I've been sticking to 'the plan' for my lifestyle change (less junk food and more exercise) since the 'Pro Physique 90-day transformation challenge' started on 12 Feb. My main goal was to cut out all junk food, reduce daily calories by 'intermittent fasting' (not having breakfast and having a 'brunch' around noon, then having dinner before 7pm) and try to get enough protein intake to try to increase muscle mass by doing weight training 3 days/week, despite being in overall caloric deficit. I've also aimed to get in at least 10,000 steps/day on the 'rest' days. I've found the easier way to accumulate sufficient steps each day was to simply get up and do a ten minute walk around my 'home office' every hour or so during the day.
The first week I only did two gym sessions -- I had been only going once a week (and skipping some weeks) for the past year, so I was quite exhausted at the end of the second session and had sore muscles for a couple of days. By the second week I was already getting adapted to the workouts, as was able do all three planned sessions without getting too 'wasted' (and I didn't have any muscle soreness the following day). Each session I've increased the weights slightly and added another exercise or a few more sets, so the total 'volume' (kg) per session has been rapidly increasing. I expect the rate of increase will slow dramatically over the next few weeks. The gym sessions involve 20 mins on the treadmill to warm up, then half of my resistance training, another 20 mins on the treadmill to let my muscles recover a bit, then a final group of weight training exercises, before finishing off with a final 20 mins on the treadmill. The total session lasts just under 2 hrs (I go just before 9pm when the gym is fairly empty) and consists of about 1 hr on the treadmill and about 45 minutes of weight machines.
Overall I'm fairly happy with my progress so far:
Body Recomposition Averages (per day)
Week# Wt (kg) Body Fat % cals g prot % carbs % fat steps/day
1 -3.4 -1.1% 1,348 85 35% 39% 11,118
2 -1.0 -0.4% 1,378 92 39% 31% 12.126
The main changes I still want to make are to increase my protein intake to around 150g/day while not increasing caloric intake too much -- so I there will be more chicken breast and broccoli, and less fillet steak and cereal in my immediate future. And I want to try to get closer to 15,000 steps/day.
Based on my caloric deficit I should continue to lose around 0.8 kg/week, and by ensuring adequate protein intake and sufficient weight training I should be able to avoid losing any muscle mass (and might even gain a small amount). Perhaps losing 1kg/wk of fat and putting on about 0.2 kg/wk of lean mass? At the end of the 13 week 'challenge' the change in average body fat % should allow me to do a rough calculation of the change in lean body mass vs. overall weight change.
Anyhow, its 9pm and time to head off to the gym...
Subscribe to Enough Wealth. Copyright 2006-2024
No comments:
Post a Comment