2 months before and after!

[pinchharmonic]

2 months before and after! Then another 4 months! *NEW PICS ADDED*

After nearly a dozen failed attempts at cutting weight, I finally put together a plan that was reasonable and had great results. This cut took about 2 months with a heavy cardio load and between 50-100 grams of carbs a day.

Before : 5' 7.5" 171, BF 19-20%
After: 159, BF 12% (measured with an impedance device)

fat pics:
<a href="http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2194714920100898370dATUuA" target="_blank"><img src="http://inlinethumb02.webshots.com/29697/2194714920100898370S600x600Q85.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />
<a href="http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2228620620100898370XfhQFB" target="_blank"><img src="http://inlinethumb17.webshots.com/24848/2228620620100898370S600x600Q85.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />
<a href="http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2226310690100898370tXBPxV" target="_blank"><img src="http://inlinethumb28.webshots.com/42651/2226310690100898370S600x600Q85.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a></div>
<br><br>
After pics:
<a href="http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2071223420100898370rviZcP" target="_blank"><img src="http://inlinethumb46.webshots.com/42413/2071223420100898370S600x600Q85.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />
<a href="http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2530175660100898370vtNPyT" target="_blank"><img src="http://inlinethumb59.webshots.com/41338/2530175660100898370S600x600Q85.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />
<a href="http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2639919260100898370DxVsYf" target="_blank"><img src="http://inlinethumb08.webshots.com/25415/2639919260100898370S600x600Q85.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />
<a href="http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2106507560100898370QlQZMt" target="_blank"><img src="http://inlinethumb13.webshots.com/43340/2106507560100898370S600x600Q85.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a></div>


about 2-3 months after, a bit of a bulk, a bit of a cut... last picture I'm noticeably fatter, perhaps 1-2% more bodyfat, but I think I made a bit of progress in the delts, back, lower back... any comments appreciated

 

[somewhatgifted]

Wicked transformation!

 

[JGiff86]

nide dude!

 

[FlawedGrunt]

Hoollllly **** bro! Good job!

I'd love to see your daily diet and macros!

Reps!

 

[Royd The Noyd]

How much cardio man?

 

[Rugger]

You're a lot lower than 12%....Maybe 7%

 

[MentalTwitch]

You're a lot lower than 12%....Maybe 7%

yea great job. I second rugger. Your "fat" pics where maybe 12-14% MAX! I think 12-13% or so.

Current id say 7-8% for sure.

 

[nosnmiveins]

great progess in 2 months!! please post ur diet and cardio routine. any strength decrease on ur lifts?

 

[bolt10]

amazing progress man congrats!

 

[swole210]

PROPS TO YOU SIR! GREAT JOB! I have to do one of these amazing tranforms myself againizza:! Again OUTSTANDING JOB!

 

[knucks3man]

Nice. Interested to know if you lost any strength as well.

 

[pinchharmonic]

thanks everyone! I divided it up into, the workout/cardio regiment, diet, then supplements. It's all very basic stuff, similar to what people do here. It's not a keto diet, but it is definitely low carb. I started at 5' 7.5" 171 about, and went to aroudn 158, so it gives you an idea of the macros i used for the diet. I'm back to bulking for a month, and I'm dying to cut again. Cutting is actually a lot more fun than bulking to my surprise

I did my cut in phases adding a few each week here are the items in the order I added them. My goal was to keep tricks up my sleeve in anticipation of the inevitable plateaus.

phase 1:
1.) turn my bulking 4 meals a day into 6, same macro nutrient % and amounts.. just spread em out
2.) added 3 cardio sessions a week, low intensity at about 25 minutes.

phase2:
3.) slashed carbs in half over the course of a week. from 280 grams to 140
4.) cardio bumped up to 30 minutes 3x a week

phase3:
5.) slashed carbs again, now I only eat carbs morning, pre-wokrout and post-workout, 40 grams, 20 grams, and 20 grams respectively. officially in a very low carb mode as between 70-100 grams a day. stayed this way for rest of the cut.
6.) tried to get all fat sources to be high omega 3 (fish, fish oil, flax seeds). trying to keep the 1:1 omega 6: omega3 ratio.
7.) protein stays the same as always, cept the sources are leaner, but I do include a lot of salmon and egg yolks for omega 3 and cholesterol.

phase4:
7.) cardio after every weight training session, 20-25 minutes of HIIT OR 40 minutes of low intensity. sometimes it was treadmill, sometimes it was jump rope. Jump rope would be 1 minute on, one minute off 12-15 sets of that.
8.) about 2 jiu jitsu training sessions a week, which was about 1 hour of intense cardio. this is probably the only thing in this entire cut where I felt was catabolic.. though that is just speculation

phase5:
9.) added the 300 spartan workout (for shits and giggles you could say) followed by 20 minutes of low intensity cardio 2x a week. On paper this isn't a very useful thing for bodybuilders, as it doesn't have the intensity to break down muscle fiber, and it is high intensity cardio without the "interval aspect", techinically more catabolic. But this mentally was great for me. Makes you a better overall athlete too. I did this in about 16 minutes at best. It took about 22 minutes the first time.

