whooodashiit’s BodyBlog

Alright so I’ve been back in the gym for about 5 or 6 weeks now, and I’ve made some great gains.  My endurance, strength, weight, and size have all increased.  The large fat deposit which I obtained during my gym absence has reduced greatly, but I still have a good bit of fat covering my midsection(especially around my obliques).  So I have decided to put the muscle gain on pause for a little while and start a cutting diet.  I have never had to "diet" before because I never cared to be ripped.  I was playing football for the better part of the last 7 years, and it would not be in my best interest to go under 10% body fat.  Now that I am no longer playing, I want to get some of those 8 pack abs all yall out there have.  I’ve read plenty of articles on cutting, but I would love for some feedback if anyone has any tips.

So here’s my plan:

I currently weigh 225 pounds.  My rough calculations say I am about 14% body fat.  Let’s just call it 15%.  I used one of those calorie calculators on the site to calculate that I need about 2950 calories to maintain.  Let’s call it 3000.  The plan is to subtract 15% of those calories to calculate my "fat loss calories".  So we have…

Fat Loss Calories = 3000 calories - 450(.15 x 3000) calories = 2550 calories

I plan to divide these 2550 calories into 7 "meals" throughout the day.  I also decided that I would categorize 3 of these meals as large meals and 4 as snacks or small meals.  My plan is to take in about 500 calories during the large meals and divide the remaining calories among those 4 other snacks.  So we have this:

2550 daily calories - 1500 (500 x 3) large meal calories  = 1050 remaining calories

1050 remaining calories / 4 snacks = 262 calories/snack

The bulk of my large meals will be grilled and baked chicken breasts, and my snacks may be a smaller portion of chicken, fruit, or a protein bar. 

As long as I see a loss of 1 to 2 pounds/week, I hope to continue this diet for the next 6-8 weeks.  I would like to get back down around 210 or 215 at a lower body fat content before I bulk again. 

I would like you all to comment or give suggestions.  Am I pretty close with this diet?  Am I way off track?  Is this solid?  Will I be able to keep my muscle on me at this low calorie amount? 

Any advice or feedback will help.  Thank you all and I will keep progress pics posted

Well, here I am again.  I was tired at 11 PM and fell asleep for about 5 or 10 minutes.  My girlfriend called and woke me up from that brief nap, and I have been wide awake since then.  Now it’s 2:35 in the morning, and the best thing on TV is some crap on the discovery channel about a boat(very boring).  I guess I could watch some informercials and learn about a device that cuts perfect french fries or a pair of gloves that peels a potato in 5 seconds.  <damn, two potato examples….not enough diversity in my writing style but I can’t think of any other dumbass informercials right now> Anyway, I have decided to make some use of this time and do a cardio workout.  Only bad thing is that will probably keep me up longer, but oh well, I won’t fall asleep til 5 or 6 either way. 

So here’s the deal.  I have a few p90x videos that I borrowed from a friend.  As with any program, there are some good points and bad points about this program, but they do a pretty good job of detailing a quality fitness program that can(NOT WILL) get you ripped.  They have innovative and creative exercises and cardio movements that can be done in the home and keep workouts fairly fun and very challenging.  To anyone looking to drop body fat and get a very lean physique, I recommend this program.  Trying to bulk up?  Probably not for you.  Personally I like the ab routines because they are simple and challenging and the cardio routine because it can be done in the home without any equipment.  Perfect for times like these.  Good luck everyone and enjoy your sleep.  Don’t take it for granted because you could always be like me lol.

Well, I’m kinda getting pissed off right now.  It’s my mom’s birthday, and I spent the afternoon with her.  She took off from work and we went out to eat at a casino and then gambled a little bit of money away.  Pretty good day and she had fun on her birthday…all is well.  That’s not what pissed me off.  I’m angry because I missed my workout this afternoon.  I usually workout around 1 or 2 o’clock, but today I had to meet my mother.  The plan was to get up a little earlier and go workout around 10 or 11.  Problem with that plan is, I couldn’t wake up.  You see, I’m kind of an insomniac and often stay up all hours of the night.  That in turn causes me to sleep all day.  I was up til 5 am tuesday morning(monday night for me) and woke up at 10 for class and then stayed up to lift, do cardio, and make it throughout the day.  With this lack of sleep, one would think I would be extremely exhausted and would pass out before midnight.  One would be wrong!!!  I could not fall asleep until close to 6 AM.  I laid in bed watching tv and counted the hours as they rolled by.  I watched South Park, Family Guy, two documentaries on the history channel, and about 23 infomercials.  I’ve seen so many of those dumb things now that I should be an overnight ebay millionaire with 8 pack abs that I got from working out on the "Ab Lounge" and have the biggest "you know what" in the world from all those "Extenze" capsules. 

