Got Sick?

The day after my Carb Nite feast, I started to not feel well. Then it hit me. Tuesday night, I awoke with a fever so I decided to stay home from work and skip that days workout. Two four hour naps later and I started to feel a bit better. Today I was back at the gym doing a nice short but high intensity shoulder and arm workout. In and out in 30 minutes. Now that's the way to get stuff done!

My diet has continued to be spot on and I am learning the tips and tricks to get well below 30 grams of carbs a day without feeling like I am sacrificing anything.

On the downside, the weight on the scale has crept back up to 187.2. That is up from the 186 that I weighed in at a few days ago. I am starting to think that even though my carb count is low, my calorie count might be a bit too high. I was continueling hitting over 2000 calories a day with some days being at 2500. That is causing my body to go into a re-composition state rather than a weight loss state. A recomp state isnt a bad thing though. I am effectively replacing body fat with muscle. I know this to be true because I can see it in the mirror and I can feel it in my clothes. But for the sake of this weight loss competition, I really need to lose weight.

Therefore, today is going to be my last weight training day for about a week and a half. Next week I am going to concentrate on some intermittent fasting combined with some low levels of cardio. The days leading up to the official weigh out will see me doing some excessive water drinking combined with a quick taper at the end. I am also planning on switching up my diet with some low sodium, high protein meats with only low to moderate levels of fats. could be interesting!

Carb Nite Progress – Day 12

I am roughly 30 minutes away from starting my carb refeed on the Carb Nite protocol and I thought I would give an overview of what has transpired since my last post update at Day 5. (just a note. The original article stated to do a refeed at day 10 but that for me was on a Saturday and not a workout day. Therefore, I decided to push it a couple of extra days until today when I do a great chest and back workout)

NutritionI have continued to be low carb with my max intake being right around 30/grams a day.  Calories continue to remain around 2000 but I have gone as far as 2500. Fat intake has been around 100-150 and protein has been around 150-200.  Below is a typical eating day for me.

Breakfast

• 4 egg omelet


• diced ham


• shredded bacon


• 2T of salsa


• 2T of sour cream


• 1/4C of cheese


• Coffee with 1T of creamer

Lunch

• 2 cups of spinach


• some type of meat (tuna, stew beef, hamburger, chicken)


• 2T of Caesar dressing.


• 1/4c cheese


• 2T of shredded bacon

Snack

• 2 scoops of protein powder


• 1/2C coconut milk

Supper

• 2 cups of spinach


• some type of meat (tuna, stew beef, hamburger, chicken)


• 2T of Caesar dressing.


• 1/4c cheese


• 2T of shredded bacon

I have also done a few 16/24 hour fasts to help supplement my days.

Workouts

My lifting workouts currently consist of P90x Phase I. I am doing the M-W-F workouts and have done 1 day of plyometrics.  I continue to take walks with my family and have done some light shooting around at the basketball courts. I also did one 40 minute session on the exercise bike. I am trying to keep the cardio limited because 1) I hate cardio and 2) the original article stated that weight loss could be obtained even without exercise. I will not give up my weight lifting though.

Up until today, my workouts have been intense and my energy levels have been high. Today, though, my energy level was down and my enthusiasm to be there was low. I also noticed a decrease in the amount of reps I could perform on certain exercises. I left the gym feeling run down. I should point out that I entered the workout on a 16 hour fast but this is something I have done many times before with great results and high energy levels.

Weight

My weight was stuck at exactly 187.8 for about a week into this test. As of this morning though, I officially dropped to 186.  I do have a sneaking suspicion that some of that could be water weight though.   My wife has continued to notice an increase in muscle definition and I swear I saw my upper abs in the mirror yesterday.

Day to Day Operations

My day to day life pretty much stayed the same. My energy levels were always high and my sleep at night was always good. I never lost focus on the tasks at hand and I never felt hungry or like I was being deprived of anything. In fact, as time went on, my cravings for carbs diminished to the point where I wasn't really looking forward to tonight's refeed.

One thing I noticed was my recovery time from workouts. I constantly was feeling sore. It seemed like I could never recover from a workout and I always felt like I pulled something.

