The Journey

I will catalog for myself my whole day.  This is the first week of cutting so the calories are down a bit from when I peak at 3400 calories back at the beginning of February.  I give myself 8-12 weeks to get to where I want to be.  Eventually, eliminating calories here and there.  The most important thing I have found is that NEVER limit carbohydrates before and after exercise.  This is essential to maintaining the hard earned muscle that you busted your ass for during a bulking phase.  Hopefully I will look back on this and get some good ideas, maybe even some helpful hints for the future.
Meal 1 - 1 Whole Egg, 1 cup Kashi Go Lean Cereal w/1 cup Skim Milk, 1 slice Toast 100% whole wheat potato bread, 1/2 cup coffee, 2 NOW Adam Multivitamins

Meal 2 - 4 oz. Can of tuna, 1 oz. assorted nut mix (almonds, pecans, peanuts), 1 kashi peanut butter chewy

Meal 3 - 1 6.5-8oz Boneless skinless chicken breast, 1 cup cooked brown rice, 1 cup french cut green beans, 1 1000mg vitamin C tablet
Meal 4 - 1/4 cup assorted nut mix (granola, cranberries, cherries, almonds, peanuts),  3 oz. sliced chicken breast, on 2 slices of 100% whole wheat potato bread

Meal 5 - (Pre-workout 1 hour before) 1.5 cup cooked oatmeal in 1 cup skim milk, 1 apple
15 Minutes Pre-workout - 2 scoops white flood w/1 scoop Green Mag
Intra-workout - sipping 2 scoops Purple wrath in 20 oz of water
Post-workout Shake - 2 scoops Whey Protein, 3 tsps. glutamine, 1 1/2 tbsps. NOW Dextrose, 1 tsp. flaxseed oil, 1 banana

Meal 6 - 4.5 oz 96/4 lean beef, 1 cup cooked brown rice, 1 cup broccoli

Meal 7 - 1/2 cup fat free cottage cheese, 1 tbsp. organic peanut butter, mixed w/1 packet of splenda, 1 cup skim milk
I drink at least 1 gallon of water each day.

I’ve given up a lot to pursue this lifestyle.  Some people that cross your path will understand this and encourage you.  Others will just sit there and ask why.  I have dedicated myself to this as a testament to my own will and my own desire to be better.  Constantly changing, constantly learning and enjoying the journey.

I would honestly have to say my real journey started back in August of last year when I started finally researching the proper way to lift, eat, and build muscle.  I started by cutting the bodyfat first.  I admit, I look back and ask myself why the hell I was doing certain things, but that’s just part of the journey to understand your body.  Your body reacts to different stimulus in different ways.  Just a small fraction of the things I have learned about my body are:

1. No FAD diet works for me.  The best meal plans for me contain a good mix of Carbs/Protein/Fat i.e., 40/40/20 or 45/40/15.
2. I have to train in all rep ranges for my muscles to grow.
3. A 5 day split works best for me.
4. Never lower my calories under 2700, I start to burn muscle when I do this.
5. I am your typical Endo-mesomorph, which finds it easy to gain muscle mass, but a little bit harder to burn fat off, in this case I must always do cardio.  I can never cut that out. (if I want to stay below 10% bodyfat of course)

Those are just a VERY VERY few select things I have learned about myself in no particular order.  I am currently clean bulking, which is actually pretty difficult in itself because I am an endo-mesomorph and I have to do about 4-5 days of cardio to not gain too much bodyfat back.  On the bright side you can tell by my workout journal that I have increased weights SUBSTANTIALLY from when I started the bulk, hence gaining muscle pretty fast.   I am particularly impressed with how my legs and shoulders have developed.  I never thought I would be close to squatting almost 2.5 times my bodyweight a few months ago.  Proper diet and nutrition has allowed me to gain quality muscle and strength.

It’s been interesting, to say the least.  Being picky about selecting foods, giving up alcohol, sometimes giving up time with friends, eating every 2-3 hours, tracking every calorie that I consume, always trying to get 8 hours of sleep.  That’s just some of the things that I have had to give up.  It’s fine with me, though.  When my eyes, heart, and mind are focused on a goal, it is "do or die."  Nothing and no one will get in my way.

