Day 6

Well back at work today after a nice 4 day long weekend put me back in the front seat of reality and the normal weekly routine of things. Busy day at work of course given the time away but a productive one as well.

I must say that using LGIF is very practical and workable into almost any work schedule in that my first meal comes when everyone else is taking lunch as well (noonish) and my 2nd meal comes when most of the base (North Island) is leaving for the day and our command work day is pretty well over. I get home just in time to belly up and eat again and then of course after my evening workout I come home from the gym (3 miles away) and eat 1 last time. Easy day!

Today was day 2 chest and back so lets have a peak shall we??

Training: 645-800pm

1. seated chest press machine: 12,10,8,6,4,4,2 (left cuff felt tender on first set of bb bench so that was not happening today)
2. hammer bilateral iso low row: 12,10,8,6,4,2,2
3. hammer wide chest presss: 3x10
4. hammer bilateral high-low row: 3x12
5. pull over machine: 3x15

Grub:

Daily Totals

Meal 1
Meal 2 (on the run, no pic, see daily totals for food items)
Meal 3 (the best damn supersized egg, ham & cheese homemade mcmuffin you ever saw or tasted!)

New supplement being used as of today! I got an order of CocoaVia in the mail today which I asked for a few weeks back to sample after reading up on it. Not really expecting anything huge from it but none the less we all know the benefits of cocoa bean extract so it cant hurt anything either. I used 1 pack today in my whey shake and WOW did it add a nice deep dark hint of real chocolate (to the molten chocolate flavor of cellucor cor-performance whey) and thats using only water as the solvent to! Comes in fruit flavor and dark chocolate flavor packs with 20 and 30 calories per pack respectively.

Day 5

So today as mentioned in my last post I weighed in this AM to gauge a more accurate reading of my stats and I found myself at 189.6lbs and 8.4% bodyfat. I will check in again 5 days from now or Saturday morning to see where I am at.

Today was day 1 kicking off the 4 day cycle once more with a Monster Monday Legs workout! Todays focus was posterior pulling via deadlift compared to last leg day with an anterior focus based on squats.

Here we go....

Training:

TRX Dynamic Movement Prep and Pillar Activation......

Traditional Deadlifts: 225x10, 225x10, 255x8. 275x6, 315x4, 335x2, 335x2
Reverse Hack Squats: 4x12
Leg Extensions: 3x15
Prone Leg Curls: 3x20
Standing Calf Press: 4x20,15,10,20
Cable Pull-Off Press: 2x12 each side

PNF Stretching/Foam Rolling.....done!

Grub Daily Totals

Meal 1 pic

Meal 2 pic

Meal 3
pic 1
pic 2
pic 3
pic 4
pic 5

Day 4

Day 4 was my first rest day with no lifting and only HIIT cardio as outlined in the initial post I put up where I describe how I perform HIIT training. I only had my 2 starbucks tall coffee's (Equal only) and my greet tea extract pills before HIIT around 930am, I took my scoop of Xtend at about 1100am and pretty much hit the bike right after that for 30 minutes. By 12 noon it was time to eat for meal 1.

One thing I am changing will be my plans to weigh in each Sunday AM and the reason is much like I found on this occasion is that after having had 3 days of high carbs in the 600g range, my body as would most peoples, hold a good deal of water weight. Yesterday (Sunday) I was 196.0 and 9% at 9am. Now after looking at it again today after having 1 day of low carbs(120g) I could see clearly that I was holding almost 6.4lbs of water from those 3 days in that today I was only 189.6lbs today 8.4% bodyfat. I feel it would be a very skewed number to log what I find every Sunday vs a more baseline and true reading that would come after having a day of lower carbs and the day off from training. So what I will do now is take my weigh in and comp measures every 5th day which given my split will fall right after my 4th day rotation which is cardio only and a low carb day. This will offer a more sensitive look at my weight and body composition (due to frequency) and a more reliable measure of my true baseline changes in LBM vs water weight alone.

GRUB

Daily Totals

Meal 1 pic

Meal 2 pic

Meal 3 pic

Day 3

TRAINING:

2:30-4:00pm
Today was day 3, arms and shoulders, lets get right to it!

Standing BB Push Press: 105x6 (5 sets)
BB Wide Grip High Pull: 125x6 (5 sets)
DB Curls: 3x12
Seated Tricep Dip Machine: 3x12
Standing Side DB Laterals: 3x15
Preacher Curl Machine: 3x15
Tricep Extension Machine: 3x15
Decline Reverse Crunch: 2x15
Decline Sit Up: 2x15


GRUB:

Meal 1:

• No picture as this was on the run and eaten on the fly vs as a sit down meal, see myfitnesspal log for details.

Meal 2:

• 2lb signature Uncle Biffs CA Killer Cookie (national award winner) (pic)
• 64 oz skim milk

Meal 3:

• Fat Sals Deli Sandwich (roast beef, ham, prime rib, grilled onions and mushrooms on hero roll)
• Vanilla Bean FroYo + Pineapple

Day 2

Today was workout day 2 so we had chest and back on the agenda. This is how it shook out...

