8 Week "LeanGains" IF Cut.

Just finished another 8 week cut, from January through end of February, 2021. Not a true LeanGains cut, because I didn't do the Reverse Pyramid training. I didn't do any real, progressive training at all (work, work, work, and not under the bar, if you know what I mean). If anything, this cycle goes to prove that this program works. The basic elements make it work: Intermittent Fasting with a caloric deficit and a modium of physical activity; the heavy lifting only serves to ensure that one doesn't lose strength and muscle.

Objectives: Compositional; cut some of the thickness around the waist, don't lose much or any of the good stuff. Lose 4 or 5% bodyfat, which would be a loss of body weight from 227 down to 218 or 215. 

Start: 227/15% BF
End: 212/12% BF

So I lost 15 lbs, which is a significant number, looking back. A couple of pounds a week, but I didn't feel it going at all. I used the caloric daily objectives from last time I did this cut (but wasn't as focused on differentiating between training day/rest day calories). Goal was 14000 cals a week - or 2000/day, but I ate 2326/day on average. Goal is over 200g protein/day, but I was at 190g. Try to have carbs under 100g/day, but I was at 118/day.

I would have preferred to see Protein at 40% or more and Carbs at 20% or less. So, I didn't hit any of my marks, but this still worked well enough. Maybe not doing this during football season would help - late January with playoff game Sundays and Super Bowl Sunday in February; these three "bites" are enough to shake up the average for the whole cycle. 
Besides, cutting when the weather is cold is contradictory to nature. Still, we'll take this all as a win.

Did IF everyday, and on weekdays, it was easy to have coffee and one drink of BCAAs (two scoops, 14g pro) each day til noon. Many days I bubbled ozone water first thing, and I think on an empty stomach, this helps tighten things up (maybe kills candida, which shrinks all the pipes in there under the fat?). Shrinking the midsection's not only about losing fat, it can be surely be about doing TVA vacuums and not having guts full of sludge.

Didn't get to train heavy as I would have liked, on the road with long days at a job site an hour from home, so was away from 4am to 7pm. I brought DBs in the truck with me, and a ruck with water bottles in it, and did 6 sets of squats every other weekday, and some flies/curls with them. 

Being able to do some NEPA walks in the AM, and some rucking would have helped a lot. I did walk a good bit early on at the job site each day, before having to use a buggy to get around and move gear. 

So the whole cycle was an approximation, in both the nutritional side but surely on the training side, but it was successful. Again, the goals coming in were to get around 215 (did), lose off the waist (3 inches from 40.5 to 37.5) and not lose everywhere else or lose significant strength.  

I didn't gain any size in the arms, even with that being kind of a focus. Neck down an inch, chest down 1.5, Hip down 3. Shoulder girdle grew 1.5. Added another belt hole to the belt-I-had-to-add-belt-holes-to during the cut in 2018 (yeah, time to get some new belts) ... waist ended at 38.5 then, so another inch off was a plus, even from last time when I was adhering pretty strictly to the protocols. I think I ate cleaner this time, which is to say carbs might have been up a bit but those carbs were foody, and not refined sugars.

Want to hold here for a month and eat at 2500 cals/day for a while, then do another cut and get the waist down even more. I may not see 33 or 33.5 as Steve Reeves and the ancient Romans would like, but 34 is within reach. 

Recomping this year for reals and for good, not just a nebulous purpose that I write about, cut for, and then find at the end of the year, the numbers are basically the same as before. Maintaining at 212 and holding here will be a good test for 4 weeks at least, while keeping the waist from expanding right back to 39 or 40 will be a win. Then drop under 210, down to 205 say, during another 8 week cycle in April - May. The idea this year is to get light enough and lean enough to then work on power-endurance and rucking without all the wear and tear. Limit strength on the backburner (still simmering there though). 

Time and determination will tell.

8 Week Leangains RPT Cut.

Okay, I just finished two months of a cut. I used the Leangains RPT training protocol with 3 days on/4 days off with very slight modification (assistance stuff only), did Intermittent Fasting 16/8 throughout, cycled training day/rest day calories, tracked macros - most importantly, seeking to eat 1g of Protein per lb of bodyweight daily (and, subliminally, to eat carbs only with/after proteins as a general rule), and, in conclusion, hit all my marks as well as my goals.

