05/07/14 Body Fat Check…

After dropping my body fat to my lowest point in May, I knew that I had two choices that I could consider. I could keep my body fat low and enjoy it like that for a few months, or I could bulk and hopefully build a bit of muscle for next year. If I was already near my maximum natural potential I would have enjoyed the lower body fat. As I have a very long way to go still, I really don’t want to waste time when it comes to building muscle.

I’m quickly getting back to the body weight I was when I started my cut at the beginning of this year. This is very disheartening as it’s so easy to put on weight, but very difficult to lose it. Especially losing the fat whilst maintaining/building muscle.

Positive points bulking-

Full of energy
Much stronger
Happy
More relaxed with diet
Sleep better
Building muscle
Recover MUCH faster even after harder training

Negatives-

Body fat is increasing
Feel disheartened after all that hard work cutting
Feeling very fat even though you’re not
Find it hard to eat a bulking diet as you are hooked on cutting diet

There are many more points, these are the ones that come to mind as I type this.

My plan at the moment is to just keep an eye on my diet and see what I can cut out or change around. I’m not having a bad diet at all. I just like to eat a lot before bed. I genuinely believe that the last meal is just as important as any other meal throughout the day. I believe it helps with recovering faster and it also seems to give me a big boost in the morning when waking up.

Although I have put on around 17lb of weight (weight = fat/muscle/water etc) I don’t think the fat is going on me in the same way as it was before. It’s more like toned fat now, rather than jelly fat. If I could give an example of what my body fat is like, it would be around my 4th/5th week of cutting.

Bearing in mind that I have never been fortunate enough to bulk from a good cut before as I have always bulked on top of being fat (Fat is over 20% BF). My strength has gone through the roof compared to how it has been in the past, yet my body fat is at it’s lowest point apart from when I cut. I can afford to put on another 5lb of weight over the next 3 months if I need to. I really don’t want to go any heavier than 13 stone as this will just mess with my head too much, even if it will benefit me more. It’s a difficult situation to be in unless you have done it before and know exactly what you are doing.

(To put that above paragraph into better terms. I want to stay under 15% body fat at my peak point. If I was 13 stone with 15% body fat I would be happy. I if was 13 stone with 25% body fat then I wouldn’t be happy)

This is what I like to use my blog for. I like making notes regardless to how crazy they may seem at the time. At least I can note down how I feel and what I’m doing, so I can compare everything months/years down the line.