Transformation in the making....

[KTL]

Well boys and girls, im a long time lurker and finally found a purpose in creating a post on this information filled site. This will be my log and will serve as hidden dedication to always move forward.

My story. To save the sappy details and cut it down to an informative post for those interested in reading this ill keep it short.

1992-1999 - Wannabe bodybuilder. While I was far being in good shape I was an ok beginner. Some muscle, some strength, mid teen bf %, and the knowledge was just beginning. During this time it was off and on for some time.

2000-2002 - Intermediate lifter. I dropped the bodybuilder status dream and focused on reality. :lol: During this time I built on my previous foundation and took fat loss to the extreme. I dropped to just below 10% and life was good. Back then size wasnt as important as keeping my abs sharp. I did have some bragging rights as I was above average at the time.

2002-Present - Intermediate lifter. Stagnation is key here and the result of that is a whole lot of nothing in terms of "gym" bragging rights. And to add, a bigger gut than I ever dreamed I would ever build. 2 kids (lack of time), laziness, and poor eating habits. I did break 2 plates a side on the bench recently but what good is that when you cant see the muscles? So after a dramatic realization of what I looked like I decided enough was enough.

My goal.

Cut my bf down to a respectable level. Respectable meaning mid teens like I was pre 2000. My newfound interest in the gym is those little magic pills they sell nowadays. My teen days were always filled with dreams of becoming a big ripped guy, aka, a bodybuilder. Back then they had this supplement called “Hot Stuff”….:lol: enough said! Today’s supplement market isn’t even close to what it was back then. Between Cybergenics and Hot Stuff it was honestly all placebo heaven back then. Its now time to achieve that dream. In short once I achieve mid teen bf levels I will be starting my first real bulking phase, an x-factor log. Ive done considerable research on this item and would like to give it a chance. Natural, non-hormonal, clean, etc. If I don’t achieve “satisfaction” I will further pursue the supplement road and possibly look into Hyperdrol. After that, my 3rd and final choice will be PheraPlex. I want to put PP as a last resort as I know this isn’t the healthiest and cleanest way to achieve above average gains. The PP is stashed away in the closet already. The only reason I haven’t cracked the PP open already is the fact that my cholesterol levels are probably already high, going on a 4 week cycle would probably kill me….seriously. That and the future side effects that nobody knows about….bit scary!! After the bulk(s) I will start another cutting program. What good is 10-20lbs of new muscle when you cant see it? I'll then reach for a 7% level. So the clock is ticking, im 29 with 30 right around the bend….time to get cracking.

 

[KTL]

My first phase of my radical fat loss attempt is to keto it until I feel comfortable I can attempt a real diet strategy. What drove me to the keto idea is for one, it works, secondly, for the past few years I couldnt help but think something is wrong with me. Not seriously wrong but it seemed like whatever I did or ate I always seemed to get fatter and fatter. Maybe im jumping the gun or maybe im not but Im pretty sure I have syndrome X. Sad but true. In short carbs are my enemy and I have to say I hit the nail on the head with my diagnosis. Ive been at this for close to 3 weeks now and I have to say its worked like a charm. Im down over 10lbs and my clothes are not only fitting better but looking too big for me. I am so happy with my progress so far its unreal and its driving me to stay focused to keep going. I never thought a diet change would result in such a drastic change. Old school bodybuilders have had it pegged for years hey. Here are a few key positives of the keto diet.

- Appetite, im hardly ever hungry. Seriously. I eat my chicken breat or beef burger or whatever it is I eat and thats that. No snacking, no binging, no cravings. Call me crazy but that alone is probably the biggest key to anyone trying to cut.
- Energy, contrary to popular belief I am not tired or lazy or weak in the gym. This diet if anything has benefited my gym days as I now know I am getting enough protein. In fact my numbers have recently climbed and I feel as though I have gained a tad in the lean muscle dept. My glycogen levels feel full right through the 60 min workout....strength is there the whole time.
- Results, ive known a lot of guys who try the balanced route and they have to work like a dog to get half the results I got in 3 weeks. If you need a kickstart try it, you wont regret it. That and you can reset your insulin resistance levels, which is much needed if you ask me. (The theory behind other low carb diet plans).

