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It’s been just over a month since I started training hard again and the results are pretty impressive. I’ve added 20 pounds of lean body mass (LBM) and, while I haven’t leaned out any, I haven’t added any fat either, so my body fat % is dropping. I’m doing a clean bulk – eating 250-300g of protein a day, keeping the carbs around 200g/day, and fat about 100g/day. In order to hit these macros, I’ve had to up my caloric intake from my typical 1800 or so to about 2700 a day. Five weeks in, I’m really starting to feel the difference.

Back in the days of living in L.A. and working out with Rich five days a week, I had put on some serious muscle. We didn’t keep a scale in the loft, so I really don’t know what I weighed in at, but given this morning’s weigh-in and that I’m not as big or strong as I was back then, I’m figuring I had to weigh at least 250. I was 247 this morning. That means that I dropped about 65 pounds of muscle in nine days when I had my accident. Uff. I’ve never been able to get back to the size and strength I had back then, but I’m off to a good start so far now.

I’ve added at least an inch of muscle to my chest, thighs, calves, neck, and upper arms. I’ve added just under an inch to my forearms. My waist circumference has dropped an inch and, curiously, my hips have gained half an inch – may be the glute tie ins?

This is why I track my measurements. I only feel bigger in my arms and sometimes my chest, depending on what shirt I’m wearing, and I don’t notice any difference really in the mirror. But the stats don’t lie – I’ve made some great gains in the last 35 days. Getting bigger in the right places, and smaller in the waist.

The plan is to finish out the remaining seven weeks of Jim Stoppani’s Shortcut to Size workout program from bodybuilding.com and then switch focus from gaining muscle to losing fat. I have been lifting four days a week and doing some low-intensity cardio the other two or three days. If I keep gaining muscle at this rate, I’ll be 260 by the end of the year. As long as that body fat percentage doesn’t start creeping up, I’m perfectly happy with that. Then, with the start of the new year, I’ll start focusing on the shred, with the goal of getting down into single digit body fat percentages. I’ve always wanted to have that shredded look, and have dropped almost 20 pounds of fat in six weeks once before – going from 20% at 220 to 13% at 195. I know what I need to do to get it done again, and am looking forward to getting the jump on a new bod for the new year.

I’ve made similar gains in the first month back to regular training before, so these results are not unexpected. I think the fact that I had trained hard in my youth makes it easier to get a chunk back right away. My TRT doesn’t seem to be having that much of an effect yet, other than perhaps the muscle weight gain. I’m not crazy bigger or crazy stronger, all seems to be in line. I’m inclined to believe my gainz are more from a return to regular training than the therapy. I haven’t noticed any significant differences in mood. My energy levels seem to be a bit higher come late afternoon, and I’m falling asleep naturally around 10:30 or 11pm. But again, these may be more attributable to eating clean and regular training. I’m due for a blood draw Monday to see where my levels are, and expect that we’ll be upping the dose again at that point.

All in all, a very productive month. I’m happy with the progress I’ve made so far, and am eager to see what the next month brings. 🙂

Leg day again. Already?? Yes, I’m hitting the full body twice a week now, so this was the second time doing squats this week. I changed up my routine to Monday, Thursday doing chest and back, hitting legs Tuesday, Friday, and cardio on Wednesday, Saturday. I’m definitely stepping up the amount of work I’m doing each week, and I can feel the difference on the bod.

I’ve started tracking my diet and workouts using MyFitnessPal instead of posting here daily. You can check out what I’ve been up to by going to my Food Diary or my Exercise Diary. You can toggle days and go back and review what I’ve been eating and lifting. One thing to keep in mind is that the app only tracks breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Since I’m eating about six times a day, I log a lot under snacks or double up on my meals – so lunch might show what I had for lunch and my 2pm meal. Overall, I like the app – especially for tracking diet. They have a ton of listings with nutrient and calorie breakdowns for everything I’ve tried so far, including my supplements and the restaurants I’ve eaten at. Their exercise tracking leaves a bit to be desired, as it is missing some exercises I do and in order to get a rough idea of caloric expenditure during lifting I have to log the time I spent weight training as cardio. Still, it’s a useful tool and I really like the calorie tracking throughout the day to help me see how much more I can eat before going over my goal. In the two weeks that I’ve been using it, I think I’ve only gone over my daily calorie goal once. Cheat day! 🙂

