Skinny to Strong

Before I go into the gym I have to make sure that I am neither hungry nor too full. I am not sure if that is how everyone feels but this requirement of delicate balance between too full and too hungry is causing trouble to me. There have been times when I went to gym when I am too full and it scares me that I might throw up especially when I do squats or deadlifts. Another problem is cramps for more movement involved exercises. Yet another problem with being too full is that I will not be able to eat much after the workout (the ectomorph problem of getting too full too quickly). And then there are times when I go to gym feeling hungry like today. Something urgent came up at work and I was 45 minutes late to gym than usual. I started feeling hungry as I stepped into the gym. It is a weird time that I can neither have a snack nor a full lunch. But in retrospect I should have had a snack even if it means I will have to reduce the big lunch after workout. As I started working out I fel...

I have been wanting to record what I eat and how much I eat for a while now and I was finally able to do it for 1 day. So this is what I ate on Friday, December 18, 2009. Early morning snack I had a glass of 2% milk early in the morning at around 7 am. Calories: 122 Fat: 4.81 gms Carb: 11.42 gms Prot: 8.05 gms Breakfast For breakfast I had a bowl of cereals. The cereals is a mix of raisin bran and cheerios. I ate this around 9 am. Calories: 175 Fat: 2.19 gms Carb: 34.58 gms Prot: 4.95 gms Morning Snack For my morning snack I had a cup of pineapple and a cup of cottage cheese. This was around 11 am. Calories: 272 Fat: 4 gms Carb: 26 gms Prot: 31 gms Lunch Lunch consisted of chicken burger and fries at 1 pm. Calories: 498 Fat: 20 gms Carb: 51 gms Prot: 27 gms Afternoon Snack Chicken tandoori with a glass of 2% milk at 4 pm. Calories: 253 Fat: 11 gms Carb: 13 gms Prot: 23 gms Dinner Chicken dum biriyani at 7 pm. Calories: 410 Fat: 11 gms ...

Today was really the first day when I attempted to slow down my tempo to allow for more time under tension. When I decided to do it last week, I was just guessing that my body needs more time under stress. But now I have something that reinforces my logic for using slow tempo for 6 weeks (again just random number I picked which happened to be what Hugh Jackman used for his workout!). Here is the link to the whole Hugh Jackman workout: http://www.squidoo.com/hugh-jackman-workout. Apparently Hugh used a two phase approach. Basically the website explains (I cannot say if it is authentic, but hey that is the case with most body building websites and stories) that he used a slow tempo phase for mass building and then a faster tempo to gain strength. Each phase lasted for 6 weeks. First he would start with a mass gain phase. This is the phase where he uses slow 3 second eccentric contraction and 1 second of concentric contraction. This tempo is useful for muscles to adapt and grow. It li...

I have made some good progress so far as my strength and weight goals are concerned. Although I did not reach any of my strength goals I am very close to achieving them. Almost a week into December and I already reached my weight goal of 125 lbs. That means I gained a whopping 6 lbs in 3 months (for an ectomorph that is a big deal believe me). However along the road I gained a huge amount of fat too. A full 3.5% to be precise. In the past 2 months and 1 week I have only concentrated on increasing the strength. Always performed the exercises with quick bursts of energy when lifting and quickly bringing the weight down in the negatives. So the time under tension was very low. Perhaps around 2 to 3 seconds per rep. Total time under tension for a set was around 10 to 30 seconds depending on the reps. As a result I could keep adding weights more often and kept going. Now that I have reached a certain point in my strength I want to concentrate more on form and letting my central nervous sy...

Here are the weight and fat graphs for November 2009. Body Weight Chart For the first few days the weight gain was slow, but after a couple of weeks the weight went down. Clear indication that I was not getting enough calories. That was when I increased my calories from 1800 to 2000. See my previous post for more details about it. As soon as I increased the calories I saw a sudden and quick weight increase for a couple of weeks and then it started dipping. I am not sure of the reason, but it could be because I was over training. I rested for the first week of december so that should give enough time for my body to recover. Body Fat % Chart The flip side of gaining weight is the fat. I have been constantly gaining fat. Even during the time when I could not gain any weight I was still getting fat. Perhaps over training, muscle loss and calorie deficiencies could be the reason. I have to take better care of my body. We will see how december goes.

It is past end of November and time for some more numbers. Over all this month went well. I did gain a lot of weight, however I far exceeded my fat % limit. I know for sure that I will reach my weight goal but at the same time I will fail miserably in my fat % goal. Anyway here are the numbers for my weight and fat % at the end of November Body weight and fat gain in 1 month Weight: 124.54 lbs Fat %: 14.03 % Lean mass: 107.07 lbs Weight gain: 3.74 lbs Fat % gain: 1.83% Lean mass gain: 1.01 lb I was able to put on 4 lbs of weight, but at what cost? I added 2.73 lbs of fat just to gain a mediocre 1 lb of muscle. At least my body does prove that a gain of 1 lb of muscle a month is about the right rate at which I can gain muscle. Not everything is gloomy though, I am very close to reaching my weight goal of 125 lbs by the end of December! I will have to do something about the fat % though. My weights have also steadily increased, albeit very slowly. Here are the numbers for my l...