Fatman’s IF Journey.
The handle name is not just a piece of self depreciating humor. Truth is a got a taste for fatty foods, animal fats, and I got to have a plan that somehow allows for them.
I wish I started a log earlier, but have only been here a couple days. Wanted to start my first AAS cycle, but the guys in the thread mentioned I should hold off until I get my BF% even lower, down to 15%.
Even once I start my first AAS cylce I will still be sticking with IF as it has been working for me great so far.
Always been a musclehead, my whole life loved being in the gym training with weights, but was basically a Perma-Bulker. One of those guys who obsessive compulsively eats, afraid of losing muscle. This is very bad for the Endo-Meso. I gain muscle easily, but fat too.
Have been using IF for a little over 60 days now, and dropped from an unknown BF% at around 250 pounds, down to 19% and currently in the 220’s.
Height: 5’8”
Weight: 224
Age:33
So far the bodyfat has been dropping like a bad habbit.
My version of IF is a method of NOT over complicating things, and understanding it is perfectly safe to feel hungry.
The biggest thing for me is Mental. I can mentally wait to eat, so long as I know I will get a satisfying meal, that actually makes me feel full. I can not stick to the traditional BBing style diet, as the small infrequent meals are failing to fill me. I don’t know what it is, but there has to be some chemical fix we get when we have eaten enough to feel good and Full. I don’t need that fix more than 1x per day, but I cannot go days on end without it, and so I used to constantly ruin diets.
IF just makes it far more simple. I read eat stop eat, and found out I will not lose muscle if I go all day without eating, and that I will not go hypoglycemic if I do 30 minutes of cardio after not eating for 16 hours, that I am still safe.
Speaking of cardio, this is also the first time in my life I have been able to lose significant fat without resorting to excessive cardio. The last time I was relatively lean was years ago in the army, running 5 miles a day, and I still was not “ripped”. I also now have 2 pinched discs in my lower back, and bad knees. So HIT cardio or marathon LIT is a no go. 30-60 minutes daily on a treadmil, walking at a decent speed has been working with the IF diet anyway.
Training with weights is nothing special, I do moderate rep ranges, and relatively light weight for squats and deadlifts (knee and back issues, gotta be careful with them). Other lifts and upper body are better. Sort of upside down strength. My legs look a lot stronger than they are however, as a shorter guy they hold muscle easy, so long as I at least work them at all, so I’m lucky in that respect. Even if they lose some size now that I’m on a diet and still using light weight, so be it. I’m not about to step on stage as a BBr anyway.
So, back to the diet. I do not go crazy with calorie count when I eat, I estimate it, and whenever I do look up cals for a food, I round up. The general rule I follow with IF is that I try to avoid heavily processed foods, but because I’m in a fasted state all day, I feel ok experimenting with what types of carb choices I eat.
I feel fine eating starchy carbs and fats together at the same time as the protein, and so if I feel like eating mashed potatoes with a fatty cut of steak, or something on those lines, then I do. I can consume 1600 calories all in one sitting, get that dopamine fix, or whatever it is, but when I do that I am not going to even feel any hunger at all until the next morning, and by then I am back into fasting mode with my black coffee making it easy to not feel hungry. As far as the mental part goes, its all good knowing I will be eating 900-1600 cal meal later in the day to look forward too. This also keeps me well below my maintenance cals of 3200 (est).
So anyway, no plateau in fat loss yet, my lifts are still good, and as I found out on this forum yesterday I can still train with weights on an empty stomach, and this may actually be somewhat anabolic. Although I may not make it a permanent thing. They way I will use fasted training vs. fed training, will simply be based on my schedule for the day, and what fits in better. I’m not convinced either way that one is significantly superior to the other, in terms of real world practical results, and so at this point I’d rather just keep things really simple.
Fast all day at work, hit gym around 4-6pm (getting out of work varies), go to gym, lift, then come home do cardio for 30 minutes, then shower and eat dinner with family, where I can just relax and eat what I want. Within the next 8 hours I may have a much smaller snack before sleeping, simply so I am not risking sleeping hungry, as that keeps me from sleeping. This based on what I ate earlier. If I ate 900 cals earlier, I can consume another decent meal, if I consumed the full 1600 or so, I do not have a snack later at all.
Goal is to be down to around 8% bodyfat before the next year, to simply be able to "see" the muscle I have built for years, and feel and look good.
Ok, this is a long enough OP.
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Originally Posted by 3Js
just make sure to keep forearms stable, core flexed and dont overdo the ROM
