Day 768: Road to Shredded - 2 Month Update

fitness

Report

Two months after starting my cut at 16.8% body fat, I’m now at 11.2%!

Changes compared to previous month:

  • Lean tissue: +2.5 lbs
  • Fat tissue: -3.7 lbs
  • Body fat %: -2.4%

Changes compared to baseline (2 months ago):

  • Lean tissue: +4.9 lbs
  • Fat tissue: -8.9 lbs
  • Body fat %: -5.6%

Holy smokes, I’m so close to the 10% goal…!

Here were the parts of the BodySpec report that I found interesting:

Weight

I normally go in for the DEXA scan in a fasted state, but this time, I ended up scheduling it after lunch. That meant that the weight comparison between scans isn’t reliable for comparing the weight lost between scans because they were measured under different conditions. I weigh myself first thing in the morning after I shower so here’s my actual change in weight:

  • December 2021: 147.8 lbs
  • January 2022: 145.2 lbs
  • February 2022: 140.7 lbs

So even though the DEXA scan report shows a difference of only 1.1 lbs in total mass in the last month, I actually lost 4.5 pounds.

Lower abs

(Ordered from most recent to least recent)

(Ordered from most recent to least recent)

Last month, I talked about how I didn’t notice much visual change in my physique between 16.8% and 13.6%. I’m happy to report that this month was different! I started seeing much more definition in my lower abs, and the scan bears this out: the body fat % of my lower ab region dropped from 10% to 5.8%. (Photos are included later in the post.)

Muscle loss

My report shows gains in lean tissue overall, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. As mentioned in last month’s report, I appreciate being able to see the breakdown in body composition by body part that DEXA scans provide.

Full lean tissue report

Here’s the summary:

  • All of my muscle gain came from my trunk and my android (lower abs)
  • I lost muscle in my arms and legs

I anticipated losing some muscle when I decided to switch from a routine focused on hypertrophy to more skill-based work (see the “Plan > Exercise” section of last month’s report) so it wasn’t terribly surprising, but it was still a bummer to see that I lost a pound of hard-gained muscle in my arms. :’)

(Side note: It’s funny how quickly the mind focuses on the negatives here (muscle loss) rather than the positives (overall muscle gain with over 4 pounds of muscle gain in my trunk, which was a quite unexpected and pleasant surprise)).

Routine

Diet

  • Average calories per day: 1996 calories
  • Average protein intake per day: 155g

Compared to last month’s averages of 1810 calories and 112g of protein, I ate quite a bit more and consistently hit my protein goal of 150g a day.

I continued with intermittent fasting and continued eating the foods from last month with the addition of a lot more vegetables since I started cooking a lot more.

My daily goal was to eat ~1750 calories (it was initially set to 1500 but I bumped it up after getting injured to encourage better recovery), but I often went over and had an unplanned mega binging session which I took as a possible precursor to disordered eating. Despite not adhering to my calorie goals perfectly, I made decent progress and the takeaway here is that as long as you’re in a calorie deficit, you’ll lose weight and most of that weight will be fat if you train and eat a high-protein diet.

Exercise

This past month, I shifted my training focus from hypertrophy (using the Body by Rings program) to skill-based training (working on the front lever, planche, and climbing). I knew that the latter would be worse for body composition purposes because I’m not working all the muscles as evenly or as intensely, but I was eager to start on my 2022 goals to achieve those calisthenics skills.

The problem was that with the calorie deficit and the frequency/intensity of training, I started experiencing injuries in my finger, wrist, forearm, and elbow. That brought all my skill-based training to a halt and has been a useful lesson in slowing down and being realistic about progress in the midst of cutting.

The other big change this month was that I started doing a lot more low-intensity cardio. Getting an Apple Watch a week and a half ago has been a game-changer in increasing my NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis), which is a fancy term to describe all the calories you burn that isn’t due to sleeping, eating, or sports-like exercise. I’ve been taking the stairs instead of the elevator, randomly taking walks outside, and jogging to the gym and back instead of riding my motorcycle. It’s kind of ridiculous how suddenly and significantly this little device has changed my behavior:

Since my baseline activity has increased, that means my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure, the number of calories I’m burning each day) has also increased and I should adjust my calorie intake accordingly. Despite knowing that, I’ve found it psychologically difficult to bump up my calorie intake due to the concern that I’ll overdo it and lose the progress I made. I know this is silly and that keeping my intake the same after having my activity increase significantly will lead to too much of a calorie deficit (where I’d risk taking in too few calories and losing more muscle mass), so part of this month’s reflection and planning is making the necessary adjustments.

Reflection

Psychologically, this past month was much harder than the first one. Even though I ate more than the previous month, I experienced more cravings and often had periods of low energy where I felt like I could barely drag myself throughout my day. I think this had to do with me not eating enough once I started moving around a lot more due to getting the Apple Watch and also possibly due to my body conserving more energy / hormonal adaptations due to the length of the cut.

The drop in energy has been the most challenging part of this cutting process. I occasionally found myself wiped out for the latter half of the day, which dashed my plans for getting work done or taking an online dance class. I ended up engaging in low-energy, cognitively simple tasks like watching recipe videos on YouTube and cooking. There have been some evenings where despite being full, the cravings for sweets and junk food got intense enough where all I could seem to do was think about food. So then I have to ask myself: “Is this worth it?”

To be honest, I’m not sure. Let’s compare the benefits vs. drawbacks of cutting to a low body fat percentage.