**Post Refeed Update**

I more than likely I officially done with my refeed for the night. At least I had better be. I cannot imagine eating any more carbs this evening. I feel sick to my stomach. My head aches, my body aches, I have zero energy, and all I want to do is go to bed.  What's crazy is that I didn't have anything that I would consider out of the ordinary from a "normal" persons day. Over the course of 3 hours, I ate a few sandwiches, some rice cakes, a few cookies, a few handfuls of candy corn, and a latte. Compared to what I normally eat in a day calorie wise, that is nothing. It's just what is in that food that is really getting to me right now. This had all better be worth it in the end. One would think that a free pass to eat whatever you wanted would be awesome.  Let me tell you...that is not the case right now.  Once you have cleaned up your diet, doing these refeeds suck big time.

Carb Nite Progress - Day 5

I am just about to finish up Day 5 of the Carb Nite protocol outlined in my last post and I thought I would give a bit of an update on how things are going.

For the first few days I suffered a bit of a stomach ache. I don't know if it was caused directly by the reduction in carbs or if it was something else entirely but it has since gone away and not returned. The second thing to happen in the last 5 days is a few canker sores in my mouth. It's been quite a while since I have had any of those. My energy levels have been great and any excessive hunger has been at bay. My carb intake has been at or below 30 grams for the last 5 days with no cheats. My protein intake has been around 150 grams and my fat intake has been around 120 grams. My calories have been close to 2000.

My food choices have been pretty consistent.  I eat a 4 egg omelet every morning with all natural bacon bits, diced ham, small amount of cheese, and some salsa. It comes out to about 10/grams of carbs. My lunch is either some sort of slow cooked beef or chicken on a bed of spinach with some olive oil and Caesar dressing.  Supper time is usually something quite similar.  This week I am going to introduce some protein shakes with either coconut milk, almond milk, or water. On occasion, I will take a tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter.

At Day 2 I weighed myself and was down about a pound. I have not weighed myself since then. Visually I can see that I have tightened up quite a bit. I am seeing more definition in my stomach, shoulders, and arms.  My wife has even commented that my face appears to have thinned out a bit.

So there you have it. I am at Day 5 and am suppose to take it to Day 10 although that would land on a Saturday for me. So instead I am either going to take it to Day 9 or Day 12, both of which are heavy lifting days.

I am already planning my carb nite refeed. It could be epic!

 

Carb Night Protocol

I am not a guy that follows workout programs outlined in fitness magazines. I also rarely pay much attention to the articles on nutrition. The latest Men's Health magazine has changed that a bit for me though. This months article entitled CARBS ARE NOT THE ENEMY written by John Kiefer of dangerouslyhardcore.com really grabbed my attention.  At first glance you see a fork full of spaghetti and you automatically think this is another article on how great carbs are and how everyone should be eating more of them. But it's not like that at all.

There are two carb protocols outlined in this article: one called Carb Nite and one called Carb Back-Loading. For the sake of this post, I am going to focus on my interest in Carb Nite.  Once my goals are achieved, I may look deeper into Carb Back-Loading.

What really caught my attention on the Carb Nite protocol was that it most closely resembled what I am already trying to do;  lose fat while retaining muscle mass. It just stepped up the game a little bit and gave me something more specific to follow.

It's also pretty simple to grasp. Some call it a refeed, John calls it Carb Nite. Go low carb (less than 30grams/day) for 10 days. On the 10th day make it a carb night eating pretty much whatever the heck you want. Just do it after 5pm. The next day start over with the low carb but shorten the duration. That is pretty much what I was doing before except that I was going higher carb on my workout days (100-150grams).  I am going to test John's method and see if it cannot help me to achieve some fat loss in time for this contest I involved in at work.

Day 1

Day 1 went pretty well. I calculated that I finished just a little bit above 30grams. Going that low was harder than I thought it would be. Who knew that onions and peppers had that many carbs in them!  Side effects were at a minimum. I had good energy all day. The only noticeable change to my day was a stomach ache that I attribute to some milk I had the night before. So far I am on day 2 and doing well. I should come in well below my 30grams.

Visual Inspection

I don't see a noticeable difference yet since its only been one day. I will say that doing my own version of this the last 2 weeks has brought some positive changes to my stomach area.  The little bump that was right below my belly button has now flattened out. I can only hope that my upper abs will start showing themselves within the next week.  My initial weigh in for this ten day challenge is 188.6lbs

Stick around over the next ten to see what happens.

