My BKI for Friday December 3, 2010 are…

Body weight: 146.9 lbs (-0.7).

Until next post, Lift Consciously

My BKI for Friday November 26, 2010 are…

Body weight: 147.6 lbs (-2).

Until next post, Lift Consciously

My BKI for Friday November 19, 2010 are…

Body weight: 149.6 lbs.

A quick recall about the tools I use to manage my BKI:

• BIA: I use a Withings WiFi body scale.
• J/P3: I use a Slim Guide fat caliper.

For J/P3 calculation, I always go to Linear Software website. And by the way, they also sell Slim Guide calipers.

Until next post, Lift Consciously

From my understanding, ESE is quit simple. All I have to do are mini fasts (24 hrs each), once or twice per week and make sure I also do resistance training (to preserve lean mass). For training, Brad suggests 2-3 times per week.

My goals for this experiment are:

1. How ESE compares with a “classic” constant calorie deficit diet (my Quebec experiment #2)?
2. Will I preserve all my hard-earned muscle, as Brad says in the book?
3. And a more subjective goal, can I convert the diet into a lifestyle?

I’m really curious about goal #2. Last time I did a fast, it was a disaster: almost half of my loss was lean mass! I must tell that the fast was a week long (which is crazy, I know).

The duration of this experiment is again 3 month. And yes, it will conflict with Christmas vacations… My rational for doing this anyway is there are conflicts all the time. I cannot wait for the perfect time to start doing things.

My current schedule looks like this:

• Monday and Thursday: Fast.
• Tuesday and Friday: strength training.
• Wednesday: cardio.

I plan to take my BKI (body weight, fat%, fat and lean mass) on Fridays and will start this Friday, Nov. 19.

Until then, Lift Consciously

The goal of this experiment#2 was for me to drop my fat % down to 15. By looking to my latest BKI, I think we can call it a draw…

According to my “BIA-T” at 16.9%, it’s a near miss.  But if I compute the average for the 3 methods, I’m pretty close to my goal (15.3%)!

Here’s a graph that shows how my BKI evolved over the 3 month period:

And a data grid of the exact numbers:

(All weights in lbs.)

What are my take home lessons? Difficult to say, in fact…

I did not make this experiment in a controlled environment. I was mixing it with the “usual me”. I’m the kind of guy who have a tendency to go overboard without even thinking about it. I was, I think (even if I took no record about my intakes), on a constant calorie deficit.

So, after the fact, it’s no surprise I lost 10.36 lbs of fat (FM). The other fact is I lost 3.84 lbs (the target was zero lbs!) of muscle (LM). That should not be a surprise either.

My take home lesson would be this. It wasn’t that difficult to lose weight after I made the choice (or was able?) to be in a constant calorie deficit. The difficult part was the dark side of it: lean mass loss. But again, this was my choice.

My priority was to drop fat % and this is what I got…

On a final note, I suggest you read this post by Rusty Moore about “How to Gain Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time”.

Until next post, Lift Consciously

My BKI for Thursday May 20, 2010 are…

These results are interesting. According to the BIA-T method, I managed to lose almost 1.5 lbs of fat (1.44). Even more interesting is that I almost preserved my lean mass in the process (a loss of 0.16 lb).

Until next post, Lift Consciously

My BKI for Tuesday May 4, 2010 are…

All weights (mass) are in lbs.

Legend:
BIA-T = Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis with a body scale from Taylor brand
BIA-W = BIA using a body scale from Withings brand
J/P3 = Jackson/Pollock 3 sites caliper method.

The now quasi-usual week: I lost about a lb of fat (1.24) and let go 3/4 lb of lean mass… And again, this is good and bad news. Like I wrote a couple of posts ago, this is probably the high cost of low body fat! Well, for me at least.

Until next post, Lift Consciously

My BKI for Tuesday April 27, 2010 are…

All weights (mass) are in lbs.

In this post, I’m introducing a major change: I now use 2 BIA scales! BIA-T is the body scale I’ve been using for awhile and is the current official scale. It’s a “Body Fat Analyzer And Scale” from Taylor brand. Hence the “-T”. BIA-W is my new “Wifi Body Scale Connected to The Internet” from Withings. Thus the “-W”.

Why 2 scales? Well, this goes with TrainAtHomeGuru.com Mission to experiment. But also, Withings seems to catch more market momentum, so I figured that now was the right time to make the move. I will certainly stop using the Taylor scale at the end of my current Quebec Experiment.

OK, enough said about gadgets. This week is good. I lost a bit more than a lb of fat (1.23). Unfortunately, I let go half a lb of muscle (0.57). This is my Karma…

Finally, the difference between the BIA-T and J/P3 methods is somewhat significant (2.85%), again. But the interesting thing is that BIA-W and J/P3 are almost the same (15.9 vs 15.45). I’m curious to see if I will repeat this similitude next week.

Until then, Lift Consciously

My BKI for this week are…

Weighing on Tuesday April 20, 2010: 150 lbs (-1)

This week isn’t too bad. I managed to loose close to a lb of fat (0.79) and a tad of muscle (0.21 lb). But again, the difference between the 2 methods is significant (3.01%).

I should not go crazy about the difference. All methods have some error margin. It’s not like if numbers go in every directions. At each measurement, the trend is usually the same or very close. Which is, in the end, what counts.

Until next post, Lift Consciously

My BKI for this week are…

Body weight on Monday April 12, 2010: 151 lbs (-0.4)

The difference between the 2 methods is more than what it was in the previous weeks. This is a bit of a surprise since I was having very similar numbers. Not really a problem, though, because one thing is clear: I’m losing fat!

Until next post, Lift Consciously