A Mediocre Transformation

[mediocre1645]

[FONT=&quot]Last year around this time I was in a bad place mentally and physically and did a new years transformation challenge to get my ass into gear. That kicked off a year of pretty solid training/diet, but I've gained some fat back and am again suffering mentally as well, so I’m going to do the same type of thing to get my back on track. This will be ~3 months of hard diet/training. I am a pro at getting down to 10% bf or so, after that I stall hard. I'd like to get down to a true (my calipers are not accurate) sub-8% bf. I use two body fat calipers, on one of them I pinch it two different ways (hard to explain), so three numbers total and I use a three-point (chest, abdomen, leg) method to calculate it (I average three measurements for each area for each measurement method). The three methods show me at 10.5, 12.25, and 13.25% bf. I’d guess I’m closer to 15% if not higher. Weighed 226.5 lb this morning (normally about 230). I think this weight discrepancy is because my test was overdosed and my test was at 1000 on a cruise dose, so I quit pinning altogether for a few weeks. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I’m going to start out at 2200 calories and aim for a 1000 cal deficit (~65% from diet, ~35% from exercise) over what I calculate to be my activity-corrected BMR. I’ll be lifting obviously but have a really broad variety of other workouts planned: yoga 1-2x/week, grip-specific training 2x/week (I find grip subculture to be interesting and one of the few areas that there’s a lot of real world carryover), plyometrics/sprints as one of my lower workouts, jiu jitsu 1-3x/week, and probably an intense run once a week along with 30-60 minutes on an elliptical 4-6x/week. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I’ll have a 4-day lifting split if you count the plyo/sprints as “lifting”. I’m only doing so in order to spread out the stress on my lower body/back/joints:[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Upper 1: bench press, shoulder press, rows (and associated accessories)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Lower 1: squat, SLDL, GHRs, calf raises, abs[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Upper 2: same but one day I’ll probably do lower reps and one day I’ll do higher reps, might switch up lifts a bit too.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Lower 2: plyometrics, sprints, abs[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Day 1 – 12-31-20 (Upper 1):[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I haven’t lifted much lately, so don’t laugh at my numbers. I’m trying to not go too hard and be really sore and stressed out the first few weeks anyways.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Bench: 3 x 5 @ 225[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]DB Press: 3 x 10 x 50’s[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Bent Rows: 3 x 8 x 135[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Some really light fly’s, front/side raises, curls, and tricep extensions[/FONT]

 

[CJ]

Did you say you "cruise" at 1,000 mg of Test? :32 (6):

Edit: nevermind, you meant your Test levels were at 1,000. I was gonna say!!!! :32 (18):

 

[mediocre1645]

Did you say you "cruise" at 1,000 mg of Test? :32 (6):

Edit: nevermind, you meant your Test levels were at 1,000. I was gonna say!!!! :32 (18):

lol, yeah I can see how that might come off confusing. I was at about "150" mg/week, and levels were 1282 ng/dL. This pissed me off to be honest, I was having some hair loss and anxiety issues and I think it's probably because I was that high for so long. Hence why I quit pinning altogether. I'm ok with losing a bit of muscle so I'll start back up on "TRT" about a week into this diet.

This is actually a diet competition, so I'm wondering as I get closer to the end, what compounds would one want to stop taking/start taking to look as lean as possible. I'm really ignorant when it comes to "show prep" type stuff, or at least the final weeks of it.

 

[mediocre1645]

My workout was a bit different than I originally posted. Shoulders got crazy tired/cramped, which is unusual for me. Well on track with diet, which isn't saying much since this is day 1!

Cardio: Elliptical for 25 minutes, 410 calories (note, I'm well aware these estimations are not good, this is more a track of my relative effort as I go along).

 

[CJ]

How's the competition being judged? By weight loss? Pics? Inches lost? Bf% lost?

 

[mediocre1645]

How's the competition being judged? By weight loss? Pics? Inches lost? Bf% lost?

