.:: Run Fat Boy .net ::.

First off, my current stats — this morning I weighed 154.5.  Calipers say I’m still in the 13,5% bodyfat range.  Based on my starting numbers, that means that I’ve lost exactly 10 pounds, and virtually none of it has been muscle (estimating muscle gain is hard from the numbers, because I’d have to estimate exactly how much water weight I’ve lost — which I’ll presumably put back on — but I’d say it’s safe to say that I’ve lost about 10-11 pounds of fat, lost 1-2 pounds of water, and gained 1-2 pounds of muscle). Overall, I feel really good — my top 2 abs are as defined as they’ve ever been, I’ve maintained my shoulder width, my legs feel and look extremely muscular.  One of my big concerns with this diet is that I’d lose all my fat and then not really have much muscle left — while I definitely wish I had more upper body mass (particularly in my chest, shoulders, and arms), I definitely see the results of the work I’ve put into my back and legs.  One of my goals for the upcoming year will be to do some arm specialization, because I really think they look small compared to the rest of my body.
 
I had a great workout earlier today; my previous 2 workouts kind of sucked, so I decided to back off, change things up, and just do whatever was "fun" in the gym.  I also really felt like some overhead pressing, so I did some heavy sets of 3 military style, and then some doubles/singles push style (I also have this mental idea that with all the weighted walks, I need to particularly focus on providing my upper body with a lot of limit strength stimulus so that my body doesn’t think that it’d be optimal to cut muscle mass there — thinking back to when I was doing the most walking, I was at my leanest, but I also had the toughest time gaining upper body mass).  Then I did weighted chinups and worked up to a double with 43 pounds attached to me (38 pounds in the xvest and a 2.5 plate in each of my pockets).  Then I did a single with 48 pounds attached to me, and then finally a single with 53 pounds attached to me.  By far a personal record (haven’t ever really done singles on chinups before), so I definitely feel good.  Given that I’m only ~155 pounds, it’s a cool accomplishment to be chinning with an additional 1/3 of my bodyweight (one of my very far off goals is to do a 1 armed pullup). 
 
And now a question from the gallery — my good friend Omp asks, "What are the metrics to measure long term good and ill effects of this experiment?"
 
This question would be fairly easy if it wasn’t for the "long term" inserted in there.  I think it’s really difficult to directly say that what I’m doing will directly cause good or ill effects for me long term.  But that said, I think it’s really difficult to directly quanify the good and ill effects of anything anyone does in 28 days (to a reasonable approximation for a reasonable set of anything — obviously, 28 days of shooting yourself in the head will may have bad effects).  I think the best we can do is look at what sort of effects this experiment will have in the next 28 days, and figure out if those effects are good things.  And in that regard, this diet has proven itself even after only 3 weeks.  See above — I’ve lost at least 8 pounds of fat, which certainly weren’t doing me any good (here’s where we start getting into certain axiomatic beliefs — if you don’t believe that less bodyfat is optimal from a longterm health perspective, again, within a reasonable numerical range — this diet probably isn’t for you).  More importantly, I believe that the majority of the fat I lost was in my midsection, and there’s a lot of research out there suggesting that that’s the most dangerous sort of fat at all (the mirror, skinfold, and tape measure bear this out — I’ve lost 9 mm from my abdomen skinfold, kept the same skinfold in my legs — I’ve never really stored much fat in my legs — and lost 4 mm from my chest skinfold).  In addition, my "girth" measurement (measuring my stomach’s circumference at its fattest point, right around my bellybutton) has decreased 2 inches.  Now, if I was losing all this weight, and the skin fold measurement were going down, but my strength was going down and I was losing a lot of muscle as well — well, I think that’d be incredibly stupid and dangerous (and let’s face it — that’s what a lot of people do).  But by maintaining my muscle, I’m keeping my metabolism primed for when I start reintroducing calories and carbs at the end of this experiment (and yes, that will be done very slowly and very cautiously, with a close eye kept on the same set of metrics I’ve been tracking the last 3 weeks — if I undo the work of the experiment, I’m an idiot playing with fire).
 
Now, if you accept the premise that lower bodyfat/less fat overall is good, you can simply say that it would have been more optimal to just do this over the course of 3 months or 6 months or however long it would take.  And that’s a reasonable thing to say — the problem is that a lot of people (including me) would never actually make progress that way.  The really interesting thing is that now that I’ve done this velocity diet and spent a month measuring out scoops of protein powder and tablespoons of flax seed and meticulously measuring skin folds and circumferences, I think I do have the strength to do a more long haul project of that sort — except now, instead of having that long haul be focused on dieting, I’m going to focus on cleanly bulking up for the next few years after I taper off of this diet. But now, instead of being an 18% bodyfat guy trying to bulk up (which is tough — the fact is, you don’t look very good, and there’s even some research to indicate that the ratio of muscle/fat gain is worse at those higher bodyfats), I’ll be a whatever bodyfat percentage I end up at guy trying to bulk up (which, certainly may have its own challenges — maybe it’ll be harder to bulk up when I’m that lean — but that’s something I’m at least prepared to face head on, and now I have a month of really understanding the level of dedication it takes measurement wise).