2019 W35 of 52 – Steve’s Body & Mind Progress Journal

THEMES: #1: Fasting Blitz Cut Results & #2: Full Blood Panel Results

I’m five weeks into the AUG-19 #HyperWorkouts Training Block, and it’s killer! So much volume, and made that much harder by being on a short term aggressive cut cycle. Enjoying it though, and feeling pretty good.

I’ve been reading fair bit too – 10% Human, The Eagle & The Dragon and StoryBrand. All great books. Listening to a ton of Podcasts as well – from the likes of Paul Saladino, Human Performance Outliers, Jordan Harbinger, Peter Attia and Ben Pakulski.

Work wise – Some amazing guest interviews that continue to drop on the AdapNation Podcast. Including Ben Pakulski, Jake Steiner, Chris Duffin, Dave Feldman and Nick Elvery. On top of that, pushing really hard on finalising the #BeYourBest Self-Optimisation Journey, so it can get launched in the next couple months. It’s gonna be a game changer for living your best life. Exciting times!

HOWEVER, Let’s dig into two big updates – the results from thew short cut as well as my full blood panel results.

#1: FASTING BLITZ CUT RESULTS

As I called out in my 2019 W28 Body Journal, I had been bulking for over 4 months on a Low Carb Meat-Dominant diet. Since then I creeped up to my target bulk weight of 206lbs by mid August. I also mentioned the detailed plan for the last 5 months of this 2 year Body Goals journey.

The end of the year photoshoot has been booked! No turning back now! How close to this will I get?…

As part of the plan, I intended to carve off 10 or so pounds in a rapid cut, before returning to a 8-10 week final bulk that leads into the end of year final push to get shredded. I was slightly delayed in getting to 206, so started the Cut early August 2019.

What is the Fasting Blitz Cut Protocol?

After achieving great results in my first 5:2 Blitz Cut, as documented in 2019 W12, and researching more into the effective use of Fasting as a both a wellness reset and weight loss tool, I decided to up the ante.

Introducing multi-day Fasts was a little daunting, especially as there is a natural fear of losing muscle mass and going crazy with hunger. But the more I looked into it, and got my head around the physiological and biochemical process that occurs when fasting, It made sense to give it a go.

The most important aspects I wanted to control, to limit muscle and gym performance loss were:

1. Keeping my Electrolytes high
2. Keeping Intramuscular Water levels as high as possible
3. Refeeding for sanity, metabolic regulation, family enjoyment, and keeping protein high
4. Prioritising Protein, followed by fat, throughout the whole process

Electrolytes and water loss are accelerated on a low Carb Diet, but made worse when you fast. So, getting in Electrolytes during my fasting windows was a must.

Optimal Protein numbers would be hard to achieve, but the priority had to be to get as mush as possible within the weekly calorie budget.

On that basis, this is how I designed the 3 Week Fasting Blitz Cut, which would repeat every week:

The Weekly 48h Fast

Regarding the 48 hour Fast, my last meal would be Sunday dinner. I would then fast the whole of Monday and most of Tuesday, eating again Tuesday evening. During the Fasting period (i.e. Monday and Tuesday), I would mix up a 2L bottle of Electrolyte Water and sip throughout the day.

The Electrolyte Water Mix

The Electrolyte Mix would be:

1. 2L Water
2. Himalayan Salt – ½ teaspoon
3. Baking Soda – ½ teaspoon
4. Lo Salt – 1 teaspoon
5. Lemon Juice – ¼ fresh lemon
6. Magnesium Tablets – 250-500mg 1-2x a day

This blend would provide adequate Sodium, Potassium, Bicarbonate and Magnesium – all essential for health. By keeping my Electrolytes high, I would not leach them from my bones and other stores, I would keep my water retention high, and as a result my gym performance would maintained as best as possible.

The Daily Calorie Budgets

The Calorie budgets per day were selected to help achieve a 3-4 lbs weight loss per week on average. The calcs actually came in at 2.9lbs a week, but I knew that fasting would rapidly drop my insulin and as such fat loss would be higher than expected mathematically.

The OMAD Days

I decided to have two days a week where I would OMAD – have One Meal A Day. The reason was to help maintain big portion sizes for my dinner, which is emotionally and psychologically important to me. These meals will be high in Protein and Fat, with say 300g of Potato or Rice for some carbs.

Food Choices

Lastly, I would NOT CHANGE MY FOOD CHOICES. I would maintain eating all the foods I love as per my Low Carb Meat-Dominant real food way of eating, inclusive of some Potato and Rice at dinner time. That would go for my essential wellness and training supplements too, on non-fasting training days.

What Were The Results?

