Day 179. Baking with protein powder success

Day 179 photo

Consumed 2000 calories. Cycled, pole fitness.

I had pretty much given up on trying to bake with either brown rice protein powder or Myofusion because of negative reasons for each. The brown rice protein powder produces a grainy, dry, and crumbly product that tastes very strongly of brown rice (surprise surprise). The Myofusion messes with the baking process I think because of its high xanthan gum content. It prevents the baked good from baking properly- no matter how long you keep it in the oven, it stays wet in the middle! It also has a sickly sweet taste that masks everything else.

Today I had a burst of brilliance. I mixed the two powders together and made English muffins. The muffins came out fantastic! They were not quite as moist as English muffins should be, but I think adding some more milk and/or Myofusion should fix that.

Day 178.

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Consumed 2450 calories. Cycled, lifted weights.

Day 177.

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Consumed 2800 calories. "Core cardio and balance" workout, pole fitness.

Day 176.

Day 176 photo

Consumed 1850 calories. Cycled, lifted weights.

Day 175. Week 25 stats

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Consumed 2000 calories. Walked for >3 hours.

I have concluded that a social life is not amenable to keeping up a strict nutrition/exercise plan. My whole week and weekend were far less than ideal. I usually avoid social gatherings but I was obliged to be social all week because a friend came from afar to visit me.

It's interesting that to be human one must include some chaos and spontaneity in one's life.

Week 25 stats (in bold):
Stomach: 30.0 in -> 30.0
Chest: 30.25 in -> 30.25
Biceps: 10.0 in -> 9.75
Hips: 36.0 in -> 36.0
Thigh: 19.0 in -> 19.0
Calf: 13.25 in -> 13.5
Waist: 27.0 in -> 27.0

Skinfold: 12 mm -> 11
Weight: 130.2 lbs -> 130.0

Day 174. Potluck

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Consumed 3300 calories. Rest day.

So much food...

Day 173.

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Consumed 2050 calories. Cycled, lifted weights, pole fitness.

Day 172.

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Consumed 2250 calories. Cycled.

Day 171. Yerba mate

Day 171 photo

Consumed 2150 calories. Lifted weights.

I got about 2 hours of sleep last night because I made the terrible mistake of drinking Yerba mate in the late afternoon. This is a type of tea that is most commonly drunk in South America in a social setting. There is even a special drinking vessel and metal straw to go with it! It's typically drunk in a hollowed out and dried gourd through a metal straw. The loose tea leaves are placed in the gourd and hot water poured over them. As one person drains the gourd, he/she refills it with hot water and passes it on to the next person and so on. The tea leaves are not replaced with each draining because somehow they retain their strength even after several steeps. And now to the point, Yerba mate is very high in caffeine, higher than coffee. It also contains other mental stimulants. I drank one cup of this at about 4pm yesterday and ended up lying awake in bed with my eyes wide open for most of the night. I fell into a very light sleep towards morning that can be more accurately described as hypnagogia rather than actual sleep.

This morning I drank another cup of mate, brewed using the same leaves as yesterday's cup, and I felt completely normal all day, until I went to do my weight lifting routine. Even though I had mental clarity and focus, my body was obviously feeling the effects of the lack of sleep because I was struggling SO MUCH throughout my entire routine from start to finish. Never again will I attempt to lift weights without a full night's sleep.

Day 170.

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Consumed 2500 calories. Cycled, pole fitness.

Day 169.

Day 169 photo

Consumed 2000 calories. Lifted weights, cycled

Day 168. Week 24 stats

Day 168 photo

Consumed 2050 calories. Rest day.


Week 24 stats (in bold):

Stomach: 30.0 in -> 30.0

Chest: 30.25 in -> 30.25

Biceps: 9.75 in -> 10.0

Hips: 35.5 in -> 36.0

Thigh: 18.5 in -> 19.0

Calf: 13.25 in -> 13.25

Waist: 26.75 in -> 27.0

Skinfold: 11 mm -> 12

Weight: 128.6 lbs -> 130.2

This is absolutely unacceptable. My calorie calculations must be wrong somehow. I should not be gaining! Furthermore, I got the Accu-measure skinfold caliper to add another dimension of tracking. On Wednesday morning (when the caliper arrived), my measurement was 11 mm. Today, it is 12 mm. I highly doubt I could have gained that much fat in such a short amount of time considering I have always been eating at a deficit of at least 15% except on my high carb days when I ate at maintenance, but the caliper doesn't lie. Alternatively, it could be fluid build-up. Still, that would have to be a lot of fluid to affect my measurements in such a drastic way. That having been said, I have seen this kind of dramatic negative progress once before in week 13- that whole week my diet had been unhealthy, which was not the case this week. I am not pleased with these results. Time to change something.

