Sherman is progressing well. I discovered the root cause of his injury to be at the top of his hip. My guess is that one of the bigger dogs jumped on him and pressed the hip in the wrong way. Poor little guy. He can now run and play chase again so he is happy.
As for me... It is going interestingly. The scale is doing nothing really. I think I lost .25lbs a week average since starting the transition phase. I am a bit freaked out because normally all I have to do is drop calories and the scale just responds. Alan is laughing at my angst and saying that things are going exactly as he planned. He says that normally when a person starts a cut the weight just flys off and so does muscle and strength. In thinking about it, he is right. I have NO problem dropping scale weight. What I do have problems with is not dropping muscle and strength. That is really why I hired him in the first place so he is doing his job.
Still I am left just wondering how this is all going to pan out at this time. I mean I guess this is a good approach. I am still lifting pretty well (not as good as before but am not crapping out like last time I did this either) and there seems to be some trending downward over the past 3 weeks... Still it is weird and I am waiting to see what next steps are. I know for a fact I don't want to take 40 weeks to lose 10 lbs.
Goals (lower work days) 300P, 120C, 70F
Goals (upper work and rest days) 200P, 120C, 70F
Optional 1x a week Carb up = 230C on an upper work day
Date
workout
Weight
Total Cals
Protein
Carbs
Fat
sleep
Fish
Vit
Transition Phase
Monday, February 16, 2009
x
135.40
2436.4
235
204
75.6
7.5
Yes
Yes
Monday, February 23, 2009
R
134.20
2209.7
234
158
71.3
6
Yes
Yes
Monday, March 02, 2009
R
134.40
2070
213
156
66
7
Yes
Yes
Cut Phase
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
x
137.70
2321.8
322
114
64.2
7
Yes
Yes
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
x
136.60
1971.2
212
126
68.8
6.5
Yes
Yes
Thursday, March 05, 2009
R
134.80
1937.1
209
118
69.9
6.5
Yes
Yes
Friday, March 06, 2009
x
135.00
2380.9
327
115
68.1
3.5
Yes
Yes
Saturday, March 07, 2009
R
134.40
1705
199
90
61
9.5
Yes
Yes
Sunday, March 08, 2009
x
135.00
1882.8
226
98
65.2
7
Yes
Yes
Monday, March 09, 2009
R
134.40
1893.8
204
125
64.2
6
Yes
Yes
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
R
134.80
1900.5
193
119
72.5
6
Yes
Yes
__________________
The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
YAY on Sherman feeling better and getting to run and play!
Quote:
I know for a fact I don't want to take 40 weeks to lose 10 lbs
Amen sistah!!!!
(Although... from one who takes that long or longer, it seems... playing devil's advocate here: What if you could lose those 10# of pure fat and spare your lean mass instead of cycling up down up down to do it? Would it be worth it then?)
Still I am left just wondering how this is all going to pan out at this time. I mean I guess this is a good approach. I am still lifting pretty well (not as good as before but am not crapping out like last time I did this either) and there seems to be some trending downward over the past 3 weeks... Still it is weird and I am waiting to see what next steps are. I know for a fact I don't want to take 40 weeks to lose 10 lbs.
Sounds like it is going to be an exercise in patience. I hope your tracking helps you see your progress and not feel stalled.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bytsi
YAY on Sherman feeling better and getting to run and play!
x2
__________________
"Time and patience are the 2 elements that most people don't include in their plans."
-Alan Aragon
"The scale simply tells you how much the earth loves you on a particular day."
-Ogedei (Keith)
(Although... from one who takes that long or longer, it seems... playing devil's advocate here: What if you could lose those 10# of pure fat and spare your lean mass instead of cycling up down up down to do it? Would it be worth it then?)
I don't know that it would be worth it to wait for 40 weeks. I have been thinking on this for days and cannot answer that. I think I would rather cycle up and down to get there if I can do that without losing muscle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dillytl
Oh no - not another poor injured pet! Poor Sherman! I hope he continues to get better!
Quote:
Originally Posted by beesknees
Hope your little guy gets better!
BTW: Thanks ladies he is almost 100% again. He has just a little hitch in his gait but it is very slight now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CloveApple
Sounds like it is going to be an exercise in patience. I hope your tracking helps you see your progress and not feel stalled.
So far my tracking is not helping me. I am totally freaking out. The thing is that I feel worse in the gym than I used to. It is just harder to do the work. Interestingly though when I put the numbers into my log I am not losing strength so much as I think I am when I am in the gym. I know I am weaker in the mind but he body is still responding okay. I can live with this I guess because I know at least I am not losing muscle. It was very important to me that I not lose muscle on this round.
