This time last year I was coming to the end of my first serious attempt of cutting the body fat. I planned to do a 14 week cut and see what I could achieve over that period of time. I started the cut casually as I didn’t know what to do at that point in time. As the weeks went by I slowly started to enter new territories which allowed me to experience and push my body as hard as I could at that given time. I managed to drop 28lb over the 14 week, all down to trial and error. The way I cut was very hard work mentally and physically, although I wanted to keep it this way and I also wanted to kept my mouth shut and get on with it alone. I didn’t tell anyone until my goal date came around. (apart from the folk I were around everyday)

This year I am simply plodding along. I am stronger than I was this time last year, my body fat is continuing to slowly drop, yet my every day life is still easily liveable and I have a good balance and a better understanding of how my body works which allows my head and energy levels to be more human that the last few weeks or so of my last years cut.

This year isn’t too difficult as I have half as much body fat to drop and my goal isn’t to drop the fat like I did last year. I hope to feel better comes May this year as I haven’t really tried at all yet and I’m not far from the body fat that I had last year.

I’m enjoying plodding along and taking it easy, rather than stressing myself out with no real reason too. I have my diet set and it’s easy at the moment. I know that as time goes by and as the body fat drops, so will my motivation and then things will get harder.

I hope to casually drop a few percent body fat over the next 4 weeks and I can’t see why I won’t be able to. I do my 30 minutes fasted brisk walk every morning with the help of Black Bombs, I have a big bowl of oats for breakfast and the rest of the day is meat/eggs and veg of some sort. I aim to hit around 2000 calories a day and vary it depending on my cardio/ training etc. Friday after legs I had 4 potato waffles covered in cheese, 4 full eggs fried in coconut oil and a tin of beans on top. I simply felt like I needed it.

My recovery from training is still ok and so is my strength in the gym. It’s all about learning, trying, failing, altering, trying again and again until I figure out what works for me. The hardest part is getting the right frame of mind for the goals that I have set for myself. Eating and lifting is really easy, cutting and lifting is completely different and extremely challenging.

From my calculations I am around 10% body fat at the moment. I know that if I was aiming for a competition that everything would be different and I am very fat for stepping on stage. This is not my goal at the moment though, so that’s irrelevant.

I have a huge issue with my upper legs from when I was fat. I have lots of lose skin at the moment and I expect it to get worse as I drop the fat. If it’s anything like my stomach, I will be ok when the skin is stretched (standing up) but when I relax (sit down) I will have a lot of excess skin hanging. Obviously this is what I have to pay for from them years and years of ‘living my life’. Booze and junk food are the culprits…

I have a long way to go before I hit my current goal. I also feel that I will continue this stage of the journey for as long as I need to. I’m still not happy with my body fat level and really need to stick to this goal and make closure on this chapter.

Lean bulking is what I hope to do in the future as it will keep me disciplined and in reasonable shape throughout the year. I hope to continue this philosophy whilst I am natural…

My legs hold the most fat and always have. I am working on this and hope to get them in a better shape over the coming weeks. My mind is set and there’s only me that can determine the outcome…