Benefits:

  • Look dope
  • Makes training for calisthenics skills and climbing easier in the long-term because your relative strength (how strong you are relative to your body weight) is better

Drawbacks:

  • Low energy

    • Feeling lethargic
    • Impaired productivity
    • No sex drive (tbh, since I’m not currently in a relationship, this feels more like a benefit)

  • Slower recovery

    • Increased risk of injury
    • Decreased healing of existing injuries

  • Cravings

    • Increase in mental energy devoted to thinking about food

The drawbacks have been pretty challenging, but at the same time, it still feels pretty manageable. If these drawbacks continued to exist at this intensity once I move into maintenance and simply tried to stay at a low body fat percentage, I wouldn’t bother — I don’t care enough about being shredded to suffer a continuous handicap in my mental and physical performance. But viewed as a one-time cost, it seems potentially worthwhile to look great and perform better in the long run.

Photos

As before, I took pictures in both flat (unflattering) lighting and overhead (flattering) lighting.

There’s certainly some difference between the starting point and where I’m at now, but I’m surprised by how small that difference seems now that I’m looking at these pictures side-by-side. My body is largely identical with the only major difference being that my abs are slightly more defined. Not sure what I expected, but I thought that the contrast between 17% body fat and 11% body fat would be much more pronounced.

Also, this goes to show that lighting makes more of a difference than anything. If I put the 11% body fat picture with the bad lighting as my “before” picture and the 17% body fat picture with the good lighting as my “after”, I don’t think the average person would notice that’s anything’s off simply because the better lighting accentuates everything so much more starkly.

I’m also surprised by how little difference there’s been in my face during this cut. I was partly inspired to set this goal after seeing how much my sister’s face shape changed from her weight loss, but it seems that the fat in my face is the most stubborn out of all the areas in my body. Too bad the DEXA scan doesn’t tell you the body fat percentage of your head (now I’m curious why that’s not part of the analysis).

Plan

Alright, alright, alright. I’m currently at 11.2% body fat, which means that I’m 1.2% away from my goal of 10%.

If I use the DEXA scan measurement of 145.9 lbs of total mass with 16.3 lbs of fat and 129.6 lbs of fat-free mass, I would hit 10% body fat by losing 2 lbs of fat, assuming that my fat-free mass stays the same:

14.3 lbs of fat / (14.3 + 129.6) = 14.3 / 143.9 = 9.9% body fat

So if I lose 2 lbs of fat this month and maintain or gain lean tissue like I did the past two months, I’ll have reached my goal and can end the cut! Woohoo!

The alternate approach would be to continue cutting aggressively for the last month just to see how lean I can get, but I’d rather avoid the adverse effects I experienced this past month. Anyway, slowing down my cut will be a nice way to transition into maintenance.

Diet

My plan for this month will be to shrink my calorie deficit so that I’m eating closer to maintenance. I’m very excited for this because it’ll mean that I should experience less of the adverse effects from a large calorie deficit, namely lower energy and strong cravings.

Here are the changes I made in MyFitnessPal:

  • Changed my activity level from “Sedentary” to “Lightly Active”
  • Changed my target weight loss from “1 lbs a week” to “0.5 lbs a week”

With these changes, my target daily calories went up from 1,500 to 1,940. Given that I was actually aiming for ~1,750 calories this past month, this means that I’ll get to consume an extra 200 calories per day.

If I find that I’m losing more than 0.5 lbs per week (which is possible because “Lightly Active” might be underestimating my current activity levels with the Apple Watch), I’ll compensate by introducing “refeed days”, days where I eat at maintenance or slightly higher with the goal of providing some psychological and physiological relief from the cut.

Besides the increase in calories and potentially incorporating refeed days, I’m going to keep everything else the same (intermittent fasting, 150g of protein per day).

Exercise

I tried re-introducing climbing and planche work this past week but found that my injuries still haven’t healed. Also, my elbow started flaring up more which is probably due to the front lever training. Instead of rushing to get back into training and worsening my injuries, I’m going to be cautious and simply shift my training focus for the last month of my cut. I considered ending the cut to get back into the skill-focused training more quickly instead, but (1) I’m so close to 10% that I might as well go for it (hello, sunk cost fallacy) and (2) just because I end the cut now doesn’t mean that my injuries will magically be healed tomorrow so I thought I might as well give my body a longer time to recover.

Here’s how I’ll be training this month:

  • Shift back into hypertrophy-focused training (Body by Rings) from skill-based training (front lever, planche, handstands, climbing)

  • Introduce more rest days

    • I’ll be doing a Push / Pull / Rest / Push / Pull / Legs / Rest split so that I have two days of rest during the week compared to the single day of rest that I had with my skill-based training routine

  • Work hard but don’t push myself too much during my workouts

    • I want to keep intensity at a manageable level to prevent overwhelming my body and incurring more injuries

  • Continue with prehab/rehab work (rice bucket routine, finger rubber bands, Theraband Flexbar for elbow tendonitis, etc.)

I also have yet to incorporate mobility work into my training routine so hopefully taking this month long break from the skill-based training will motivate me to look into that.

Summary

This will be the last month of my cut. Even if I end up not hitting 10% body fat for whatever reason, I will be switching to maintenance at the end of this month so that I can shift my focus from cutting/physique to training/skills/strength.

  • Diet

    • Lose 0.5 lbs per week (1940 calories per day)
    • Keep protein intake high (150g per day)
    • Continue intermittent fasting (16 hours fasting / 8 hours eating)

  • Exercise

    • Avoid skill-based work to allow injuries to heal
    • Do hypertrophy training (Body by Rings program)
    • Introduce mobility work

Almost there!