 

[KTL]

For a bit of information to anyone who is curious here are my stats...approximately.

5'11"
262lbs
195lbs (lean)
230lbs 1RM on bench
230lbs 1RM on pulldown and row.

Legs arent worth mention, just coming off a serious siatic nerve injury. But before the injury ....approximately.

SL deadlift was 255 for 5 reps,
Squat 255 for 6 reps,
Deadlift 255 for 6 reps

 

[KTL]

So far so good, still holding steady on the current keto plan. It takes a fair amount of drive and dedication to keep this going as it is not easy at times. When I see my wife snacking on chips and pretzles at 10pm and im sitting there eating a cheese string a whole whack of emotions go racing through me. My wife was blessed with absolutely fantastic genetics so really, what can I say, to each his/her own. What keeps me going is that I know that as every minute passes by while in ketosis I am that much leaner than I was a minute ago. Eating chips would not only sabotage my momentum but also halt my progress.

I often marvel at the pros and how they achieve their goals in such short durations. Sure they have tons of help with all sorts of injectables and other dangerous drugs, but really it still takes a fair amount of drive to achieve their goals. Steroids arent the magic pill like everyone thinks they are, a lot of guys often fail in cycles due to crappy diets. Too little food and you fail to grow, too much food and you fail to cut. Just goes to show that a dream physique is 90% diet, 10% exercise and 100% commitment no matter who you are.

One thing I noticed while playing with my kids is that I have energy now, not spunky jittery cant stand still energy, but a drive to keep playing when the tough gets going. Overall I feel 10X better than I did in just 17 days ago. Im a firm believer in you are what you eat and this keto cycye is speaking volumes.

Right now im battling a wicked cold so I havent been in the gym for 4 days but if I feel better tonight ill be doing my delts and arms workout. I think if I wasnt so sick and hit the gym more id be down ever farther right now but what do you do when youre sick right. If you push it too hard too soon youll end up getting sicker.
The next gym session will be the tell tale on the glycogen levels, but im pretty confident right now that im as stong as ever.

 

[BigVrunga]

Congrats on your efforts to get lean KTL. And welcome to AM!
Your dead on about the new class of natural supps vs. stuff from the 90's, were in an age where a lifter who decides to stay natural has some real options to help achieve his/her goals.
As for the pros, yeah Im sure they work very hard. They also use body recomp agents that make them more like walking biology lab

What are your stats right now as far as height/weight/BF%?

BV

 

[KTL]

Hey BV, thanks for the comments!

My height is mentioned above with guesstimates. More specifically I guess you can say when I started this quest my guess is I was around 272lbs, ~30% (according to Tanita in the AM). Now im just about to break 260lbs and im estimating my BF is at about 27%. I'll do a PM measurement this week to get more accurate and stable results as the AM is very inaccurate due to hydration levels. I figure if I eat the same everyday with the same water consumption I should get somewhat stable readings day to day.

 

[theshocker21]

Good luck KTL. I will keep following this thread as long as you continue to give update.

Take some pictures now and show us the progress!

 

[KTL]

Update on the diet, sharing of thoughts.....

Eating must be "fun" and release all sorts of chemicals in your body that make you feel good because my brain cant stop thinking about cheating. Forget what the scientists and chemists say, I just confirmed it! I had the oddest urge to go to McDonald's, which by the way is only 20 steps away from where I work. Not only is the smell tempting but the mass amounts of people going in on a daily basis is almost magnetically pulling me in. Like a flock of sheep, follow the leader! But alas I am trying to be the black sheep in this "convienient" world that we live in. People almost look at you funny when you dont eat bread or rice or pasta for lunch. What gives hey?

