April 29th Update. ETP Nutrition, Gymnastics Strength Training for exercise = WINNING

Obviously once again it has been a while since my last update.  Why?  Because life is busy and I don't make time for blogging.  That's what it comes down to.

Since September I have been doing Eat To Perform for my nutrition.  I had stepped away from this area for a while and "thought" I was doing it right.  Yup, I wasn't.  My weight had gotten up to 182lbs and my body fat percentage was around 30% if I were to guess.  Pretty rough.  When your goal is to get to 20% and you were already at 24%, you done fucked up.  You fucked up really good.

Eat To Perform.  Well I have nothing but good things to say.  The coaches have been great.  They review my macros every couple of weeks.  I'm eating a good amount of food.  Between 2200 - 2600 calories per day.  When I visited my Dr back in February he was thrilled I was down to 171lbs.  He asked how I was doing with my nutrition and I told him and he said "Nope, no way you are eating that many calories per day".  Dude, look at my fucking MyFitnessPal diary.  I've been logging for months now.  Its all there.... well most of it.  I do cheat and eat some chips and peanut butter filled pretzels at work.  Whatever.  I measure my food.  I log my food (99% of it) and I see results.  Not just on the scale, but body re-composition as well. More on that later...

Workouts.  I stumbled upon a program called Mastering Gymnastic Strength Training (Mastering GST) from a website named Gymnastic Bodies.  I found a PDF for it and it has been PDF GOLD!  Seriously good stuff.  All the workouts are bodyweight only, which is what I wanted.  In addition there is mobility work built into the program.  After every strength set, you do a mobility set until you complete all sets of your workout.  BRILLIANT!  As of this blog post, I have been doing this program for 15 weeks.  The program has worked wonders for me and helped me to continue to build strength and muscle without getting hurt.  HUGE benefit to me.  Previously getting hurt or feeling hurt was a regular thing.  A very regular thing.  This program has me working my strength and mobility so I can learn to do things like the Pistol Squat and Hand Stand Push Ups, which are both goals.  Do I possibly have the strength to do these things now?  Maybe... mobility though is a whole other problem.  I'm getting there though.  Things are improving a little more each and every day.

Today I had another BodPod test, just to see what type of progress I've made since I did one back in December.  I went from 182lbs to 172lbs in 3 months thanks to ETP and P90x.  Now it was time to see what results I could see while actually increasing my caloric intake and switching to a 100% bodyweight workout routine.  The results were FAR greater than anything I had expected.  I'm down another 6lbs.  Actually at the appointment I weighed in at 165.7lbs, which is the lightest weight I've been in 15 or so years.  I gained 4lbs of muscle and lost 9lbs of fat.  BOOM!!!!  Carbs are evil??  Tell that to my results!

This was Dec 10, 2016.  After I had lost 10lbs doing ETP and P90x.

This is today, April 29, 2017.  Another 6lbs lost doing ETP and Mastering GST, with my caloric intake actually going up!

That is no joke to me.  Could not be happier with my progress!  Want to make fun of me for weighing and measuring my food?  Sure.  Go right ahead.   Want to talk smack about me logging my food?  I'm good with that too.  I'm following a plan from people who are in a lot better shape/condition than I am.  They are showing me the way to FUEL my body.  While at the same time not deprive myself from anything I may want.  I want cake?  OK, have it.  I want pop tarts, OK enjoy... (seems like a lot of desserts make it here, you get the point though).  There are no "off limits" foods.  It's "here's your macros and find foods that fit that".  Obviously more nutrient dense foods will fill you up better than crap, but I can still enjoy some crap completely guilt free.  :)  It is working.  It is a lifestyle I am comfortable with and really enjoying.  In the end that is what its about.  Finding the lifestyle you want to live and live it to the max.

Now all these paper results look good, but what about the real product?  How does the body look?  For me, its not there yet.  It is not where I want it to be, but no question it has come a LONG way.
Here is a link to my day 1 P90x pictures:

Before Pics

Here are a couple of progress pictures I took a couple of weeks ago:

April 14th Progress Pics

I'm going to keep pushing and my next goal is to get below 20% body fat.  It is going to be hard.  It is going to require me to continue to work hard with my workouts.  I'll need to continue to pay attention to my nutrition and work with the coaches to dial in what is and isn't working for my body.  I've got another BodPod test planned for around September.  I'm hopeful a very active summer can help get me to where I want to be.   Until then....