10.) saturday and sometimes sunday morning empty stomach (well, bcaa + egcg + carnitine + coffee) HIIT run, or 30 minute circuit in the gym. pick 3 bodyparts, 1 big 2 small and just work them over giant sets.. breakfast immediately after.

phase 6.)
11.) every morning now has cardio, HIIT on a bike empty stomach about 20 minutes. I liked to do 1 minute on 1 minute off. Occasionally I would go out and do hill running instead, but that would absolutely destroy me. I'd be falling asleep all day at work.

In summary, at the end of the cut I was working at at most 3-4 hours a day. 25 minutes of cardio in the morning, 1-2 hours of jiu jitsu in afternoon. 1.5 hours of lifting followed by 30-45 minutes of cardio (or less if I decided to do HIIT).

Bottom line, I think you have to keep your body guessing, just like you do with changing exercises, etc. However when cutting, it's not just doing something different, but increasing volume as well. Every week something new was added as you can see above, so almsost every week I made progress. The last two weeks I believe I was near a plateau. I knew I couldn't add too much more time in the gym as it'd consume my life, so I decided to turn it into a bulking mode and cut later.


This is the most common meal during the 2 months, I swear I ate this at least 45x.

3 slices of ezekiel toast (or 40 carb grams worth of oatmeal) with 1.5 TB of natty pb with 6 egg whites 1 egg yolk. ** Ezekiel toast is the stuff jay cutler eats, it only has 10 grams of carbs per slice and a lot of protein (which is a complete protein) lots of fiber int it as well.

40 grams of protein from either chicken, fish, or eye of round (lean lean cut of beef). A crapload of broccoli, brussel sprouts, some carrots, or spinach.

40 grams protein + veggies like above

6 more egg whites and an egg yolk + 25-30 grams of carbohydrates (when I really felt hardcore I cut the carbs in this meal too, though i realized that is like catabolism city since workout is next)

workout (sip purple wraath with added taurine and glutamine ) * dont think the taurine and glutamine are necessary, I just have a lot i wanted to use up.

20 grams of cream of rice + 5 gram bcaa +40 grams of whey isolate (no concentrate)

another 30 grams of meat and veggies

either a casein shake + whey shake (20 gram casein 20 gram whey) OR
1% cottage cheese with ground flax seeds


Supplements:

basics:
whey
casein
dicreatine malate
bcaa
eaa (purple wrath)
glutamine
taurine
waxy maize or (dex + malto)

fats:
seasmin
CLA
fish oil

nutrient partitioning:
alpha lipoic acid
bitter melon extract
chromium picolonate

sleep:
valerian root,
time release melatonin
gaba
ZMA
5 HTP

fat burner:
REDuction

pre-workout:
whiteflood
arginine ethyl esther

random stuff:
6 gram vitamin c a day
600 iu vitamin d
200 iu vitamin e
horse chestnut complex
cissus from ***********
glucosamine + msm
st john's wort
ADAM multi
pro biotic
fiber supplement
kelp tabs (iodine)
saw palmetto
apple cider vinegar
MACA

 

[ozarkaBRAND]

Ezekial toast/bread is also one of the lowest glycemic bread-like products you can put into your body.. It's amazing stuff!

 

[mrchristian]

great progess in 2 months!! please post ur diet and cardio routine. any strength decrease on ur lifts?

Agreed! I'd love to know diet/routine + if you've had any strength decreases, because whatever routine you had, it looks like it is EXCELLENT!

Super Reps!

Edit: I see!

 

[Australian made]

jesus man thats impressive. if i lost 13 lbs id still be chunky! But it does look like you've lost even more then that. Do you generally feel healthier with a lower bodyfat?

 

[Kristofer68SS]

That is excellent work. Sick actually.

Props and reps.

 

[nemo]

Awesome work!!!

 

[omegax]

awesome mad props to you bro !

