alwayshonor’s BodyBlog

It’s been 5.5 months since I started to try my first bulking phase. Over the first 4.5 months my weight increased roughly 18 lbs. I seemed to add some mass, mostly in my legs and I felt that the rest of my body was holding up ok. The abs didnt seem to be regressing too much. So I was mostly pleased with how it was going. Of course, my arm growth seemed pretty slow, but I expected that. (genetics?).

I decided to try and experiment a little by cutting back on my leg workouts and keeping everything else the same to try and spur some growth in other areas. So after 4 weeks of that, I am finally seeing some good progress in my arm measurements, but…Now I am suddenly looking soft. My weight stabilized. I am ok with that. In fact, I was hoping that I could maintain that weight and maybe shed a little fat but it seems it may be going the other way. 

I am debating doing some carb restriction and trying to cut a little again. My fear is that it’s too soon to do that. I wonder if I am in a prime growing period with my arms. They have never responded like they seem to be now and I hate try to cut again too soon.  

 I wonder how normal this situation is or if someone else has experienced something similar.

Dear Jack,

It’s been such a long time since we last visited. In fact, today marks the one year anniversary since I last set foot in your place. Do you remember how I used to visit you a couple times a week for your delicious breakfast sandwiches? Do you miss making me breakfast Jack? Sometimes I miss your cooking. And I really do still love those little antenna balls you come up with. It’s the "happy meal" toy for adults. Smart marketing. But you see, Jack, I needed a change. I didn’t like how sluggish I felt. I didn’t enjoy the days when the waist in my jeans was too snug. So I stopped visiting your place. Don’t take it personally though. I also stopped visiting other places like yours. I don’t go to Ronald’s, or Wendy’s, or Arby’s, or Carl’s, and I have even been snubbing the King.

I drive by your places all the time though. I easily see over two dozen of yours or your friends brightly lit signs every day as they beckon me to stop on my way to work. But it’s been a year now. A lot has changed. I don’t even think you would recognize me anymore. I have lost a lot of weight. My body composition has changed. I am not the same guy you used to know.

Just take heart in the fact that I do think of you often Jack, But we can never be friends again.

Well, in my last writing about 6 weeks ago I talked about adding some cardio to burn fat. Well, after 2 weeks of that, I was not happy with the way my body was changing. I was just becoming a smaller version of myself. I think I was losing too much hard earned muscle. So I decided to up my calories to try and hold on to the muscle and maybe add some. My average intake was around 2400 cal a day. I boosted that to about 3000 for these past 4 weeks. I added a few lbs back on. I am feeling much better about my appearance. My abs are getting tighter, I dont feel quite as small and don’t think I lost much definition if any. Perhaps the best part is that I have been having some great workouts. My energy and strength are up and that helps with the movitation part of it. It’s such a learning process to go through to find what works best for our individual bodies. One needs a lot of patience. But it is kind of exciting to find just how much control we really have over our health and appearance. It almost becomes a game.

Over the last few months I have seen a lot of progress through mostly clean eating and consistency with my workouts but I am getting to the point where I want some things to happen a little faster. Mainly I want to lose some of that stubborn fat in the midsection. Of course, I want to add some quality muscle, but since my abs starting showing a little, I decided to stay with my leaning phase a little longer. You see, I have never seen my abs until now and I now realize that having a six pack at age 36 is attainable for me, so I finally started doing cardio.

This was my first week and I mostly just did some cycling around the neigborhood. In 3 days I logged about 35 miles and about 2.5 hours of time. I have tried running in the past, but I struggle with the motivation. Cycling, on the other hand, allows me to get out and see some things. It holds my interest and I truly enjoy it. For most of my adult life, cycling is what I did to keep somewhat fit. When I felt I was getting too far out of shape, I would spend a few months riding a couple times a week, drop 5-10 percent of my bodyweight, and I was good for another year. Now that I have gotten in shape through weight training and a good diet, I am excited to see what will happen because I am adding some cycling to the mix.

I think I finally educated myself enough to know how to "cut" somewhat successfully. It took me lots of reading and a few trial and error cycles, but I think I am finally learning how my body individually responds to what I am putting in it. I have really made some serious gains…..errr losses…over the last 8 weeks or so. Like I always read, but never seemed to understand completely, is how big a part of it that diet truly is. I wonder how my body would be now if I had been squeeky clean instead of just mostly clean.

I am thankful that I seemed to keep most of my muscle along the way. Even though the measurements on my arms and legs haven’t changed much, just losing the fat has made me look a lot "bigger" in my progress photos. I have still been making strength gains too so maybe I even added a little muscle. It’s been an exciting couple of months and I hope it carries over when I make my first serious attempt at bulking in a couple of weeks.. Hopefully I won’t need too much trial and error and that  I will be able to add some inches without destroying all the progress from my cut.

I have yet to post a blog on here but I figure this is a good time to start. I want to take a few minutes to remind everyone about the potential to injure ourselves when we are working out. Sure we all are aware of injuries, but sometimes we can get complacent. Here is an example of how I narrowly avoided some serious pain:

I have two sets of dumbells. They both are free weight dumbells. One set is older and consists of primarily concrete filled plastic containers. The dumbell bars themselves are narrow and have a small collar that is tightened by a tiny bolt. I have had these weights since my teen years (20 years), so they are pretty worn in and I don’t use them often or with much weight.  My other set of dumbells were purchased last year and consist of the typical olympic size iron plates. The dumbell bars are a heavier guage steel with locking squeeze grip collars. I tend to trust these ones.

There are several exercises that I like to do that involves using these dumbells and extending them over parts of my body. Things like overhead extensions and dumbell pullovers. My issue came when I was lying flat on my back on the bench and was setting up to do the pullovers for my chest. Since this involves pulling the dumbell up and over my head and face, I am always extra careful to check the collars and make sure they wont slip. Sometimes I will even go as far as to put two collars on, just to be safe. It depends on how much weight I have on it. So I felt pretty secure when I set up the dumbell and began my set. I had done two reps when suddenly, the weight came crashing off one end of the dumbell. Luckily, the plates slid off when the weight was out and away from me, so the plates just crashed to the floor. Had they fallen off two seconds sooner, or two seconds later, I could have had some serious issues. I would have had 35 lbs crashing down on my face and skull!

So what happened??? Was the collar not tight? Did the collar just slip? Did the collar actually break? NO. The whole sleeve slipped off the bar. The collars were still intact, but the dumbell sleeve broke.

Something I never imagined happening. These dumbells were made by what I assumed was a respectable company. They have a big name in the fitness industry, but they failed me and it could have been serious.

So please, try to think of all the potential things that could go wrong and take the extra precautions. I was lucky….this time.