I have to say, the last 2 weeks I have not been training as much due to sheer exhaustion. I am still eating clean, however I have had more cheat meals than usual.. nothing extravagant though.
As January has ended and we go forward into a new month, I must outline some observations and evaluate how the month went:
- I DEFINITELY need to get more sleep!
- After 31 days I feel AMAZING. The clean eating, even though I've been eating everyday at a huge caloric surplus, has definitely helped in energy levels, as well as helping me lose the right weight (fat). Last weigh-in I lost 2 pounds but lost body fat.. so I'm guessing I lost more but gained some in muscle mass. Always a good thing! :)
- I can feel my abdominals wanting to come out. I am no longer bloated! The obliques no longer feel as squishy.. though postpartum belly needs some serious work!
- While the results aren't entirely obvious (to me at least) I can definitely sense a SHIFT in my body composition. I undoubtedly have taken on a VERY different shape than what I used to have back in my non-active days.
- I have made significant gains in my legs! I upped my squats and have incorporated various forms of Deadlift exercises into my lower body routine. I love them!
- My upper body still needs a lot of work. But this month I will simply focus on making them STRONGER! So, lots of pushups for me until my upper body can catch up with my lower body.
- Even though I've been having bad days and days where I feel burned out, I still love to train, and most of all...
- I'm SO proud of what I have accomplised in 31 days alone.
Beyond the slight physical changes I'm noticing, I have become more organized, and my discipline and resolve are strengthening. Bodybuilding and adopting a healthy lifestyle induces more than just physical transformations.
Because of my unquenchable thirst for knowledge, I have also been learning more and expanding my horizons. I am reading articles and journals and books I never thought I would be reading!
My current project - ahem, obsession - is John Kiefer's Carb Back Loading. I finally purchased his E-book after not only hearing about the concept of carb back loading, but trying to look up every article and opinion out there ATTEMPTING to find something wrong with it.. anyone or anything that disproves the crazy theories. So far, I have found none. Strength coaches, professional powerlifters, bodybuilding competitors of all divisions, HELL - even CEO's! - swear by this. I feel like I stumbled upon some very strange, powerful, object.
Basically, Kiefer states that one can achieve significant muscle & strength gains and simultaneously lose tons of fat by "back-loading" carbohydrates - after a 10-day recalibration period of depleting glycogen stores in the body (by refraining from eating carbohydrates, forcing the body into ketogenesis), one must do heavy resistance training during peak hours of 3-7 pm and eat a decent amount of simple carbs POST-training.
So what does this mean?
I can skip breakfast, have coffee, eat small, high-protein/good fat meals throughout the day pre-training, then TRAIN LIKE A BEAST AFTER WORK, then go home and ravage white rice, donuts, or pasta, what have you, until I go to bed. The carbs feed the muscles, while the fat cells get starved. It all has to do with hormonal responses in the body throughout the day, the cycle of insulin and growth hormones, and so much more science I wish I had more time to elaborate upon.
Sounds pretty frickin' ridiculous.
But since I refuse to speak against something I have not tried, I will experiment with this for a month. Today marks Day 1. The first 10 days will be excruciating as my body must recalibrate with the loss of carbs. Kiefer is ripped, by the way, I mean RIPPED, and he is a physicist. He's smart as hell, and has read some 40,000 medical journals and has an inquisitive mind I have come to admire as a wonderful trait to have. He claims the implementation of his research yield typical results. Yes, typical. He even says doing this half-assed will still garner results.
Look - no, really. LOOK at this guy. Do YOU know any physicists that look like this?!
It won't hurt to try. At worst, my body fat will spike back up, but the best case scenario, I will get even stronger IMMEDIATELY and start to get really cut. Besides, this will be a true shock to my metabolism, which is needed to keep my body from adapting to a certain thing and hitting a plateau.
And the best part is, I'll no longer get tempted or long for those delicious treats, or turn down offers to join my friends for dinner and such, because it'll all be working to my advantage.
AND! I have timed my recalibration period perfectly, so that on the 10th night, post-training, I will have my first meal of delicious carbs during the return of The Walking Dead (Feb. 10). Yep, I went there. It's gonna be a DAMN good Sunday.
Hello Carb Back-Loading.
And Hello, February! Month 2 of 8, I WILL accomplish even more goals this time!
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