adding the wrong crap to it usually late at night.
Every time without fail I see great progress when I stick to my plan, so I know the plan is correct for my goals.
So, I know what does work, and I know what absolutely will kill the progress I have made. MY problem appears to be that I don’t have the drive, long term, to blow pass those achievements and make new better progress. And that sucks.
Well, this time I caught myself before things got too out of control, so I am starting at a point closer to where I was at best, so I hope to gain motivation from seeing additional progress.
The yo-yo thing just sucks!