Weeks 4 and 5 are officially in the books! In this post I cover weight fluctuations, multiple macronutrient changes, my new training split, supplement dosages, and high adaptive metabolisms.
Body Weight and Current Condition
At the end of my last log I was weighing 195.7 lbs. After week 4 I saw this number drop down to 195.3. This was good to see a drop and see the scale moving in the right direction. However the pace was not fast enough so I made some changes to may macros.
Despite the cuts to my macros ending week 4, I actually gained during week 5. This saw my weight going from 195.3 up to 195.5. Since I had this gain in week 5 it means that yet more dietary changes are needed in order to get things moving along and at a good pace.
With this extremely slow progress, this is usually the point where people start to take drastic measures. However, I completely expected this to be slow going at the beginning. Why? I will actually talk about this at the end of this post.
I have included a few random gym progress pictures with this post but no full progress pictures as of yet. The main reason I haven’t taken any full progress pictures is that there hasn’t been enough change on the scale to need new pictures. At this point they serve no purpose. This is actually what I do with my clients as well. I know some coaches require pictures weekly, but in my opinion, when you are months out from a show and the scale has not changed much, there isn’t much need for pictures. However, as someone gets closer and closer to show day, progress pictures will become increasingly important.
Nutrition and Cardio
As I mentioned above, I made two macronutrient changes in the past two weeks. The first change I made was to lower my macros to these numbers below:
- Protein 285g
- Carbs 350g
- Fat 65g
I also have a high calorie day once every 7th day with these macros:
- Protein 250g
- Carbs 595g
- Fat 80g
When my weight still jumped up the week after these changes I made a few more cuts to my plan. My current macronutrient breakdown is now as follows:
- Protein 285g
- Carbs 315g
- Fat 60g
I also have a high calorie day once every 7th day with these macros:
- Protein 250g
- Carbs 560g
- Fat 75g
For my food choices I have started incorporating some chicken breast into most days plan. The reason for this is that the lower fat content of chicken makes it a little easier to hit my numbers as my daily fat intake is dropping. Other than that I am keeping a lot of the same foods that I laid out in week one.
Timing of my meals has changed a little since I had to cut my numbers. Once again, this timing can change if I need it to fit my schedule.
- Meal 1 (upon waking) - P - 55 C - 45 F - 15
- Meal 2 (pre-training meal) - P - 55 C - 75 F - 12
- Meal 3 (post training shake) - P - 55 C - 45 F - 1
- Meal 4 (post training meal) - P- 55 C - 75 F - 12
- Meal 5 (before bed) - P- 65 C - 75 F - 20
Cardio
There continues to be no cardio and I’m loving every minute of it.
Training
In Week 4 I completed my full cycle of Power Block Periodization. I had planned to run another cycle of PBP however I’m having little nagging injury in my trap which is aggravated only when I do heavier squats and deadlifts so at this time I thought it was time to move on to a plan that allows me to really give my all without having to worry about hurting myself worse or inhibiting my ability to train hard.
The most important factor in training is the ability to push yourself and give 100% effort and the heavy training load of PBP wouldn’t allow me to do that with this current injury so I changed it. Here is my new split.
My new plan is set up in an upper/lower split:
- Monday - Upper Body (4-8 reps)
- Tuesday - Lower Body (4-10 reps)
- Wednesday - Upper Body (12-20 reps)
- Thursday - Off
- Friday - Lower Body (12-20 reps)
- Saturday - Upper Body (GVT day 10x10 for upper only)
- Sunday - Off
I’ve run this same split in the past for periods this recent offseason and it has worked great. It allows me to keep volume higher for my upper body than my lower body which I need since upper body is my weakest area.
Supplementation
Everything with my supplementation has remained the same except that I finished my current cycle of Core Alpha and Core Hard. For those that missed it, here is my current intake but I am including dosages for that those are curious.
- Core ABC (6 scoops per day)
- Core ISO (as needed)
- Core PRO (as needed)
- Vitamin D (2000 IU daily)
- Multivitamin (once daily)
- Core Commodities Beta Alanine (1 scoop daily)
- Core Commodities Taurine (2 scoops daily)
- Core FURY Extreme (as needed but typically one full scoop)
- Core PUMP (one scoop before training)
- Core HMB (3 grams daily)
- Fish Oil (2 capsules daily)
- Core Commodities Creatine Mono (5 grams daily)
- Core Commodities Glutamine (15 grams daily, primarily taken for immune health)
Additional Updates and Thoughts
As some of you may have noticed, despite rather large caloric cuts since week 1 my weight has not dropped all that much. This is actually pretty typical for me and I have planned for this to happen. I see this not only in myself but a certain percentage of my clients as well. For lack of a definitive term I have started calling this a “highly adaptive metabolism”. What this essentially means is that no matter if I add calories or if I cut calories, my body is fairly resistant to change. I can’t say what the exact mechanism is because I honestly don’t know. However what I do know is that in the offseason I am capable of eating a LOT of food but in order for me to achieve complete contest conditioning I have to take my food intake very low.
A lot of people think that simply because you are able to eat a lot in the offseason that it automatically means you will be able to get lean with relative ease. While this is true for many people, it is not the case for all. On the flip side of this, typically when I start eating more calories I do not gain much weight at all. So there are good aspects to this as well as the bad.
Typically in a situation like this, I will not use this as an excuse to rush the prep or to make larger caloric changes. I have tried that in the past with my own prep years ago and I can state definitively that the results are terrible. Haha! In this case the best protocol is to continue to make moderate caloric changes and eventually a point will be reached where progress picks up and fat loss will start moving at a good pace.
If you notice this trend in yourself, it is likely that this will happen every time you try to lose weight. So it is important to plan ahead and realize that this is something you must account for when picking shows.
That’s all for this week! Until next time!