The damn Oiler game last night really screwed up my night last night. Im glad they won but in that process I missed my workout and I am dog tired this morning. One thing that I cannot live without will be my E&C stack, it sure helped this morning. Not only does it give you an instant burst of energy and jitteriness (which I like by the way) but it pretty much kills my appetite on the spot. So needless to say when I popped my magic pills this morning its like I woke up again from a hungry tired state into feeling fresh and ready to go. The crash 4 hours later is tough to deal with but ill deal with that later, which is why I think Aspirin was added to the stack, I THINK it adds to the half life and gives it a trickle effect.

 

[KTL]

Update on the workout....

I went heavy today, like usual, and superseted antaganists when I could. The sweat ring around my neck was small at first, then eventually by the time my 60 mins was up the ring had grown from shoulder to shoulder. I was actually sweating harder then the guy on the treadmill during his sprints....LOL. It was a good workout, I was pretty strong and had a good sense where my body was in terms of energy. I could feel the "gas tank"emptying but with longer rests I never completely ran out of strength. I think longer rests, if youre into strength, is a must especially when you are in a keto phase.

For interest sake here is my workout. Its a trial for me, through all my years of hitting the iron I have still yet to come to a conclusion on what works and what doesnt. I love to do trial and error and in that time ive found a few cool conclusions. This workout with all the volume is greared towards "work". More work equals more fat burned. I hate cardio with a passion so this is my fix for when I dont do cardio.

Seated Barbell Press (I normally do standing military presses but the cage was busy today).
135 x 6 (+3 partials to get more TUT)
135 x 5 (+2)
135 x 4 (+2)
- not my strongest ever but not bad

Seated Dumbell Press
60 x 3 (yikes, does the process of hoisting the weight up from the knee to the shoulder supposed to feel that hard? keto!)
55 x 5

Incline One Arm Lateral
25 x 7
25 x 6

Lateral
25 x 10
25 x 7

Shrugs
95 x 10
85 x 9

this is the part of the workout where I started getting really sweaty....dreaded supersets!

Cable Curl supersetted with Pushdowns
30kg x 6 / 55kg x 6
30kg x 4 / 55kg x 6
25kg x 6 / 50kg x 7

(my bis are by far my smallest and weakest muscle......sucks to be me.)

Incline Curl supersetted with Dumbbell French Press
30 x 6 / 75 x 6
30 x 5 / 75 x 5
25 x 7 / 75 x 4

Hammer curl supersetted with Dumbbell Skulls
25 x 7 / 25 x 7
25 x 6 / 25 x 6
25 x 5 / 25 x 5

 

[KTL]

So after another successfull day of being on this wickedly brutal diet I decided it was time for a PM weigh in. I almost fell off the scale when I saw the numbers. First off, ill say that yesterday AM was good, actually right on the mark, I was 260 exactly. The BF reading is always inaccurate because of hydration levels so I dont even pay attention to that. (I never actually weighed myself at the beginning officially, but lets just say in February I was 269.5lbs and in March and April my pants only got tighter, I would estimate 275lbs or more, maybe even 280lbs) Back to the PM reading. I got on the scale and saw 263.5lbs??? Did I eat 3.5lbs worth of meat in 10 hours? LOL. I guess hydration and food does add up so I can live with that. The thing that really blew me away was I registered in a 25% BF!!!! I was shocked. Keep in mind this is a Tanita scale so there is a fair amount of error that can occur. I do trust it though, ive got a caliper reading a few years back when I was about 10% and the scale came within 1%. Not bad really. For the most part even if it doesnt have an accurate bang on number at least I can see changes occuring. So if the scale is at least somewhat accuate that puts me in at almost 198lbs lean mass. This is by far the heaviest/biggest ive ever been in terms of muscle mass. I was so pleased last night that it honestly refired up my enthusiasm. I put my "loose" pants back on and grinned from ear to ear. Nothing can beat the feeling of accomplishment! And the best part is.....this was all done eating meat and more meat and doing 5 weight sessions in the past 2.5 weeks. Once I finally beat this cold I will start adding some AM HIIT and that should only help my progress.

