About a year ago I set out on some personal goals together with my children, goals that are broken down into four categories: Spiritual, Physical, Social, and Intellectual. It has been an amazing learning and growing experience. I shared in previous posts about my health journey and some of these goals/aspirations tie in on the physical side of things – like adding on muscle mass to my trim runner’s body so I don’t always look like Jack Skellington from that one Tim Burton movie.
I was encouraged to share this next phase of my physical goals in efforts to be open and informative, and help keep me accountable. While the majority of people desire to lose weight, in the last 6-8 months I have been in a ‘building’ phase, working towards adding muscle mass to my figure. In this time I have gone from 179lbs of ‘meh’, around 11-12% body fat, to a much massier 205lbs at around 14% body fat. Woot. Quite a transformation for me.
Obviously, while in a ‘build’ phase with a calorie surplus, not all that weight will translate to muscle. Added fat is inevitable. Note that with the plan I setup, I was at 3630 calories broken down by 48.5% carbs, 30% protein, and 21.5%. I worked out 5 times a week and it was still challenging to hit those macros. But I got results.
Thus far, my ‘bodybuilding’ experience has been exciting, and very educational and illuminating. For years I wanted to add more muscle but previously my efforts were always lackluster and my heart wasn’t truly in it. It was not a real focus so it didn’t happen until I truly set my goals, planned, and just did it.
With a real goal in mind and focusing towards it I was able to achieve what I wanted and more. And I know that others too can make things like this happen. It seems like everyone wants to lose weight, but who truly, really ‘wants’ it. There is no easy button, yet anyone can do it. It takes focus, effort, and discipline.
So the time has come to shift my transformation and trim down, and I’d like to share this next phase in my journey week by week. If no one else reads this or cares, so be it. It’s good for me ya’ll. The goal is to get to 10% body fat whilst maintaining as much muscle mass as I can. No gimmicks. No miracle pills. No fancy “diets”. To do this I will simply put myself into a calorie deficit each day – close to an 800 calorie deficit from where I was on my bulk, for starters – by eating the right foods. Yes, that’s it folks. It’s no secret. It doesn’t have to be complicated. From what I’ve seen many people go more aggressive than this but I’m trying to strike a middle ground in my deficit, at first, and see how my body responds and then adjust from there.
How does this break down? Well, I’m going to be completely transparent. Here is how my initial macros are setup:
Calorie Target: 2800 kcal
Carbohydrate: 329g (47%)
Protein: 224g (32%)
Fat: 65g (21%)
The first week I will cut back 200 calories each day (carbs and fats, not proteins) until I get down to the target of 2800 calories, where I will remain for the first two weeks. (If you’d like to know more on how I came to this breakdown calculation, please ping me and I’d be happy to elaborate.) Part of this process is experimenting and learning how my own body will respond as I cut back. Every two weeks I will reduce calorie intake by about .9 and recalculate my macro-nutrient breakdown (carbs, proteins, fats).
To maintain muscle, my most important macro will be protein. So I will increase my protein intake to 1.1g per pound of body weight. This calorie deficit, if all goes well, should drop about 1.5lbs per week, or 6lbs a month. Perhaps that is too fast? We will see. I can always adjust.
Please feel free to comment, ask questions along the way, or offer advice. I’m excited to share how week one went. Here we go…