Yet again, everything went according to plan! In all fairness, I had a little hope built in as I had never fasted like this before, but had reasonable confidence in it’s potential. The results matched the optimistic end of my weight loss range.

Here’s the familiar Body Progress chart, showing the results of this rapid 3 Week Fasting Blitz Cut. In essence, I went from 206lbs to 192.2lbs (I bumped it up to 192.9 to account for the two day average). That’s 14lbs in 3 weeks!

That’s an incredible amount of weight loss in 3 weeks! And yes, it was hard at times during the Fasting and OMAD days, but surprisingly the challenging times came and went in waves. For the most part, I was training, keeping busy with work, eating great food when scheduled, or enjoying some down time. It really wasn’t as crazy as it sounds.

Better yet, I lost this weight whilst keeping my Electrolytes high. This means that I lost less water weight than most would on extreme diets, and this means more fat loss. As you can see from the chart, I lost 2-3 lbs of water and muscle glycogen weight from my lean mass, but this is improvement from my previous cut attempts.

As I kept my training intensity and performance consistently high, combined with high protein, non-water muscle loss has been minimal – I speculate 0.5lbs max. The reality is, actual muscle loss is minimal (or negligible) in such a short period of time where training demands are high. Evolutionarily, this hypothesis just makes sense, and seems to play out in my data.

P.S. I did ZERO cardio (as per usual), other than walking the dog for 30mins every morning. Just weight training.

How Do I Look After The Blitz Fasting Cut?

I’ll let you decide…

Personally, I’m pretty happy. I lost the weight, increased definition, maintained muscle mass, and for the most part maintained girth measurements. Not entirely, but that’s to be expected when you lose a stone of insulation from all over!

Not too shabby.

See…Fasting is not going to destroy your gains!

So, What’s the Plan For The Rest Of The Year?

Now that my penultimate Cut is out of the way, it’s time to Bulk for the last time this year.

I’ll enter my last bulk of the 2 year Challenge, running for 9 weeks and a goal weight of 201lbs. Then, time to get shredded! I’ll finish up with a 5 week cut that will get me down to sub 6% by Mid December 2019. Take some photos, then go and properly enjoy Christmas!

I adjusted down my End Target Weight from 198 to 188 lbs, and the body fat percentage from <8% to 5.9%. This is purely based on my current condition, and realising that I will need to lop off another 5lbs from my current composition to get lean enough to meet the aesthetic I am after.

The below should help make sense of the two remaining nutrition phases. The dark Purple elements have been adjusted down to account for the extra leanness needed:

Bulking Strategy – I’ll carry on with the current approach. A Meat-Dominant Low Carb gig (10-12% carbs). I feel good, fat gain is slower, and I get lots of bioavailable nutrients and amino acids from this nose-to-tail animal-based diet. Throw in some rice, potatoes, mushrooms and salad. Done! Calories will start at 3800 and will increase to maintain 0.7lbs weight gain per week. Probably ending on 4500 kcals per day.

Final Cutting Strategy – It will be 5 weeks, which is still really short in bodybuilding circles. Current thinking is to replicate this exact Fasting Blitz Cut approach, combined with a few days of peaking prior to the photoshoot. More on that some other time…

Training wise, I’ll just keep cracking on with the higher (and higher) volume training style as per the AUG-19 #HyperWorkouts Training Block. I will add in some proper strength lifts in OCT-19 to keep things fresh and muscles dense, but I won’t major on Strength again until early 2020.

#2: My Full Blood Panel Results

In the spirit of sharing everything I am learning in my pursuit of living the AdapNation mantra – to #BeYourBest, I thought you’d be interested in seeing what a Full Blood Panel looks like.

I’ve testing my bloods a few times, with the last being a couple months ago. So, I wanted to share the changes, the full results, my interpretation, the cost, my remaining conditions, and what corrective/investigatory actions I plan to take.

I actually wrote up a sepertate article on all of this, with all the data. Feel free to check it out – it makes for an interesting read. As a teaser, my lifestyle and nutrition changes are paying off!

Coming Up In Next Few Weeks

In terms of Training, Wellness, Mindset and Body Goals, here’s my focus for the next few weeks:

1. Results From Supplement Additions – I still need to share with you some new supplementation strategies I am trialling based on the latest podcast with Christian Thibaudeau
2. Currently Reading – A classic – 1984. Then, on to something nutrition related from this list
3. Musculosketal Nerver Function test – As I continue to investigate the cause of my finger neuropathy, this assessment should shed some light.
4. Higher Performance Training! – As the Bulk is now on, I’m looking forward to seeing how I can finish on the AUG-19 #HyperWorkorts Training Block in terms of additional volume.

P.S. I’ll let you know how I get on with an update every few weeks… 🙂