I thought 188 was it. What's the new goal? 185?

Prepare for the least inspiring nudes in history

The goal is a morning weight of 185, which is a few pounds lighter than my end of day weight -- I suspect that will correspond to being 187-188 at the end of the day. I knew this morning was going to be interesting when I weighed in at 190.4, but I actually ate a decent amount yesterday (2200ish calories) so I didn't expect this.

As an aside, I always feel kind of discouraged in the mornings, because I don't really look that good dehydrated -- very flat; I look much better in the evenings after I've worked out and/or eaten a bit, which I guess makes sense.

Gotta love a whoosh.

Interesting. I always think I look better in the morn, but I'm a rather plump fellow, so I never feel like I have an issue of looking flat. There's a natural roundness that prevents that from being an issue.

At 6'4 188, I'm surprised a 36' waist isn't flying off you. I fluctuate between 215 and 220 @ 6'1 and I wear 36s. I could probably squeeze into 34s, but the button would probably fly off at some point in the day and take someone's eye out.

34s are just too tight for me through the hips and seat, and they end up looking like skinny jeans, which I can't really deal with. I also don't really plan to be this thin for long, and although hopefully that means not putting a ton of weight on in my midsection, it will mean putting on enough to the point that I didn't think 34s were a viable long term solution.

Just picked up a bunch of singles from the bank. Bring on the noodz.

You'll have to wait for three more pounds to come off, calm yourself.

My workout buddy just informed me he's going to be dialing back his calories to 1600/day to try to start losing weight, and downloaded some weird fitness tracking app that you have to pay for. I'm interested to see how long this lasts.

How many bags of Doritos is 1600 calories?

I think around 11 of the kid sized packs.

The problem he's going to have is that he pretty much uses any excuse in his life to fall off the wagon; he has his kids over every other weekend and a few days during off weeks, and it always seems like they end up having pizza or something because that's what "they want". I'm waiting for the light to come on that he can pre-make food in anticipation of stuff like this and have something else to eat, but who knows. You'd think me eating lightly marinated chicken breast and sliced tomato for lunch for six months would have rubbed off, but apparently not.

Most hotly anticipated noodz of all time, and you better believe they're gonna be more scrutinised than the recon photos of Osama's compound.

This can't even be close to the case, but thanks. I'm already nervous enough that you're just going to tell me I'm both skinny and fat, and that more cut cut cutting is necessary.

Whatever the end result is of the BF estimation, I have to stop the cut, eat at maintenance for a month, and then start lean massing. Literally every woman in my life is telling me I'm too skinny and giving me food. Random guys in the gym that know my brother-in-law find out we're related and are like "why's he losing so much weight?" It's time to end this.

I can relate. I've tried in the past to cut but I end up being super thin. I've just about given up the idea. Skinny-fat sucks.

We all gonna be bulking soon it gonn be so gooooooooooooooooood

Monte,

I agree with your plan. Eventually you reach a point where the best thing for your aesthetics is gaining LBM.

It does, I'm probably over-reacting just slightly. I'm just pissed that I still have a mini-skin fupa over the front part of my abs and no loco or fake busto type separation, but whatever. Summer's almost over, no more beaches to go to, we'll make it the goal for 2014 I guess.

I'm going to do a very slow bulk, because this 8 month cut **** is not happening again. Probably going to do the lean massing calorie split on IF after I hang around maintenance level for September.

True dat. Hopefully it won't be too hard for me to gain the first 5 or so pounds of LBM, since presumably I've lost a relatively decent amount of it during this cut. Time will tell.

A while back I asked in the LC thread about calorie splits a la IF recommendations and the consensus was lelz. Now I see you and loco are doing splits. Is there a benefit to doing splits over taking your weekly average and splitting it evenly between days?

I have no idea if there's an actual advantage, and I haven't been doing as much of a split on my diet as IF currently recommends. That said, there's a definitely psychological advantage to allowing myself to eat a little more on a workout day, whether it's half a cup of rice with dinner, or extra dessert, or whatever. The theory is probably that you're eating a little more because you burned a little more in the gym and maybe it helps with recovery/addressing post workout glycogen depletion, but for me it's just that I'm hungrier after I work out and it helps with compliance.