Day 167.

Day 167 photo

Consumed 2350 calories. Pole fitness

Day 166.

Day 166 photo

Consumed 2450 calories. Cycled, lifted weights.

Day 165.

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Consumed 2050 calories. Cycled, "relief" and "core cardio and balance" workouts.

Day 164.

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Consumed 2100 calories. Lifted weights, "vertical plyo" workout.

Day 163. Insanity: the Asylum

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Consumed 2050 calories. "Performance assessment" and "speed & agility" workouts.

The weather forecast for the rest of this week: rain, rain, rain, and more rain! I love me some rain, but I don't like biking in it. So instead of replacing my usual cycling with an Insanity recovery workout, I started Insanity: the Asylum, hereafter referred to as "Asylum." I like it. It's not quite as high impact as Insanity, and the very nature of the exercises keeps you from going faster until you've got the form right. I'm not sure I like how there are virtually no rests in between exercises, but that may be because this was my first time doing it, and the first time is always more challenging. This first Asylum workout showed me that I lack coordination! Also, trying to use a jump rope while barefoot is not a good idea when the last time one used a jump rope was over a decade ago. Ah, I can only go up from here.

Day 162. Creatine

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Consumed 2550 calories. Lifted weights, "core cardio and balance" workout.

Two things: 1) I've decided that on days when I can't do my daily commute by bike due to weather I will do the Insanity "core cardio and balance" workout. The calorie burn and duration of exercise come out to be about the same. 2) Creatine is the new love of my life.

Creatine is one of the few fitness supplements that have stood the test of time. It's been used for many years now by many people, athletes and bodybuilders alike, to increase power output during anaerobic exercise. About a week ago I received a container of pure creatine monohydrate for free as part of a promotion, but I didn't try it until today and Oh. My. God! During my weight training I kept checking the weights because it felt like I'd accidentally picked up a 10 kg lighter one by mistake. Seriously. I was absolutely blown away by how light the weights felt. Creatine, where have you been all my life?

Day 161. Body recomposition picture + week 23 stats

Day 161 photo

Today I stepped on the scale and weighed in at 128.6 lbs, which I'm rounding up to 129 lbs- the same as what I weighed when I first started this journey 161 days ago. I can't believe it's been over half a year already. So much time has passed, and I have results to show for it! Here's proof :)

Week 23 stats (in bold):

Stomach: 30.0 in -> 30.0

Chest: 30.0 in -> 30.25

Biceps: 9.75 in -> 9.75

Hips: 36.0 in -> 35.5

Thigh: 18.5 in -> 18.5

Calf: 13.5 in -> 13.25

Waist: 26.5 in -> 26.75

Weight: 127.6 lbs -> 128.6

Day 160.

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Consumed 2000 calories. Pole fitness.

Day 159.

Day 159 photo

Consumed 2050 calories. Lifted weights, cycled.

Day 158.

Day 158 photo

Consumed 2400 calories. Cycled, pole fitness.

Day 157. Ugh, not normal yet

Day 157 photo

Consumed 2000 calories. Lifted weights, "core cardio and balance" workout.

Thought my shoulder was healed, but... no. Luckily, most of my weights routine didn't depend on my shoulder. Sigh, injuries <\3

Day 156.

Day 156 photo

Consumed 2050 calories. Pole fitness, cycled.

Day 155. Somatotypes

Day 155 photo

Consumed 2050 calories. Cycled.


When I first read Tom Venuto's "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" ebook years ago (maybe 2008?), it was literally the first piece of useful, quality information on how to shed fat I'd ever read. Before that I went with conventional wisdom: eat less, exercise more. Who cares about the quality of food or counting calories? Nobody ever told me about starvation mode, so I cut my my food intake to tiny amounts. I was eating less than 1000 calories a day of pretty much nothing but raw salad greens and some fruit, exercising for hours on end, and not losing anything. BFFM opened my eyes. To this day, I have to attribute 95% of all I know about nutrition to that book. The last 5% I picked up along the way from various sources.


