Michigan Muscle Boy

Goals

Mike asks what my goals are. I went and looked at his blog, and he has some rather stupendous powerlifting stats going on, all in RAW mode (no performance enhancing drugs and without most, if not all, assistance equipment). 

I say all of this because my goals are rather more modest.  Let me state it in terms of current and desired in the short term (next few months).

			start				desired
bench			180				225
deadlift			220				250
squat			220				220
body fat			9%				less than 12%

Note that I am not trying to move up in squat.  What I'm actually trying to do there is force better form.  If I can move up, great.  But, if I can do 220 achieving parallel or better, I'm satisfied.  BTW, the start date for all of this was June 1.  Nancy and I are going to measure again in a couple of weeks.

I might hit the deadlift and squat goals then, in which case I'll recalibrate.  Stating my goals in a nutshell, I want to be relatively strong and lean for my age.

Kris Lindqvist's Powerlifting Relative Strength Calculator

As I prepare for my next round of working out, this relative strength calculator looks good.  Kris Lindqvist put it together after researching a number of methods for comparing yourself with other lifters that take into account weight, age, and sex, the big three determinants of weightlifting performance.

Kris provides a rather extensive explanation of the calculator.  An interesting point, strength relative to body weight is not a good measure of relative strength because, above almost emaciated body weights, it starts to decline.

What does a bodybuilder do between competitions?

Well, The Big Girl's competition is exactly one week away.  We've been discussing it quite a bit over at our proto-site, Mucle Ventures Podcasts.  The site is not just media; each podcast has a blog post describing what's in it and provides links to relevant outside resources.

Needless to say, these last nine months training side-by-side for this thing have been quite a ride.  In the fall, we started with mass building.  That phase lasted from August through January.  Nancy's training consultant Kevin recently estimated that she must have gained 8 lbs. of muscle mass during this period based on how she looks now.  That's great gains for a woman.  Next, from January through mid-March, we entered an intermediate phase between mass building and sculpting.  In mid-March, we came into this pure sculpting phase, which in many ways is just an act of brutality perpretrated against your body to make it lose fat.

I have to say, I'll miss this.  It's very exciting, and it's been great developing my training partnership with Nancy.  When you're training partners with someone, you really get to know them.  It's probably that way in any intense project that completes successfully.

What do we do next?  I'm not sure.  We seem destined to train together, and we have the Muscle Ventures activities.

What bodybuilding ought to be

So, Tom Venuto has an interesting interview with Darrin Steen, a natural bodybuilder in his early 40's.  It's intriguing how Venuto is trying to get people to view bodybuilding as building the body vs. just creating a great physique.  The problem I suppose is that in an aesthetic sport like bodybuilding it's hard not to focus on looks.  After all, that's what it's all about?

Nonetheless, the interview with Steen gives some interesting ideas regarding functional training (training to build your ability to do things) and periodization (focusing on different types of training during the year).  As Arnold and I roll off her contest prep phase, I think it is time to take some of these ideas into account.

As Nancy and I have been discussing in our bodybuilding interview series, the final phase of bodybuilding prep is brutal.  It's really been more of a tear-down experience than anything else.  All pressure is on looking good.  In the long term, there has be more than that.  We'll be exploring that as we move forward.

Weight Loss Victory

Well, weight loss kicked off again this week.  I've cranked off about 7.5 lbs. since I started in January.  I've just been persistently pursuing my strategy.  I'm now at 182.5.  A question in my mind is whether to go for 180 or 176.  The fitday profile shows that I just had to be a little strict with calories this past week.  I suspect last week was just an anomaly.

A bit of a disappointment

Well, no weight drop this week.  Kind of a disappointment.  I've reviewed my fitday profile, and I don't think it is bad, but I do notice a few hundred extra calories this past week.  The weekend was bad; wound up accidentally running out of food and had to improvise.  The neat thing about fitday is that it forces you to be honest and gives you a good, factual basis for diagnosis.

I also suspect part of what happened is that last week, I had had no days off training for over 7 days.  This week, I wound up having two days off, one from the previous week and my regular one.  The regular one falls right before weigh-in day.