I believe it's based on progress pics.

 

[CJ]

I believe it's based on progress pics.

Get a tan and shave. :32 (20):

 

[mediocre1645]

Get a tan and shave. :32 (20):

What about using primobolan instead of test? Or maybe transitioning test to a cruise dose the last month and adding primo in? I'm really ignorant to primo, proviron, and the new peptides, all of which I'm considering using soon. Need to educate myself more.

Day 2 – 1-1-20 (Lower 1):
Squat: 3 x 5 x 225
SLDL: 3 x 8 x 135
Inversion table abs: 2 x 10 (limited ROM due to some ongoing sciatica)

Day 3 – 1-2-20: Elliptical for 35 minutes, 575 calories

I know I haven't lost much fat but I look considerably better already. Eating clean and light exercise after eating like a pig for 4 months does wonders.

 

[mediocre1645]

Day 4 – 1-3-20: Hike, 38 minutes, 1.5 m, 600'. Should have been longer but the wind was so crazy and I had a mini-me attached to my back (45 lbs) and if it got much worse we probably would have been blown off the mountain. I think I've decided to take masteron, var, and a little test. I think I can get all of that locally if I had to, but considering a few other sources.

 

[mediocre1645]

Day 5 - 1-4-21:

Upper 1:
Bench: 4 x 6,6,5,5 x 185, 225, 225, 225
Bent Rows (DBs): 3 x 8 x 45's
DB Press: 3 x 8 x 45's
One set of light band flys, band rows, and front raise/tricep extension

Elliptical for 25 minutes, 450 calories.

Rant about calculated calories:
My fancy new garmin watch claimed ~400 calories based on the info I put in there. I think there is a big difference on these between trained and un-trained individuals, as we adapt and become more efficient, but that is really hard to quantify.

This lead me to look into various ways to calculate calories burned. I found a formula on a few sites referencing a study in the journal of sports sciences: Calories Burned (for men) = [(Age x 0.2017) — (Weight x 0.09036) + (Heart Rate x 0.6309) — 55.0969] x Time / 4.184. Glaring problem: when all else is equal, the more you weigh the LESS calories you burn here. If distance/strides/strokes/etc are equal, clearly a bigger person burns more calories, but this formula doesn't take that into account. After thinking about this, I pulled up the article and looked at their formulas. The dipshits from these "fitness" sites converted and/or transcribed the formula incorrectly. In fact I was able to find it incorrectly written on more sites than it was correctly written (and found one site I have used in the past doesn't write it out, but uses the formula for its calculator). The correct forumula has one significant difference, and one minor. The first negative sign should be positive (properly correlating weight to calories burned) and the weight constant in the paper is for kg, and on the websites in lbs (so they transcribed that part right, but don't specify on most of the websites that I saw). Using this formula the wrong way calculates my expenditure at 178 calories, the right way, 430 calories, right in the middle of the elliptical and garmin estimations. There are also MET-based calculators. The best comparison to my elliptical intensity is about a 10 minute mile pace which equals an estimate of ~445 calories (11 minute mile is ~400 calories). I will continue to use the elliptical estimate to track intensity over time, in part because my garmin is not always accurate and I may not always use it for various reasons.

 

[mediocre1645]

Day 6 - 1-5-21:

Lower 1:
Squat 3 x 6 x 225 (last set paused)
SLDL: 3 x 8 x 135, 185, 185
Inversion abs: 3 x 8

Elliptical: 25 minutes, 450/400/438 (not to belabor this topic, not that anyone is following this lol, but I'll put the machine's estimate, my garmin's estimate, and the calculated estimate from the formula I discussed in the last post.

Day 7 - 1-6-21:

Probably going to do some yoga and fill up my heavy bag. First ever Jiu Jitsu lesson in the morning!

 

[Jin]

First ever Jiu Jitsu lesson in the morning!

