Skinny to Strong

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 ...