I’m feeling super motivated to start, or rather, finish a long journey.
In early 2019 I had been trying (and unsuccessfully I might add) to find the motivation to get in shape. I was my heaviest at 188 lbs. So, I started to run… again. I enjoy running and, over the years I have trained for and completed many half marathons, a full marathon and even a 50k, but all that ever got me was skinny fat. I’d end up with toned legs, noodle arms and a small gut, not the most impressive of dad bods.
By Spring, I had dropped to about 180 lbs from running and paying a little bit better attention to my diet. But I was starting to become skinny fat again, I debated on joining a gym. I heard about a HIIT circuit gym close to my house and in May I decided to check it out. I joined with the intention not on really losing weight but more for building muscle and toning up. In more general terms I just wanted to “look fit” and not have a dad bod. The HIIT gym is pretty great, I go for 30 minutes 3 times a week, and get a full body workout. I enjoyed the quick sessions with structured workouts, which made going and completing the workouts super convenient. I talked about it with everyone, I even talked my wife into joining. Over the next couple of months, I started to feel a little stronger and even lost a few more pounds.
During the summer (and kind of spur of the moment) my best friend talked me into training for another 50k in the fall. We found a race right after Thanksgiving and made a training plan that was for only 12 weeks and I started running long miles again. However, with the heavy demands of training for a 50k trail marathon, (running 5 times a week) I had to cut down to twice a week at the gym. The increased miles and reduced gym time stalled my strength gains and I was on my way back to becoming skinny fat once more.
We successfully completed the 50k (yay!) and by this time I had dropped to 169 lbs! However, the long miles of cardio and reduced strength training had altered my physique a bit. While my weight was looking okay, it wasn’t the “fit” look I was going for. After taking some time off running, I decided I wanted to try to bulk up over the next couple months. Without really planning it out other than saying I want to bulk up this month. I kind of took a relaxed stance on my diet and drastically cut back on all the long cardio. I increased my gym sessions back to 3 times a week and the strength gains of the early summer started to return.
The bulking period… I started reading articles and watching some fitness videos on youtube and without getting into too much Bro-science I think what I did for December is a more of “dirty bulk” and ate kind of whatever I wanted (within some reason) and gained about 6-7 pounds back over the month. By January, I had started using myfitnesspal to track my eating more regularly. I was keeping to about 2000 cals/day, trying to get at least 150g of protein/day and went on with more of a clean bulk/maintenance diet, gaining a little more, up to 178.
To back up a little bit, when January rolled around the gym was starting to get more crowded – as they tend to do at this time of year, and one of the trainers just asked me kind of in passing “how are you doing on your fitness goals?” And that’s when it hit me, I didn’t really have one…I wanted to “look fit” but what does that even mean? Its not really a measurable goal, poorly defined and no real finish line to shoot for. So, I thought about this for a few days and decided that I needed a more concrete goal and landed on wanting to have noticeable abs. Still, not the best of goals as its kind of subjective and a little vague. After a little research, I found out that abs start to show around 13-15% body fat. We have a beach trip coming up around Memorial Day so why not make the goal of having visible abs coincide with that?
Finally! A measurable goal to shoot for, and a time-frame to do it in. I found my finish line!
Now that I have a defined goal, I wanted to create a plan to accomplish it. I started making a spreadsheet to track my progress and take some measurements. I put my measurements in an online body fat calculator, and it estimated I have about 24% body fat. In researching body fat though I concluded that the calculators aren’t super reliable and can range in accuracy. So, I found a bod pod air displacement test relatively close by and for only $15 I can get a highly accurate measurement.
I started doing a deeper dive into where I am currently and where I want to go. Starting to form a plan on how to get there. I know I’m going to need to “cut” weight, but I also want to keep as much muscle as I can …to avoid being skinny fat once more. A fast diet will drop some weight most of which would be fat, but some will be muscle mass too. After more research, watching more youtube videos and talking with the trainers at the gym. I think I can maintain or possibly gain muscle over the next 16 weeks if I go slow with the weight loss, work hard at the gym, exercising and eating right, to complete a body transformation. As part of eating right I’ll be focusing on protein and trying to get at least 135g per day.
I’m currently 178 pounds and estimated at 24% body fat (BF) which comes out to about 43 pounds of fat and 135 pounds of lean body mass (LBM.) If I can maintain my 100% of my LBM and drop to 15% BF then my new goal weight is about 155 lbs. However, my ending weight goal can fluctuate though depending what my LBM does over the next 16 weeks. If I keep my main goal to only have 15% BF but I lose 2% LBM or gain up to 3% LBM then my ending weight will land anywhere from 152-160 pounds.
Which brings me to this week…my last week of “clean” bulking. Well, the weight gain bulking part has kind of fizzled, the past couple weeks as I’ve basically maintained my weight. So I’m going to use that as a starting point in my diet change calculations. All month I’ve been hovering around 1900-2100 calories a day. (My myfitnesspal average is 1850 but I don’t always add a light snack here or there.) If I have a starting weight of 178lbs and a goal of 155lbs then I will need to lose about 23 lbs. In my research I found that 1 lb of fat is lost with a 3,500-calorie deficit, which for 23 lbs comes out to over 80,000 cals! I have 16 weeks to do it, so that’s about 5000 cals/week or 700/day. This 700/cals per day is the deficit I’ll need to impose to slowly lose weight.
If I make an educated guess that my current daily calorie intake is about 1,925 and I burn 450 cals each of 3 times a week at the gym (confirmed via chest wore heart rate monitor), then my net weekly cals (calories eaten minus calories burned) is 12,125 which averages to 1,732 cals/day.
If I plan to cut my daily caloric intake to 1500 cals, and increase my calorie burn at the gym to 500 (x3) and then add in running/walking 3 times a week to burn an additional 600 cals (per run) then my planned total would be 7200 net cals per week or 1028 cals per day. Which comes to about 700 cals difference from what I’m currently doing. Of course, all this math might shift a little when I get the results of the bod pod body composition test which is scheduled for next week, on the last day before the diet and exercise change will kick in. I plan schedule another one at the end to see how I did. I'm already pumped at the thought of what my "after" pics could look like.
I have a goal, I have a plan, now all I need to do is stick to it.
Easier said than done, but here goes! Thanks for reading.
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