I was hovering just under 230, at around 15% BF (measured on the Tanita scale, not by calipers). My intent was to lose fat, especially around the midsection, and hopefully not to lose much, if any, muscle or strength. Not to lose weight. Fat. My goals were modest, to lose 1.5 lbs a week, to lose pretty slowly and lowly to make certain that it actually was fat I was losing. 
If I had 12 lbs of fat on me to lose (8 week cut; 15% BF down to a possible 10% = 2.3x5 = 11.5 lbs to lose; at 1.5 lbs/week: 230 > down to a goal weight of 218.5. I did lose just that much weight to 218. 

Caloric math:
I calculated my maintenance level cals at 2747/day
These days x7 = per week = 19,229
My desired fat loss/week at 1.5lbs x 3500 (cals) = 5250 to remove
so, 19,229 - 5250 = 13,979 cal/week = 14,000 cals a week or 2000 cal/day target, nice and neat.

I cycled those calories:
Training: 2750 Cals
Rest: 1440 Cals
Target numbers are funky because there are 4 rest days in the week. 

Averages for all days showed that I ate too little on training days and ate too much on rest days. This probably impeded my fat loss on rest days a bit (guessing):
Training: 2289 Cals
Rest: 1812 Cals

Macros:
My lean mass @ 15%BF = 195.5 lbs LBM = daily protein intake of 200g nice and neat
I would try to beat 200g/Protein a day throughout, on both training and resting days. I averaged 222g on training days and 197 on resting days. I did start each day drinking BCAA's and vitamin C (followed by a pot of coffee to get through to lunch) and those BCAA grams of protein were not counted into averages or totals.
I could have eaten more carbs on training days and fewer carbs on resting days. Hitting my macros is what I'd done in the past and this was second nature to me. 
Hitting the caloric number wasn't second nature, and some days, especially rest days, I'd run low on cals before I was ready to end eating for the day. heh.
I didn't worry about fats; only after I'd eaten something with a lot of fat in it and saw that it really cut into my total cals for the day, leaving me with little room to get all my protein in.

= (LBM x 0.75 x 4) / 9 = fat grams/training day = 65g
200g protein = 800 cals protein, 65x9 = 585 cals fat, so the remainder = 615 cals carb/153g carb on a training day.

Targets per day: Training: 200P/65F/150C
Rest: 200P/70F/0C
No carbs on rest days was an unachievable objective, just a reminder to stay away on those days. The big priority was to get to the protein levels early and then let the chips fall where they might with the remaining cals for the day.

Averages for all days showed that I ate too little carb training days and ate too much on rest days (staying under 50g was reasonable). This probably impeded my fat loss on rest days a bit (guessing):
Training: 222P/103F/115C
Rest: 197P/83F/69C

Recomp:
Took measurements at both ends of the trial, and didn't measure at all, or weigh very religiously during. I started on Monday after Easter Sunday, when the in-laws were in town and we greazed all weekend, so I actually started off on Monday at 235.
8 weeks later, I was right at 218.5. While my BF% dropped into the 12's during the trial, it was showing at 14% at the end - much of this probably due to dehydration.

Measurements:

I lost everywhere, except gaining .5 in the upper arm. Losing size everywhere was more of an indication that I lost subcutaneous fat everywhere than an indication that I lost muscle everywhere - as I did not lose strength in any of my lifts. Losing an inch and a half off of the thigh, hip, and chest was partly due to the low rep scheme/low set scheme of the lifting. I'm sure I gained muscle density, and doubt that I lost muscle mass. But all lifts did go up from week 1 to week 8 (I did start to flag a bit in the later weeks after hitting a high point in the DL on week 6). I did Incline bench instead of flat bench work, as chest size isn't important to me.

Losing inches off the waist was the primary goal, and losing the 4 inches there that I did, was the primary win. I had to add a buckle hole to all my belts after a month, and again after week 6.

I didn't do befores or afters with the camera. Pictures are worth a thousand words, but numbers don't lie.

