Okay, here’s the dealio.
I need to cut some weight. I’ve been losing weight pretty slowly over the past few months, although I’ve definitely seen some changes in my body fat percentage (waist size went from 29” to 26.5”; ass went from 41” to 39”, chest went from 40” to 38”, and my legs now fit into size 6 jeans). I started at 70.5kg (155lbs) in September; I now weigh in anywhere between 147 and 150lbs (67.3kg-68kg). My lifts have also been improving — I have no problem squatting 175lbs, ass-to-grass, consistently (1RM is at 85kg or 187lbs), whereas before 155lbs was the best I could do to parallel. So, clearly, I’m getting smaller and denser and stronger, but I’m still at a fairly high body fat percentage and it’s not really helping me out very much.
I have eight weeks and five days until February 4th, my next competition. I’d like to compete in the 63kg class, which probably means something like dropping to 64-ish kilos and then not drinking water before the day of, but I want to get as close as I can so I don’t have to do anything drastic. This means dropping a little over a pound a week, which is certainly doable, while still improving my lifts.
My nutrition is pretty good: my food is low in carbs except around workout times, minimally processed, and high in protein and fats. I eat a shitton of vegetables, avoid grains, and eat minimal dairy. I don’t buy into the paleo dogma, but I feel like they make a few good points, and I pay attention to them when I can. I just need to be a bit more careful about caloric intake, skew things towards getting more protein (which is tough when you’re poor), and incorporate more conditioning along with my lifting. This will consist of high intensity work such as kettlebells, box jumps, burpees, sprints, and jumping rope. I already walk a fair bit, but I’ll start doing that more often as well. I’m also going to try and improve my bodyweight skills, which aren’t super fantastic, but should get better once I get a little smaller.
I’m not much of a Christmas overeater (it’ll be more of a problem reigning in my booze intake once exams are done), so I should be okay in that regard. I might need to adjust my strength work a little bit (more recovery time, triples and fives instead of singles and doubles), but we’ll see how that goes. I have no plans to continue losing weight after I hit a range of 135-140lbs consistently — historically, that’s a weight I’ve felt the most comfortable at, and I have enough muscle that I should be at a pretty good body fat percentage by then. BMI will still consider me overweight, or just about to be, but what the hell does BMI know?
Let’s do this.