As far as New Year’s resolutions goes, I try to make 1 at the beginning of the year.  It will be easier for me to track this goal because of bodyspace.  Best thing ever!  I want to gain 10 pounds of lean muscle mass.  This takes time.  I know this, but I think 1 year is ample time to do this in.  Judging by trial and error, I am able to gain about 1/2 each week eating 3100-3200 calories.  I still keep the bodyfat pretty low because I do cardio for 30 minutes everyday.  By this measurement I should reach my goal in 20 weeks.  So that means bulking for a lot longer than I expected.  I might have to taper down my goal to about 6 lbs.  This makes 12 weeks of bulking.  It will only take me about 3-4 weeks to cut because I  have maintained the lower bodyfats.  Much easier to cut from 8-9% down to 6% then it is from 15%.  Ugh!  It’s back to the hardcore grind now…  Time to pay my dues!

I know what most of you are thinking.  Just cut down on the cardio!  It’s weird like that.  I have started to love running after my workout.  Nothing makes me feel more relaxed and calm then a good freaking run.  I run everyday for about 30 minutes.

It would seem that I am not consuming enough calories to gain weight, though.  This isn’t a problem, but I just wish I could gain without having to eat as much…haha.  That sounds stupid.  Most people would LOVE to be able to eat more, but eating more requires more planning and such.  I usually calculate my calories for the next day the day before.  I’ve been progressively raising my calories eaten per day.  Even at 143 lbs. eating 2400 calories that isn’t enough.  I’ve been progessively upping my calories for the past 2-3 weeks.  Looks like I might need to get up to about 2600-2800.  Not a problem really, I’ll just eat bigger portions.  I eat in a very very clean way, I just need to eat more.  I’m going to raise my calories to about 2500 for the next few days and see how that works.  Then, if I’m still not gaining, it’s 2600.  I refuse to stop running!!!!  I love it too much!

Well, it’s about that time to start my clean bulk.  I’ve set my new goals and am going to try real damn hard to hit them.  It seems that what I put my mind to, I can most certainly achieve as I have noticed.  Through this bulk I am really going to go for size and depth in my muscles.  Fortunately, I gained some strength and power through my cut because I didn’t go TOO low on calories.

I’m going to do a gradual calorie increase so as to not put too much "bad" weight on too soon.  I think my goal weight is going to be about 148 and still be about 7-8% bodyfat.  This will be tough because I’ll have to keep the cardio pretty diligent, but my body has become so used to cardio that running is actually FUN for me and easy.
I want to really add some size to my body especially my arms and legs.  They seem to be the two bodyparts that always lack with me.  Legs usually are very slow because I do so much cardio, which I don’t mind at all because slow progress is STILL progress and arms, well…who knows…I’m aiming for 14 inch arms (unflexed).  I’ve updated my lifting goals too.  For a guy that’s only 142lbs, I can actually bench/squat/deadlift pretty damn good weight with strict form, but I want more.  Always wanting more!!!

With strict attention to form, I will be rotating strength and conditioning weeks.  My rep ranges for my strength week will be 6-8 on all compound exercises, and for general conditioning they will be in the 8-12 range.  I will be mostly rotating between a 4 day split and a 5 day split.  This seems to work with me quite nicely and I make consistent gains this way.  I will also be rotating the volume in my workouts.  On strength days I will reduce the volume greatly to just 3-4 exercises for 1 bodypart with maximum 3 sets per exercises.  On conditioning days I will do about 5-6 exercises.
Any suggestions on adding good size/mass/density to my muscles are greatly appreciated.  I will keep my progress updated all the time.  Wish me luck!!

I have perfected my control over how much weight I gain/lose/maintain each day.  It comes down to pure mathematics.  The cardio, although heart healthy, is just a supplement to my diet to put me at a decent deficit to burn fat.  I am about 1-2 weeks away from where I really want to be.  So I think I might meet my goal straight on.  I don’t want to lose too fast though like I did this past weekend otherwise I’ll go right into burning hard earned muscle. 

I’m somewhat worried about tomorrow because I won’t have my food scale or my measuring cups to control my portions, when I fly to New Jersey to visit my family.  My friends tell me that I should use tomorrow as a total cheat day.  I have been hypocaloric for the past 9-10 weeks measuring my portions for about 6 of those weeks, I don’t know if I could even think about cheating.  Thanksgiving is so hard because you have all this food around you and SO many BAD carbs.  I will have to count on "eyeing" my portions to determine 1 cup and so on.  I hope 1 day won’t set me back.

