Yes – you read that right.
I appear to have gained 5lbs of lean muscle in 8 days.
I re-did my Bio Sig last night and was expecting a marginal drop in muscle mass and an increase in fat.
I was shocked to find that all my body fat measurements had actually dropped a little whilst by weight had gone up by 5 lbs!
It’ll be interesting to see what happens this week and in the recovery week next week – I was expecting most of the results then.
If you’re interested the Bio Sig numbers (my weight in kgs and measurements in mm for chin, cheek, chest, triceps, mid back, mid side, above hip bone, next to belly button, knee, calf, front of thigh and back of thigh, leading to body fat percentage and lean mass) can be seen here (I didn’t do the leg ones last night as they’re not needed for the calculation and I was struggling to stand up):
And you can compare my progress photos below – I think I definitely look ‘fuller’ in the chest and around the shoulders on the second one.
To make sure the difference shown are real, I stood in the same position at the same time with the same lights on having shaved my chest that day.
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Muscle Tip # 3
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So far I’ve talked about controlling all the variables of a workout and only adjusting one or two (Day 3) and working at high intensity (Day 5).
This tip is about nutrition.
To build good muscle you need plenty of protein.
And I mean plenty.
I’m working on 400g a day during these two weeks, but I’d recommending aiming for at least 1g per day per lbs of your body weight.
Breakfast needs to be high in protein and good fats – meat, nuts, egss, etc.
This morning I had two tins of tuna and 8 fried eggs.
On Sunday my girlfriend Alex made me 2 fried eggs, 2 poached eggs, a 4 egg omelette, a tin of tuna and half a pound of beef.
Sounds odd, but once you get used to it, you feel awesome.
I’ve had this type of breakfast for 10 years now and could never go back to cereal, porridge, toast, etc.
I’m also experimenting with a very high carb load before bed – last night I had two bowls of porridge at about 10pm.
This is to drive my insulin levels up for when I’m asleep.
Those of you that follow my other emails will have heard me talk about keeping insulin levels down.
No insulin (as with all other hormones) has a purpose.
It’s there for a reason.
We don’t need to get rid of it – just keep it at an optimum level.
And most people have it high at the worst time – early morning (from all those processed carbs at breakfast).
For this experiment, I’m trying to keep my insulin moderate throughout the day, elevate my cortisol pre-workout and ramp insulin up for sleep.
It really helps sleep too.
A couple of bowls of porridge has me sleeping like a baby 🙂
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Anyhow – that’s another little tip for you.
You can get much more precise, but at the least I’d aim to get protein up to at leat 1g per lbs of body weight with more earlier in the day.
Speak soon,
Jon
P.S. If you’d like to be kept informed of how the experiment is going, please pop your email in below:
