Skinny to Strong

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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.

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 ...

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...

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...

Here is the transformation from February 2009 to September 2009. This is after I bulked up from March to end of May and then leaned from June to end of September. February 2009 September 2009 There are some changes that you can notice. During that period I could only gain 0.4 lb of muscle, but lost 3 lbs of fat. Since I took the second photo at my lowest body fat percentage of 10%, you can see very light ab definition in there. Very exciting! But now that I am bulking again the ab definition is slowly disappearing.

So it has been a month since I started bulking up. How am I doing so far? Here are the raw numbers Exercises Squats: 170 lbs, 8 reps Deadlifts: 185 lbs, 10 reps Bench Press: 110 lbs, 4 reps Pull ups: Body weight + 25 lbs, 7 reps Overhead Press: 75 lbs, 6 reps I am doing well in all exercises except bench press. The exercise that is already closest to my goal for end of december is my pull-ups. I can already do 7 reps with 25 lbs hanging off my waist! You can check out my previous post for the goals I have set. Body weight and fat Weight: 120.8 lbs Fat %: 12.2% I am able to add weight as expected. But my body fat % shot up too much. My goal for end of december was to weight 125 lbs at 12% body fat. But I am already over the limit for my body fat %. So I have to lower it and at the same time increase my weight. Very unlikely. I might have to revise my goals, but I will see how it goes and hope to make better predictions for my next bulking phase. It is not at all easy to ke...