Oh, one other feature it is missing is a mechanism for tracking bodyfat percentages. I’ve discovered that the impedance machine I use at the gym can fluctuate two percent based on how long I’ve soaked in the hot tub. I have really dry soles of my feet, which don’t conduct electricity very well, so it’s really only good to get a relative idea of percentages, rather than absolute value. Tomorrow I shall go in and use it again (forgot to do it today) to see where I sit and what I’ve accomplished these past two weeks. My weight has dropped and is remaining pretty stable around 218, and my pants are getting a little looser, so I’m confident that I’m losing fat and gaining muscle.

The biggest thing I’m wrestling with is the desire to add mass and get cut at the same time. In order to add muscle, you have to eat more than you burn, but in order to lose fat you have to burn more than you eat. My thinking is that by maintaining a strongly anaerobic state as much as possible, through high protein intake and supplementation, I am adding muscle and shedding a little bit of fat at a time. I’ve done some research and it turns out that steady state, low intensity aerobics actually hampers anabolism, and that the best way to do cardio is to do High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). These are shorter sessions, maybe 20-30 minutes, with intense, all-out efforts for 30 seconds to a minute, followed by two to five minutes of low intensity. Think sprint for a minute, walk for five, and repeat. I can tell from how much lactic acid is building up in my muscles during training that I really need to work on my cardio conditioning, so that’s going to be stepped up a notch next week. Depending on how my legs feel tomorrow morning, I may go back to Zumba and see if I can last longer than 20 minutes.

Food intake has been solid. I’m getting close to averaging 200 grams of protein a day – I had 240 yesterday and woke up today a pound heavier. Wouldn’t it be great if that was muscle growth!?! I’ve also cut out the Diet Coke. I used to drink maybe three liters of it a day, as I love the cold carbonation, but I’ve switched to flavored water. The water still has Sucralose, so it’s not perfect, but it’s a good transition and I’m finding I’m drinking more plain water now too.

Six weeks to San Diego, time to ramp up that fat burning and get this bod ready for the beach!

It’s been a busy week so far. I’ve been working, training, going to groups, having meetings, and doing lunch, among other things.

I guess I’ll start off with the biggest news of the week: I heard back from Apple. Bad news. I didn’t get the position. It was nice of them to give me a call to let me know. Jason explained that the positions were very competitive and that a lot of people were interviewing for them, but didn’t give me any real reason why I didn’t make it past the second interview. Sigh. Oh well, such is life. Time to move on, redouble my efforts, and get back to work.

Speaking of work, the social media and web work I am doing for my old boss, Jean-Paul, and his company, Billistic is going well. This week the Twitter account blew up! We had added about 275 followers in the first month of activity, then added over 100 on Tuesday alone. It’s a curious thing, as I’m left wondering a little bit about what prompted the surge in activity, but I have some ideas and the trend is continuing, so we’re quite happy. Follow along at @Go_Billistic.

Working out is going very well. I’m down 4.4 pounds since Sunday. I’m getting stronger and leaner, which is what I’m doing all the working out for. I’ve started using a couple apps to track progress, and finally seem to have figured out how to get MyFitnessPal to post to my Facebook page. Poor app design, as it turns out – the updates I’m doing on the app aren’t triggering it to post to my wall. The workaround is to do my morning weigh-in and evening diary completion online, then it posts.

Oh, and I joined the 21st century, and created an instagram account. My username there, as well as most places now, is imagin8orr. I’ve only posted a few pics so far, but I like the app and can see myself posting a lot more in the future. I’m a shutterbug at heart and instagram is a great app for sharing pics.