I am currently weighing almost exactly the same on the scale as when I started my transition 3 weeks ago. This is VERY weird for me and it makes me uncomfortable as hell. Still I am just hang'n wit da plan and waiting for da boss to make a move.
__________________
The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
Well... A long couple of days has gone by. My parents are here with me and all is well but I have less time to write and read the boards for awhile.
My weight is hovering so it is a bit freaky to me. I had set June 1st as my timeframe to be at 10% or under and it doesn't look like I am going to get there at this rate. So I had a little bit of a conversation or two with Alan on this and he gave me the following email advice. (Please note that I have permission from Alan and Tom to post this and I think it is really a really good read. He actually wrote an amazing article in his Nov AARR on this very topic)
Hi Karla,
I think that it boils down to how dead-set you are on June 1st. I think that you can get dialed in with minimal muscle loss by then, but I'd prefer to stretch the dealine out till july or august. This is not to say you won't look awesome in June though! and yes, I understand the get-it-now desire being at odds with the slow/steady-wins-the-race route. But remember the fable about the turtle & the hare
The idea of losing 1.5 lbs per week without strength or muscle loss is entirely possible -- but catch this -- in the overweight & obese population. To give you an example, Tom has been losing an average of 1.75 lbs/week for the last 3 months. But, he started off at 229 lbs. I have an online client right now who was 18 lbs heavier 5 WEEKS AGO. But, he started off weighing 325 lbs. That's an average of 3.6 lbs per week. He's still hitting PRs as we speak. How bout them apples?
Now let's review Karla's case: 135 lbs, lean by "normal" standards, normal by "bro" standards. While still keeping their muscle, obese folks can lose 6-8% of their total bodyweight per month, moderately overweight folks can lose 4-6% of their total bodyweight per month, average folks 2-4%, lean folks 1-2%, very lean folks 0.5-1% per month (this is on page 2 of the November AARR). Since you're somewhere between the low end of average & the high end of lean, I'd say that a dedicated weight loss program aimed at keeping LBM should have you shedding about 2% of your bodyweight per month (2.7 lbs per month, 0.7 lbs per week) until you get into the heart of the lean category. The fact that your weight is still stable doesn't scare me, because it would take a simple adjustment to get that 0.7 lb/week drop going. The reason I was excited about your weight stability is because this means that your body has responded by actually gaining muscle despite the slight deficit. I know that this is very likely to be temporary, but it's a wave that I'd be interested in riding for the next few days (see: Monday).
PS - you can post this response (along with your question) on the boards if you think it will help people who may have similar confusion over the issue of rate of weight loss while keeping LBM. Or, you can keep it in your personal knowledge vault, that's cool too. Hopefully that clears things up, please let me know what other Q's you might have.
So first of all YEAH TOM! Did you realize how much you have been losing? LOL!
Second of all, with his encouragement I will be resetting my expectations of riptitude to be later in the summer. He and I will have to work around my annual guitar camp thing (where I cannot really prepare food or workout to much) and we'll have to work around the extra cardio that I like to do in the summer months. He signed up for that and I signed up for taking as long as it needs to take to get there without muscle loss.
So thems the new plans. Alan did say he was going to reset my plan a bit come Monday (tomorrow) though if the weight is still hovering. It is still hovering but my pants are fitting less snug now and I am looking okay so I know things are happening. Still he says we are a changing some things...
__________________
The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
Maybe you're psyching yourself out and that's why your gym time isn't as good?
Could be but Alan says that feeling weak and even getting weak is a normal sign when carbs get lowered. My carbs are really low right now. I am still setting PRs here and there but the workouts are much more of a struggle than before.
__________________
The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
That's a way more realistic point of view .. glad you're seeing things in a different perspective
For a lean woman like you, dropping say 1 lbs of fat in a month is already pretty good going.. at least, when you are aiming for NO loss of LBM or strength.
< hijack>
I'm crossing fingers that won't happen.. nor for me.
In the past I'd always lose about 30% of LBM relative to total loss and while EVERYONE was always pestering me about how it can only be glycogen what I have lost, it's not easy to believe that since I'm rarely bloating upon refeeds. If you never bloat much, how can you be dropping water weight? Right???
Maybe this time around is different.. I've been using BCAAs for the past 3-4 months now and it seems it is making a difference. It's going to be interesting how things work out in a deficit. Even more interesting whether I'm going to keep the gained LBM of the past mini-bulk (was it glycogen or was it really musklez?)
I don't really have any choice on "seeing things from a different perspective" except to leave my current program and admit that muscle loss is okay. Alan said he would respect whatever decision and/or direction I wanted to go but he couldn't change the science part of it for me. Since June 1st wasn't based on anything except my desires to be done by then it seemed to make best sense to move that expectation.