P.S. Check out John's site over at dangerouslyhardcore.com.  I checked it out when researching his stuff and he clearly knows fitness. I left very impressed.

Quick Change

In my last post I know I stated that I was going to do the second phase of Visual Impact and then post my results. Well things have changed a little bit. As also previously posted, I am in a weight loss challenge at the company in which I work.   The top 30 teams will win an extra weeks vacation.  To make matters worse, I am the team captain.  To add to the fire, I have put on some weight since my initial weigh in. This combination of things has put quite a bit of pressure on me to put up a weight loss number.

The combination of reverse pyramids and Visual Impact had me putting on a solid bit of muscle. More muscle than I ever had before. The has caused my weight to increase. Normally I wouldn't care but this contest means a lot to my teammates and I do not want to be the one to gain weight.

So with that said, I am somewhat sorrowful to announce that I am doing the first phase of P90x and am currently on week 1. I am doing P90x because it's a quick and proven system for me that I know works. Even though I don't care for the 6 days a week workouts, I only have to do it for the next 30 days and then I am done with the contest. After that I am going to go back to either reverse pyramids or Visual Impact and cut my workouts down to 2-3 days a week with a mix of sprints and clean eating. At that time, I will again be posting more progress stats and I will stop stepping on that darn scale!

Time For Density

2 weeks ago I decided that I had reached the peak of my mass building objective.  My wife noticed a difference and so did I. However, we noticed it in two somewhat different areas. She commented that my shoulders, arms, and chest looked bigger. I noticed that as well but I also noticed a 25lb gain on the old scale. That scared me….alot.  So I decided that I didn’t want to gain anymore mass and instead, transition to a hardening/strength phase.  Something that is called Myofibrillar Hypertrophy.  My end goal to all of this is the Hollywood look: lean and muscular.

I decided that I want people to look at me and see someone that is in great shape. I don’t want them to look at me and see a guy that walks like he spends all of his time in the gym. That is the direction I feel like I was headed.

I have been on Phase II of Visual Impact for 2 weeks now and am really starting to notice a difference in not only my strength but also my muscle definition.   Along with the standard weight training outlined in the VI book, I am also doing the recommended 15 minutes of H.I.I.T cardio immediately following each weight session. The only thing I am not following in its entirety is the recommended 2on/1off schedule. I don’t have access to a gym on the weekends so I lift Monday/Tuesday and Thursday /Friday.

My diet really suffered the last year while I experimented with the Leangains approach.  I'd scour the internet for people that where doing Leangains and I would see the crap they would shovel into their mouths on their workout days and I assumed I could do the same thing.  However, I never saw the same ab ripping results that so many others achieved. I didn’t put on a lot of fat but I did put on a pretty decent layer over my muscle.  All my clothes still fit, just not as good as they once did.

So now I am back to living the Primal lifestyle outlined on MarksDailyApple.com and in the Primal Blueprint.  In the last 2 weeks, I am down 6lbs and my lifts have gone up every week. Something about this diet just works for me. I am starting to look good and I am feeling great.

The picture below is one that I took yesterday. Upon close inspection, I can really start to see the individual muscles popping in my shoulder and through my arms.  Now if I could get that same definition through my abdomen area,  I might start to really consider the dream I have of competing on stage.

 



Here is my starting lift weight as of 2 weeks ago. At the end of the 2 month Phase II program I will be posting my end lift weight.

Protein Muffin Recipe

I was messing around last night trying to find a quick and easy protein muffin recipe to make.  I came up with what you see below. Doesn't get much easier than this!



 

Protein Muffin

Simple and Easy Protein Muffin

1 serving of protein powder
1 egg
1 tsp cinnamon
misc fruits or nuts (your choice)
splash of almond milk, regular milk, or water

Mix all ingredients together.  You want to add just enough liquid to get a brownie batter-like consistency.  Pour into small microwavable muffin dishes or bowls. The smaller the better. Cook for 30-60 seconds or until done.

Preparation time: 1 minute(s)

Cooking time: 1 minute(s)

Number of servings (yield): 2

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