Week 3 - 21 days and lost 8.7 lbs in bodyfat - Horray!!

Hi, apologies for the late update but had a bit of a bad weekend and pick up Norovirus from my girlfriend whcih really messed my nutrition up.

So 21 days has passed and what changed? Well a lot but first just to clear a few things and ammend so goals.

I been doing 5 days IF with 2 days carb loading for. This been great for week 1 and week 2 and come Mondays\Tuesdays I get great pump doing compound exercises. My muscles are full and gained easily 2-3 lbs during loading.

BUT I have noticed my stamina, energy and strength has increased dramatically during the 5 days that I fast, I never experience a improvement so quick ever! I am loving training in fasted state.

So I decided to stop the 2 days carb loading for the next 2 weeks and do full 7 days IF at 20hours with 4 hours eating window. I want to explore and experience carb depletion for full week and train as normal and see if this impact on current stats.

The 20h/4h seems to be my sweet spot in regards to losing fat at minimum loss of lean mass. I have tried different variations starting with 16/8 then 18/6 and even 22/2 but 20/4 works for me as I train 5 times a week at 3.30pm, my first meal of the day is at 5.00pm and second meal at 8.30pm

During the last 10 days I can report that mentally I am very focused, only in the morning at bit lazy as my baby son wakes me up at 6.00am everyday. Once up, black coffee, water + bcaa and ready for the day. I have been recording stats twice a day so I can tweak my nutrition and one thing that I have been struggling is getting my daily amount of good fats and still come within my calorie target. Getting protein and keeps carbs below 50g not a problem but because 1g of fat got 9 calories, I had to change my meals.

I now get my fats from avocado, peanuts, walnuts, peanut butter, pumpkin and sesame seeds, good olive oil and olives. Any more ideas, please let me know

I also noticed that I am easily drinking 9 litres of water. I got 5 x 2 litre bottles in the fridge and everytime I got out I always take one. In the morning I have been using Ketosis urine strips and it shows that I am at 0.5 (level 2 of 6) meaning that atthe moment I am properly hydrated and body is using fats for energy.

The biggest change has been the strength levels. I have been doing deadlift, squats and bench presses, using heavy weight, doing 4-7 sets at 12,10,8 reps and I can truly say that when I do my sets I am more confortable hitting my target weight and have increased it by 20% across all 3.

Finally I am more carbs aware when shopping, taking care and challenge myself to create a meal with the lowest carbs possible and still hit the set protein, fats and calories for the day.

Always prep my meals in advance, this been working well as I only eat twice a day. When I cook, I prepare 3/4 days worth and dont have to worry about it when I come back from my work outs.I gone so far as much to stop buying chewing gum as I sometimes would got through 2/3 pack a day.

So my stats, where I'm at:

Weight: 238.09 lbs

Fat (26.5%) 61.90 lbs (its been 3 years at least since I had at 26.5% bodyfat) Horray!

Lean Mass 176.19

BMI: 31.7

Overall since the start of IF on 4th May, I have lost 8.16 lbs in 21 days. I gained 0.61 lbs in lean mass but most important I lost 8.77 lbs in bodyfat (2.7%)

Now looking at this a few things is clear. Through the 21 days my lean mass gains were up and down. Sometimes I would lose weight but my % bodyfat was the same so lost lean mass. Other times I gained weight and both % bodyfat and lean mass increased. I had to tweak my nutrition meals and cardio training.

My bodyfat loss was consistant which was great and my overall weight loss was fat. My set goal was to lower my bodyfat and I am getting there and now my weekly target is as followed:

Weight loss per week: 2.72 lbs

Lean mass gain per week: 0.20 lbs

Fat loss per week: 2.92 lbs

To achieve this my nutrition plan once again has changed so here my calories break down for the day:



BMR: 2239
BMR+Activity: 3470
Target BMR with diet: 2776


Fat 1805 201
Protein 777 194
Carbs 194 49
Total 2776
Let me know your thoughts, advice and ideas.

I really taken this as a life style and I am lucky to have a very understanding girlfriend. My family who are Portuguese and huge food eaters are more reserved on the matter but have commented on noticed appearance changes.

I also do my workouts in my local gym where bodybuilders train and when discussion opens to nutrition and I talk about IF I was surprised how they reacted. Most of them do it in prep to competitions but choose to eat 5/6 times a day as it is their way of life and works for them. Others dismissed IF as it is a total waste of time and effort but were keen to see any results in upcoming weeks. I respect both views but IF works for me and been getting great results while doing it.

Tomorrow I update photos and add video diary for week 3 so you can be the judge.

I have done a lot of research but again I am fairly new to this, and anyone with experiences in IF, I would love to hear your story and what you experienced within the first month and how you kept it going once you reached your goal.

Cheers

Sergio

Hi, I done a lot of research online and also looked into Lean Gains.com. One free ebook which I found good solid information was byDr. John M. Berardi with Dr. Krista Scott-Dixon and Nate Green called Experimenting with Intermittent Fasting. Look it up on Precisionnutrition.com. Download it, its inpdf format and got real useful information as experiments were carried out trying several IF combinations.
Blog updated with picture comparison at:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/rodrigs2013

Hope this helps.
Sergio