 

[pinchharmonic]

jesus man thats impressive. if i lost 13 lbs id still be chunky! But it does look like you've lost even more then that. Do you generally feel healthier with a lower bodyfat?

absolutely. I feel much better, and now that I'm bulking I can't wait to go back to cutting. Sure you have hunger cravings, but you feel so much better. I don't think it is due to the lower bodyfat per se, but mostly the GI of the carbs you eat. I believe the main factor in feeling healthy (for me) is the GI of my carbs. I know the way I feel after eating processed grains, and I know the way I feel after eating a sweet potato. I keep that in mind every time I consider eating something bad. And staying clean for 2 months has made me feel more incredible than ever. And it's not like I was eating burgers and pizza and fries before this. I haven't had a soda in 10 years, let alone a burger, fries or pizza. I was a healthy individual to start by any standard, and after this cut it was night and day compared to that!

i wish i had a physical when I was heavier to compare, but here is the one I got recently:

due to my super consumption of oats and low glycemic stuff, my non-fasting glucose (had breakfast just 2 hours earlier) was something like 82.... Some people have fasting glucose higher than that and are considered ok.

my blood pressure was very low, and my cholesterol was very very low in a good way, and I'm sure it's from the oats absorbing all the bad cholesterol. my heart rate resting was 58-60bpm too.

I'm not going to say I bulk/cut because I want to be healthier. I'm 26 year old and I workout because I want to look better, bottom line. I don't care if anyone wants to say it is narcissistic or selfish. Truth is, generally everything we do as bodybuilders is geared towards health.

My immediate family is riddled with chronic illness, hypertension, diabetes, and some even cancer. Funny thing is, all their doctors prescribe exercise/diet routines that are almost identical to the way I was cutting. and the way I was cutting is a general cutting 101 that you can find on most forums anyway..

 

[hoot33]

Seeing your pics gives me hope, mind sharing your routine with me??? Pretty please.

 

[LactoseLou]

Wow great transformation man!

 

[joelast]

Sht man this is tight. I'm bulking right now but start my cut in 5 weeks. Will def use some of the meals and cardio techniques you mentioned here.

 

[digitalbass]

Very nice transformation. Keep up the good work.

 

[tribaltek]

Great work man!

 

[b unit]

well deserved reps :clap2:

 

[repmks]

f'in fantastic. Great work.

 

[upyourmass]

F*ck, this is one of the most amazing transformation I have ever seen in two months. Amazing!!!! WOW reminds me of those infomercials you see on TV except this is real! Big props to you bro!

 

[BBR]

I'm impressed man, well done!

 

[BBR]

Just as a side note, have you added up your average caloric and macro intake for a day?

 

[silverSurfer]

Congratulations pinchharmonic, these are fantastic results!

You look great!

 

[dunk826]

thanks everyone! I divided it up into, the workout/cardio regiment, diet, then supplements. It's all very basic stuff, similar to what people do here. It's not a keto diet, but it is definitely low carb. I started at 5' 7.5" 171 about, and went to aroudn 158, so it gives you an idea of the macros i used for the diet. I'm back to bulking for a month, and I'm dying to cut again. Cutting is actually a lot more fun than bulking to my surprise

I did my cut in phases adding a few each week here are the items in the order I added them. My goal was to keep tricks up my sleeve in anticipation of the inevitable plateaus.

phase 1:
1.) turn my bulking 4 meals a day into 6, same macro nutrient % and amounts.. just spread em out
2.) added 3 cardio sessions a week, low intensity at about 25 minutes.

phase2:
3.) slashed carbs in half over the course of a week. from 280 grams to 140
4.) cardio bumped up to 30 minutes 3x a week

phase3:
5.) slashed carbs again, now I only eat carbs morning, pre-wokrout and post-workout, 40 grams, 20 grams, and 20 grams respectively. officially in a very low carb mode as between 70-100 grams a day. stayed this way for rest of the cut.
6.) tried to get all fat sources to be high omega 3 (fish, fish oil, flax seeds). trying to keep the 1:1 omega 6: omega3 ratio.
7.) protein stays the same as always, cept the sources are leaner, but I do include a lot of salmon and egg yolks for omega 3 and cholesterol.

phase4:
7.) cardio after every weight training session, 20-25 minutes of HIIT OR 40 minutes of low intensity. sometimes it was treadmill, sometimes it was jump rope. Jump rope would be 1 minute on, one minute off 12-15 sets of that.
8.) about 2 jiu jitsu training sessions a week, which was about 1 hour of intense cardio. this is probably the only thing in this entire cut where I felt was catabolic.. though that is just speculation

phase5:
9.) added the 300 spartan workout (for shits and giggles you could say) followed by 20 minutes of low intensity cardio 2x a week. On paper this isn't a very useful thing for bodybuilders, as it doesn't have the intensity to break down muscle fiber, and it is high intensity cardio without the "interval aspect", techinically more catabolic. But this mentally was great for me. Makes you a better overall athlete too. I did this in about 16 minutes at best. It took about 22 minutes the first time.