 

[KTL]

Still on track and still going strong. Weight was stable this morning but the % "might" be down, a PM reading will be the telltale....im crossing my fingers. One thing I hate about the scale is that my bodyweight fluctuates so much that you can often get discouraged by what it says day to day. The mirror is the most honest tool you can use. The camera is even more of a bold truth teller. Speaking of which I have some old pics but nothing recent, I want to wait until I reach more of a visual difference before I start taking silly "transformation" pictures.

I was driven this morning by progress, and made myself do morning HIIT on an empty stomach. Its been a while. I have a precor elliptical in my basement which makes that super convienient. An elliptical in my basement means I should have no excuses right? LOL. I wish it was only the easy. Laziness is a desease! So anyway I did it in sprint fashion and I did bite off more than I can chew. 6 all out sprints got my body screaming for mercy. I stopped at 6 because I reached a threshold in my lung capacity, had some lung pain, normal overdoing it feeling. I rounded out the 20 mins with a moderate pace. Next time I will get 7!

 

[KTL]

No morning cardio or HIIT this morning, had some family appointments to take care of. Yesterday being Mother's Day was a bit of a disaster on "clean eating" but I remained carb free. Instead of falling off the wagon I indulged on fatty meats. Not quite as satisfying as sweets but it did the trick. The AM reading on the scale was a satisfying number considering how much I gorged on fatty meats. Phew! These past few days have been a eye opener, my progress has stalled and now I know what to do....eat cleaner. Bottom line on weight gain or loss, fat or muscle, is calories in vs calories out. Today I did fantastic on the diet and ate really clean and for that the appetite was pretty much a nule thing all day. In time I will be bumping up my carbs eventually, to about 30g a day. That will be a few weeks away.
The Oil game in on right now so the workout is put on hold until later or possibly tomorrow. Taking this night off might do me some good, the cold is still lingering. If the game "doesnt" go into OT I will be attempting an earlier bedtime tonight! LOL.

 

[canadianrookie]

This is fantastic! Maybe just what I need to keep pushing to reach my fat-loss goals.
Good updates!!
Would you send me a pm on what your diet is like? I've always been interested in Keto diets.
(P.S. where in Canada are you from?)

 

[KTL]

Update on the diet and workouts.

Diet today, so far, has been flawless. I say so far not because of "cheating" with carbs but because of clean eating. Dinner is planned for tonight so it should all work out nicely. My weight was the same as it has been the past few days, this is good news and bad news in a way. The great part about it is that previous to this experimentation it seemed it didnt matter how hard I worked out or how many calories I deprvied myself of I always seemed to get fatter by the day. Im very happy to say that today, that doesnt happen. That alone makes me happy. Another great thing is with the sloppy diet I had over the weekend I didnt get a yo yo backlash of fat gained. I think im slowly training my body to be better at metabolizing foods and all that other technical stuff. In other words I think ive reset my insulin resistance, if not reset then fixed it at least. Im a bit disappointed I havent dropped anymore but oh well, ill keep plugging along and put that behind me. On a positive note the workouts have been fantastic. I just got back from the gym and I went up on all my reps on pretty much everything. Im 3 reps away from my personal best on the bench press. When you think about it, thats pretty awesome considering my glycogen levels are very empty. Man was I ever ringing wet. Its great to see the fat shed and reps go up at the same time. In a way, maybe the scale is telling me my LBM is going up, possibly. Tonight's PM reading will be intresting, im looking forward to seeing that BF% drop.

 

[KTL]

This is fantastic! Maybe just what I need to keep pushing to reach my fat-loss goals.
Good updates!!
Would you send me a pm on what your diet is like? I've always been interested in Keto diets.
(P.S. where in Canada are you from?)

