Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Final Results and Recommendations by a Doctor

         The cutting phase of Lean-gains is about finished. I learned some very valuable lessons applicable to life whilst practicing Lean-gains.
  
         Expecting huge results to losing body fat rapidly with a low body fat % is stupid regardless of what you'd expect from all your "good" work. You know counting everything, good activity, and healthy foods. The loss of the body fat was at times linear for me. It stalled when I acted retarded withI dropping calories too low. Even with a high deficit of -3000 (per week, which probably was more, due to my active lifestyle) yielded little loss in fat and did hurt my strength. Why is it when a expert advises to go against a desire to slow down we just blatantly ignore it? It's a matter of getting caught up with the NOW results and no patience. I realized that and repented immediately.

          In addition to being impatient and throwing professional/experienced advise to the side, my father who is a MD in internal Medicine; he is also another I ignored/questioned for a lot of my life on the subject of fat loss. Some interesting corrections that he pointed out to me my past pursuit of losing weight while in High-school and before I found Leangains.com. Understand my father was a internist which in fact means he's one of the smarter guys in medicine (they were the ones who diagnosed issues and forwarded people to specialist). Also,  my father and his values/habits outside the home showed he cared more for the people/sciences than he did for money. He's super knowledgeable and credible MD. The guy is a mechanical freak, he will understand the nuts and bolts of everything and won't deny the evidence.

Understand everything I claim or say has it's context people. I advocate Martin's ways because I want the results of looking great for myself and to have a lifestyle to live by. I'm no athlete. I'm just doing it a way that works for me; so while reading this consider the context.

These are conversations and experiences with my father regarding to weight control and fat loss.
  • Every time I went running with the pursuit of losing fat my dad always yelled at me and said, "Trust me if you want the best workout for fat loss, just walk on a incline for 45 min!" I would reply, "No you have to run!" Than he would reply, "Yea, you need to stop listening to damn fads and realize I'm a doctor and I study this!"
    • I ignored him because that seemed like non-sense and not what MensHealth.com said. HAHA! Boy was I wrong. Just ignorant and prideful. Go here for what why you shouldn't run while in a deficit or trying to cut fat and maintain muscle. This additionally will help.
  • My dad never ate breakfast, he would drink his caffeinated diet coke and head to work and only eat lunch and dinner. In fact he said this concerning obesity in America, "Seriously, America just eats to much. If people want to lose weight, just eat less meals or in other words, skip breakfast. The caloric intake of the day would be so much less."
    • I always thought this was odd when I read up on stupid material, truth is I did the same thing (and was thin) when I didn't read crap online. Eventually I started to read some online stuff or just listen to others "here-say" and eat breakfast. It isn't bad, it's just the fact that I never accounted what I ate in the morning. I just ate food and didn't count anything, hence why it was a negative in a process of losing/maintaining weight for me.
  • I always saw my dad eat plenty of meat and salads with them. The man truly ate Lean-gains style and has remained thin. Additionally he raised all his kids on skim-milk, diet coke, and a slap on a hand for desiring fried foods from restaurants (I'm talking fried chicken and other unnecessary foods). Understand he was just instilling practices to be aware of what we were eating; not so much that full fat milk is bad and you can never ever eat fried foods. I think he was definitely advocating chew your calories, not drink them.
  • In addition to his habits, he always went on walks and encouraged me to go with him when I was little. It was so funny because he would do it often. While living in Las Vegas, he would strap on his 45. then go walk for a few miles. Probably the coolest thing ever that I witnessed as a kid; additionally his every now and than cinnamon toast crunch/cookie crisp with diet coke cereal!

        Now I'm a freaking fanatic of the Lean-gains legion. Funny thing is it's something in a way, but not completely, what my dad followed who is a traditional/professional medical doctor. People will often say and even Doctors "oh, do this and that." Truth is my father followed the facts of science and applied simple principles for weight control. When analyzing his life I realized he's always advocated nothing fancy for fat loss but just kept it simple like Martin Berkhan (No Martin, your not my daddy). Well that's enough said, because it just got weird. Lean-gains for life.

Current Condition:




Current Status: 145-146 lbs
Body Fat %: 8-9
Goal weight for Leangains phase: 154-155 lbs

*I tried to make sure I tweaked no color of these pictures. I also made sure I did not flex, this is trying to be relaxed.

This is what Martin had to say:

" 8-9% is about right. Serratus/obliques are tells from the side pics, they'd show better at 7%. You say you're not flexing (?), but those abs looks flexed. Unflexed stomach at low bf% looks like a turtle shell. Well done either way."

I'm thinking just a tiny bit more cutting for the lower back fat and also for the lower abdomen.

To those people that hate IF so bad or disagree with it entirely, have some food for thought; No matter the method and as long as true principles in regards to diet/weight training are adhered too, just appreciate the end result, you can't deny it. We all have the same goal if it's pertaining to feeling good about ourselves/gaining strength in the process. It's shocking that I had a goal for my life and the more resistance I received was from people rather than the weights in the gym. If you have a goal whether by Leangains protocol, Cyclic Ketogenic Diet, or just mixed dieting, awesome. Just understand basic rules and don't try to employ fancy methods. Better yet, do what you want.


Rest Day Meal: 1302 kcal, 73g of fat, 23g of Carb, 142g of Protein

7% fat ground beef, 300 g of Brocolli, grilled red pepper sauce, 100 g of mushrooms, a cup of part-skim mozzarella. (topped off after with some chili sauce) Feeling full and energized!

9 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Cool Post! Thanks Martin for tweeting this to your followers!

    looking forward to the body comp pics. Would be great to see some before/after pictures.

    I am new to "Intermittent Fasting" and Leangains and Martin's philosophy but everything I am reading is very encouraging. I have been on my version of low carb and Ketonic Cycling type diet but am in the midst of switching to Leangains type philosophy on eating/workingout etc...

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  3. Fantastic read. Also looking forward to your recomposition pics, should be great! This made me think about by moderate interval training too.

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  4. Thanks guys. Yea, seriously IF isn't just a program for weightlifting/dieting. It totally was a life changing experience.

    I'm not kidding when I say this; I improved in my school work, my social life, and just have such a higher work-ethic and desire for big goals than ever before. I love this life style so much. Helped me immensely.

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  5. Hey man, prop reps to you for transforming your body into what you want it to be. I've been on IF for a year now and it's an awesome way of living. I was wondering how big a decefit you were on while you were/are cutting? I'm maintaining 2-300+ on training days and -500 on resting days and it's going great so far. Good to see someone else having progress!

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  6. Well the deficit changed with time. First it was in the 3500+, than until now it has been tailored too 2000-2200. (numbers are the weekly deficit created). I thank you for your encouragement! Good stuff!

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  7. Good results there, well done.

    Just checking, you have been doing IF for a little over 3 full months? Your results are similar to mine in that case.

    I have also fallen into the trap of not enough calories on my training days. It can be very hard to trust that you can lose fat and eat sh*tloads of food. Although, I must add that my food preference has gone even further toward real food (read, unprocessed) as a result of this lifestlye.

    You can read of my experiences with IF here:
    http://blog.superbootcamps.co.uk/2011/intermittent-fasting/intermittent-fasting-results-guide/

    Keep us posted on your results and thoughts.
    George Super Boot Camps

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  8. That's about right super. Yea I strongly advocate more whole foods mainly for satiating purposes and of course nutritional value. I get my occasional fix from other goodies. Nothing beats feeling full and that's what makes me LOVE LG.

    I would like to see some progress pics. :) Thanks for commenting.

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