10.) saturday and sometimes sunday morning empty stomach (well, bcaa + egcg + carnitine + coffee) HIIT run, or 30 minute circuit in the gym. pick 3 bodyparts, 1 big 2 small and just work them over giant sets.. breakfast immediately after.

phase 6.)
11.) every morning now has cardio, HIIT on a bike empty stomach about 20 minutes. I liked to do 1 minute on 1 minute off. Occasionally I would go out and do hill running instead, but that would absolutely destroy me. I'd be falling asleep all day at work.

In summary, at the end of the cut I was working at at most 3-4 hours a day. 25 minutes of cardio in the morning, 1-2 hours of jiu jitsu in afternoon. 1.5 hours of lifting followed by 30-45 minutes of cardio (or less if I decided to do HIIT).

Bottom line, I think you have to keep your body guessing, just like you do with changing exercises, etc. However when cutting, it's not just doing something different, but increasing volume as well. Every week something new was added as you can see above, so almsost every week I made progress. The last two weeks I believe I was near a plateau. I knew I couldn't add too much more time in the gym as it'd consume my life, so I decided to turn it into a bulking mode and cut later.


This is the most common meal during the 2 months, I swear I ate this at least 45x.

3 slices of ezekiel toast (or 40 carb grams worth of oatmeal) with 1.5 TB of natty pb with 6 egg whites 1 egg yolk. ** Ezekiel toast is the stuff jay cutler eats, it only has 10 grams of carbs per slice and a lot of protein (which is a complete protein) lots of fiber int it as well.

40 grams of protein from either chicken, fish, or eye of round (lean lean cut of beef). A crapload of broccoli, brussel sprouts, some carrots, or spinach.

40 grams protein + veggies like above

6 more egg whites and an egg yolk + 25-30 grams of carbohydrates (when I really felt hardcore I cut the carbs in this meal too, though i realized that is like catabolism city since workout is next)

workout (sip purple wraath with added taurine and glutamine ) * dont think the taurine and glutamine are necessary, I just have a lot i wanted to use up.

20 grams of cream of rice + 5 gram bcaa +40 grams of whey isolate (no concentrate)

another 30 grams of meat and veggies

either a casein shake + whey shake (20 gram casein 20 gram whey) OR
1% cottage cheese with ground flax seeds


Supplements:

basics:
whey
casein
dicreatine malate
bcaa
eaa (purple wrath)
glutamine
taurine
waxy maize or (dex + malto)

fats:
seasmin
CLA
fish oil

nutrient partitioning:
alpha lipoic acid
bitter melon extract
chromium picolonate

sleep:
valerian root,
time release melatonin
gaba
ZMA
5 HTP

fat burner:
REDuction

pre-workout:
whiteflood
arginine ethyl esther

random stuff:
6 gram vitamin c a day
600 iu vitamin d
200 iu vitamin e
horse chestnut complex
cissus from ***********
glucosamine + msm
st john's wort
ADAM multi
pro biotic
fiber supplement
kelp tabs (iodine)
saw palmetto
apple cider vinegar
MACA

There are a ton of people on this website that can learn from exactly what you did here man!!! Very VERY VERY nice job!! I gauranteed you had a goal in mind, researched researched researched some more on your own, came up with a plan and had at it, and probably without asking the same repetitive questions that get asked a lot on this board :clap2:

 

[russianstar]

Nice work...and i think your bodyfat is more like 6-7 abs show at 10 percent, yours are deeply cut..well done..thats dedication.

 

[jg0524]

extremely good job bro - great job cutting and transforming.

 

[KgTomCat]

good job man!

 

[Jarred28]

awesome transformation

 

[pinchharmonic]

added some new pictures. since that original transformation i went and tried to bulk a bit more. after getting a bit too fat, i cut again. i'd say I bulked for 3 months, cut for another month and now back to a similar condition with 1-2% more bodyfat, but with some gains.... learning even more about my body this time around.

i believe I made slight gains in:
lower lats, spinal erectors, shoulder overall, and ab wall even though there is more fat over my love handles and lower abs, my abs are stronger and noticeably bigger now.

my quads and calves got better but I don't have pics of those at the moment

all in all it was a sh*tload of work these past 4 months or so trying to bulk and cut again. I'm not sure where I want to go now, but I do know eventually I want to get rid of the fat near my love handles... perhaps lipoderm.

