My Training Evolution and Progress

 

Update – 11/28/2012

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My recording and progress tracking begins in this article. This is where I pick up from the other blog…

The date today is October 8th, 2012. After taking a long break from updating my website, I am back. On this page I will record my most current (with updates down the page) athletic goals and performance.

Here is where I am today in my personal evolution as far as training, nutrition and the body goes:

I no longer aspire to be as big and as muscular as possible. I am now focused mostly on preparing my body to be as efficient as possible in every-day life and situations. That’s why  I no longer train the way most bodybuilders train – with weights, doing certain isolated and compound exercises that you need gym equipment for. I now am interested in gymnastics and calisthenics.

My current body stats as of October 8th, 2012 (photos below):

• Body weight: 153 lb
• Body fat: 7.9 percent (using hand-held Omron body fat analyzer)
• Body fat (in lb.): 12 lb
• I am 38 years old

My current diet:

I eat twice a day (yes, I’ve gone a long way since I used to eat.. and recommend eating 6 times a day) – at around 1pm and at around 8-9pm. As far as the schedule, I follow the set up of Martin Berkhan (leangains.com) and I really like how it’s working for me – I haven’t lost any muscle weight (6 weeks already) and my strength is actually increasing. I dropped a percent of body fat. It’s a variation of Intermittent Fasting (IF). It basically is this: you eat all your calories only within an 8-hour period during the day and during the rest 16 hours – no food.

However, I do not follow the exact calories (for my body and goals) and macro nutrient prescription, given by the lean gains camp. I’ve designed my own, which I find work a lot better for my metabolism type and my cultural heritage. I generally go light on the carbs. I go for as much protein as I can in these two meals – at least once a day from meat. Fats come in higher quantities from butter, avocados, olive oil, coconut oil, and yes, peanut butter and some other nuts – I have that habit..

• Protein: 120 – 130 g/day
• Carbohydrates (from my low-carb, high protein baked goods, veggies, occasionally fruit and some tuber starches again occasionally): between 60 – 100 g/day.
• Fat: 50-100 g/day
• Total calories: around 1600 – 1800/day

Training:

Currently, I train 3 times a week for about 60 – 75 min, but this may soon change. I may insert extra days on the days that I don’t do a full workout to get in and do some gymnastics and calisthenics, which is my new passion. But, as of now, my workouts consist of heavy body weight + additional weight exercises for the major muscle groups of the upper body – chest and back, plus supporting gymnastics, calisthenics and some machine exercises to strengthen other smaller muscle groups, like shoulders for example.

My usual exercises:

• Chin ups – 3 reps with 50 lb extra weight
• Dips – 7 reps with 95 lb extra weight
• Various, mostly partial and many supporting of bar front lever, floor planche, dragon flag with extra weight

My athletic goals are to be able to do:

• Muscle ups on a bar
• Full front lever
• Floor planche
• One one-arm pull-up
• And, other purely gymnastics tricks

But, my biggest goal is to move my current body fat setpoint from 8-9 percent to 6-7 percent.

Let’s see where the journey takes me. I will be posting updates on my progress below.

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11/28/2012

It’s been a bit over three months since I started doing Intermittent Fasting. Here are photos I took at noon today – before my first meal of course. Current stats and more comments below:

Current stats:

• Body weight – 151.5 lbs
• Body fat percentage – 7.2 (using Omron body fat analyzer, so it may be slightly different)

Diet:

Intermittent fasting – eating at 1 pm and at around 8 – 8.30 pm, and sometimes something in between.

• Protein – 80 – 120 g
• Fats  – 60 – 100 g
• Total calories – 1400 -1800

As you can see I eat less protein than before and I hold muscle just fine, I get stronger and a bit leaner (although you can argue that if my fat checker is precise and I’ve lost 1.5 lbs, some of it may be from muscle).

I used to take 10 g of whey isolate before I headed to the gym, if that was before 1 pm (my first meal), but now I don’t. I go to the gym with no food for 14 – 16 hours and I feel great.

Experiment to continue..

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