Achievement Unlocked: Fitness Milestone #1 Is In The Bag 💪
I did it! After a great deal of effort with workouts and diet customization, I finally hit my first fitness milestone on my way to end goal of 175-180 lbs at 9% body fat. This milestone required me to bulk to a fairly lean 165 lbs, which I was able to lock in on 10/4/22! Let’s get into where I started, what changed to help me get to 165, and what my plan is from here.
And yes, that was a Harry Potter reference in the title. Mischief Managed!
Finishing 75 Hard
147 pounds. That was my weight when I finished 75 Hard, which I wrote about in detail in my review of the program. I felt great, was in great shape, and thought I looked great, but looking back now I think I looked small and frail. I’m proud of what I was able to accomplish, but I wanted to push myself to be bigger, not just defined. That’s where I decided that I wanted to get big and actually meet my goals of being lean and ripped. For 16 years I’ve told myself I’d bulk, do it right, and cut to show my hard work…but I always lost my way and my motivation. This time is going to be different.
What Changed?
A lot, to be honest. I’ve properly educated myself on proper warmup, goal achievement, and nutrition. I realized that I need to track everything and hold myself accountable to make it through the boring middle. Above all, though, I found that I need to have milestones to celebrate along the way.
I’ve always cheered myself on when I hit a personal record on a lift or hit a certain weight, but without something extra this didn’t motivate me. This time I’m changing it up by doing a cut when I hit each milestone so I can track the actual muscle growth underneath the extra weight.
What’s The Plan To Cut The Fat?
My plan is to cut my calories down to 25% of my TDEE, which was easy to determine using the free daily calorie calculator I built for this site. I adjusted my macros to the proper ratio for fat loss and decided to introduce 30 minutes of medium-intensity walking before every workout.
Here’s a summary:
- Wake up at 4:30am instead of 5am to get a 30-minute, 3mph low-incline walk in before each workout
- Work out 6 mornings a week
- Monday: Rest
- Tuesday: Yoga/Stretching
- Wednesday: Shoulders
- Thursday: Bis and Tris
- Friday: Chest
- Saturday: Back
- Sunday: Legs
- Reintroduce intermittent fasting
- No food before 8:00am
- My morning metabolism-boosting coffee is the exception. MCT oil doesn’t count toward the fast and helps me stay satiated longer
- No food after 6:00pm
- No food before 8:00am
- Reintroduce carbohydrate timing
- Reduce calories from 3,100/day to 2,103/day
- Adjust macros from bulking ratio to cutting ratio
- 20% Fat / 40% Carbs / 40% Protein
- Continue drinking at least 1 gallon of water every day
- Track everything. Every workout and every gram of food eaten
- Take a progress picture every morning to create a progress timelapse at the end
What’s The End Goal For The Cut?
My aim is to get myself down to around 9% body fat while losing as little muscle as possible. Some muscle atrophy is unavoidable when on a caloric deficit, but my aim is to mitigate this as much as possible with proper nutrition and workout intensity.
I don’t have a goal weight. My success will be determined by my body fat percentage and how I feel about the way I look, not a number.
What’s Next After You Hit The Next Fitness Milestone?
The feeling of achievement will be huge, but short-lived. My plan is to lean out and feel motivated by the result of my hard work putting on more muscle, but I have a very serious goal of maximizing the weight I put on by next September. I’ll be doing things things the right way (no cheating, no PEDs, no rushing), so I can’t waste time sitting at a weight that doesn’t meet my end goal.
I always need to be pushing forward to be better.
Conclusion
If you made it through, thanks for reading! I’m crazy motivated to push through this experiment and show you what can be done with proper nutrition, exercise, and discipline as long as you stick to it. My readers are a big part of why I get so excited about this, so thank you for being one of them!
