Update to My Leangains Progress

Yikes, I haven’t posted  in a while.

So, from my last posts, my plan was to track what I ate and determine my maintenance calories based on how much my lean mass and fat mass changed. That plan quickly was torpedoed. As it turns out, how much I eat, what I eat, and how they are distributed throughout the week all affect my metabolism and body composition. For example, during one week, I ate around 9000 calories and lost approx 5lbs. The following week, I ate around the same amount of calories. . . and gained 5lbs. According to the bodyfat and water numbers, I pretty much just put back on the same fat and lean mass that I lost.

Anyway, I’d decided that for February, to go with a flat 1000 calories per day. No banking calories for another day and to avoid alcohol. Now, I’ve had a few days where I exceeded this and with the combination of alcohol, there was a significant impact to my weight loss results. So lesson, on the day or days that I do have a drink or go over my calorie limits, I can only do one or the other.

Anyway, dietary issues aside, I’ve still been gaining strength. Apparently, for us long limbed guys, it is normal to see such horrendous progress on the bench press. As a comparison to my starting specs in this post, here are my changes:

• Bench press: 185 x 5   -> still at 185
• Squat: 210 x 5               -> 270 x 5
• Deadlift: 245 x 5           -> 325 x 5

So, pretty great gains in just one month. I actually expect to see similar gains within a month’s time. I expect a slight slowdown through the rest of February. But in March, I’m planning to increase my average daily caloric intake to 1200, though I’m thinking 1400 on workout days and 1000 on non-workout days. I expect that would boost my strength gains resulting in the same average progress.

I’ve also started a youtube account and will be posting video every two weeks documenting my progress. The first was put up almost two weeks ago with the second scheduled for this coming Sunday. You can check them out on my channel here.

One thing that has been a slight issue is the fitment of pants. Based on measuring my waist/belly when holding my stomach in. . .(yeah,  still have those fat lbs to lose) it would appear that the smallest my stomach is going to reach is 31 inches. Though before I go out and start buying size 32 pants, I need to wait for my thighs to slim down some more. So, hopefully, by March, I can start wearing pants that fit me.