Hardvig: My road to greatness!

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hardvig

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Hardvig: My road to greatness!

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Welcome to my training log.

I am going to use this training log to keep track of my own results, but I would also like for it to be something that YOU could benefit from reading, therefore I am not going to be withholding any information about my training and as long as it has anything to do with my training, I'll be describing my life outside the gym aswell...

Time for a history lesson
Back when I was 13 I was undeniably fat as f**k - a dexa-scan showed me that my bf% was a whopping 60!!! That wasn't however entirely my fault, I was diagnosed with cushing syndrom, a hormonal disease that prevents the body from creating the right hormones at the right time and in the right doses, which meant, that I wasn't growing length-wise only my weight sky-rocketed - even tho' I was put on a VERY restrictive diet and went running with my father EVERY single day! (which is HARD on the body when you are that fat!).

In the end I had surgery and was medicated correctly and I soon started to lose weight and grew 30cm in 24 months until I was the 191cm I am today :)

But even after getting the right medication and eventually being diagnosed "healthy", I was still on the heavy side of the curve which I stayed until I was about 18...
At 18 I got a subscription to the local gym and started doing 45 mins of cardio a day with a little added weight-training - I had no idea what I was doing, I just worked out... 1 year later I was not skinny, but definately not muscular in any way! my height of 191 and weight of 72kgs gave me a load of confidence, and landed me my first GF.
During our 1.5 year long relationship I gained around 10 kgs, so when she left, I was semi-fat and thought I would never be able to pull a girl again...

I teamed up with an old classmate who had been weight-training for as long as I'd known him and he helped me get into weight-lifting.
It later turned out, that he only knew the very basics and was going along on great genetics, so with my results lacking (maybe also due to a ****ty diet...) I kind of lost my interest in bodybuilding again...

1 year later I got a new GF and again I lost track of my training and started gaining the wrong kind of weight - that lasted for about 6 months until I looked in the mirror and really hated what I saw..!
My old classmate directed me to one of his friends who was a personal trainer who competed in bodybuilding competitions, and he showed me what kind of diet I would need, and what kind of training I should be doing and within 6 months I looked the best I have to date - although again, not very muscular...

Then the relationship flopped, and so did my diet - but not my training this time! i was determined to keep on working out! and so I have for the last year I've tried different programs: the 2-split, 3-split, Lazar Angelov's 5-split and then a couple of months ago I stumbled across HST. I'd heard about the concept a long time ago, but it seemed so complicated and I didn't understand exactly what I had to do, and so I found another program which I used...

THAT WON'T HAPPEN THIS TIME!!

My current state
Age: 25
Gender: male
Height: 191 cm
Weight (starting): 94.8
bf% (starting): 15.6

Weight (current): 92.8
bf% (current): 14.6

I started my diet around july 1st. My plan is to cut down to a bf% that I feel I look good with (I NEED to see my six-pack!), and then slowly bulk up from there - I don't have a timeframe, and I won't be doing measurements - it's all about aestethics and how I feel about how I look!

My training
I will be doing the standard HST-program as layed out by Bryan on the HST homepage, that means 2 weeks of 1x15, 2 weeks of 1x10, 2 weeks of 1x5 and 2 weeks of negatives 1x5

As mentioned about I am already a 1.5 month into my diet, and the first month was very cardio-heavy (1 hour spinning after each workout)
2 weeks ago I spent a week finding my max'es. Mon, wed, fri I would spin for 1 hour after working out and on tue, thu, and sat I would do 30 mins of incline treadmill walking.

After 9 days of SD, this monday I did my first 1x15 workout and today - 2 days later, I have DOMS like never before - it's fantastic!!!
This week I won't be doing any cardio, to see what my diet is capable of doing without cardio - if I don't lose any weight I might have to change that, but I need to see what works, and what doesn't so that I can work from there...

My diet
My diet is around 2300 cals/day with saturday as a cheat-day and so far it has yielded some very confusing results..!

During my first month (with cardio!) I lost like 2 kilos, but then in the last 9 days (without ANY kind of cardio!) I've also lost 2 kilos..!

This saturday I weighed in at 91.8 and had me a good cheat-day, and then on sunday I went straight back to my diet, and even though I wasn't supposed to weigh myself today, I did and weighed in at 92.9..?! I worked out this monday and gained 1 kilo?!:confused:

I'm not going to panic and start changing my diet right away - but the results sure do confuse me..!

That was my first training log post
...Rest assured that the next one WON'T be this long! ;)
 
Your weight fluctuates based on water, glycogen (bringing water), food still in gastrointestinal tract, muscle gains, fat loss, muscle loss, fat gains, hydration, passing of solids and fluids ...


A kilo is basically a 1.1% variance at your weight, and frankly, we haven't even accounted for measuring-device variance.

