“Pulling the food lever” transformation log

[Mfras]

I’ll start with a TLDR then move into way too many words unless you’re taking the crap of your life on company time:

PEDs are great fun- they’re why most of us are here, and optimized training & recovery should be a given, but perhaps our most powerful lever to pull to affect body composition is FOOD! This log is meant to document my adventures, progress, and missteps as I move from ending an epic cut into maintenance then attempt to lean bulk on and off cycle.

Ok so that’s my thesis. Here comes the long part. Because this is the nutrition subforum that’s my primary topic but let’s get the other awesome shit out of the way.

I train 5x week, LISS and heavy lifting and keep it mostly boring and repetitive with some fun mixed in on top, always exploring maximum recoverable stimulus & volume. Could it be better? Of course, always. But I fucking show up like clockwork, work hard, and pay attention to always making progress, and mostly avoid new nagging injuries.

I drink 1-1.5gal water a day, get my sleep, and stretch.

I keep my suppliment stack really simple- fish/krill oil, multivitamin, zinc, creatine, and pm magnesium.

I pay attention to bloodwork, performance, energy levels, and log my lifts, tailor’s tape, daily AM bodyweight with an eye on the center of the cluster inside normal water flux, and get a few dexa scans a year.

Right now I’m on 160mg testC split tues/fri with no AI, 5mg reta/week, 6.6mg GH split am/pm, 40mg telmisartan & 10mg cialis/day.

I’m 6’3” and 240lbs this morning. Last 2 dexas had me at 210 then 213 fat free mass so I’m calling it 212.25lbs FFM which I’m taking conservatively and saying I’m currently at 12% fat.

I started getting into the bodybuilding lifestyle because after a fucked up motorcycle wreck and the pandemic I hit an all time high of 355lbs. I’ve been super dialed in for years now, cutting around 120lbs and gaining a lot of solid muscle. Did some ill advised short duration fat guy cycles here and there too that were actually really productive.

Currently around 5lbs from finishing my cut- whatever that looks like is fine although I am trying to hit a spot where the last major ugly fat deposits that are hanging on to the bitter end are mostly gone. Even though dexa has me at 12% or lower my physique is fucked because I am old and was fat my whole life. I was also super active though and although it cursed me with terrible skin it blessed me with a ton of lower body and trunk strength- as if I wore a 120lb weight vest for decades and finally took it off. If only I had been walking on my hands jesus I’d be jacked to death.

Ok so that’s kind of all the baseline shit. Now we finally get to the actual topic- FOOD!

I use the paid MyFitnessPal app and log everything that goes in my mouth. I’m at ≈5-6lbs left before I feel like I’ll reach a tipping point where fucked skin looks worse than less fat, at what the dexa says will be around high 10%. I am eating 2000-2100cal/day and hitting a minimum of 210g protein and 60g fat. The rest is carbs. When I was truely a fat fuck that was over 1.5lbs/week but at current body comp it’s looking more like .8-.9lbs/ week.

Here’s a pic then that’s more than enough for a first post- nobody wants to read war & peace and I’ll fill in more about my progress and future plans later in other posts that are also way way too long!

 

[Mfras]

New measurements today. This is how I track tailor’s tape metrics

 

[Mfras]

Here’s a taste of my food planning in the current phase. Pun intended. I’m already planning way ahead but right now at 2000-2100/day I’m losing .7-1.2ish lbs a week.

Hard to tell exactly because I just pulled the last easy cutting lever I was saving- under reported creamer in my coffee. My intake was consistent but the two things I under report in my food logging were peanut butter- about 2tbsp/day logged pretty consistently but I hate scraping out a measuring spoon so my tbsp is probably really 1.5tbsp. Anyway, I cut out the creamer entirely and started using 30g protein 150cal fairlife choc shakes as AM creamer and drinking afternoon coffee black. Fat loss had slowed to around .7lbs/week and I wanted to kick that up without drama so I cut my reported intake goal from 2100-2170 and now I’m hitting 2000-2100 daily plus probably 150-200cal of hidden unreported creamer cals consistently every day. So far this move I had been saving is totally working- maybe around the same effect as starting clen but totally healthy and I won’t develop a tolerance to it after a few weeks

I’m trying to maximize my cut speed but balance that with gym performance, enjoying life, and hunger misery. So far so good!

So the dexa was an important tool for setting smaller mental goals and motivation. Like navigating a ship and having marker buoys to hit along the way. But I know it’s theoretical and as I get close to my goal sailing this ship I’m gonna have to watch the shore and the dock, not navigate into my docking slip with sea charts and stars. So pinch feel, tailor’s tape, mirror, photo check ins, and unforgiving clothing fit are more the current tools. Nevertheless, dexa has me currently crossing into 11% even if it’s a shitty looking “11%”.

Got like 5-6 more lbs to cut or reassess- 237/238 is my goal weight but if back fat is still present I’ll cut deeper.

So here’s the interesting part- I’ve been in a deficit forever and while I prioritize pwo carbs the overall environment is generally glycogen depleted and flat. Whenever I call the cut over and go to maintenance I know there will be a new normal with maybe 3 or more lbs of water & glycogen coming onboard.

I don’t want to overestimate maintenance cals and start spilling right away, and I don’t want to make any other changes or react to the initial bump in scale weight that’ll hopefully be a fuller cleaner look and not increase waistline much at all. So my plan is to increase to a projected ≈90% of maintenance calories with more carbs, hit that number on the nose every day, and stay there for a couple weeks while some chaos and rebound happens on the bathroom scale. If after a month I’m down say 1/4-1lb from where ever that settles then I did it right.

By then I’ll have my bloodwork results scheduled for next week back and I can adjust my gh dose, see if e2 settled in a good spot since I’m trying lowest ever 160mg TRT with no AI at my leanest ever, and see if any other values need more time and attention before I’m greenlit for my next cycle.

Hopefully with maintenance food back in I’ll enjoy increased progressive overload and have a fuller look that will be here to stay. I’m planning to get a new dexa after some successful maintenance too so I can establish a baseline before a lean bulking cycle, which will attempt to be in a tight surplus so I don’t need a harsh mini cut after.