Skinny to Strong

Image via Wikipedia It has been a long time since I gave any updates on my progress. Actually it is almost 3 months! There have been a lot of developments on my personal front which was the main cause of this much delayed update. My progress has slowed down considerably too. I was hoping to be at 140 lbs by the end of this year with 7% body fat. That seems like a dream that will not be fulfilled this year. I will not even be able to meet the 140 lb goal let alone the body fat %. So what happened to me over the last 3 months? I have been in the US for more than 8 years now! I loved every moment that I was here, starting from the early struggling days of my MS to my current stable job state of today. However even before coming to US, I promised to myself that I will be back in India after gaining 5 years of work experience in US. Now that the goal has been realized, it is time to move back to India. So in the last 3 months I have been working towards the goal of moving back to India. M

I have not been updating my blog for some time now, mostly because I had nothing to update. I am still doing the same exercises and still trying to gain weight irrespective of my fat %. The good news is that I have finally reached a weight of 130 lbs. This has been my dream ever since I started working out some 2 years ago. The journey has not been easy at all. For some time I was stuck at 125 lbs (which was my previous high before I decided that I had to lose fat before I start gaining again). My body seems to have some kind of resistance at my previous weight set point of 125. I could not break it no matter what I did. But before going into more details, take a look at my graphs first. Weight Chart Fat % Chart Lean Mass Chart As you can see, I was trying to break 125 since early June. But no matter how much I tried, I could not break it. I was about 125 for a full 2 months. I got really frustrated. I was eating the same kind of food and about the same amount every day. I did n

Image via Wikipedia Last few weeks have not been very fruitful. Even as I was working out as hard as I used to, I kept losing weight. Adding insult to injury was my fat gain. In any case I decided to change my workouts yet again to "fix" the weight loss program that I got myself into. I intend to do only 2 whole body workouts per week. Each one consisting of 4 to 5 exercises depending on my motivation. I also decided to go with 3x8 for all exercises like I usually do every other 3 months. Here is my new routine Monday (back and biceps affinity) Incline Bench Press Squats Rows Bicep Curls Calf Raise Thursday (chest, shoulder and tricep affinity) Bench Press Deadlifts Shoulder Press Tricep Press Leg Raise I have been doing a lot of lower chest exercises in the last few months including decline bench press and dips. I have a feeling that my upper chest is holding me back. So I removed dips and decline bench press and added incline bench press. That should

In my previous post I set some strength goals. But a few weeks after writing that, I switched to a more balanced muscle mass and strength training. So it is harder to reach those goals. Anyhow here are the numbers. Exercise / Start (March) / Goal (June) / Peak Squat / 175 lbs / 195 lbs / 185 lbs Bench Press / 125 lbs / 145 lbs / 135 lbs Row / 95 lbs / 110 lbs / 100 lbs Shoulder Press / 65 lbs / 80 lbs / 80 lbs Deadlift / 200 lbs / 240 lbs / 215 lbs I 10 lbs away from reaching my goals for Squat, Bench Press and Row. I would not have been able to reach those goals even if I did not do the big switch . Unless I gain some quality weight I cannot expect to lift a lot more. Still need to work on that. I was however able to reach my shoulder press goal. Sweet! Deadlift is lagging behind. My legs and back are probably strong enough to lift 240 lbs, but my fingers are losing grip. Which is the main problem. I am planning more changes to my exercises and diet. I will follow up on

In my previous post I wrote about my progress in the last 3 weeks of June. Not very good right. Instead of gaining a pound a week like most other weeks before, I only gained 0.2 lbs per week during those 3 weeks. But there is more bad news to come. Look at these graphs. Weight Chart Body Fat% Chart Lean Mass Chart What happened here? I lost a whole lot of weight, but even worse I lost a lot of muscle and my fat % increased. How did it happen? Well I was out vacationing on the July 4th weekend. In the 4 days I visited Grand Canyon, Tucson, Disney Land and Universal Studios. While I tried to eat as much as I can and as often as I could, I did not eat enough times and most meal was more than I should have eaten. The calories just piled up in sudden bursts and then there was too much gap between meals. Add to it, all the walking I had to do through out the day and then add the stress that is associated with such a tightly packed vacation, the planning, the driving etc. I was burning