Don't stress about it :)
 
Yep - I actually think I was one of the first to chew through that one - it's really a great read - even tho' I don't agree with everything he says in there ;-)
 
It's as small a thing as how many calories to cut when you want to cut.

I am not a fan of the 500 cals rule because 500 cals would be a larger percentage of a smaller persons diet than say, mine for example...

I like the idea of a percentage cut - I've used the 10-20% rule. It's not that it makes a huge difference it's just my OCD-side that likes it better that way :)

The paragraph about how he wen't from being able to eat 1000 cal meals to 3000 cal meals is also a little bit scary - I mean - when would you ever want to eat a 3000 cal meal?! (except maybe if you were bulking and for some reason wasn't able to eat all day - but because that paragraph comes before the sample meal plan I could see how it might send some people running scared...)

Everything else in the book I can only agree with and the above mentioned things are IMO quite minor...
 
Here is why I don't use percentages.

It takes approximately a 3500 calorie deficit to drop one pound of bodyweight, regardless of how big or small a person is. That rule does not change based on the size of the individual. BMR is highly related to the overall size of a person. A 6'1 250 lb man has a much higher BMR than a 5'4 150 lb man. This is before you factor in activity. So let's use 20% as a rule and do the math, see what happens.

Large 125kg person with BMR of 3000 calories
3000 x 20% = 600 calories a day deficit = just over 1 lb of weight loss a week

Small 60kg person with BMR of 1500 calories
1440 x 20% = 288 calories a day deficit = about 1 lb every two weeks

So it can make a huge difference. For the small person to lose 10 lbs, you are looking at 20 weeks instead of 10 weeks. We go from only about two months of dieting to almost half a year of dieting to lose the same amount of weight. Smaller women would have an even worse time using 20% as a deficit. They would be losing about a pound of bodyweight a month following that rule.
Cutting is harder for smaller people because the rules stay the same as you get smaller, but your BMR is so much lower that cutting any calories at all can put you on basically a starvation diet. When your BMR is only 1500 calories or even lower, the only alternative is to increase activity in order to burn more calories so you don't have to cut as much.
If 10-20% of your calories has worked for you then that's fine, I would be curious to know how many calories below your BMR 10-20% is. I would imagine it is somewhere in the vicinity of 500 calories.

With regards to my ability to ingest large amounts of food... honestly, you are the only person who has ever said they found the idea terrifying of a 6'1 220lb+ man being able to eat a lot of food. I'm not really sure what is scary about that, but if you can convince me that someone will soon be making a horror movie about a guy who can eat 3000+ calories in a sitting, I will gladly rethink that part of my book.
I think it's pretty obvious that I am an extreme example, having gone from 140 lbs to where I am now obviously took a major change in the way I eat. I'm highly active both at work and out of work, and I'm tall and somewhat large, I require up to 4000 calories a day to maintain depending on how much I'm doing that day. When I am bigger (during or after a bulk) my maintenance goes even higher. If I couldn't eat large amounts in one sitting, I wouldn't be where I am today.
I can think of dozens of reasons why you would want to eat 3000 calories within a short time frame. Do you spread your calories out all day when bulking or do you concentrate them after the workout? Common sense would suggest that you get most of them after the workout when you are in muscle building mode, no? Do you have a job? How much food can you take with you to the office, or the factory, or the construction site? I'm guessing not a huge meal. I don't even get meal times at work, I have to scarf something down in five minutes when I have a second to sit down. Have you ever tried intermittent fasting? What is your BMR?
This isn't an attack, I'm genuinely curious as to what is scary about this part.
 
Totentanz said:
Here is why I don't use percentages.

It takes approximately a 3500 calorie deficit to drop one pound of bodyweight, regardless of how big or small a person is. That rule does not change based on the size of the individual. BMR is highly related to the overall size of a person. A 6'1 250 lb man has a much higher BMR than a 5'4 150 lb man. This is before you factor in activity. So let's use 20% as a rule and do the math, see what happens.

Large 125kg person with BMR of 3000 calories
3000 x 20% = 600 calories a day deficit = just over 1 lb of weight loss a week

Small 60kg person with BMR of 1500 calories
1440 x 20% = 288 calories a day deficit = about 1 lb every two weeks

So it can make a huge difference. For the small person to lose 10 lbs, you are looking at 20 weeks instead of 10 weeks. We go from only about two months of dieting to almost half a year of dieting to lose the same amount of weight. Smaller women would have an even worse time using 20% as a deficit. They would be losing about a pound of bodyweight a month following that rule.
Cutting is harder for smaller people because the rules stay the same as you get smaller, but your BMR is so much lower that cutting any calories at all can put you on basically a starvation diet. When your BMR is only 1500 calories or even lower, the only alternative is to increase activity in order to burn more calories so you don't have to cut as much.
If 10-20% of your calories has worked for you then that's fine, I would be curious to know how many calories below your BMR 10-20% is. I would imagine it is somewhere in the vicinity of 500 calories.

