Rihad's log

Well, the deficit does get created with such activity. It's safer for the sake of keeping & growing the muscle to eat enough & burn off the rest than to eat 800-1200 cals & hope for your BMR to burn the fat off. I don't consider counting calories or BMR to be reasonable measuring sticks as BMR for one thing seems to be adapting to the amount you eat. So that's what I do with my food: adjust to current conditions. If BMR really spent the estimated 2000-2500 cals per day on me I'd long be dead by now :)
 
HST_Rihad said:
Thanks, gbglifter. I've been on this semi-cut semi-recomposition crusade well since March 14, 2013! Dropped from 80 kg to 64 so far. I hope more pushup/squatting activity I've been doing will accelerate it somewhat (let alone nice feelings from doing 1000 pushups in less and less time :)). I will finish cutting once I can see all of my abs. I also eat whatever I want, including pizzas, pasta, cakes, sweets, just in moderation.
Click to expand...

Surely at the latter stage of your cut you will cut out the pizzas, pasta etc ?
 
mickc1965, not sure I'll need to do that, it isn't the food we eat that gets us fat, but the amount. Eating high GI carbs in combination with protein & fats (i.e., typical food) lowers the absorption rate of the carbs. And eating more protein as a carb substitute is weird at best, carbs are unbeatable used as the primary fuel source they are intended to be, let alone cheaper.
 
Another board's member kindly drew a graph of my progress using my measurement log, using gnuplot. Nice :)

rihad.jpg

The red line stands for waist in centimeters, the green one for BW in kg. Started on March 14 2013.

My waist measurement's been fluctuating for the past month or so - that's probably because of the ton of pushups which keep loading my abs, so they've grown a bit, a kind of recomp.
 
Progress update

DSCF3848.jpgDSCF3849.jpgDSCF3850.jpgDSCF3851.jpg

Body weight: 63.8 (140.6 lb)
Waist: 76.3cm (30.04")


Also did incline push-ups last Saturday - 1007 total reps done in 53 sets every 5 minutes (19 myo-reps per set), which took me 4 hours 20 minutes, in the following fashion as fatigue accumulated:

21 sets - 16+3
9 sets - 14+3+2
23 sets - 12+3+2+2
 
Last edited:
Have you done calipers lately?

I know you're on an ab-mission, but definitely looking like some muscle is being lost too (it happens, just worth tracking).
 
My abs are very hard to go, I'm fairly lean almost everywhere else - I used to be at around 13.5% according to Jackson/Pollock 4, some say that my back gives me a solid 10%.

Measured J/P4 just now: 11.88%.
Age: 33
BW: 63.2 kg
Abdominal: 22
Thigh: 4
Tricep: 4
Suprailiac: 16
 
Your backs looking solid! And your pecs are looking well developed.
The ab/sup readings are quite high in comparison to the others. Hope that falls off soon so you dont lose too much volume.
 
Thanks, pecs are mostly due to the pump from almost daily pushups, which probably increases the effects of heavier work in the gym. Back is mostly due to rack pulls with huge loads (for me). I still eat whatever I want, just less of it, including pasta, sweets, cakes, mayo, butter. My only mistake was thinking I should maintain my BW at around 65 kg and recomposition from there. It worked, but very slowly, and I lost the last 3-4 months on that. Now since I let my bw loose and dropped another pound or two, progress seems to have resumed. Even if I do lose some muscle, I can always put it back on later, and recovering lost muscle would be easier than gaining new, because the extra nuclei of the "lost" fibers are still there inside the muscle.
 
Last edited:
How are you training now? How many sessions at the gym? What loads are you using?

I learned my lesson from the last cut. I ended up in too big a deficite if Im being honest. I got ripped but I looked tiny with clothes on. Im in no rush to lose the final 5-6kg. Im also keeping my carb intake higher this time. Hopefullt that will keep me looking fuller. Still doing leangains, sort of. Not eating breakfast so the meals are much bigger than they would have been.
 
gbglifter, nothing to lose sleep over :) Same workout thrice a week (alternating between pulldowns & seated rows).
Squats92x6, 70x12
Bench (incline)62x6x2, 60x6, 50x9
Leg curls13x6, 10x7
Pulldowns62x6x2 normal grip, 42x10 wide grip, 38x15 parallel grip.
Rear Delt (lying)10x8,8
Lateral raise12.5x6
Front raise12.5x5
1-arm bent over DB rows40x8
Shrugs120x6
Rack pulls170x9
Deadlift (sumo)120x1
Bicep BB curls
45x2+4Negs
CGBP (incline)57x3,3, 42x13
Calves94x15
Hyperextensions35x12
Iron Woody gripper (later at home)147x5
 
Last edited:
gbglifter said:
Your backs looking solid! And your pecs are looking well developed.
The ab/sup readings are quite high in comparison to the others. Hope that falls off soon so you dont lose too much volume.
Click to expand...

I agree. With thigh and tricep readings that low, ab and sup would typically be much lower. Seems you probably have a rather strong preferential storage of fat in the abdominal area? I don't see any major stretch marks in your photos so I doubt you were once quite obese and have loose skin as a result.

If you're at 11.88% however, you'd only really need to lose a few kilograms to get as lean as you want to be, assuming little muscle loss.
 
Did you measure your body fat levels in March 13? Not sure how accurate JP4 is as it has me at sub 10% but would think I was nearer the 15% mark as outline of upper abs only showing
 
Last edited:
I did measure them, I was about 17-18% by JP/3 (10.62% now). Ideally the more sites you measure the better its accuracy will be, because genetically different people are predisposed to have more fat in different areas. Anything more than JP/4 requires someone to assist you, so I can't do that alone, but I wouldn't be surprised if they gave me even lower bf%.
 
Based on my last measurements the body fat levels were

JP3 - 8%
JP4 - 9.65%
JP7 - 9.44%
Parrillo - 8.61%
DW- 14.06%

Seems odd that both a 7 and 9 site give lower than a 4 site.
 
Calipers are just that - approximations, and are useful for tracking one's progress. The expensive Tanita analyzers are believed to be well suited for accurately measuring body composition through BIA, but again, they can do nothing with one's poor genetics, because with even 10% (and even below) readouts someone could still not have their abs visible - still fatty in the midsection area, lean everywhere else,.

It's about time these freaking abs showed up...

DSCF3855.jpg
 
Did 1000 incline push-ups last Saturday 25 reps every 5 minutes, which took me 3 hours 15 minutes. I did 12-15 reps in the first set + mini-sets of 2-3 reps for a total of 25 spaced 3-7 breaths apart, resting with one knee on the floor to spare my wrists.

Some more pics:


BW: 64 kg (141 lbs) Waist: 75.8 cm (29.8")
 
Last edited:
Definitely, definitely time to lose the sunglasses ... 1000 push ups is impressive endurance. What are you doing to balance out your rotators?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top