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 ...

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...

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 :(.

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...

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...

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 ...

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.