With regards to my ability to ingest large amounts of food... honestly, you are the only person who has ever said they found the idea terrifying of a 6'1 220lb+ man being able to eat a lot of food. I'm not really sure what is scary about that, but if you can convince me that someone will soon be making a horror movie about a guy who can eat 3000+ calories in a sitting, I will gladly rethink that part of my book.
I think it's pretty obvious that I am an extreme example, having gone from 140 lbs to where I am now obviously took a major change in the way I eat. I'm highly active both at work and out of work, and I'm tall and somewhat large, I require up to 4000 calories a day to maintain depending on how much I'm doing that day. When I am bigger (during or after a bulk) my maintenance goes even higher. If I couldn't eat large amounts in one sitting, I wouldn't be where I am today.
I can think of dozens of reasons why you would want to eat 3000 calories within a short time frame. Do you spread your calories out all day when bulking or do you concentrate them after the workout? Common sense would suggest that you get most of them after the workout when you are in muscle building mode, no? Do you have a job? How much food can you take with you to the office, or the factory, or the construction site? I'm guessing not a huge meal. I don't even get meal times at work, I have to scarf something down in five minutes when I have a second to sit down. Have you ever tried intermittent fasting? What is your BMR?
This isn't an attack, I'm genuinely curious as to what is scary about this part.
Click to expand...

I actually had to rethink my diet because of this... You sir, are completely right, I guess there's a reason for the 500 cals/day cut - exactly like you say, it'll add up to 1 pound (0,5 kg) of fat loss a week...

The part about the 3000 cals/sitting is not scary to me - I'm hardly ever full after eating a pizza or a meal at a fastfood joint. I'm just saying that it MIGHT "scare" some people off, if they themselves are somewhat scrawny, and don't remember from the introduction of the book, that you are now a big, bulky guy, with a very active job and lifestyle, and what they therefore take away from that paragraph is, that they have to "learn" to eat 3000 cal meals...

It's hardly a critic, more of a thought...
 
Now an update.

I'm almost at the end of my 2nd week of my 1st HST cycle.

I think I've found my caloric equilibrium @ my current activity level - 2300 cals/day
I weighed myself this morning - actually 2 days ahead of time, but my weight hasn't changed anything since I started the cycle 2 weeks ago.

Now I have to figure out if I want to cut calories from my food intake (which would be hard...) or start adding cardio..?

I was thinking of going for a little run in the morning before breakfast (20 mins or so) combined with 30 mins of incline treadmill walk in the afternoon (after my workout) and just doing the treadmill thing on off-days...

What do you guys think? change my diet or my training?
 
Diet, by a long shot, here are the advantages:

- It's a variable that's entirely within your control. You can literally and precisely measure the reduction/increase you wish/need to make.
- The caloric expenditure of exercise is not within your control. The more often you do it, the more your efficiency increases and the expenditure reduces.
- Similarly, you cannot accurately measure the expenditure. This will vary on a day-to-day basis, depending on environment temperature, hormones, technique/form, clothing worn, body weight at the time, body composition at the time etc.
- Cardio is time-consuming, ingesting less kilojoules is not.
- You can't 'miss' an average 500kcal reduction (e.g. 3,500kcal reduction per week). You can get your workouts messed up very easily.
- Cardio will increase your food cravings. Why make things harder for yourself?
 
AlexAustralia said:
Diet, by a long shot, here are the advantages:

- It's a variable that's entirely within your control. You can literally and precisely measure the reduction/increase you wish/need to make.
- The caloric expenditure of exercise is not within your control. The more often you do it, the more your efficiency increases and the expenditure reduces.
- Similarly, you cannot accurately measure the expenditure. This will vary on a day-to-day basis, depending on environment temperature, hormones, technique/form, clothing worn, body weight at the time, body composition at the time etc.
- Cardio is time-consuming, ingesting less kilojoules is not.
- You can't 'miss' an average 500kcal reduction (e.g. 3,500kcal reduction per week). You can get your workouts messed up very easily.
- Cardio will increase your food cravings. Why make things harder for yourself?
Click to expand...

Oh so very true...

The problem is... I have no idea where to cut the calories - it feels like I am already starving myself..!

My meal plan looks like this at the moment:

Breakfast @ 6.15
150g skyr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyr
250g low fat yoghurt
40g oats
20g granola
= 449 cals

Snack @ 9.00
1 apple
= 87 cals

Lunch @ 11.00
150g chicken breast
66g Brown rice (dry weight)
260g Haricot verts (green beans...)
15g Dressing (non-low-fat!)
= 559 cals

Pre-workout @ 4.00 pm
1 Banana
20g protein powder
15g maltodextrin
= 276 cals

Post workout @ 5.30 pm
20g protein powder
15g maltodextrin
= 140 cals

Dinner @ 6-6.30 pm
150g chicken breast
50g brown rice (dry weight)
150g haricot verts
15g dressing (non low fat)
= 451 cals

Evening snack @ 9 pm
150g skyr
250g yoghurt
20g granola
= 294 cals

Total: 2256 cals...

