Weight lifting philosophy.

I started doing something a little different with my routine that I don’t normally try and I’ve seen pretty good results, so I decided to share it with anyone who wants to read it. I usually gain weight in the winter and this is the first winter…I think ever where the opposite has happened. In fact, I’ve dropped down to a lean 175 lbs (I’m 5’9) with a body fat of 15%, which is pretty good for a guy, and I’ll likely lose more fat.

First of all, I’m fairly sedentary most of the time, believe it or not. This brings me to the first point, which is 70-80% of physique is diet and nothing more. The way to get a lean build is to multiply your ideal weight by 10-12, but I’d say 12, because we’re talking ideal weight and not actual weight. If I want to weigh about 180 lbs., I’d multiply that by 12 and have a 2000 calories diet. From here I balance the caloric intake by measuring my food each evening to take with me the next day. The new ratio I played with is 40% protein, 30% carbohydrate, and 30% fat. I don’t know of anyone else who advocates this balance, but I think it’s perfect for the student or white collar person who isn’t that active, but wants to lift weights and a jog a little some days. I increased my fat and decreased my carbohydrates, and the reason this has caused so much weight loss is because I’m sedentary, so the excess carbs don’t turn into fat, and at the same time the fat and protein fill me up longer. This is good because high carbohydrate diets can cause diabetes, and diets high in saturated fat can cause high cholesterol. I just add a lot of olive oil to my food. I even put it in protein shakes (it tastes amazing). Other things to take note of are I have six small meals a day to keep the metabolism running, and to spread protein intake out to every few hours so it all absorbs the best it can. All the food of course is whole grains, vegetables, and lean meats with my shakes, and no processed stuff. Believe it or not, it only costs me about $30-40 a week for food to eat this clean.

Second of all, I changed my lifting routine in a way I never have that has shown great progress. Since I’m not eating a high calorie diet anymore, I found myself losing a lot of strength in the gym as my weight dropped. Part of this is obviously less fuel, but the other part is less carbohydrates for energy to run on. All I did to keep strength up was to do less. If you aren’t noticing a pattern, it’s that less it actually more in a lot of ways. Fewer calories are more shape and a bigger look. Even as you get smaller you look bigger, because as you get more defined it creates an illusion of size when muscle jumps out. Doing fewer sets in the gym and getting to the heaviest set as quick as possible is the other secret to staying strong when on lower calorie intake. What I do now it lift very heavy on the basic movements of bench, squat, and deadlift, and I get to the heaviest set within the least warm up sets needed. For example, a regular day at the gym would include starting with a flat bench doing 3 sets of 3. I’ll start with one set with a plate on each side, another set with 30lbs. less than the max weight, and then the max weight. For the incline bench I only do 30lbs. less than the max weight for one set, and then go right to the heaviest set, because I warmed up on the flat already. After this I can 2 sets of 8-12 on the lighter movements. I’ll do a couple sets of dips with a warm up and then a heavy, and finally a couple sets of curls, where one set is 30 lbs. less than the max followed by one max set of curls. The workouts only last 30 to 45 minutes, but the strength gains work great, and with the combination of fat loss it makes the muscles jump right out. You only need to do three days of these short lifting routines a week to get the whole body and jog a couple miles a couple days a week for cardio. The rest is all in the food.