Training:
The three training days looked like this:
Monday:
Deadlift 2x3-5
OH Press 3x6-8

Wednesday:
Squat 3x6-8
RDL 2x6-8
Weighted Chin 3x6-8

Friday:
GTO 2x6
DB to BB Incline 3x6-8 - Pendlay Row 3x6-8 - I supersetted these.

Most Saturdays and Sundays, which were formally rest days, I walked in the AM, downtown to the prayer house and back. 40-45 mins of NEPA walking. I had semi-anticipated getting out of town on either Saturday or Sunday to hike in the hills with the good weather and do long slow distance/loaded carry with the ruck, but this only happened a couple of times. Just sayin'. I think if I had added one day like this per week, my results in fat loss would have been both more dramatic, but I would have experienced more painful days feeling flat and hungry.
As it was, with the Intermittent Fasting, I felt full AF most afternoons. I only felt hungry a couple of times, mid-mornings. At the same time, I also felt a strange electrical energy as I knew my body was fueling itself with fat, and I didn't ever experience dopey fatigue or any pre-workout dread.

Strength:
Poundages went up like this for me. 
DL : 5x273 to 5x343 in week six, ending at 3x343 in week 8 (fail at 373 that week). DL sucks for me.
OH Press : 8x125 to 5x145

Squat : 6x215 to 5x235 … Squatting didn't move much for me. I didn't lose here either, though. Before you say anything, know that these are full ATG paused high-bar squats. My focus wasn't to be putting weight on the bar during this time, but to do the cleanest reps and not fail any.
RDL : 6x223 to reps at 228 (these were accessory to squatting and not part of the protocol, I didn't push them as these were sometimes supersetted with the squatting).
Weighted Chin : 3 with 20/10/BW to 5 with 25/20/15

GTO : 6'sx128 to 6'sx143
Pendlay Row : 5x178 to 6x183
DB Incline : I did these for the first 5 weeks at 12 reps with too-light DBs (I was afraid to break my bench flat bar benching, which has always been a strength for me. So I did these for reps and transitioned to the BB for the last few weeks at 7x165 to 6x170). I don't normally bench or Inc bench anymore, just did these because they were part of the LG protocol.

Final Thoughts:
Getting in the protein simply can't be done without supps. I mostly drank whey isolate (the cheapest stuff but still isolate, yay for Costco) and drank it with meals, a couple 50g-ish doses a day. This is to say that protein powder, most days, made up half of my protein intake. 

Fat loss is aided in a big way by water intake. I tried to drink all the water, but I didn't track my intake. Wish I did. Wish I had data on, say, hitting 200 fluid oz a day or not.

My schedule didn't allow for me to program workouts until late in the day. I would have preferred a noon workout followed by a first meal with most of my day's carbs at lunch. Instead I was eating at noon, and training at 4 or 5, followed by a final dinner - not optimal, or the way I prefer to train on an empty stomach.

I still have some fat to lose. I'll do a 4-week feed with some higher training volume (three 10 day cycles; 6 on/4 off) just to mix things up. I was feeling that my fat loss was plateauing a bit and my strength was falling off a bit, so I'll take a month to rejoov without losing all my progress, then re-cycle for 6 to 8 weeks on a 1 lb/week cut with some slight modifications.

One interesting anecdote: this endeavor, while HT/composition and clearly measured physically, was also a spiritual and soulical thing. There was a moment early on, the first Saturday - week 1 of the cycle, when I was on a rest day, wondering what it meant to stay true to what I’d told myself I was going to do in terms of calories. In the past, I'd tracked my macros with no regard to total cals/day. 
This day, I had already eaten my 1600 cals for the day at lunch. We attended an afternoon/evening opening for an entertainment center in town. Free food and drink at the event, all of it really good and healthy and free. But all I consumed all through the event was water and ice teas. 
This is about self-respect and self-control. The kind of event I would have pigged out at, but I didn’t have anything at all. After this, the whole protocol wasn't challenging. I had my marks and I hit them - without any "I'll just binge more today and make up for it with less tomorrow" foolishness going on. Not a diet, a day-by-day agreement with my best self that I was going to do what I knew I needed to do.
I didn’t know if this leangains cut was a spiritual thing or a physical thing ... maybe I was wondering if it was a vanity thing ... until this first test. It’s spiritual to exercise self-control in partnership with the Spirit who brings self-control as fruit.