 

[delsolrob]

wow bud, that's amazing work right there!

 

[KgTomCat]

ive heard of lipoderm...im thinking about using 11OXO on my cut now...any opinions? (dont wanna thread hijack )

 

[p5sky]

Look great, what's your current wt?

 

[pinchharmonic]

hey, embarassingly, I'm at about 153 first thing in the morning with no clothes. I stand about 5' 7.5...

I have very small bones and probably a naturally sub 30 inch waist, so I don't weigh much at all.

 

[pinchharmonic]

ive heard of lipoderm...im thinking about using 11OXO on my cut now...any opinions? (dont wanna thread hijack )

i haven't tried 11oxo before, if I'm not mistaken that is hormonal correct? At this point I haven't taken anything hormonal and don't plan to.

i want to take lipoderm, but I honestly doubt it will fix my love handle problems... some gut feeling tells me it's just more hardwork that finally gets me to a bodyfat of around 7-8%

 

[manny1010]

Good Job man!

 

[p5sky]

hey, embarassingly, I'm at about 153 first thing in the morning with no clothes. I stand about 5' 7.5...

I have very small bones and probably a naturally sub 30 inch waist, so I don't weigh much at all.

Hey I am the same HT but more BF. Right now during my cut I have dropped from 165 to 160 with still 2 more weeks to drop. I may get into the mid 150s. Same structure as you sounds like: small bones/frame so we look pretty big while still being light. At my peak wt while still being lean I was around 170, people thought I was around 180.

 

[g35driver2003]

Congrats!!!!


Well done!

 

[pinchharmonic]

Hey I am the same HT but more BF. Right now during my cut I have dropped from 165 to 160 with still 2 more weeks to drop. I may get into the mid 150s. Same structure as you sounds like: small bones/frame so we look pretty big while still being light. At my peak wt while still being lean I was around 170, people thought I was around 180.

yea we may be twins!

my peak was i think 172. two of my buddies, both shorter than i am, at the time were 200+. jaws dropped when I told strangers I was 30lbs lighter than the two of them because my upperbody has always been much larger. Maybe we should look into mma, jiu jitsu, boxing, etc. a decisive advantage there =)

if I didn't have clavicles that curved upwards, I'd probably look even bigger, but the clavicles give me a more narrow look. I only look "average width" because my side delts are my best bodypart, giving me the illusion of width.

By the way, how quickly did it take you to drop the 5lbs?
I noticed when I started cutting, I lost about 7 lbs the first week. Then for the following 2 months or so, my weight stayed very close, leading me to believe that the rest of my cut was a recomposition of sorts.

so you can say I looked OK at 155lbs at one point, then a month later i looked far better at 155lbs.

 

[b unit]

great transformation :clap2:

 

[pinchharmonic]

great transformation :clap2:

thanks for that pic, that is awesome!

time for topicals + capsaicin rub on!

going to get that last bit off NO MATTER what it takes

 

[Aggravated]

Great job Pinch! Noticeable improvements in the delts!

 

[pinchharmonic]

been working harder than ever these past few weeks. i have to admit it's getting tough, eating clean for months straight and i only take 1 day off a week from the gym... if that. but i'm still keeping my goal in mind of getting to 7% bodyfat and won't quit until i get there.

I really believe the GABA brown rice is helping a lot. It's my staple carb source nowadays, as I eat at least 100 grams of carbs from it daily. I notice better sleep, and some growth... perhaps the GABA and the extra nutrients that are in the brown rice after sprouting? i've noticed my muscles becoming harder and much more striated even though my bodyfat hasn't come down at all according to my omron bodyfat tester... the brown rice is the only real difference i made in my nutrition regimen and it tastes damn good, getting me through the tough days.

gym = 2 hours of training with 45 mins of cardio... yea I know it's catabolic, but I like to shoot the **** when I'm at the gym making my weight sessions really long. about 2-3 days a week I will do a morning cardio session of 30 mins. I will take at most 1 day off from the gym per week, but i don't seem to need it. I went 12 days straight this past month and had no signs of overtraining. very difficult to workout 3 hours a day then all of a sudden not workout at all, you can imagine the fat gain that can occur that particular day.

 

[KgTomCat]

good stuff man, where can you buy this brown rice at?