Ever since I switched from strength training to muscle mass gain, I have had trouble gaining weight. Unfortunately I cannot blame the new program. There are a variety of reasons that are responsible. First let me start off by showing the chart that shows my weight gain progress in the last 3 months. Observe how the curve looks like when I am healthy and gaining weight. This is represented by the slopes from 4/10/2010 to 5/8/2010 and from 5/15/2010 to 6/5/2010. Right around 6/5/2010 I switched to mass gain program. And then I lost weight the first week, then started to gain very little if any after that. Now for the breakdown by week. 6/5 to 6/12 During this week I probably lost weight because I was over-training. When I switched out of strength training I miscalculated that I would not require as many days to recover while on mass gain program. I was probably wrong. I went from 2 workouts per week to 4 workouts. With the new schedule, I saw a dip in my weight while I maintained e

In my previous post I gave some body weight and fat numbers for the 3 month period starting from April 2010 to Jun 2010. It is now time for some graphs. Here are my weight, fat and lean mass graphs for the same period. Weight Chart Fat% Chart Lean Mass Chart As you can see I pretty much kept my fat% constant. There were a few jumps here and there, but in the end, I am still under 10% body fat and can still see my abs definition slightly as is expected at around 10% BF. Now for some observations. Right before I got sick my weight jumped a lot. That was around May 8th. The gain was probably just water weight. My body was perhaps retaining water as I was about to get sick. Interestingly, my caliper measurements have also gone awry and showed higher fat percentage. Right after I got sick and as I started recovering, I lost a lot of weight. This was around May 15th. There is a sharp drop in the weight and fat % dropped to the normal value. But I did lose some muscle as a result of fa

After a long time, I am writing about my body stats. Since I follow a 3 months cycle, I will compare my weight and fat% with my March numbers. March 27, 2010 Weight: 122.2 lbs Fat %: 9.77% Fat: 11.94 lbs Lean Mass: 110.26 lbs June 26, 2010 Weight: 125.4 lbs Fat %: 9.46% Fat: 11.86 lbs Lean Mass: 113.54 lbs The difference Weight: 3.2 lbs Fat: -0.8 lbs Lean Mass: 3.28 lbs For the first time ever (in any given 3 month cycle), I gained weight while keep my fat about the same. Of course there could be some measurement errors too. But all in all I gained at least 3 lbs of muscle. Still keeping in line with my 1 lb per month gain. This is good enough for me. Trying to gain too much, too quickly is causing my fat to shoot up really quickly. I did not achieve this gain constantly over the period of 3 months. Sometimes I gained a lot and at other times I lost a few pounds. Here is the weight graph to show just that More graphs and correlation between them in my next post.

In my last post , I mentioned about the big switch from strength training to a more balanced muscle mass training and strength training. In this new program, I attempt to keep my weights in 80 to 90% 1RM instead of the heavy 90 to 95% 1RM, I used before for strength training. I used to do 2 workout per week during my strength training regimen. Usually it was on Mondays and Thursdays. Occasionally I would do another workout on Saturdays, time and motivation permitting. On Mondays and Thursdays I used to do 4 exercises. One for each body part Chest and triceps (bench press or dips) Back and biceps (rows or pull-ups) Quads and Hamstrings (deadlifts or squats) Calves or Abs They are mostly concentrated towards bigger muscle groups. On the occasional Saturdays I used to do these exercises Shoulder press Barbell Bicep curls Close grip bench press After switching to the new program and doing a couple of sessions with the lighter weights, I felt like I was not doing enough per week.