Even though I read BFFM years ago, I didn't really commit to losing fat until last December. It's now been 5 months since I've started my body recomposition journey, and I've made a lot of progress thus far, but I'm nearing my deadline of June 10th and I'm still about 2 months away from my goal at my current rate. So I decided to re-read BFFM because somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered Tom talking about somatotypes and how your diet should be adjusted depending on the somatotype you are. With a much better working knowledge of nutrition and fitness, re-reading this book was again something of an eye opener.


There are three somatotypes: endomorph, mesomorph, and ectomorph. The ectomorph and mesomorph don't have to worry about excess fat since they've been lucky enough to be dealt good genetics. The endomorph is the one I'm concerned with because that's the one that doesn't lose fat easily and because I am by and large an endomorph.


Here's an excerpt from BFFM on endomorph diet requirements:

"It's the endomorph that needs to pay the most attention to nutrient ratios.
Endomorphs are often insulin resistant and carbohydrate sensitive, so the high carbohydrate approach is usually out of the question. A better starting point for an endomorph might be around 50% carbohydrates. Then based on results, they may need further reductions to about 40-45% carbohydrates. In extreme cases, a diet with 25-35% of calories from carbohydrates may work best, although only for short periods of time."

Thus far, I've been calculating my macronutrient needs based on my lean body mass, goals, and type of training, but the glaring omission is that I've not taken into account my body type, which, according to BFFM, makes a huge difference. My new plan, then, is to try a diet composed of 45% carbs, 35% protein, and 20% fat. I will continue my carb cycling. On Sunday I will assess the results and adjust my diet as necessary.

Day 154. Normal? I think so! + week 22 stats

Day 154 photo

Consumed 1750 calories. Rest day.

Hooray I can once again do normal daily activities without having to worry about my shoulder saying "NO!" Tomorrow I will begin my carb cycling and exercise routine again, though no weight lifting until wednesday just to be sure. I can't wait to recover lost ground with my training!

Week 22 stats (in bold):

Stomach: 30.0 in -> 30.0

Chest: 30.0 in -> 30.0

Biceps: 10.0 in -> 9.75

Hips: 35.5 in -> 36.0

Thigh: 18.25 in -> 18.5

Calf: 13.25 in -> 13.5

Waist: 26.5 in -> 26.5

Weight: 127.8 lbs -> 127.6

Day 153.

Day 153 photo

Consumed 2250 calories. Cycled.

Decided to try biking today. My shoulder barely protested! That's the good news. The bad news is I discovered that in just one week, I've lost so much strength and endurance. Oh well, I'll just have to work my way up again. NBD, amirite?

Day 152. Almost healed

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Consumed 2150 calories. Rest day.

My shoulder is almost healed! I can't wait to get back to my exercise routine. Maybe 2-3 days before I make a full recovery. High five!

Day 151. The hike

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Consumed 1800 calories. Hiked.

I was supposed to hike all day today, but I didn't wake up until 11am. Not too bad, except that precluded an all-day hike. So half-day hike instead! I picked a steep, mountainous trail that was supposed to be a 4-hour round trip. It took me all of 1.75 hours WITH breaks to complete. I was not impressed. But I did manage to burn 800+ calories in those 1.75 hours so eh, I'll live.

Day 150. What happened??

Day 150 photo

Consumed 2700 calories. Rest day.

Ever since I sprained my shoulder last Thursday, I haven't been able to do my normal exercises. I could walk, but that's all kinds of boring. Excuses aside, I've had a lot of difficulty eating less than 1900 calories/day, which is my maintenance if I do no exercise whatsoever. How do people go through bulking and cutting cycles? I'm pretty sure if I ever decided to bulk, I'd never be able to go back to eating less to cut.

Anyway, today was a wreck. I haven't uncontrollably overeaten like this in a very long time. I just kept eating and eating and eating...and eating. The fat kid in me definitely won this round.

I have no work tomorrow so I'm going on an all-day hike. Take that, inner fat kid! I'm going to get to 15% body fat even if it means dragging my inner fat kid kicking and screaming the whole way there.

Day 149.

Day 149 photo

Consumed 1900 calories. Rest day