Thoughtful Tuesday - 22

So I'm entering in to my 4th week of this diet and to be honest I have relaxed it a bit at the weekend, because, well I wanted a bit of a life! I'm still strict during the week but the weekend I'll eat a bit more. Now my weight has pretty much leveled out which I'm not too fussed about. What has been interesting is that my arms and chest have gotten bigger while their skin folds have gone down. That's a nice little bonus as that is a clear indicator that I've put some muscle on. I'm not too surprised at that fact seeing as my numbers all round have been going up on all major lifts, bench, deadlift, squat, pull ups. That's for both repping and weight. So I'm not at all surprised that I've put some muscle on. I guess if you followed the normal way of thinking this would be impossible as I am in a calorie deficit so how can I be getting bigger and stronger?! Well I actually think that the answer to this is very simple, as long as you time your meals and macronutrient breakdowns right in order to maximise recovery and repair then there is no reason why you can't grow at the same time as losing body fat. This is hard to do for sure but it is possible.

Now on to the not so good news. Like I said I relaxed the protocol at the weekend, now I say relaxed, when throwing it out of the window would probably be a better description! So anyway, I didn't over eat or anything but the majority that I did eat wasn't the best choices and of course there was the booze. What is interesting is where this, albeit temporary fat went. I lost skinfolds everywhere except around my waist line. Now I find this interesting for a couple of reasons. Firstly it shows to me that when there is a hint of bad food/booze going in to my system it goes to my tum (and probably lower back) no surprise there. Secondly, like I said I didn't over eat at the weekend, if anything I didn't eat that much but it was all the wrong stuff, on top of that there was a fair amount of booze. So that just goes to show that you don't always need to eat too much to put on body fat in your "preferred" storage sites. It's all down to choice. Similarly you can probably over eat, in a sense, of the right foods and not put on body fat.

So it really is down to choice, just make sure that 90% of the time you make the right one and you'll be fine!

J