Skinny to Strong

I was thinking about what all these bulking and leaning phases have done to me. Am I improving physically? I am sure I am getting stronger just by looking at the weights that I have been lifting. But what about size? Did I grow at all? The body weight is not very accurate because it depends a lot on water retention and the muscle and fat numbers vary a bit depending on your state when you took your readings and measurements. So to answer the question about physical size improvements I refer to my body measurement logs. I take body measurements every month which allows me to look back at my gains. I typically measure chest, waist, hips, right and left biceps and right thigh. I improved in every measurement that I took. They are not huge improvements like they show on TV or internet, but they are good enough to keep me motivated. Here are the raw numbers at the end of last 2 leaning phases: September 2009 Chest: 32.5 in. Waist 27.25 in. Right Bicep: 12.125 in. Right thigh: 19.0 i

This is a very exciting day for me! I can finally bench press my body weight for 3 sets of 5 reps. I weigh just 120 lbs. And there are probably 99.99% people who can bench press as much weight very easily. But for an ectomorph at my weight, it is an awesome feat. By it self 120 lb seems a very light weight and 99.99% makes me feel like I am nobody. But think again. How many people can bench press their own weight? The percentage is not 99.99% any more now is it? Add to it the fact that I can do 35 push ups after a 3 set bench press. This is going well :). However I am still considered average. To become good I have to lift 1.5 times my body weight, which is 180 lbs if I stay at the same weight, even more if I gain weight! The progress has been very very slow, but at least I have come a long way. I am adding about 5 lbs every month or so to most of my exercises. So in about 3 months I should be able to bench 135 lbs, which has always been my dream. I have never used the 45 lb plates y

I used to use the Accu-Measure skin calipers to measure my skin fold thickness. But I found out that it was getting harder to get accurate measurements because depending on how quickly or slowly I click through the calipers there could be slight variations in the body fat measurements. To make the measurements more reliable, i.e. not depend on the force I use to click it from week to week, I decided to go with Slim Guide Calipers which has a spring to pinch the skin. That way it always uses the same pinch force on my skin and I feel that is more reliable. Already I see that it is showing slightly higher numbers than my Accu-Measure skin calipers, which means that I am slightly fatter than my Accu-Measure made me believe :). That is all for the updates in this post...

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I had a 3 day training at work which involved me traveling to a remote location and having to depend completely on the meals and snacks provided at that location. While it is not necessarily a bad thing (because there were a good assortment of healthy snacks and meal options), the training was considerably intense and it distracted me from eating at the right time and right amount. I mostly ate fruits and nuts as snacks in between bigger meals. The meals I ate consisted of rice or tortilla, turkey or chicken or fish, and leafy vegetables. And while I tried to eat as much as possible, I think I did not eat the required amount and as a result I still lost a full 2.2 lbs in just 3 days! I was extremely worried that some of the weight loss would be due to muscle loss. I was also aware that I was not drinking as much water as I should and so I knew some of the weight loss would be just water. I did not know what to expect until yesterday when I first st

After (almost) another 3 months it is time for some before and after pictures. I should really be waiting until the end of march to post the pictures, but because I am planning to start the bulking phase soon, I wanted to post the pictures when I am leanest. Date: 26 December 2009 - Weight: 126 lbs - Fat: 12.5% Date: 13 March 2010 - Weight: 122 lbs - Fat: 9.92% All the fat measurements are obtained using calipers and Jackson/Pollock 3 site measurements. I was able to dip just a bit below 10% body fat, but I lost a lot of weight. As I said in my previous blog I went on a work related training for 3 days. The training was intense, taking up the whole day and sometimes into the night. On the day I went on the trip I weighed 123.2 lbs and when I came back I was 121.8 lbs. I lost 1.4 lbs in 3 days! Unfortunately some of it is muscle too. More about it in my next post. Anyway looking at the after picture, I did make a good progress in bringing out the definitions. But now it is bac

Seems like I have selected a bad week to experiment with clean food. I have a full 3 days of work related training and will be away from home. Now I may not get any healthy food and I am not even sure if I can eat every 3 hours. I will go prepared with some nuts and fruits, but it will be hard to keep track of the calories. I want to err on the side of gaining fat rather than err on the side of losing muscle. I will also miss my gym, but I guess it is for the better. I have not taken a break since a long time and this will be a welcome rest week, not that I am tired of feel sore. So as expected I have to terminate my leaning phase prematurely. I will post my latest before and after pictures and lift stats in my next blog post after I return from my trip. I will also have to prepare new goals for the upcoming bulking phase. This was a good run of leaning phase. Although I did not go all the way to 7% as I hoped to, I learned a lot of new things about my body. Now I know that I can c

Last week, I had a feeling that I might have come to my natural limit of fat loss while eating junk food. I let the past week as an experiment to see if I will continue to lose fat while still eating junk. But it backfired. In the last week I lost a mediocre 0.03 lb of fat. But that is not the worst part. I lost 0.25 lbs of muscle! Some of it may be just water weight but still losing even a tiny bit of muscle is not good. Here are some numbers that led me to this conclusion Last week Weight: 123.74 lbs Fat%: 10.07 Fat: 12.46 lbs Lean Mass: 111.28 lbs This week Weight: 123.36 lbs Fat%: 10.07 Fat: 12.43 lbs Lean Mass: 111.03 lbs Difference Weight: -0.28 lbs Fat%: 0 Fat: -0.03 lbs Lean Mass: -0.25 lbs I am still doing well with my weights, but this muscle loss is very unsettling. At this point I can add cardio or reduce junk food. I don't want to add cardio so this week I will try to eat cleaner and add a few more calories to see how things pan out. I am a

In one of my previous post I wrote that I stopped taking any kind of supplements because I am not really seeing much difference other than some rather expensive pee. There is no good way to put it, but most supplements are just waste of money and the rest are just a convenience rather than being beneficial. I replaced all my protein shakes and bars with lean cuts of meat and fruits and that is working out very well. I don't see any difference and in fact my digestive system is happier digesting natural food. I don't eat as much vegetables because they fill me up very quickly and being an ectomorph I need more calories than what vegetables can offer. Here are a couple more excerpts from the book "Burn the fat, feed the muscle" that reinforce my arguments ... The truth is that as long as you eat a sufficient quantity of whole food proteins at frequent intervals throughout the day, it's not necessary to consume any protein supplements whatsoever to get outstan

This has been a short month, but I did make some good progress. Still not getting the muscle I hoped for, but it is what it is. Here are the numbers for February 2010 Weight: 123.74 lbs Fat %: 10.07% Fat: 12.46 lbs Lean Mass: 111.28 lbs Weight change: -0.57 lbs Fat % change: -0.92% Fat change: -1.20 lbs Lean Mass change: 0.63 lbs So I lost 1.2 lbs of fat. I planned to lose 1 lb of fat per month, so it is pretty close. But then I also wanted to gain 1 lb of muscle, which did not happen. Unfortunately I could only gain 0.63 lbs. This does prove that losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time is not easy. Everything has to be just right. So far I am totally depending on my hunger signals to determine when to eat, which is usually every 3 to 4 hours. And each meal is a small 200 to 350 calorie meal with protein, carbs and fat, although the percentages are not optimal. Almost always have 6 meals, sometimes 5 meals, but never less than that. I had lesser work pressure