Thanks for the comments. My diet is quite simply all protein, I indulge on anything and everything. I am not keeping track of cals at the moment but being very carefull on my selection of meats and cheeses to be on the watchfull eye of hidden carbs. My staple has been beef jerkey on most days. Not sure why but not only is it great for protein requirements but I find it filling and boring to eat after awhile. After my teeth getting tired of chewing I have enough of it. I also focus a lot of beef burgers, chicken is good and all but once you skip the sauce and all that other fun carb stuff, chicken gets pretty boring. Beef on the other hand has flavor, I add a tomator and onion to really add some spunk...I really enjoy it. Its pretty close to the real thing...burger wise. On looser days ive been eating eggs and bacon. Yeah it sounds funny but really bacon isnt really that bad if you cook it right. Sure its not the healthiest choice but hey, I gotta have some sort of indulgence right? Better than cheesecake! =)

Im in Edmonton, how about you?

 

[canadianrookie]

Thanks for the comments. My diet is quite simply all protein, I indulge on anything and everything. I am not keeping track of cals at the moment but being very carefull on my selection of meats and cheeses to be on the watchfull eye of hidden carbs. My staple has been beef jerkey on most days. Not sure why but not only is it great for protein requirements but I find it filling and boring to eat after awhile. After my teeth getting tired of chewing I have enough of it. I also focus a lot of beef burgers, chicken is good and all but once you skip the sauce and all that other fun carb stuff, chicken gets pretty boring. Beef on the other hand has flavor, I add a tomator and onion to really add some spunk...I really enjoy it. Its pretty close to the real thing...burger wise. On looser days ive been eating eggs and bacon. Yeah it sounds funny but really bacon isnt really that bad if you cook it right. Sure its not the healthiest choice but hey, I gotta have some sort of indulgence right? Better than cheesecake! =)

Im in Edmonton, how about you?

Well Congrats and keep it up!
I'm just south in Cow-town

 

[KTL]

To add some more info on the workout today for logging purposes, ill post the 1st set of each exercise and my volume.

Flat Barbell Press 3 sets
185x7 (7s static hold incorporated at the end to increase TUT)

Incline Dumbbell Flye 3 sets
70x6 (no partials or static holds)

Incline Flye 3 sets
40x8

(is this odd to anyone else? all my "gym" life ive had an amazing flye strength ability, in fact I havent seen many guys do more than 40 ever. Back when my bench was at a measly 160 I still did flyes for 30 or 35 back then. Today I could have done 50 I felt so strong, 8 was tough but not failure....and this was incline to boot. I like doing them like Arnie used to back in his famous days, 3/4 reps, full stretch and I remain tension on them and dont even come close to clanging the weights together...this in my mind is true tension. Im not sure what it is, is my bench weak or do these go hand in hand? I used to think my tris were my weak point but after maxing out on a stack for pushdowns I changed my mind about that. It could possibly be a joint issue I suppose, weak shoulder joints can only take you so far.)

V handle rows 3 sets
180x8 (this was so incredibly easy today that on the next set I bumped it up to 200 and squeezed out 5)

Pulldowns 3 sets
180x7

Undergrip seated row 1 set
170x6

Overgrip seated row 1 set
170x6

Undergrip pulldown 1 set
180x8 (this was a forearm cooker)

The reason for the multi set approach for the back was just for sake of variety, I want to see what feels good. The underhand rows hit my traps unusually hard for that position, kinda cool.

Today was good overall, as mentioned before, im very close to my personal bests. Would you believe I achieved my bests with the most abbreviated workout you could ever imagine. One of my true inspirations is Steeve Reeves, and for that I cant ignore what he used to do back before steroids were even invented. Full body workout 3 times weekly, 1-2 sets per exercise, 3 sets per muscle. My bench soared up 25lbs in 2 weeks, my military press went up about 20lbs as well. Rows shot up 20, pulldowns the same, pretty much everything just jumped. The weights just felt so light it was amazing. I dont know what it was but man did I ever get strong in that time. BUT, and this is a big one, my size didnt change at all. I did a low rep day and 2 high rep days. This is a workout I will definitely go back to when I want to focus on pure strength and not fat burn or muscle increase. Tried and tested!

 

[ClintCanada]

You're doing awesome, bro
Good luck and keep up the good work!!