Trained at the 24 hour fitness sport location in Bonita this evening which I had never been to before and I must say its my favorite 24 hour fitness location so far out of the 5 I have been going to since joining back in early March. Awesome design, great layout, tons of strength equipment and plenty of my favorites.....HAMMER STRENGTH!

Training:
645pm-800pm

1. Incline BB Bench: 95x12, 105x10, 115x8, 125x6, 135x4, 145x2, 145x2
2. Bodyweight Wide Pull Ups: 5x10
3. Hammer Wide Chest Press: 3x12,10,8
4. Paramount Seated Low Row: 3x12,10,8
5. Paramount Seated Arch Press: 3x12,10,8
6. Hammer DY Row: 3x15
7. Cable Fly (most muscular version): 1x25 (flush set)
8. Close Grip Pull Downs: 1x25 (flush set)

I also did 30 minutes LISS (low intensity steady state) keeping my HR under 140bpm (I user the Karvonen formula to figure this for my specifically) spin biking this morning at 9am simply to get my mind off of being a little hungry and not being able to eat till 12 noon when the fast ends each day before the 8 hour feeding window begins. It worked wonders as my hunger disappeared for a good couple hours (physiologically I know why this happens but regardless it helped!) It also got my legs nice and loose from Thursday killer leg workout which had me a little sore to say the least.

Grub:(link to MyFitnesspal with macro details)

Meal 1 (Broken Yolk Cafe Mission Valley, 2 entrees pictures here)

Meal 2 (homemade)

Meal 3 Romesco Mex Med Bistro (Tapas)
Bill (its a shocker folks!) thanks to ReaderCity Deals

Even with all this good eats I still came in under my macro totals for carbs by a good margin. Same with Thursday. Knowing the numbers is one thing, putting it into practice at the table is another so I will be looking to infuse my daily intake with my carbs to get my numbers spot on.

That's all for now folks, peace out!

Day 1

Recap of the first day:

Today was leg day so lets walk you all through the training session of the day:

All my workouts are about 75 minutes long, use no more then 23 sets total and I track rest periods between 90-120 seconds. Rarely do I use super sets, giant sets, compound sets and other advanced training principles as they tend to quickly overtax my CNS and lead to unwanted weight loss from the nature of those training methods. I prefer straight sets myself. I always do my compound movements first and my assistance work last. I perform 10 minutes of dynamic warm up movements, pillar prep/core/mobility work before all workouts. I also do 10 minutes of PNF stretching and foam rolling after all workouts. This is part of my 75 minute total workout time each day. All compound lifts are taken right to muscle failure where as assistance movements are stopped just a rep shy. I track and log the loads used for all barbell compound movements, nothing else really.

Legs: Squat Focus)

squats: 135x12, 155x10, 185x8, 225x6, 275x4, 300x2, 300x2

front squats: 155x8 (4 sets)

45 degree bench hypers: 3x15 unweighted

leg extensions: 3x15

prone leg curls: 2x15

seated calves: 1 plate x30, 2 plates x20, 3 plates x10, 1 plate x30

Meals:

Meal 1: I did not get a picture of as my cell died on the way to lunch and I had to let in charge in my car while I ate. I had one fried chicken breast (peeled off the skin), a 5-6 oz prime rib slice trimmed of visible fat, about a 1/2 cup 2% cottage cheese from salad bar, 2 cups of mixed melon chunks, 1 cup pineapple chunks, 2 small dinner rolls and a side green salad.

Meal 2: 1 cup whole grain complete pancake mix made with unsweet vanilla almond milk, 1 omega 3 egg, 10 cherries. I nuked it for 7 minutes in glass dish and it came out like a big cake! The topping is 6 tbsp cocoa flavored flaxseed, 6 oz fat free plain greek yogurt, 2 scoops cellucor cor performance cinnamon swirl flavored whey powder and a bit of water to mix it all up.


Meal 3: 10 oz bag dry weight of spinach pasta noodles (7.5 cups cooked) prepared as directed. 5 skinless chicken drummies seasoned with lots of Mrs. Dash.


That's all for today folks! Stay tuned for more tomorrow!

The Game Plan and Basics

So this being my first ever blog of any kind, private or public....lets see how this shakes out by getting the background info posted and explained so that all of you followers (assuming I have some) can get the gist of what I am doing, who the hell I am and why I am doing this as well as why you should follow this blog in the sea of 100,000 other blogs out there.

I am going to be blogging about my experience in starting to use what is known as The LeanGains Intermittent Fasting protocol to dieting and gaining lean muscle mass/weight. I am going to run this for 4 weeks initially and assess and objective and subjective measures to look for improvements or a lack there of compared to what I have gotten with my long held traditional approach using a 5 meals a day tactic based on the IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros) concept. I have used that later system for almost 3 years non stop and found decent results in strength, size, performance and overall physique improvements.

