Saturday, July 20, 2013

The Bulk is OVER! Let the shred begin!!

Friday, July 19, 2013

First off I'd like to say..it's great to be back in California!! I was in Houston, Texas for vacation for the past 2 weeks and it just made me realize that I love living in SoCal!!

So my bulk has finally come to an end...I've stuck with Flexible Dieting/IIFYM(If It Fits Your Macros) throughout this entire bulk. In fact, It's been one year since I've done Flexible Dieting now! It worked on my shredding phase from last year and worked during my bulk. At the end of my cutting phase from last year I stood at 133lbs on September 27th, 2012. In my 42 weeks of bulking I have gained exactly 40lbs. This morning I weighed myself on an empty stomach and post-poop. Today I stand at 5'5", 173lbs.


My caloric intake during my final days of bulking were up to ~3450 calories with macros being at 95f/420c/225p. It might not be much to some folks out there, but for me I was getting sick of eating..


^You can see that I got pretty fluffy. Story for how I got fluffy towards the end of bulk is that from July 2nd - July 16th, I was in Texas for vacation with my girlfriend and I just started eating everything in sight because I had a hard time tracking everything since her family from Texas kept taking us out to eat and making home-cooked meals that I couldn't trace nor turn down because it's rude to turn down your girlfriends mother's cooking..lol

My reviews from my bulk - I felt I did pretty well staying at a consistent caloric surplus. Weight slowly/gradually progressed by about 0.5 pounds to 1 pound per week which is a great sign and was what I intended. Strength also dramatically jumped up for all my lifts as well. Joined the 300 club for squats, 400 club for deadlifts, and 100 club for incline and flat dumbbell presses for chest. I felt that the parts that made the most muscle growth were my back, chest, and hamstrings. Overall, I'm happy with my results in terms of strength and body composition.

My goal now is to lose 1-1.5lbs per week and maintain as much muscle mass as I can while shredding down. I will not make the mistake of pushing to failure during my training sessions again as I've learned from my previous cutting phase that it'll cause me to lose much strength in the long run and may cause me to lose some muscle mass. Basically when I'm at a caloric deficit, my body isn't getting in as much nutrition to recover as well as it would during a surplus. So when I push to failure on my training sessions during my deficit I won't be getting optimal recovery. *This is what I've learned about how MY body works. Not everyone is the same.

My new macros now for my deficit are 60g fat/350g carbohydrates/210g protein. I'll be sticking to these macros 6 days a week and have my refeed days once a week on Fridays. My refeed macros will be 60f/440c/210p. Setting my refeed carbs to ~25% of my deficit carbs. If these macros no longer work or don't work the way I want them to, then I'll just adjust them accordingly. Simple as that. :)

Supplements I'll be taking daily during this cutting phase:
1) Whey Protein Isolate - muscle maintenance and recovery
2) Creatine Monohydrate - strength and muscle support
3) BCAA's - muscle maintenance and recovery
4) Multi-Vitamin - heart health, organ health, immune system
5) Fish-Oil - heart, brain & joint health
6) Glucosamine - joint health
7) ZMA - recovery and healthy testosterone levels


^For those that are new to my blog, this was my journey from 163lbs-133lbs. I was able to lean out before, and now I'll do it again. Motivated and hungry for gains.