Skinny to Strong

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...

For the past couple of weeks I noticed a few things and have decided to change my diet and exercise as a response. First I am not gaining any more weight with my 1800 calorie diet. So I increased that to 2000 calories and now the weight is going up again slowly. I lost a week or more by just eating 1800 calories and not gaining weight. I have to keep this in mind for my next gaining phase. Every day counts for an ectomorph. The second thing I noticed is that while my weight remained constant I started to see an increase in body fat percentage. Again not good. In addition I was also feeling tired more often too. That is when I decided to give myself a recovery week. After coming back I did perform well in the lifts but still my weight would not increase and the body fat percentage was increasing. Moreover my left arm started to hurt whenever I did any dumb bell shoulder press. I had to skip the dumb bell press for 2 weeks now. This probably is an indication that my body is not recover...

Like most people who are dead serious about body building, I too believe in setting goals and trying to reach them. The goals should not be too easy neither should they be too ambitious. And the goals will always be measurable and be limited by time. So we come to the topic of numbers. I live by the numbers. In this post I will tell you what my goals are how I arrived at those numbers. Baseline and Time Taking my current weight and fat % as my starting point, I set myself a difficult yet reachable goal for a time period of 3 months. My weight on October 1, 2009 was 118 lbs at 10% body fat. Here is the data I have now: Time = 3 months Current Weight = 118 lbs Current Fat % = 10% Current Fat Mass = Current Fat % x Current Weight = 10% x 118 = 11.8 lb Current Muscle Mass = Current Weight - Current Fat Mass = 118 - 11.8 = 106.2 lb Muscle Gain Goal Now since I know the deadline which is in 3 months and taking the somewhat commonly agreed muscle growth number of 1 to 1.5 lbs/mont...