Anyway, long story short, I overslept and missed my planned morning workout, could not work out during the afternoon due to a prior engagement, and am in the most boring class in the world right now, Building Systems II.  "Why not lift after class?" you ask.  Well, I usually lift at the CBC in Gulfport, and that gym closes at a very convenient(sarcasm) 8 pm.  So what now?  Well I plan on going to sneak into the only other gym in town which closes at 9 pm for all you night owls out there(again sarcasm). 

It’s now 7:10, and we have 9 more slides on this ungodly long and torturous powerpoint presentation.  If I can get to the gym before 7:45, then I know I can get a good back workout.  Then I can go home and do Biceps.  I could always do lats at home also but really perfer not to do so.  Well, 7 slides left.  Wish me luck!!!!

Well I’m still trying to get back to where I used to be after taking "cold turkey" one year break.  I have been training very hard and eating pretty well for about 5 weeks now, and I have regained some of my previous strength and lost some of that unsightly fat around my stomach.  The biggest difference I have noticed since I have been back is the endurance factor.  My strength in low rep sets shoots up steadily and rapidly.  However, any time I do a compound exercise(bench, squat, military, etc.) for a set of more than 6 reps my muscles reach failure very quickly and inproportionately.  I called my old roommate, who is an absolute beast at 6′0" and 255 pounds, for advice on a high rep, high volume, endurance-driven routine.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to lose weight or get ripped right now(usually the types of goals associated with higher reps).  I am trying to get as muscular as possible while gaining that all important muscle endurance.  I will be increasing the weight as much as possible and constantly pushing my muscles to grow.  I started the doing the higher reps last week and have already noticed significant improvements.  The program my buddy suggested is based around 5 working sets of twelve reps on most compound exercises.  After four weeks you switch to 5 sets of 9, then move to 5 sets of 5 after another four weeks.  I’ve seen my buddy make some outstanding gains on this program so I decided to give it a try.  However, I will be changing reps every 3 weeks because workouts become very stale to me, and I like to vary certain factors to keep a high intensity.  I think it is a good idea to set a short term rep goal to keep me motivated and give me something to shoot for on a day to day basis.  I have found that if you are only motivated by changes in your body, the time it takes to see these gradual, visible results can discourage you quite a bit.  That being said, I have set my rep goal at 12 solid reps with 315.  I benched 320 for 2 at the end of my bench routine aobut two and a half weeks ago, and I am constatntly getting stronger so I think it realistic to press 12 reps on a fresh day in about 5 weeks(give or take).  I estimate that I could get 3 or 4 reps at this weight right now.  Now I have a quantitative goal to work towards.

 Yesterday my chest/ tricep routine went as follows

Bench Press:  225 x 12                   Dumbell Bench:  I did 4 sets of 12 with

                    235 x 12                   100 pound dumbells

                    245 x 12

                    255…only got 10          

                    275 for 6

Barbell Incline:  Only did 10, 8, 6 here, My chest was absolutely shot.  I did 185 pretty easy for the first set.  Struggled like hell to get 8 with 205.  Then I only got 4 and 2 foced reps with 225. 

Incline DB flyes:  I dont pay a lot of attention to weight or reps here.  I just squeeze and try to exhaust my entire chest.  I used 35 to 45 pounds on all 4 sets here and did between 8 and 12 reps each set.

We finished up chest with a couple sets of cable cross overs and some push ups.  By this time my chest was absolutely dead and I was sore for the first time in a while in my chest.  Good shock day.

Now it was time for triceps, but I was feeling very fatigued so I went home took about an hour and a half break, got some protein, ate some chicken, drank some water, and came back refreshed.  I used to train straight through and workouts would sometimes reach up to 3 hours.  I would get no pump and feel like I was just "going through the motions". 

Now days I am all about intensity and creating a pump.  Where I used to do 5 or 6 exercises with lower intensity, I would now rather do 2 or 3 exercises with 100% intensity.  I have accomplished much better workouts recently when utilizing these mini breaks.

Anyway, I got back and did 4 or 5 tricep movements.  I started with skull crushers and then moved on to push downs(my favorite).  I also did some kick backs and a seated hammer machine that is much like a skull crusher movement. 

 By the end of my workout I had a pump to die for, but I also felt like I almost did just that-die for that pump.  Overall it was a good day in the gym.  I felt motivated and strong.  It’s easy to do that when you’re seeing results.  I’m just fearing that inevitable day when I hit the plateau, didnt get any sleep the night before, and all my friends are out partying.  Those days are the real tests of strength.  Well thanks for reading if you made it this far.  Sorry so long winded.