ETA: I'd probably do something like -10/+20 for the lean massing protocol (and go back to the 4 day TM split, which I really like), which would mean I'd be eating roughly 2450/3300. Eating 200 calories over my TDEE would be around 2950/day, and both would result in gaining about .4 lbs/wk. I'll probably end up doing something in the middle, but it's just kind of a nice guideline to base stuff off of (for me, anyway).

True true true. I don't really feel hungrier on my workout days (lel at my workouts?). A few days ago I started eating a higher consistent average each day, which means what I said in my last post, taking the weekly sum from IF for lean massing and dividing that by 7 for my daily total.

I do it for a few reasons.

Compliance - I am training 3x a week right now. I get 2600 on those days. 1900 in the other days. That's a weak cut, but on a more aggressive cut I would go to 1700. Sorry can't do many 1700 calorie days in a row.

Protein synthesis and hunger - after working out I am considerably hungrier. Protein synthesis is elevated for 24 hours postworkout. This is not facking random here. Your body needs more calories after training. I am on at least maintenance or surplus 100% of the time for 24 hours postworkout. I will also note that I am going in fasted the last month. I don't notice difference in workouts fasted or nonfasted. But obviously postworkout nutrition is really important if you are going in fasted so I want those 24hours to have 3dimes of cals.

Fat loss -

This is probably fake here. But fasting may lead to knocking out some stubborn bodyfat. Something I read about chemicals in your body (either Martin or Lyle but Alan does not like).

Anyways that all adds up to why I do it. I don't go extreme like Martin, but I have done a light variation of it most of my training life. It's mainly a compliance thing, but it works for one reason alone. If I go three days without working out my body is trained to consume less, less, and less. If I workout it gets an explosion of goodies as a reward.

For somebody like fakebusto who has no problems eating 1600 a day for three consecutive months, then IFing is not as strong. Now you have to believe that fasting and nutrient timing is a big rock. And most likely, it definitely is not.

I think hunger response to activity is a pretty individual thing. There's a Lyle article about it somewhere, maybe in the "exercise for fat loss" series or something. Some people get hungrier, some lose their appetite, some aren't affected. So don't think it's your workout or anything like that.

I think protein synthesis is elevated for much longer actually. Possibly into the 48-72 range.

I have taken it to such extremes, that if somebody's birthday or there is a party going on, I have to train. Then I drink my two to three beers with inner peace. And on vacation I train and eat like absolute shiet on those days. The whole time I am thinking "fack yeah, putting this pizza to good use." Hey it's working out for me, zero time off the last 19 months. Before I had major problems with consistently going to the gym.

Please don't ever post studies in my log that state nutrient timing is not important. I don't need to hear that shiet. I am going fasted anyways. Let me be and believe my voodoo.

Congrats on the weight loss.

Hellz yeah!

Good discussion on calorie cycling; I still think it's a relatively small rock (even though I'm going to be doing it).

Thanks for the props, aura, the fact that you did/were doing it was one of the reasons I decided to do it in the first place. It took me a little longer to get there, but we can't all be setting fakeBusto landspeed records for weightloss.

Weight this morning: 187.8; feeling pretty solid and tight, just a little more work to do. Another interesting conversation with my workout buddy:

Him: It really hurts to straighten my left elbow dude.
Me: Maybe you've got a muscle impinging a nerve or something, you can floss it back at the office if you want.
Him: I think maybe I tore a tendon, it hurts when I press on it right here.
Me: I'm relatively certain you didn't tear it, considering your arm is actually functional and your elbow isn't the size of a grapefruit.
Him (pauses): I guess it could be partially torn.
Me: . . .

8/16
DL 3x250, 3x265, 7x280
FS 8x100, 8x120, 6x135
BSS 2x10x15
Pullthroughs 2x12x70
Hypers 3x15xbw+45
Pullups 9, 8, 6 x bw
Hammer Machine Row 3x12x100
RKC Planks 3x30sec
Pallofs 3x12x35

Here's my first form check video in a while:



Felt pretty good about DL, I only got 5x285 a few weeks ago, and I feel like I could have toughed out another rep or two here. I feel a lot more tight through my upper back especially, but it looks like I kept my lumbar decently tight as well. Weight still jellydick, but I'm happy with it. I'm bringing my arms out further and further in front of me on the RKCs and holy hell is it hard.

The wifeacore is out of town this weekend, so it's going to be a no pants weekend for me and the minicores. Many Stallone movies will be Netflixed.