In my previous post I mentioned that I switched from strength training to a more balanced strength and muscle mass training. Why the switch? There are several reasons. First and foremost, it so happened that I have plateaued in most of my exercises. Especially bench, rows and pull-ups. I wanted to have some change in the routine to keep me moving without tiring myself to loss of motivation. I wanted to go back to my 8 reps exercises as I have done before I switched to 3x5 back in February 2010 so I can keep moving. Second, it is a well known fact that low rep (4-6) high weight (90-100% 1RM) exercises are useful in developing strength and high rep (8-10) and low weight (70-80% 1RM) exercises help in developing muscle mass. There are literally thousands (if not millions) of articles on this very subject. I will not elaborate especially because I do not know the mechanics or the biology behind the theory. So it is natural that I decided to go with some muscle mass trying to break the

I have so far been training for strength without giving any though to the muscle mass. My aim was to do 3x5 benchpress, rows with 1x my body weight, squat with 1.5x and deadlift with 2x. I have reached all my goals except for deadlift goal. So now that I have enough strength I want to switch my training to build muscle mass. Another reason is because I am getting bored with the strength training and my central nervous system seems to be getting taxed heavily for too long. Switching to muscle mass training means nothing more than reducing the weights to 80% instead of 90 to 95% and then doing 8 to 10 reps instead of 3 to 6 reps. I am not going to completely switch to muscle mass training. I plan to do strength training one week and muscle mass training the next week. Here is my plan Week 1: 3 x 8 with 80% 1RM Week 2: 6 x 4 with 90% 1RM Week 3: 3 x 9 with 80% 1RM Week 4: 7 x 4 with 90% 1RM Week 5: 3 x 10 with 80% 1RM Week 6: 8 x 4 with 90% 1RM At the end of the 6 weeks and ass

So I went to the gym with a co-worker who has not been doing workouts for a long time. We both used to workout together about 8 months ago. And then he stopped coming. I continued working out. After all this while he came to the gym and was pleasantly surprised with how much progress I made. He said "you really bulked up well and became very strong from the last time I remembered". He was the same guy who used to say I lift the "ladies weights". It is a great feeling coming from him. I still cannot compete with him in many exercises especially bench press and rows. Because I don't weigh as much as him and more weight - fat = more muscle and even after factoring out my relatively low body fat, I cannot match his muscle mass. I am equal to his strength when it comes to body weight exercises like pull-ups and dips. I still have to gain a ton of weight before I can make any big claims and gaining weight is the toughest thing for me. But for now, I am glad people

As I mentioned in my last post, I got sick last weekend. I have allergies which means from time to time the runny nose and sneezing can take a toll on the immune system. The scenario gets even worse if an antihistamine is taken right after a heavy bout of exercise during a season of flu. The antihistamines suppress the immune system further, allowing viruses to attack the human body. This is the sequence of events that took place last week and is usually the sequence that leads to me getting sick often during flu seasons. Anyway long story short, I contracted this flu from a co-worker when I was at my weakest on Thursday evening last week. I did not feel too bad on Friday morning, but come nightfall I was totally exhausted and running a slight fever. Matters got even worse on Saturday. I was only fully recovered by Wednesday. However the damage is already done. I worked hard forcing myself to overeat a couple of weeks ago which gave me an impressive 1.4 lbs gain (body weight is 124.6

I am feeling sick today. Perhaps some virus that I caught at work yesterday. I have runny nose and itchy, dry sore throat slight fever and headache. Have been making good progress so far. This is an unfortunate time to get sick. I know what happened when I got sick last time. I went down from 121.4 lbs to 117.8 lbs in just 5 days. Almost lost 4 lbs. This time I just hope I can at least keep my current weight. When I am healthy I have to force myself to eat a ton of food just to maintain my weight. But when I am sick it is hard to eat so much, so many times. Moreover digesting protein even in the form of milk, eggs or chicken is very hard on the stomach. And I know my body will ravage the muscle if I don't eat enough protein everyday. I will try to drink as much milk and eat eggs during this time. But I am not positive that I will be able to maintain my muscle and weight. Will do another post after I get well again along with the muscle and weight loss stats :(.