I really don't know what to say about "is it muscle or glycogen" except that I think there is NO WAY to say for certain. That is why the mini-cycles that you do would not work for me. At least with the bigger cycles I can be pretty (somewhat) certain. And do tell what it is that you think the BCAAs are doing for you?
__________________
The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
Very cool letter - thanks for sharing! Makes me take a look at what's "reasonable" for me too - I'm thinking I'm in the "normal"-ish range??? But to be safe, really looking at 3-4#/month for me (which would still be a LOT compared to where I was even when I was losing in the fall) without sacrificing much lean - very helpful!!
Hang in there Karla - trust the process - and thanks!!!
When you are training intensely, the protein which is used by the body, is predominantly of BCAA origin.
Normally BCAAs are present in food, but dairy is the most abundant source of it.. which means that if you don't eat much dairy (am having a light to moderate allergy reaction to dairy & dairy-based PP) your body may derive the BCAAs from lean body mass sooner than for others.
Add this to the fact that I'm having higher cortisol levels than other people, it means that I naturally tend to do more volume than most. I'm actually using both BCAAs and leucine powder. The former during a training, the latter during breakfast.
You would need to monitor changes over a longer period of time, but things are promising sofar. Talk to me in another 2 months though.. I've got only 1 month of very moderate cutting under my belt. Sofar I've not really dropped fat, just seen mtn go down from a high 2400ish to a moderate 2000-2100ish kcal. In another 2-3 weeks avg intake should be at around 1900 kcal which is when I've always managed to lose fat. Hopefully that will be low enough. Me likes eating too much
Very cool letter - thanks for sharing! Makes me take a look at what's "reasonable" for me too - I'm thinking I'm in the "normal"-ish range??? But to be safe, really looking at 3-4#/month for me (which would still be a LOT compared to where I was even when I was losing in the fall) without sacrificing much lean - very helpful!!
Hang in there Karla - trust the process - and thanks!!!
I obviously cannot trust the process given my uneasiness with it all but I can trust the nutritionist. Since talking this through with Alan and accepting this reasoning and resetting my end date I am much more at peace. Not happy per say that I have to go longer into this but more at peace.
I should mention that I posted this originally on Fat Loss Troubleshoot board and Leigh sort of freaked out on it. I did not get the full gist of what she was saying but I think she disagreed with it pretty strongly. I had the thread removed because I did not want to cause any sort of trouble for Alan on her board. So I decided to just post it here instead. If you follow Leigh, you might want to find out what she says about this instead of just taking this post at face value. I obviously am commiting to this as fact but others should do their own homework and form their own opinions.
__________________
The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
Alan said he would respect whatever decision and/or direction I wanted to go but he couldn't change the science part of it for me.
LOL, that is very Alan.
And of course whatever decisions you make we'll be cheering you on too.
__________________
"Time and patience are the 2 elements that most people don't include in their plans."
-Alan Aragon
"The scale simply tells you how much the earth loves you on a particular day."
-Ogedei (Keith)
And of course whatever decisions you make we'll be cheering you on too.
Nice avatar! Good to see your face.
The decision is already made. I pushed out my marketing window (drop dead date) for 10% bf to meet Alan's ideal rate of loss for my current body composition. It took us a few emails to get to that but I came around pretty quickly once I understood that there wasn't any magic wand he could wave for me to make the goal happen sooner.
So this is going to be a really, really boring fat loss log. Come back and visit around June timeframe. Alan says I should be looking pretty good by then. LOL!
__________________
The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
When you are training intensely, the protein which is used by the body, is predominantly of BCAA origin.
Normally BCAAs are present in food, but dairy is the most abundant source of it.. which means that if you don't eat much dairy (am having a light to moderate allergy reaction to dairy & dairy-based PP) your body may derive the BCAAs from lean body mass sooner than for others.
Add this to the fact that I'm having higher cortisol levels than other people, it means that I naturally tend to do more volume than most. I'm actually using both BCAAs and leucine powder. The former during a training, the latter during breakfast.
You would need to monitor changes over a longer period of time, but things are promising sofar. Talk to me in another 2 months though.. I've got only 1 month of very moderate cutting under my belt. Sofar I've not really dropped fat, just seen mtn go down from a high 2400ish to a moderate 2000-2100ish kcal. In another 2-3 weeks avg intake should be at around 1900 kcal which is when I've always managed to lose fat. Hopefully that will be low enough. Me likes eating too much
Very interesting stuff going on in here, Karla! Thanks for sharing Alan's response. Makes total sense to me and explains some things I've been wondering myself.
Espi, I didn't know that about BCAAs. Maybe that's one of the reasons I'm craving dairy like a crazy person.