Anyway, I was thinking I would post my meal plan for a regular "cutting" day here so that maybe in 5 years when I’ve gained like 35 pounds of lean muscle mass I can look back on this and either laugh or say wow, that’s when I really started doing it right.  Feel free to critique it if you want, but it has worked for me so far.  So, here it is:

Meal 1 - 1/2 cup oatmeal or 1 cup Kashi Go lean Cereal or 1/4 cup Bob’s Whole Grain Cereal (all depending on how I feel), 1 whole egg, sometimes a protein shake (if I need the calories)

Meal 2 - 4 oz. can of low sodium tuna in water, 1 oz. slice of cheese

Meal 3 - 6 oz. Boneless skinless Chicken Breast, 1/2 cup brown rice or 1/4 cup Bob’s Whole Grain Cereal or 1/4 cup Couscous or 1/4 cup Quinoa (depending on how I feel that day), 1 cup broccoli

Meal 4 - Kashi Chewy Bar, 1/2 a banana

Meal 5 (Pre-workout) - 1/2 Cup oatmeal, 1/2 banana
(15 minutes before workout 1 scoop Green Mag, 1 scoop White Flood in 12 oz. water)
PWO Shake - 2 scoops Protein, 1 tsp. flaxseed oil, 2 tsps. glutamine

Meal 6 - 4-6 oz Ground Turkey Burger (no bread), 1 cup broccoli

Meal 7 (Pre-sleep) - 1/2 cup - 3/4 cup no-fat cottage cheese, 1 tbsp. organic peanut butter, 1 packet splenda

Depending upon the calories I put in more, or less.  When I start bulking I will just be taking in more of calories these good foods!!

Ok scratch the morning cardio idea.  It just came down to caloire deficit.  I woke up this morning and I was 144lbs.  This is bad.  I lost too much muscle this weekend.  I have been playing with calories in & out for the last week.  It seems when I take in less than 2000 a day and do 40 minutes cardio I lose too much weight.  If I take in more than 2100 and do 40 minutes cardio I hardly lose anything.  So It seems I have to be right at exactly 2000 calories plus 40 minutes cardio to hit the right amount each week.  Over the past 3 days I lost 2 lbs going from 146-144.  That’s no good.  Fortunately, out of that 2.5 lbs. I lost about .5% bodyfat to bring me down to about 9.1%.  I would rather not lose that much weight to lose that much bodyfat though.   At least now I know how to be dead on with my fat loss and calories each day.  It amazes me how much science and math takes part in this type of thing.  I am dedicated to finding the path for myself that gets me to where I want to be.

Someone asked me the other day why I was doing this.  Firstly, it’s a goal, we all have goals and I am one to never give up on them.  Secondly, I will be going through a bulking cycle through the whole month of January.  Since I have never really gone through a cutting cycle before I want to know exactly how to do it again after I bulk in January.  I definitely learning so much about my body along the way, and this is really going to make things easier for me in the future.  Now if I could just master the last few pounds of fat.  I’m patient, and perseverant with all that I do.  It will come.

There are 2 more days in week 8 of my 12 week cutting cycle.  I haven’t taken my bodyfat yet this week, but as I look in the mirror the cuts in the abdominal region and pretty much everywhere else are starting to get very pronounced.  There is just this little tiny bit of fat at the very bottom of my stomach that I figure will be the last thing to come off me.  I would estimate I’m right at the 9.2% range maybe a little bit higher.  The thing that I am most happy about is that I am starting to see strength INCREASES in certain muscles.  Yesterday, I did Stiff Legged Deadlifts at the highest weight I have ever had, which tells me that my hamstrings are finally starting to come up.  My back is also starting to become a pinnacle in my training.  Back day is probably my favorite lifting day because I get to do Full Deadlifts.  Anyway, I’ll update more progress this coming week.  Soon going to be starting the last 3 weeks of cutting.  If I don’t reach my goal I’m not entirely sure if I am going to keep cutting or not.  We’ll have to see.

The Anabolic Diet was a great resource to get through the first 4 weeks of cutting, but as I am now aware of my own body my macronutrient needs have changed.  I’m going 40/40/20 now.  It would seem with as much lifting and cardio as I do my body just can’t get enough fat to deem the Anabolic diet necessary.  I could be totally wrong, and maybe I went about the whole diet wrong, but it definitely got me through my first stages of cutting.  I am now at about 10% bodyfat.  I have till December 13th to be 8%.  That doesn’t seem like a large goal I think I can do it.  That would be a 12 week cut from about 15-16% bodyfat down to 8%.  Not bad.  My metabolism is basically high gear all the time now and I can consume a lot more food.  That is why I am not trying to get myself enough calories to clean bulk.  Kinda seems hard, plus really expensive.