Baron's Journey to Single-Digit Bodyfat

Baron said:
Ok, so one of my goals this year is to get down to single-digit bodyfat, meaning somewhere around 9% at a bodyweight of 175. I'm just guessing at what my bodyweight will end up being at 9%.... maybe it's 10 lbs heavier or 10 lbs lower.... who knows? It's been said that a goal without a timeline is just a dream, so I'm going to give myself 6 months to accomplish this, so that would be an end date of July 25th, 2019.

Below you'll find my starting point to give you an overview of my current stats. And just for the record, I'm 47 years old and I am 5' 9" tall.

View attachment 197171

The stats above were generated using a highly rated scale I got from Amazon and I plan to use it for posting updates throughout the entire process:


I think daily updates would be a bit overkill, so I plan to update this thread maybe once or twice per week to provide another snapshot of my progress. Hopefully, maintaining this journal will help me stay more consistent than I would otherwise.

In terms of diet, my goal is to primarily eat things directly from nature. And by that I mean whole eggs, nuts, fruit, healthy fats like avocado and olive oil, and a variety of lean protein sources.... fish being the main one.

So that means no chips, pasta, bread, cereal, cookies, crackers, energy bars, desserts or anything else that's a processed food. Sounds like fun right? :(

In terms of working out, the gameplan is to do resistance training four days per week, with some form of activity upon waking on an empty stomach six days per week. For me, that's usually a 30-minute walk in the mornings or if it's raining, I will do 20 - 30 minutes on an elliptical machine here at my house.

I am currently on Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT) at 200mg per week to achieve a better hormonal profile for losing fat and building muscle. Since Testosterone converts to Estrogen easily in the body, especially as we get older, I also take .25mg of Arimidex every other day to keep estrogen under control.

Supplementation will be the following on a daily basis:

1 serving of Lipocide IR on an empty stomach upon waking.


Then with breakfast...
Evovite Multivitamin for athletes


5,000 IU Vitamin D


2,000 mg Fish Oil


100 mg CoQ10

https://www.amazon.com/Doctors-Best...&ie=UTF8&qid=1548523412&sr=1-5&keywords=CoQ10

300 mg Tru Niagen

https://www.amazon.com/TRU-NIAGEN-A...TF8&qid=1548523547&sr=1-5&keywords=tru+niagen

1.25 ml VitaLiver

https://www.amazon.com/VitaLiver-Su...UTF8&qid=1548523480&sr=1-4&keywords=vitaliver

During my workouts and sometimes between meals, I will be sipping on a Branch Chained Amino Acid drink.

https://www.amazon.com/Evogen-Amino...d=1548523678&sr=1-3&keywords=evogen+aminoject

If anyone has any questions or comments, feel free to chime in. Here we go... :D
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Jesus H Christ, way overboard. Easier: Organic yes, don’t eat at night, at restaurants eat anything you want if it’s just twice/week, don’t cut anything you enjoy which means the couple glasses red wine or beer, Bread, cake, etc. Get the morning interval type walk in daily (1 hr)
Lick good pussy often better than CoQ10 supplements. Gyms are the most egregious processed food of ALL - avoid

Goodluck. :)
 
Baron said:
So here's a little progress pic today.
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I wouldn't f*ck with ya' ... but I do love me some Five Guys Fries. Being a type 2 diabetic, fries are generally a no no for me. But Five Guys with fries is the go-to meal for me and my oldest daughter when I visit her the University.
 
This is my DEXA scan from about 10 days ago, and the results were not what I had hoped to say the least. I ended up a little worse than I was the first time, and it was quite a blow to the old ego. My body fat came in at 13.3%, which was slightly higher than the 12.9% last time. And to make matters worse, my lean body mass was lower. This time it was 154 lbs vs. 154.2 lbs last time.

IMG_20190327_090314.jpg


You should have seen the look on my face when the technician showed me the results. I was floored. If you had asked me going into that appointment what my results would be, I would have guessed a 1% drop in body fat. I mean, after all... I looked leaner in the mirror and I felt leaner.

So aside from the four or five cuss words in a row, the first thing out of my mouth when I got the results was "Something's not right". So after discussing my diet and workout regimen going into the scan with the technician, the prevailing opinion was that I came in too dehydrated from lack of carbs for the four days prior to the scan.

And tech goes on to explain.....

"When you come in depleted from training on low carbs for many days straight, your muscles are essentially flat, meaning that they are holding much less water from not having any carbs in your system. When muscles are flat, they are smaller, and that makes lean body mass go down. So when your lean body mass drops, it actually has the inverse effect on body fat percentage. That's why we say on the paperwork to not come in dehydrated. It throws everything off if you do."

As you can imagine, the results were a slap in the face but it was quite a learning experience for me. But no matter what, the results are not what I had hoped for and therefore I'm going to change up my routine or I will never achieve my goal by my deadline. I can't afford another month of stagnant results.