 

[KTL]

Still holding strong on the diet. Eating is starting to become a chore at times, im getting sick of all food. This is a really good thing in my eyes. Im not sure what it is but last night I had the weirdest dreams, I dreamed I was eating bread. How crazy is this? I woke up in a panic and then realized I was dreaming.

One thing you have to be carefull about on the keto diet is your salt consumption, its super easy to get carried away with that. A lot of meats, including beef jerkey, has a ton of salt in it, this can easily add water weight in no time. Not to mention be very bad for you, health wise.

The workout today was fantastic, I sweat another gallon of water out and felt great on all exercises. I tried the machine for my press in place of the barbell and I have to say it felt great. I was able to push it super hard and all with the convience of a stack and pin. Dumbell presses were better than last week and all my laterals almost felt too light. For arms I switched it up and did seated alternate dumbell curls, a welcome change! Incline curls felt good and the hammer curls improved a lot since last workout. Tris felt tired today but I didnt give up and got a good workout in...no changes worth mention though.

Im down to 259.5 this AM so that was cool to see. Last night I tried to get a PM % but the scale has super low batteries and it shuts off before the % displays....DOH! The AM reading is good nonetheless, ill be buying batteries on the way home tonight.

I think with the sloppy weekend I paid the price to pay of no progress. With yesterday and today's workout being as intense as it was I am looking forward to eating clean and seeing what the scale has to tell me by the end of this week.

Tomorrow is off from the gym but if I feel extra spontaneous I might just get some cardio in.

 

[KTL]

Taking a day off from the gym when youre making progress just sucks. Call me a sucker for punishment but I just missed the feeling of pushing near max weights. The endorphin release is addicted to say the least. With that day off I feel well rested today. Ive had incredible DOMS in every muscle ive worked this week, im not sure what I did different but im loving it. My biceps are sore and in my world thats a very rare thing, in fact its probably been over a year since ive had doms in my bis. I think my shoulders normally rob a lot of my bicep's workload and they always get shortchanged, but not this time though.

The diet the past few days has been hairy at times. Mostly right on track but im getting a loosey goosey on the choice of foods. Not bad foods per say but foods that probably have a few too many carbs in them to consider this a keto diet at times. I am by no means taking in any types of starches or grains, that is still 100% on track, its been foods like nuts and seeds that are making me feel guilty. Im going to continue with my very low carb diet/keto diet this weekend and re-evaluate my progress after that..... I have a 4 day weekend jam packed full of yard work, tons of hole digging for some new trees so ill count that as some low intensity cardio. Plus tomorrow if all goes well, I will also be doing my regular chest and back workout. Monday is slated for delts and arms. Tuesday morning ill do a scale test and see where im at in terms of fat loss and muscle gain/retention. I have no doubts the manual labour will shed a few pounds, the workouts will only be the icing on the cake. My biggest problem now is the cravings/fears I have created in my mind. I want to eat bread so bad right now, im not sure why I dont even like bread that much, but its calling my name. Maybe I need a cheat day to throw my body back into a stable mode again. The end of this week will mark close to 4 weeks of being on this diet so maybe a binge is required?!?!?!?!

Today's gym visit was quite successfull, 30 mins on the elliptical in an interval pattern. I purposely skipped legs in anticipation of the work I have to do this weekend. I didnt have it in me nor did I want to push it too hard like last time so I didnt do sprints but varied the intensity in spurts. My average heart rate was around 158/min so I can consider that an intense session. After cardio I did my abs with 5 sets and then headed back to work.

BV started an interesting poll in the supplement area, natural anabolics. This is a perfect tool for me, I am very interested in trying something in this realm very soon either before/or if I ever crack open my bottles of PP. From what the guys are posting its been a great quick review tool.

