Skinny to Strong

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.

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 ...

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 ...

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...