The Technical Stuff Behind Hard To Kill

If you are interested in some of the programming of my physical transformation

After a long time being a fucking slug, I decided to do something about it. The first thing I did was fix my nutrition. The second thing I did was fix my strength. I have a ways to go, but the past 6 months has been transformative. I’ve kept my mouth shut about it until I knew that I had rebuilt the habits and behaviors that create good health, fitness, and strength.

From Jan to Mar I got my nutrition right, tracking calories, making sure protein/carbs/fat made sense and stabilizing my weight. I added moderate cardio - walking daily in a programmed fashion. Doing this cut 15 lbs without any real mental or emotional strain.

During this first phase, I used My Fitness Pal to track my nutrition, setting my desired weight loss at 1 lb per week. I customized my nutrient goals (I pay for the Premium version to do this). My Protein is set at grams = to my desired weight …. Meaning that I eat 180g of protein daily since my ultimate desired weight is 180 lbs. My fat is set at .3g per lb of body weight and then carbs is all the rest to the calorie target that achieves an estimated 1 lb per week of weight loss. I also set my cardio target at walking 30 minutes every day. This worked well and I lost 15 lbs in 3 months.

Starting April 1, I began a sustained cut using Dr. Mike’s principles in Renaissance Diet 2.0. I coupled that with Stronglifts 5x5 and programmed cardio. That ended last Friday, 12 weeks worth. During this phase, my daily calories were set to 1800 cals. I did 3X weekly lifting (stronglifts 5x5) and 2x weekly 45 minutes of walking. In this phase I lost another 13 lbs. According to a Withings scale, I have gained almost 10 lbs of muscle and lost nearly 35 lbs of fat from Jan 1 to June 22.

Now I’m in an 8 week maintenance phase for nutrition and have moved from SL to Wendler’s 5/3/1 BBB. Jim Wendler created a training system called 5/3/1 for strength and muscle growth. It’s a very intense and focused strength training program. There is no way I was going to try and tackle 5/3/1 while I was also at a calorie deficit.

Results

From Jan 1 to June 22 I dropped over 15% of my body weight. According to BIA measurements, 80% of that was fat.

Lifts have gone from beginning bar to … and these are my 5x5 numbers

OHP - 135lbs

BP - 175lbs

DL - 295lbs

Squat - 225lbs

I calculated my 1 rep max from that and then programmed 5/3/1 at training max numbers with top sets at 85% of training max and the BBB lifts at 30% of training max.

When I finish the maintenance phase I will do another 12 week cut. I expect to move my lifting back to SL 5x5 during the cut. But we will see.

I’ll report back regularly so you guys can give me grief ;-)