I had been weight training on average 4 days per week, and I've been doing 20 minutes of morning activity, which has been either been a walk around the neighborhood or 20 minutes on the elliptical machine a few days per week as well. From this point forward, the weight training will increase to five days per week, and the cardio will increase to 30 minutes on the elliptical 7 days per week. The morning walks just aren't cutting it.

I'm also going to be implementing some carbs into my diet, mostly in the form of a 1/2 cup of brown rice or something similar with each meal and see how that works out.
 
How is your strength Baron ? If you are not losing any why not, but otherwise that is a lot of hardship for little/negative result.
i'm not a low carb fan to say the least so haven't delved into the topic, but considering the number of keto fans around there must be quite a few tips online on how to come into a Dexa scan without being too dehydrated while still following a low carb diet.
You mentioned taking thyroid medicines earlier on, are you taking T4 with your TRT ?
 
luisHK said:
How is your strength Baron ? If you are not losing any why not, but otherwise that is a lot of hardship for little/negative result.
i'm not a low carb fan to say the least so haven't delved into the topic, but considering the number of keto fans around there must be quite a few tips online on how to come into a Dexa scan without being too dehydrated while still following a low carb diet.
You mentioned taking thyroid medicines earlier on, are you taking T4 with your TRT ?
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My strength definitely rises and falls based upon carb intake. So if I go four days on low carbs, strength will suffer with each passing day. But then if I have a cheat meal to put some carbs back into the system, the next day's workout will be awesome, meaning that my strength is way up again. I try not to worry about strength too much because everybody I've ever known that dieted on low carbs says that you can say goodbye to your strength while in that mode.

I'm not taking T4 with my TRT. Only a small amount of Arimidex every other day.
 
Baron said:
I had been weight training on average 4 days per week, and I've been doing 20 minutes of morning activity, which has been either been a walk around the neighborhood or 20 minutes on the elliptical machine a few days per week as well. From this point forward, the weight training will increase to five days per week, and the cardio will increase to 30 minutes on the elliptical 7 days per week. The morning walks just aren't cutting it.

I'm also going to be implementing some carbs into my diet, mostly in the form of a 1/2 cup of brown rice or something similar with each meal and see how that works out.
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I think you're already active enough. I'm guessing (wildly) that the increased activity won't necessarily do the trick, but I do wish you the best and hope you keep us posted. Seems to me, though, that you're just going to be driving faster in the wrong direction.

If I had to guess, I'd say that your fairly high activity level and low carb intake are together raising your cortisol levels, which doesn't do your fat loss goals any favors. But I imagine the added carb intake is going to help.

two_cents.jpg
 
Baron said:
This is my DEXA scan from about 10 days ago, and the results were not what I had hoped to say the least. I ended up a little worse than I was the first time, and it was quite a blow to the old ego. My body fat came in at 13.3%, which was slightly higher than the 12.9% last time. And to make matters worse, my lean body mass was lower. This time it was 154 lbs vs. 154.2 lbs last time.

View attachment 199978

You should have seen the look on my face when the technician showed me the results. I was floored. If you had asked me going into that appointment what my results would be, I would have guessed a 1% drop in body fat. I mean, after all... I looked leaner in the mirror and I felt leaner.

So aside from the four or five cuss words in a row, the first thing out of my mouth when I got the results was "Something's not right". So after discussing my diet and workout regimen going into the scan with the technician, the prevailing opinion was that I came in too dehydrated from lack of carbs for the four days prior to the scan.

And tech goes on to explain.....

"When you come in depleted from training on low carbs for many days straight, your muscles are essentially flat, meaning that they are holding much less water from not having any carbs in your system. When muscles are flat, they are smaller, and that makes lean body mass go down. So when your lean body mass drops, it actually has the inverse effect on body fat percentage. That's why we say on the paperwork to not come in dehydrated. It throws everything off if you do."

As you can imagine, the results were a slap in the face but it was quite a learning experience for me. But no matter what, the results are not what I had hoped for and therefore I'm going to change up my routine or I will never achieve my goal by my deadline. I can't afford another month of stagnant results.

I had been weight training on average 4 days per week, and I've been doing 20 minutes of morning activity, which has been either been a walk around the neighborhood or 20 minutes on the elliptical machine a few days per week as well. From this point forward, the weight training will increase to five days per week, and the cardio will increase to 30 minutes on the elliptical 7 days per week. The morning walks just aren't cutting it.

I'm also going to be implementing some carbs into my diet, mostly in the form of a 1/2 cup of brown rice or something similar with each meal and see how that works out.
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You can't afford the cheat meals.

Up to you ....do u want to achieve your goal or is eating fries etc worth more?
 
There are competitive bodybuilders in my gym. They are meticulous with their diet leading up to a competition.

To the calorie...


Edit...they go mental...but that's the price u pay!
 
The thing about "cheat meals" is that they are the product of deprivation. Deprivation almost inevitably causes the pendulum to swing the other way. "Crash diets" are aptly named, don't you think? :) Admittedly, Baron's diet doesn't quite qualify as "crash" but he has had fender-benders along the way...

All that said, though, Baron's composition numbers are nothing to scoff at.
 
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