Protein: 181g
Carbs: 323g
Fat: 32g

energy%:
protein: 31
Carbs: 56
fat: 13

As you can see I'm actually struggling to get my protein up where it should be (its currently @ 1.9g pr kg bodyweight) - and I usually get hungry at around 10 am and again at 4 pm...

I really don't know where to cut the cals..!
 
More protein and fewer carbs will help with satiety. Also protein has more of a thermic effect than carbs. I would drop the maltodextrin from your shakes, not needed on a cut. Up the protein post workout to 40 grams, no need for post workout carbs, you are getting plenty throughout the day so glycogen replenishment won't be an issue.
 
I will do a revised version of my diet ASAP and post it in here.

One thing I've noticed so far is, that I don't get sore..? today I am starting my 1 day of 10's, which means that I've already hit my 15 max'es - and still nothing..!

I read on the FAQ's that a certain amount of soreness is okay, but not, by any means, a marker of how hard you are working out - I am not about to judge HST after 2 weeks of 15's, I just want to make sure that I am doing everything right..?

btw. I've always been this way - I almost never get sore (unless I start doing an exercise I've never done before, or take a longer break from working out - which hasn't happend in a year...).

So... is it normal to not get sore and to not feel "trashed" after a HST workout?
 
Pretty much, yeah...I'm the same as you as far as soreness goes.
Just make sure you make every rep count...nice, slow negatives, especially on the lower-end lifts.
 
AlexAustralia said:
- Cardio is time-consuming, ingesting less kilojoules is not.
- You can't 'miss' an average 500kcal reduction (e.g. 3,500kcal reduction per week). You can get your workouts messed up very easily.
- Cardio will increase your food cravings. Why make things harder for yourself?
Click to expand...

I'm under the belief cardio is a good thing...in particular HIIT cardio.
Your met levels increase (even while you sleep), HIIT is proven to burn 50% more fat then regular cardio...
And about appetite...yeah, eat more! More nutrition, more protein, more fiber, more vitamins and minerals.
Just don't go crazy with it and enjoy eating again...
:)
 
hardvig said:
I will do a revised version of my diet ASAP and post it in here.

One thing I've noticed so far is, that I don't get sore..? today I am starting my 1 day of 10's, which means that I've already hit my 15 max'es - and still nothing..!

I read on the FAQ's that a certain amount of soreness is okay, but not, by any means, a marker of how hard you are working out - I am not about to judge HST after 2 weeks of 15's, I just want to make sure that I am doing everything right..?

btw. I've always been this way - I almost never get sore (unless I start doing an exercise I've never done before, or take a longer break from working out - which hasn't happend in a year...).

So... is it normal to not get sore and to not feel "trashed" after a HST workout?
Click to expand...

I don't generally get very sore either. As long as you feel a strain in your muscles after the workout and can tell you've done something, you should be fine. Soreness is not necessary to grow. You'll definitely feel more strain/tenderness once you get into the heavier 5s.

With regards to the diet, I would get some more leafy greens in there. Currently you have approximately none in your diet. Those, along with protein, will help keep you feeling sated.

I would also consider cutting calories back a bit during breakfast and adding more in during dinner or after dinner, as this can help you feel less like you are on a diet.
 
Here is the remade nutritional plan - I suddenly realize that I am on a cut-diet, it's almost no food..!

Anyway - here goes:

Breakfast
200g skyr < up'ed for added protein
150g < down for cutting carbs
30g oats < down - cutting carbs
20g granola < same - I need this..!
Total: 382 kcals

Later morning
1 apple < down from 1 banana :-/
Total: 87 kcals

Lunch
200g chicken breast < upped 50g for more protein and satiety
300g canned tomatoes \
50g onion ---- This is an alternative to the harricot verts which
5g olive oil / can act like a soup and hopefully replace the lost carbs from rice - satiety-wise
Total: 393 kcals

Pre workout
1 Banana < same
20g whey 80
removed the carbs from the drink
Total: 216 kcal

Post work out
20g whey 80
Removed the carbs
Total: 79,6

Dinner
200g chicken breast < upped for more protein
300g canned tomatoes
50g onions
Total: 348 kcal

Evening
200g skyr < upped for more protein
150g yoghurt - lowered again
...and no granola :'(


Total: 1712 kcal

Total:
Protein 197g
carbs 166g
fat 29

kcal distribution:
Protein: 46%
Carbs: 39%
Fat: 29%

I can't believe my metabolism is this bad :( :( :( :(
 
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