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Yes, a real out of shape 14stone...

It's amazing how much you can be in denial, though. I thought losing a stone (14lbs for the yanks) would have me ripped. Actually I lost a stone and could only just begin to see abs. I think I could lose another stone! I'll just keep doing what i'm doing and see where it bottoms out.



That's the plan!! I never considered 74kg to be a possibility until the last couple of weeks where I hit <80kg, and looking at what I have left. I compare myself to my training partner (well, one of them). Right now I would consider myself lean, but I would consider him ripped (he's a boxer). Based on the last 20-ish lbs in weight loss, I reckon another stone would get me to a similar bf % as him. The reason I compare to him is because he still maintains a high level of performance.

I love using KG's, Stone, and Lbs all in the same paragraph.



I've briefly read about this but not very clued up on it. It's amazing, though. I'm a lot more in tune with that depleted feeling. So I can tell when I genuinely need a carb up and i'm not just kidding myself. I've taken the carb up quite far (chocolate etc) and still weighed less the next day. Worth noting that I weight myself on a Sunday, same time every Sunday (around 2pm). The carb up was/is almost always on the Saturday. I'm not sure if I was lighter than I was the day of the carb up, or just lighter than I was the previous Sunday.

Also, my weight didn't drop every single week and I didn't carb up every week - only when I felt I needed it. I went a few weeks here and there with no change in b/w, then the odd week were I had dropped 4 lbs, normally after some crazy eating. The Sunday before my competition, I was 81-82KG. The day of the competition I was 79. The day before the competition I was 78!!! So I responded by eating loads that day, and I expected to jump back up to 81-82, but it was 79 and i've levelled out there so far.



I was hoping someone would give some more info on this. I've been hearing more and more about this Biosignature stuff, too. A trainer from my gym has just signed up for a Miami Pro (which isn't in Miami, apparently), and he's had this done, funnily enough from a fitness model in Glasgow, I wonder if it's the same guy? (Tony Pang?).

Anyway, I just wondered what it might mean. I'm happy if it means I have a healthier hormone profile of course, but just wondered. I also have no solid evidence that my bodyfat didn't distribute itself like this before, it's just a hunch, really. Normally when the lower abs were there, I was "ripped". Right now that doesn't seem to be the case. It'll be lower abs then sides/lower back.

I find it hard to believe I have a healthy hormone profile right now. Way too little sleep, water, probably food in general, and way too much caffeine. It's getting better, progressively, but it's not great yet.

KPj

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Thanks TimD

absolutely man, I was sitting down putting on a pair of socks the other day and saw the way I was spilling over my jeans. I'm the fattest I've ever been now, I wouldn't be surprised if I was 15%+ to be honest. I've still got good definition in my abs but there's a definite "rounding" if you know what I mean.



I think it's best just to through away the scale. After 5 days of fasting I weighed in at 2lbs heavier today. Hmmm. I reckon I'm just going to try and drop a notch or two on my belt, that's a much more reliable indicator I think.

Don't you powerlifters need a big belly to shorten that bench ROM?

And yeah I use stone and lbs for bodyweight, kilos for lifts. Can't get my head around k for bodyweights...

You might want to take a look at Carb Backloading by John Kiefer. The general principle is basically just carb deplete for ten days then just have carbs post workout. He goes into quite a lot of scientific detail about it but the general principle is pretty easy.



Yes! It was Tony. Haha small world eh? Tony's a good guy, comes into the shop where I work most Sundays getting stuff for clients. I'd been reading about the benefits of bio-sig for a while but after speaking to Tony I really want to give it a try. It's hard tracking down practitioners though and I don't imagine it's cheap. If it can get me looking like Tony though it'll be worth every penny.

Copious amounts of Ephedrine and Yohimbine ordered. Looked into the Chesteze stuff but wasn't a fan of the theophylline content in them. 11 days before I hit it. Gonna do 3 very low carb weeks with a 1 day a week refeed followed by 2 rounds of 11 day PSMF broken up by a few day refeed.

yeah having looked into theophylline it looks like you made a good choice there.