Right now, one of my tempations is to cut back slightly to try to keep consistently below 2400 calories.  I may also increase cardio.  Both of these make sense, and I'm going to try to do them.  But, life is getting in the way.  In particular I have an all day set of business meetings on Friday during which I will have to eat the regular three meals vs. my current 5.  I won't be able to work out.

The key here is keeping the weight loss and fitness goals in mind.  I'm no Nancy Arnold, but I can try to have determination like hers.  She's really been a beacon and a support for me.  Also, for me, focusing on fitness is a nice way to keep from obsessing over the rest, so I make a point of doing it every day.  I'm going to make this gradual weight loss work, dammit.

Down another 1.5 lbs.

Well, just a quick note to say I'm down another 1.5 to 2 lbs.  I'm going to stick with the current calorie intake of around 2400 calories with fat content slightly below 15% of total calories.  Protein stays at 190 grams or higher.

I began January at 190 lbs., went up slightly to 191 when I started creatine, and am now right at 186 or a hair above.  It seems most of the weight loss came in the last two weeks, so I will continue monitoring to make sure I am not going down too fast.

Progress toward 10% Body Fat!

Well, I dropped two more lbs. from last week.  I worry a little that that is too much.  However, I'm going to wait a week and see what happens.  I'll increase calories if I stay at the two lb. rate, but I suspect that will not be necessary.

Currently, I am averaging around 200 grams of protein, over 300 grams of carbs, and right around 38 grams (or 15% of diet) fat (see fitday profile, my salmon days make the fat percentage go up, need to cut that).  That fat number is hard to manage if you are trying to keep your protein up.

The good news is that strength is on the mend after getting past these tweaks.

The weight drop has started

You may recall that about a week ago, I mentioned I had gained a pound after my initial weigh-in for my body fat test with Susan Courtney.  I attributed that to creatine, noted for causing water weight gain.  Well, that lb. was off today, and it is clear I have started to trim up.  I'm going to stick with the current plan with minor tweaks.  If I am down again next week, I'll know this was the right decision. 

One thing that has helped a lot is my Fit Day profile (look on earlier days if you see nothing for today), a service Scott Bird turned me onto.  I have a pretty good idea what I am eating and where I can cut if next week reveals no change.

In that regard, I note that I hit target (15% fat in diet and good carb protein balance with a little more than 1 gram per lb. of body weight) when I eat things like bison.  Salmon is not being kind to me.  I still eat less than 20% of my calories in fat, but I am way over 15%. 

The Nutrition Plan

Well, further interaction with Susan Courtney from calipers day suggests that my body fat percentage is 12% by calipers.  She thinks that number is more accurate than the electronic Tanita scale.  She did a careful job, but her method is also potentially error prone (lots of human judgment).

The bottom line for me is this:  I'm going to make a play for 10% and declare partial victory when I make it by calipers.  I'm going to investigate the Tanita more.  It appears to be less comprehensive.

Investigation on the book front makes me believe that losing this weight will not be straightforward like it was with Atkins.  I'm now a very active exerciser, and I'm really only looking to trim 5 to 10 lbs.  I want that all to be body fat, not the muscle I've worked for.  Atkins is too much of a blunt instrument for that.

All weightlifting diets seem to require careful input/output analysis.  I'm going to make the following assertions about output to start:

• I need 1850 kCal to maintain my current body weight if I am sedentary.
• On weight training days (5 days per week), I burn 1400 to 1500 additional calories.  This estimate is based on 90 minutes of weight training at a calorie burn of 540 calories every 60 minutes and 30 minutes of cardio at anywhere from 600 to 800 calories.
• On pure cardio days (1 day per week), I'm doing 1300 to 1600 calories, depending on how high I decide to set the resistance on the cardio machine.

This analysis suggests that I need 3150 to 3450 kCal to maintain weight on my active days.  I have no idea what my input really is, but it is likely a similar number.  My guess, having read both Nick Evans' Men's Body Sculpting and John Hansen's Natural Bodybuilding is that I am actually overconsuming protein and not getting enough protein variety.  I could also vary my vegetables a bit more.

This week, I am going to track what I eat, and I am going to institute a Sunday weigh-in.  The Most Complete Food Counter by Natow and Heslin should give me an idea about the composition of what I am eating.  Then, I can reorient a bit.  A key point seems to be to eat multiple small meals per day, something I am already starting to do.