Took Sunday off entirely, just rested, ate some food, relaxed.....
Okay, interesting news....
I saw my nutritionist today...hadn't seen him in just over 3 months!!! His initial observation was that I looked leaner & lighter, he guessed I'd lost about 5 pounds. He always does his pre-lim observation. He said:
My arms looked larger AND more defined & cut
My stomach looked leaner and I had some ab's starting to show
My quads looked ridiculously huge
I got on the scale, both of us expecting a modest loss, maybe 3-7 pounds.
I had gained nearly 5 pounds!!!!!
Then he took out the body-fat calipers and we found that I'd lost just a wee bit of body-fat, and that he was pinching me at 12.1%....but let us remember that he's just pinching the subcutaneous fat under the skin, he's only pinching me in 3 areas and the calipers (at least his) tend to measure lower then most means.
Yes, my knee injury set me back on my exercise, but I had compensated with lowering my calories and doing more swimming & upper-body weight-training. But still, after 3 months I was EXTREMELY disappointed with a gain in overall weight.
Of course, my nutritionist tried to assure me that I've not gained fat and it must be a combination of muscle, water and what-not....but it wasn't fat AND the fact that I looked leaner, lighter, had better definition and larger arms means I should be celebrating...but I just don't feel it.
Not to worry, I'm not going to quit....but seriously, I'm at 14-16 hours per week of exercise and I'm eating about 2,150 calories per day maximum and maintaining a solid deficit. I just don't get it. FWIW, my nutritionist (who I'm gonnna just start calling Alan and presume you guys know this)....Alan said of ALL his clients, I am by far the most challenging one ever, bar none!
The only thing I can being to work with is that most people just lose fat and do some exercise...whereas I've transformed myself into an athlete. Even now I'm back to doing 2 spin-classes back to back AND swimming a mile...so I crank 3+ hours and keep going. I move heavy weights and...well, I'm just not the fat guy gone skinny, I'm the fat guy gone (can I say this modestly?) buff. So muscle weighs more then fat, blah blah blah. And in the end, my arms, chest, abs and face all look leaner....so I suppose we have to ignore the
DAMN 5 POUND GAIN
and resovlve ourselves to the bigger picture of how I look & feel.
Dammit. I'm now at 233 5' 8"
The other thing we've done is arranged for me to have a DEXA-scan, it is by far the most accurate body-composition analysis short of disection available. Btw, the water tank has all sorts of confounding issues....bone-density, etc...it's hardly as accurate as people think. The DEXA should tell us what's going on, and we found a local place that has this $16k machine and they do it for just $50. Wish I had done it 1 year ago and then every 3 months, but at least we'll have some point to start with.
Overall, Alan feels I have (at most) another 10-15 pounds of fat to lose before I'm "there"....a bit on the chest, a bit around the love-handles and some on my chin/face....aside from that my arms, legs, back and all are firm muscle. Apparently my initial goal of getting below 200 is just not practical.
Alan wants me to take an entire week off from ALL training, he says athletes are supposed to stop for a whole week every 10-12 weeks and that it'll somehow help re-initiate my thyroid, metabolism, etc.
Frustrated, I endeavor to persevere. I think I'll bug Wrangell to see how I can celebrate my weight
GAIN and still see the good side of this....