It has been a while since my last post. I got pretty busy at work fitting into a new role. But truth be told, I am just lazy :). Reality aside, I have been very strict with both my diet and exercise. Never missed a meal or workout in the last couple of months. Eating clean and often has become second nature to me. I have almost no craving for bad food. In the past month, I only had dessert just once. Given the amount of tasty free food we have at work (I routinely pass by 6 to 8 yummy desserts in a day), that is quite an achievement. I am still eating white rice several times a week, lots of fruits and a ton of milk everyday. Which may not be ideal for most people, but for ectomorphs like myself, it is not a problem at all. Yet I barely gain 0.5 lbs a week. I shake my head in disappointment. There were times when I ate as many as 10 meals, but routinely it is more like 6 to 8 meals. Other than eating some junk food, I am not sure how I can eat any more calories than that. Weight in

A while ago I decided to switch to eating clean because I was unable to lose any more fat while maintaining muscle with my junk food diet. However a few days later I discovered that I lost a considerable amount of muscle as a result of my work related travel and my tendency to eat less as I was trying to lean. As a result I decided to go back to mass building phase and increased my food intake. But the sad news is that after all my efforts to eat clean and eat a lot, I am still losing weight (and fat too, which is good). For an ectomorph eating clean means it is even harder to put on weight. In the last 3 weeks (about the time when I first started to bulk up), my fat % went down from 9.92% to 9.46% and my weight from 122 lbs to 120.8 lbs. This eating clean thing is killing me. It is very hard to stuff oneself with clean food. Which is why I fear I may not be able to put on any weight if I continue doing this. I have to find some way to increase the number of calories. Although I am

For the last few months my goals have always been around weight, fat and muscle. But this time I want to try something different. I am finding it really hard to make sense of the varying weight and fat numbers. So this time I want to have strength goals (which always should go up). Again these can vary a bit too, but I want to give it a try and see how I do with strength goals. At the end of March 2010, the numbers for some compound exercises are as follows (able to do 3 x 5): Squats: 175 lbs Bench Press: 125 lbs Rows: 95 lbs Shoulder Press: 65 lbs Deadlift: 200 lbs Looking at the past trend for most of my compound exercises, I see a 5 lbs increase per month in the weight that I can lift. Extrapolating that for 3 months I should be able to lift about 15 lbs more than I lifted at the end of March. Just to make it a bit more challenging I throw in an extra 5 lbs to the goals. So the final goal for each of the compound exercises should be a 20 lbs increase in the lifts. But

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

When I say "I lose weight, both muscle and fat very quickly if I don't consistently eat 6 times a day and exercise regularly", most people don't seem to get it. They say that I am exaggerating. According to them there is no way that I cannot gain at the rate at which I am eating. They never get it now do they. Many people at work ask me why I eat so much and so many times, but how can I explain the curse of an ectomorph? And then there are these other set of people who think it is easy to look muscular for an ectomorph like me. Their argument -- "You burn so many calories so quickly, so you never have to worry about becoming fat and so you can easily gain muscle and every little muscle looks well defined because you are skinny by nature". What they don't seem to get is that it is very hard to gain muscle.And no gaining a little bit of muscle will not make me look defined. No one will simply notice the difference at all. A 10 lb of muscle is not visible

Although I have switched to leaning phase, I still have the very bad habit of eating unhealthy food. I eat anything and everything. I should be more disciplined but it never seems to happen anyway. Most recently I have eaten at least 3 chicken sandwiches with fries. Add to it 3 more desserts and 2 cokes. And a marathon of greasy indian food such as chicken and egg biriyani and you get a bunch of unnecessary calories. It is not even like I have a sweet tooth or something. I just like to eat what I can get. This does not mean I am not eating anything healthy at all. I do eat cottage cheese 5 times a week and yogurt or oatmeals once in a while. I wonder if I keep eating junk like this then if I will ever be able to acheive 7% body fat. I decided to continue the junk as long as I am losing fat. One more important change is that I stopped taking supplements of any kind. Yay! That is a big acheivement. No more protien shakes for me. I really question the use of the supplements in helping