I have dedicated myself to the primary goal of competing in mens physique contests for the past year now and continue to do so at present. I have done bodybuilding before back in 2007 and earlier but the truth is that I am just not at all built for that part of the sport being a 28 year old male, 6'2'', 184 pound ectomorph with what I call "a cursed inferno like metabolism". Men's physique is far for realistic for someone like me who struggles to add allot of size but has no problem staying lean with little cardio and decent attention to eating a sound diet (hey I cheat to and love every bite of it!)

I work as an afloat fitness director for a US aircraft carrier meaning I teach several fitness classes per day 5 days a week. This alone is a large part of my high metabolism....I am very active for work alone, not even counting voluntary exercise training. I am lucky enough to work in or around gyms all day every day and have a fairly flexible work schedule that allows me to train and eat when I need to or want to.....more or less. When I go out to sea for 1-3 weeks on end with the ship things can get much harder let me say that much. Part of this blog will be to shed light on how I manage to make things work while living and eating and training on a US aircraft carrier 24/7 for almost a months time. Also keep in mind that I have a formal education and training in this feild which allows me the benefit of being my own refernce in most cases. I have an MS in exercise phys, BS in kinesiology a minor in sports nutrition and certifications from the NSCA in personal training, strength and conditioning as well as tactical strength and conditioning. So I design my own workouts and training plans all year long. I to, like many others, run things by my peers and others in the field with more experience or training then myself such as Layne Norton, Jose Antonio, Alan Aragon, Ian Lauer, Marc Lobliner and a couple others. No one knows everything and no one has all the answers, even me with my alphabet soup credentials. I am proud of my professional stature but in no way done learning from others or considering what else out there works better.......thus the very theme of this blog after all......

Let me now give a quick snap shot of what my protocol will be from today and over the next 4 weeks as I dive head first into the LeanGains Intermittent Fasting protocol (from now on titled LGIF)

All of the numbers below were calculated for my own personal needs and stats from the LeanGains.com website which factors in TDEE, lean body mass, gender, activity level, goals (gain, maintain, lose) so please use discretion when looking at my numbers versus copying what I have here for your use or others!

Diet

• 3 meals per day every day (25% of intake at meal 1 and 2 with 50% in meal 3 (post workout)
• meals are eaten at about 12, 4 and 8pm every day give or take. 
• I will consuming 4230 calories on training days, 2210 calories on cardio only days or rest days
• my macronutrient intake (carbs, fats, proteins) will be: 
• 225g protein all days
• 630g carbs workout days / 120g rest days
• 90g fats all days
• Supplements I use now:
• Cellucor cor-performance whey (multiple flavors)
• MRM brand Digest-All 
• Spectrum Essentials brand fish oils
• Sprouts brand CLA
• Now Foods brand GTF Chromium 
• Natures Bounty brand Green Tea Extract
• Scivation Xtend BCAA's

Training

• I do cardio via HIIT (high intensity interval training) once every 4 days on the spin bike using a 20/80 split which means 20 seconds all out effort with 80 seconds mild recovery. I do this for 20 minutes in addition to a mild intensity effort warm up and cool down before and after. I do this right before my 1st meal (12 noonish on my no lifting days)
• I train 6 days a week using a 3 on 1 off routine of lifting, it looks like this:
• legs day 1, chest/back day 2, shoulders/arms day 3, HIIT day
• I have used this lifting/cardio split for 10-11 weeks now and its working very well so this part I will leave alone for the next 4 weeks to make sure that any changes/adaptations/responses I get over the next 4 weeks are from the diet alone and not changes from the workout. 

Recording

I weigh in every Sunday morning around 8am right out of bed in the nude before I eat or drink a thing. I use a digital scale and always the same scale every time. I also do my body fat % using an Omron BIA handheld device. I find it is very accurate relative to a 7 site skinfold method when done at this time of day under these conditions. Any other time and I find the BIA handheld to be very inaccurate. I also use the mirror to gauge subjective changes since my major goal is of course to make my physique look better, not just shoot for set numbers on a scale or BIA. I am a harsh critic to myself to the mirror tends to wind up being the say all as for progress each week. I will try and find someone who can regularly take my pictures for me on a consistent basis at the same time and place each week as well to post pictures for you all to view but this has been easier said then done in the past so will see.

I will also (the best part) post regular pictures of some of the wonderfull meals I whip up each day and let me say......this alone will be worth following me! I will describe the pictures and list the macro content of the meals I eat. If you want a recipe please ask and you shall receive! When I eat out and I do like to eat out!....I will snap some shots of the meals I get there to and give locations/venue titles/links as often as I can.

So as of this post my beginning stats are 184.6lbs and 8.2% bodyfat. This was taken on Sunday morning this past weekend. My next check-in will be this coming Sunday. Look for updates, pictures and more news to come as I move forward with my little 4 week LGIF experiment! Its go time folks! Booya!