So this is going to be a really, really boring fat loss log. Come back and visit around June timeframe. Alan says I should be looking pretty good by then. LOL!
Somehow I doubt your log will ever be boring. You generally have too many things you are learning and thinking about to be boring.
__________________
"Time and patience are the 2 elements that most people don't include in their plans."
-Alan Aragon
"The scale simply tells you how much the earth loves you on a particular day."
-Ogedei (Keith)
So got my calories adjusted yesterday (only 500 a week less) and am moving on with the new plan. I feel weak and my head is fuzzy a lot. I think these are low carb things that one can push through. I am not really on a low carb plan (120g a day) per say but still it is low for me. I need my carbs. I got a workout in tonight but strength is definately down. Weird thing is scale weight is up. Not sure what is going on but am no longer freaking out. I am just trusting and doing at this point.
On the "good" side of things, I have vascularity like I have never seen before. Veins up my arms and over the biceps. Ewwwww... or cool if you like that. I see my obliques again and the linea ulba has made a showing.
OT: My folks and I have been having a good time this past week. My Mom has a birthday on Friday and I bought her a laptop and digital camera. She and I have been playing with the new toys the past few days. I am hitting my diet despite them being here and managed to get two workouts in already this week. My daughter comes on Sat though and stays until Tuesday so I am guessing I won't be able to keep all of this up. So it is a day by day thing for now.
__________________
The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
I'd say you're leaning out if you're getting more vascular and seeing better definition. Glad you are trusting the process... and I HATE low-carb too - mine never go below 85 (a lot less calories total than you get, too) and I feel it. I REALLY feel it!
On the "good" side of things, I have vascularity like I have never seen before. Veins up my arms and over the biceps. Ewwwww... or cool if you like that. I see my obliques again and the linea ulba has made a showing.
It's a good thing. My DW is very lean and has come to accept that if the gym is her playground, she will embrace definition and vascularity. I, as evidenced by the photos in my log, still have a way to go!
Hi Karla...just catching up. Hope you have a great time with your family. Sounds lovely!
Thanks! It has been pretty cool so far. I don't get a chance to hang out with them very much.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bytsi
I'd say you're leaning out if you're getting more vascular and seeing better definition. Glad you are trusting the process... and I HATE low-carb too - mine never go below 85 (a lot less calories total than you get, too) and I feel it. I REALLY feel it!
Does the crashing feeling ever go away on these diets? This is the reason I never did/do low carbs before. This sux. I did not mind the deficit at all so much last year with my higer carb, lower fat and protein.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Espi
Seems like you are having a good time with your mom.
Way to go to stick to your diet despite feeling a bit off.
Thanks Espi. This one is going to require a lot of dicsipline. It is rather hard right now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by foodfromafar
Keep trusting the plan, Karla, and you'll do fine! Glad to hear your visit is going well. It'll be fun to have your daughter there, too!
Thanks Paula. I am trusting. Hard as it is.... I am trusting.
I am up another lb today on the scale. I am too fucking tired and grumpy to care anymore. I am interested in hanging with this plan for the experiement part of it (just to see what it really does) but I can say for sure that I never want to do this one again. I feel like I did when I gave up caffene awhile ago. Holy cripes.
The scale thing is actually interesting to me (from a science point of view). On the way to work today I was thinking about what I might be doing to possibly sabatoge my weight loss efforts and I could come up with nothing. As far as I can tell, I am squeaky clean here and using the same (even more strict actually) methods I used in my prior cut to measure and track. My body feels like it is in deficit but the weight stays. (weird and also fascinating)
I remembered in my thinking this morning about 2 other times in the past that I did a diet. Both those times I was working at InFocus with a group of very fun people. We did weight loss contests. They were 16 weeks long and we used a bio impedence scale to weigh in. The rules where that you had to lose weight without gaining bf%. To make it fair for big and little people we took percentage of body weight an bf% lost as the factor to gauge the contest as opposed to raw numbers. Both times I won the contests (second time I tied actually), but the weird thing about these contests were that for the first 6-8 weeks I lost nothing or I gained. I never really stressed out about it because I did not really care if I won the contest or not but just hung with my deficit plan and did my thing. The second 8 weeks I cooked like fire and dropped weight like mad. By that time all my coworkers had cheated so much or had quit. I was just consistent and stayed the course.
Of course last year when I was doing my first bulk this did not happen so I thought that maybe these other two times were flukes or that I was not carefully enough dropping calories.
I don't know... It is all a mystery at this point. Can it really take 6-8 weeks for the body to respond to calories dropping?
__________________
The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
I did not mind the deficit at all so much last year with my higer carb, lower fat and protein. 
Linear Mode