Now that I am in the leaning phase I made some changes to my diet. Instead of force feeding myself with a lot of food every 2 or 3 hours, I relaxed it to "eat when hungry" mode. I don't force myself to eat every few hours whether I feel hungry or not. I eat when I start feeling a bit hungry. This means I still have to keep food stocked all the time so I can eat at the first indication of hunger. I try and keep each eating session to a modest 400 calories or less so I don't strain my body into digesting a lot at a time and it also helps me feel hungry in 3 or 4 hours. So far this new regimen is working well. I am slowly reaching my goal of losing 3 lbs of fat in 3 months. Still have to do something about gaining muscle though. I also switched to a more relaxed 2 workout sessions per week. Each session involves a full body workout with more emphasis on chest and triceps. In general this is what I do Day 1: Monday Decline Bench Press (Chest and Triceps) Squats (Le

I have been doing all my workouts with a slow tempo for a while now. I like it. It puts more strain on my muscles for longer and I have a lot more control. I don't lose energy all of a sudden in the middle of a rep especially on my bench press, because it is the most dangerous exercise to do without a spotter. Losing energy in the middle of a rep means you just have to let the barbell drop on your chest and roll it off your stomach. In that process you will most likely hurt your shoulder. On the other hand doing slow reps means you have to reduce the weight to be able to do the same number of reps and sets as you would do with power lifts. When I first started doing slow reps I wanted to do it for a month or so and go back to power lifts. But once I started doing the slow ones I felt so good about the immense control I am getting and the good form I am able to maintain I decided to go with it as long as I cannot increase my weights for 4 weeks straight. Then I will switch to powe

I was so busy this month that I did not know when the month started and ended! Time just flew. As I mentioned in my previous blog this quarter I am trying to get rid of some of the fat that I gained during my bulking phase from October to December 2009. The goal was to lose 1 lb of fat while gaining 1 lb of muscle during the same time. Basically replace fat with muscle pound per pound. Here are the raw numbers for the month of January Weight: 124.26 lbs Fat %: 10.99% Fat: 13.66 lbs Lean mass: 110.60 lbs Weight change: -1.34 lbs Fat % change: 1.51% Fat change: -2.04 lbs Muscle change: 0.7 lbs The program did not go as planned. I lost 2 lbs of fat which is great! But on the flip side I was able to gain only 0.7 lbs of muscle instead of the planned 1 lb. The main reason is that I got very busy at work and could not give enough attention to my diet. I ate only when I felt hungry. However I did not miss a single workout during that very busy month. I have to be more careful

It is already 3 weeks into the new quarter and I did not yet write my goals. I have it in my mind. it is just that I did not put it down on paper yet. So for the next 3 months my goal is to gain 3 lbs of fat while maintaining the same weight. It simply means I will have to convert 3 lbs of fat into muscle! Here are the raw numbers January 1, 2010: Baseline Weight: 125.6 lbs Fat %: 12.5% Fat: 15.7 lbs Lean Mass: 109.9 lbs Note that I am using the caliper measurement for fat. I don't think I can rely on the omron body fat monitor. I will still keep track of the fat numbers from omron fat monitor daily but I probably will not use them in any calculations. Since I cannot take the caliper measurement everyday I will use the fat % number that is closest to a particular date I am refering to. March 31, 2010: Goal Weight: 125.6 lbs Fat %: 10.11% Fat: 12.7 lbs Lean Mass: 112.9 lbs Change in 3 months Weight: 0 Fat %: 2.39 % Fat: -3 lbs Muscle: 3 lbs I will try and not l