Prison rules bro. To earn respect you’ve got to **** up the biggest, baddest dude on day one.

In your case that’s the instructor.

Make it a cheap shot.

Kick him right in the nuts and nobody will **** with you ever again.

Good luck.

 

[mediocre1645]

Prison rules bro. To earn respect you’ve got to **** up the biggest, baddest dude on day one.

In your case that’s the instructor.

Make it a cheap shot.

Kick him right in the nuts and nobody will **** with you ever again.

Good luck.

LMAO! I'm actually doing a 1:1 lesson, so if I follow through with your advice, that is going to make for an extremely awkward and likely painful session. I'll consider it

Going for private lesson for a few reasons, main one being I'm not sure how rolling will be on my back (herniated disc and a bulging one, ton of sciatica the past few months), so I figured that would be a good place to start before tossing with randoms.

 

[mediocre1645]

1-7-21:

1 hour of jiu jitsu. This was fairly laid back since it was my first time. I would venture to guess I burned less than 200 calories, despite sweating quite a bit. I didn't have the balls to kick him in the balls lol.

Upper 2:
CGBP: 3 x 5 x 185 (for speed, limited ROM), one set of 8-10 regular grip.
Bent Rows: 3 x 8 x 155 (also kind of for speed)
Side Raises: 3 x 8 x 25's
Front Raises: 3 x 8 x 25's
Pushups: 2 sets of 15

Elliptical: 27.5 minutes, 485/400/440

 

[mediocre1645]

1-8-21:

Lower 2:
Broad Jumps: 2 x 10
High Knee Jumps: 2 x 10
Side to Side Jumps: 2 x 20
Hop Down Jump Ups: 2 x 10
Front to Back Jumps: 2 x 20
Lunge Jumps: 2 x 10
Russian Twists: 3 x 20
29 Minutes, 138 bpm, 367/412 calories burned (Garmin/Calculator)

Elliptical: 25 minutes, 425/391/440

Might do a long run and/or jiu jitsu tomorrow, and a therapy session (also working on my mental health for the new year, weird how I have pretty much everything I want in my life but feel worse than ever mentally...****ing homo sapiens).

 

[xyokoma]

Let me guess - the gymshark 66 day challenge? :32 (17):

 

[mediocre1645]

It's just a local challenge. Depending on my results, I may or may not post before and after pics. I guess if I don't win, I'll post, and if I do win, I'll post after I have the prizes in hand. I'm paranoid, worried someone will look on here and see that I'm taking various PEDs and cry foul.

 

[xyokoma]

Just change the undies and body angle and use that photo here. :32 (20):

 

[mediocre1645]

Yeah I'll post something for sure at some point!

1-9-21

Elliptical: 35 minutes, 625/500/545

Got another jiu jitsu lesson tomorrow, and will try to get my lazy ass to do some yoga. I hurt pretty bad yesterday from the plyometric stuff, but feel fairly good today. I'm seriously considering some plasma treatments in my spine and knees. ****ing expensive but might be worth it, gotta do some research.

I also forgot to update bf for the week.
Starting BF: 10.5/12.25/13.25%
End Week 1: 9.35/11/12.25% (-1.15/1.25/1% from week prior)


This is on par with the diet I did last new years except I was about 10% higher in BF, so it's a solid start. Certainly better than the summer cut I did where I started out 1-2% leaner and averaged a loss of 0.55% bf/week for the first 4 weeks. My goal is to keep this pace up for at least 4 weeks, keeping in mind that I think my true BF is around 15%.

 

[CJ]

Please don't use the Cals you're estimating to have burned to offset with food. There's no way in hell you're burning 500-600 Cals in 30 mins on an elliptical.

Even if that number were cut in half, I'd still say that it was too high.

It's fine to track output over time, based upon those numbers, but for the love of God PLEASE don't eat that much to offset it, or you'll end up being a fat ass.