I'll be interested to hear how you get on. Especially how you get on with the PSMF. That $h1t sounds brutal.

Is anyone getting a body fat test prior to this endeavour? A PSMF will drop a lot of weight fast but if you don't have a high amount of body fat, a lot of the loss will be muscle, even with a high protein intake. Once keto adapted, fat mobilization will improve but in the week or 2 prior to that point, muscle loss is inevitable.

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Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

I'm scared. It's the weekends that are hard. I enjoy a drink (or 100000) and this leads to $h1t food. It takes ridiculous will power to have only protein and alcohol on them days/nights. There's a good leangains article on alcohol with weight loss which I trust you've read.

mirror and belt notches are my guide to fat loss, with strength in the gym being my indicator of muscle loss.

I'm not doing the PSMF though so I don't think I'm in as much danger as Nevage

yeah I've read that article, there's a good article on T-Nation by Alan Aragon (before they banned him for bad mouthing their ludicrous supplements) called something like "A meatheads guide to alcohol" which is worth a read.

Weekends are always going to be the hardest, but just stay in with a DVD and a bag of something to smoke. You'll stick to your diet and save money for Florida. You can never have too much money to take with you on holiday.

If you're on PSMF and want a snack, go with fat and protein. A piece of hard cheese is good. In Ukraine the old guys carry lard and garlic with them for a snack. That's a little weird but it would make a good keto snack.

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Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

I've been eating low carb for years, at the moment my carb intake is only after training (with the odd cheat meals although I usually arrange training for these days) so the actual full adaptation should be no problem. I'm quite happy going very low carb 6 days a week, it's the very low carb and low fat that's gonna be hard. But that's only happening in the last few weeks so if progress is going fine then I might skip it and carry on how I am. I've never tried the EC stack or yohimbine before and as I have a small build anyway then this might be enough.

I'll take before and after pics for measurements, I'll look at the scale but won't take too much notice of it.

Yes I could quite happily occupy myself with a little bag, saves so much money and no calories! I'm not at uni any more though so it's a bit harder living at home! I'll try though! I get ridiculous munchies though but I suppose its nothing a protein shake and cottage cheese can't fix.

P.S. My recommended protein intake on PSMF is 300 - 350g per day

I was gonna start a new thread but thought I might as well add it here...

What are people's thoughts on direct ab training? I've never done it. My abs often hurt from chins, deadlifts etc. But because I've never done it, I'm sort of up for trying it out over the next 6 weeks to see if I notice anything different.

do it! Why not? I used to do tons of it but not really anymore. I think I've got my abs up to where keeping them lean does more for me than building them up.

it's pretty subjective. If you're lean enough to have good definition in them, and you decide they need a bit more pop, then you'll need to train them, just like you would any other body part.

I also don't buy in to the idea that direct ab training will ruin your midsection by making it chunky. You'd have to build a huge amount of muscle on your abs for that to happen.

try some cable crunches. Make them heavy too, you'll likely be able to use quite a lot of weight.

I got my body composition measured today. I used the same machine I did last september. Here are the results:

Bodyweight: 80kg
Bodyfat: 12,7%
Muscle Mass: 66,9kg
Water: 63%

That's pretty much what I expected. I've gotten 2,5kg of pure muscle in half a year. Fat mass has increased roughly 3kg. Now my goal is to shed that fat. Goal is to get down to 10% or lower by June. I'm also trying to peak my strength by May, so the goal isn't too huge.

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Prove the impossible!

ooh someone put on more fat than muscle! You heifer.

I'm actually toying with the idea of doing some cardio. There's a bit set of stone steps near where I live that could be good to run up and down. By "good" I obviously mean "horrible, but effective."

I've decided. Weather permitting, I'm going to run up and down those steps ever Saturday, fasted, with BCAAs