 

[KTL]

Well, I was a bit more rambunxious in thought than id like to admit, the weekend work is killing me so I put the workouts on hold until I finish up the good ol manual labour. On the positive note its an eye opener every year to do "real" work as opposed to sit in the office day in and day out. The result this morning was 258 for the AM reading. Lowest yet.:woohoo:
Diet is still strong (carb free) and man is it ever draining me, doing this "long winded cardio" is sweatarific. :jaw:

 

[KTL]

I cant believe after a 4 day weekend and being overwhelmed with temptation I made it through and did quite well to boot. Im definitely smaller and lighter but look and feel, clothes are fitting that much nicer. I'll do an official AM weigh in tomorrow morning and if I remember to buy batteries a PM tomorrow night with BF %. The yard labour on no carbs does wonders to the body fat levels. Man, what I wouldnt do to switch up my job and get an outdoor active job, I wouldnt have this problem right now with cutting down.

 

[KTL]

256.5lbs this morning. Progress has been slower than anticipated but steady. Steady is a good thing if you ask me. 4 weeks in and im down an estimated 15lbs in WEIGHT not fat amount. My bodyfat % PM reading will give me an official number to see how much that has changed. On an optimistic note, it registered the lowest AM % yet, so it can only get better from here.

 

[KTL]

Well, just when I was about to throw in the towel and give in I got this immediate burst of intensity and focus to keep plugging away. I thought 4 weeks was enough but why, its still working so im going to continue rolling with it. Forget the mundaneness, forget the tempations, this is my little secret weapon and its working.

Workout at lunch was great, couple nice increases but nothing spectacular. Here is the break down.

Flat Barbell Press 3 sets
190x5

Incline Dumbbell Press 3 sets
70x6

Incline Flye 3 sets
40x8

V handle rows 3 sets
200x6

Undergrip seated row 2 sets
170x6

Pulldowns 3 sets
180x6

Undergrip pulldown 1 set
180x8

When I got home I was excited to take my Tanita measurement. Whether is accurate or not it has shown steady improvements and tonight was great news.

259.5lbs 24%

compared to
263.5lbs 25%

This is not only consistant with my last measurement in terms of lean body mass, ~198lbs, but has shown progress. Man was I happy to see this.

I have to admit ive had my doubts along the way, is the diet working, am I working out enough, do I need more cardio, am I taking in too many "little" carbs, ie, seeds and nuts, could a bit of a carb load help with my numbers? etc. I couldnt ask for anything more, my numbers are up and climbing in all lifts, my LBM is steady and climbing, my bodyfat is dropping nicely, ive only had 2 REAL cardio sessions, I push some real weight in the gym despite being glycogen empty. 4 weeks in and I cant believe how easy it has been from an overall perspective. My hat goes off to the low carb school pioneers.

My biggest fuel right now is what ive accomplished in 4 weeks. At this pace, if I keep it up, I will reach my goal of 15% in 6 weeks. 6 weeks is nothing!

 

[Mess]

Hey KTL, good job bro keep it up

if i were you i'll take a one week break from the diet as by now your body has adopted it and thats why results slow down, JMHO, i'll keep following your thread

By the way i'm from TO

Cheers

 

[KTL]

Thanks for the comments Mess. I think youre right, despite my recent progress and continued success things have slowed down considerably. Its getting harder and harder to stick to the diet but I am still doing well. I went on a nut binge the other day, I figure nuts are better than starches in terms of carbohydates. I had a bit of a load up but not a serious alarming amount. The part I dont like about taking a break is ruining the streak im on. The hardest part of a diet/cutting phase is the starting part, the first 10 mins...LOL. Once you can succeed past the point of starting it gets easier and you build momentum. The thing im not happy about myself is the lack of cardio. Could I have been 5-10lbs lighter by now???? I keep saying this but I think I have to kick it up and follow through. Weight sessions are still doing good, staying consistant on strength levels and still progressing ever so slowly. I think if I ever do take a week off it wont be an overboard week, I will just reintroduce veggies back into the diet, a very low glycemic carb.

 

[Mess]

why dont you award your self with a one week break to reboost your metabolism again and during this week do cardio to whipe away the guilt stings, bare in mind that you'll be back on track after this week and you'll be loosing fat on higher gear :bruce3:

 

[FitnFirm]

Pictures?? DO you have some pictures