Dieting Progress Pics

My continued dieting progress pictures

Never stop making progress

After my 12 week body transformation, I still continued to diet to cut down my body fat even further. I felt like I could have made even better progress during my 12 weeks but I let vacations to New Orleans and Puerto Rico reverse my progress.

Before pic at 189 lbs on Jan 30, 2011

So I'm continuing to diet and see how low I can take my body fat. I don't know how long I'll be doing this for but I know it will be at least until June 30th. My friends are flying into town that day and I won't be dieting at all when they are here. 

I may even diet further after they leave depending on how fat and bloated I feel, since it still is summer time and its always nice to be ripped for summer :)

Or I may decide this would be the perfect time to start putting on more muscle...I guess I'll know when the time comes around.

My Progress Pics

I took some progress pics yesterday which is about 6 or 7 weeks from my pictures taken on April 24th. Here they are below:

Front Bicep at 165 lbs on June 11, 2011

Rear Bicep at 165 lbs on June 11, 2011

It looks like I have made great progress and have cut some more body fat while maintaining my muscle. A tan helps really bring out the definition as well :)

I'm happy with my progress so far but am still continuing to cut bodyfat even further! 

How has your summer cut/dieting been going?

12 Week Body Transformation continued - Diet

How I dieted during my 12 Week Body Transformation

When it comes transforming your body and losing the maximum amount of fat, DIET is the single most important factor in accomplishing your goals.


Most people think the opposite. They think that they can start exercising hardcore and the diet will take care of itself. This is a mistake that too many people make as they can easily out-eat the amount of calories they had burned in the gym.


There's a saying that I read on Vince Andrich's blog "You can never outrun your mouth" which is the perfect way to describe how exercise can't overcome a bad diet.


This is why finding a diet that you can follow with ease and stick to is a crucial factor to success. 


I know I don't do well with carbohydrates and there's lots of research showing a low carbohydrate diet has metabolic advantages over other diets. So the diet I decided to follow was a high protein, high fat, low carb diet. 


Daily Schedule
This was what what a typical day was for me in terms of nutrition/supplementation:


7:15 AM - Wake up (Take 1 gram of Vitamin C, 1 OxyElite Pro, 4 Free Test)


2:00 PM - Take another OxyElite Pro


4:00 PM - Preworkout Myofusion shake (25 grams of protein)


4:30 PM - Workout (sip on my BCAA/Creatine mix during the workout)


5:45 PM - Post Workout Myofusion shake (50 grams of protein)


6:00 PM - Eat dinner (Take 6 grams of fishoil, 4,000 IU of Vitamin D, multivitamin)


8:00 PM - Myofusion shake with milk (33 grams of protein)


My dinner usually consisted of 3 chicken thighs, 4 eggs, 1 oz of cheese, some leafy green vegetables, and either a whole or half a grapefruit depending on how I felt.


Now you may be wondering where the food and protein shakes are from the time I wake up until my preworkout protein shake.


The answer is that I didn't eat anything or drink any protein shakes from the time of my protein shake the previous night to my next preworkout protein shake! Crazy huh? :P


Intermittent Fasting
This may sound crazy but this is the basis behind Intermittent Fasting.


This was the eating pattern I followed during my transformation which is essentially short periods of fasting otherwise known as intermittent fasting. This is the exact opposite of what is generally recommended these days which is to eat every 2-3 hours to keep the metabolism revved up.


In my previous dieting experiences, eating every 2-3 hours was a real chore. Having to constantly think about where your next protein source was going to come from was a big hassle. 


With intermittent fasting, I am not thinking about nutrition all day long. The only I think about nutrition is during the 5 hours between my preworkout protein shake and my nighttime protein shake.


What I also found with eating every few hours is that every time I ate, it would make me hungrier and want more food! Of course since I was dieting, this was not a good thing.


With intermittent fasting, I am almost never hungry now! I was hungry at first, but that was because my body was used to getting food every few hours. After a couple of days of intermittent fasting, your body adapts and then the hunger goes away.


Eating this way has made dieting sooo easy for me that EATING is actually the hardest part of it (sometimes its difficult to eat that much protein which is why I also rely on protein shakes).


If you want to learn more about intermittent fasting, check out Martin Berkhan's Leangains blog. His site is full of information and research debunking a lot of the myths on dieting.

Martin Berkhan knows what he's doing

The best thing about Intermittent Fasting is that it's just so easy to follow and adhere to. I wake up, go on with my day, and don't think about food until my work day is over!


Note that I didn't follow Martin's guidelines exactly, but I modified it to work best for me and still got great results! If you decide to try intermittent fasting, I would recommend following his guidelines exactly at first, and then make adjustments if needed.


Give it a try!
For those who don't like eating every few hours or even eating breakfast, I would recommend you give intermittent fasting a try. It might change your life...I know it has mine :)

Increase Your Willpower When Dieting

How to increase your willpower on a diet

Example of willpower

During my most recent transformation, I felt like it was so easy for me to diet and resist the delicious foods that sabotage the diets of many others.


I never understood how others didn't have the willpower to resist these foods. How can someone be so weak as to allow something so small to control the way they look and feel?


When I'm dieting, I typically follow a no/low carb, fat protein, high fat diet. This means I'm restricted to eating various meats, vegetables, and basically nothing else (I do eat some a little bit of low sugar fruits such as grapefruits and berries)


Here is the secret
So here is the key to increasing your willpower when dieting. Since you know what your restricted foods are, don't allow yourself to even consider or think about any other foods!


This, combined with Intermittent Fasting, has made dieting for me a piece of cake!


When someone offers you something that you are not supposed to eat, just automatically say NO. Also if you see a food that is not on your list, don't even look at it and think about how delicious it is. 


By doing these things, you don't require any willpower to resist them. Its only when you consider the thought that you can eat something bad, that you have to use your willpower to resist it. Also by thinking about eating something bad, you start to justify to yourself reasons you can eat it.


Studies have shown that humans have a finite amount of willpower. If they use it in one area of their life, they'll have a harder time using it in another. By doing the above that I suggested, your willpower won't need to be "used up" to resist foods and can be used in other areas of your life.


Success!
So set yourself up for dieting and fat loss success by not even allowing it to get the point of willpower. Don't even consider or think about the foods you are not supposed to eat!


Let me know how this tip works out for :)