I was having trouble believing the fat numbers using my omron fat monitor, so I analyzed my numbers using the measurements taken with the body fat calipers. There is a world of difference. These numbers are more believable. Makes me think if I should just stop checking fat % using omoron body fat analyzer. It will be an expensive body weight scale then. I take fat caliper measurements every weekend only. As a result I cannot show the pretty graphs that I usually have in my posts because there will only be 4 data points per month. Anyway here are the numbers again but with body fat calipers. October 1, 2009 Stats Weight: 118.51 lbs Fat %: 8.74% Fat: 10.64 lbs Lean Mass: 108.15 lbs December 31, 2009 Stats Weight: 126 lbs Fat %: 11.6% Fat: 14.62 lbs Lean Mass: 111.38 lbs Change in 3 months Weight: 7.49 lbs Fat %: 2.86% Fat: 4.26 lbs Lean Mass: 3.23 lbs Those are much better numbers. When I set the goals I wanted to gain 3.75 lbs of muscle while limiting the fat gain to

Another transformation picture session. In three months I gained a lot of weight and a lot of fat too. Sorry the after picture isn't clear. Date: 26 September 2009 - Weight: 117.5 lbs - Fat: 10.34% Date: 26 December 2009 - Weight: 126 lbs - Fat: 15% I see some changes. Not a lot. I gained some fat that is very visible in the after shot and some muscle too. I can still see the ab definition ever so slightly. Overall I am not very satisfied with the amount of change I see in 3 months. I hoped I would have more muscle and look a lot bigger. Oh well I have to remember that I am an ectomorph and every little helps.

It has been a few days into the new year and looking back at 2009, I have made some really good progress. The year 2009 has been more of an experimental year where I was experimenting with various routines and nutrition and trying to find the ones that work effectively for me. A lot of things happened in 2009. First and most important achievement is starting this blog! Without the blog I would not have a good record of how I felt each day and what changes I have been making and what their effects were. Maintaining a log of just numbers is boring. Written notes puts the numbers into perspective. Looking back into my body building past, I changed my routines many times over to find the right one for me. First I started off with P90X which was not very useful for my body type. I quickly got tired and was over training. A few months of P90X and I did not make any progress at all. Then it was time for strong-lifts and that went well. I gained a lot of strength. I lifted weights

Here are the weight and fat graphs for December 2009. Body Weight Graph Since I reached my goal of 125 lbs for the end of december I tried to maintain the same weight while I tried to reduce the fat. So I started eating the right number of calories that I need. As can be seen from the graph I was maintaining my weight for a while but then it started dipping for no apparent reason. I increased my calories a bit and it stared going up quickly. It is quite hard to keep track of the exact amount of food to eat. Body Fat % Graph While I maintained the same weight I started to see an increase in body fat. I was not sure why that would be the case. Am I losing muscle so quickly? A small increase in weight causes the fat to shoot up quickly while a stable weight still increases it slowly. The only option left to loose fat is to loose weight? I don't like the idea at all. I am also doubting the fat monitor. It tends read the fat changes a while after the weight has changed. So if

Time for some numbers now that december 2009 has come to an end. Not just the month, but the year and decade as well have come to an end. In december again I have gained a lot of fat while I gained very little weight. The reason mainly is because I reduced the amount of calories to a more "maintain weight" level. Body weight and fat gain for the month of December, 2009 Weight: 126.00 lbs Fat %: 15.51% Lean mass: 106.46 lbs Weight gain: 1.46 lbs Fat % gain: 1.48% Lean mass gain: -0.61 lbs It is indeed strange that I have lost muscle. Unfortunately since I am doing slow tempo reps I am using lower weights so I cannot be sure if I really lost muscle or it is just an error in the body fat analyzer. I have a theory that my body fat analyzer has a lag in noticing the fat% change. When I gain weight I usually don't see a quick gain in fat. It comes after a few days of the weight increase. So I am assuming I will see the fat reduction will come a little later after