So. This article is all about how I dropped 30 pounds in 4 months to get to shred city.
Today’s article is about reflecting on that process.
Did I meet my goal?
Well, as I stated before, I didn’t really have a specific goal. I just wanted to get “shredded.” I can confidently say that by any sane person’s standard I accomplished the shit out of that goal.
I mean c'mon! Look at that idiotic picture. My abs look like one big arrow pointing to my dick.
With that said, I recognize that it’s actually kind of easy shredding down to a particular size for one great picture on a particular day. However, I do remember that I didn’t just want to get shredded, I wanted to stay shredded.
I remember reading that 95% of diets are successful when it comes to losing weight but of those people only 10% manage to keep the weight off. I was determined to avoid rebounding and undoing all my hard work.
Returning to Maintenance
This was probably overkill but I decided to perform an ultra conservative approach. I decided I would keep the exact same diet going forward except that each week I would add an extra quarter cup of uncooked white rice to the diet. The original numbers I drew up for a cut included a half cup, so the first week I decided to begin adding calories back into my life I went to three quarter cups of white rice. It was an extra 160 calories each day.
It was such a conservative approach that I still lost weight into the next week. So I added another quarter cup bringing my total up to a full cup of dry white rice. (I of course cooked it, I’m just giving you the pre-cooked measurements.) After that week, I added 4 ounces of potatoes, and 4 ounces of steak. My weight stayed at 180.
I was beginning to own the weight. My hunger levels were no longer insatiable, and I was lightening up on the restrictions I placed on myself. If my friends were having ice cream I also had some ice cream. It was nice.
With that said, the way I eat has forever changed since this process. I now understand how much there is to gain by staying consistent on the weekends. I know that for me, a cheat meal is acceptable, a cheat day is not. Meal prepping has become a forever habit and I’ve learned to love that process.
The Regrets
I played around with the idea of entitling this section, “Things I would’ve changed,” but let's be honest. They’re regrets. Turns out there are consequences for a not-so-fat guy losing two pounds a week for four months.
At heart I’m still a performance junkie. I love seeing numbers increase for my back squat, deadlift, bench press, pull-up or whatever. During the cut all of those numbers decreased. My dumbbell isolation movements stayed mostly the same, but anytime I gripped a barbell it was like someone had turned up the gravity dial.
And okay, I had already agreed with myself that I was going to accept some losses in the realm of performance…but I didn’t count on how drastic they would be. I went from 365x5 in a back squat to a soul crushing 295x5. Bench went from 290x1 to 255x1, and the deadlift went from 455x3 to 405x3. 3 years later I have yet to return to my current personal bests.
There’s a couple of reasons for this outside of the cut, but the main reality is that I lost a significant portion of muscle. I lost way more fat…but after digging into the literature a bit more, I learned that those looking to lose fat and preserve muscle should commit to losing no more than a pound a week. At two pounds a week I was siphoning off some of the hard earned tissue I had spent years building.
If I were to go back and redo that particular cut, I would’ve slowed down the process and recognized that weekly two pound losses weren’t fully in-line with what I actually wanted.
The Rebuild
The following three years that concern my training have been interesting. I switched from a power-lifting template to a bodybuilding one, and I’ve mostly focused on hypertrophy. My aims of becoming a strong Crossfitter have dissipated and the goal of hitting 405 back squat have taken the back seat to this question instead.
How do I become as jacked as possible while staying pain free?
“Jacked,” defined as more size while still staying fairly lean, and “pain free” defined as, well, pain free. Over the past three years I slowly worked my way back to a body weight 190. Most of this came down to a fairly lazy solution of simply measuring my protein and consuming 3 pounds of meat a day. I’m not telling you that it's a smart recommendation, I’m just telling you that’s how I did it.
Consuming three pounds of meat a day kept me incredibly satiated and it allowed me to avoid measuring my carbs and fats. So long as I measured three pounds of meat, I stayed lean and my weight crept up on the scale in all the right ways.
About three months ago I attended a nutrition seminar and I decided I could aggressively pursue hypertrophy in a more concentrated manner. I wanted to put on more muscle fast. I hired a nutritionist which you can read about here. Since that time I have been aggressively bulking and tracking all of the food I consume while keeping crap food mostly to a minimum. I’m currently consuming 4,250 calories a day and I weigh 195 pounds.
I haven’t been displeased with the results.
The Future
My plan for the future is bodybuilder-simple. Gain for the remainder of winter and part of spring. Hopefully slowly gain up to 200+ pounds, then lose a bit for the summer just to get a break from food (and to look good in a bathing suit) and then ramp up those calories going into Fall. Essentially Zig-Zag in an upward trend.
For whatever reason I have a very arbitrary goal of hitting 200 pounds at 10% bodyfat. Probably because they’re whole numbers, but also because who doesn’t want to be a mean lean 200 pounds that can still enjoy an ice cream?
I have no idea if I’ll get there, but in the meantime I plan on continuing to track the food I consume, spend 8-9 hours in bed, and slay weights. I will continue to update you on my progress in between the teacher posts and nutrition advice.
Want To Join In On The Action?
If you have an interest in changing your body composition or improving your health, I am starting a nutrition coaching business where I will start coaching up to 5 people willing to fill out honest food logs and check in with me twice a week.
-Website soon to come
Also, I will be hosting a nutrition seminar this Saturday at 12 P.M. at Crossfit Norwalk where I will be going over what to eat, how to determine how much to eat, and habits that can help track that progress.
All questions welcome, hope to see you there.
Toodaloo!
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