Because of my little plateau, (I've been stuck at 16-17% BF for three weeks) I am going to do a little experiment over the next two weeks.
This involves the following:

1. Continuing to do my normal workouts -- 65-75% heart rate cardio 6 days a week in the morning for 40-45 minutes, lifting 3 days a week, and Continuing to keep a 750-1000 calorie decicent diet

2. Fasting starting saturday night (April 9th) through lunch Sunday (for religous reasons)

3. Adding 3 sessions of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) on my non lifting days. (Note: On these days I will still be doing 45 minutes of cardio in the morning (fasted state))

Click here for the details/pictures/graphs of this experiment (http://www.thesteckers.net/fitness/2weekhiit.html)
What do you think?

You're doing an awful lot on a deficit of 750, but if it's just for two weeks to get over a hump it could work. Stop if it's making you ill. :gl:

the only thing that killed my experiment was the impact of the outside running. make sure you do your biking as much as you can to keep from getting a stress fracture! i cant emphisiz that enuf!

you will also notice your weight drop like a rock! can't wait to see ur after picx since my experiment was terminated.

:gl:

You're doing an awful lot on a deficit of 750, but if it's just for two weeks to get over a hump it could work. Stop if it's making you ill.

Really? Do you think I need to eat more?? Here is what my plan for eating is:

Between 2184 & 2434 Total Calories/day
Between 48g & 54g Fat/day (20%)
Between 261g & 311g Carb/day (48% - 51%)
As close to 175g Protein/day (32% - 32%)


the only thing that killed my experiment was the impact of the outside running. make sure you do your biking as much as you can to keep from getting a stress fracture! i cant emphisiz that enuf!


Ooooo.... good idea on the biking...

I have a 21-speed road bike - is it hard to do HIIT on that?

Really? Do you think I need to eat more?? Here is what my plan for eating is:

Between 2184 & 2434 Total Calories/day
Between 48g & 54g Fat/day (20%)
Between 261g & 311g Carb/day (48% - 51%)
As close to 175g Protein/day (32% - 32%)



To be honest I don't know what's going to happen, which is why I subscribed to the thread. Try it and see - that's the point of experiments.

To be honest I don't know what's going to happen, which is why I subscribed to the thread. Try it and see - that's the point of experiments.

Yup. And a two week experiment really wont have any adverse effects on your over-all health.

So, anyways, here's an update -- last night i did my first of six sessions of Hiit on an exercise bike and it was pure HELL!

But the next morning before my run I felt like I could see more defination in my stomach muscles -- my six pack is starting to peek through.

I may also eat a few hundred less per day then I had been planning on. If you look at my profiles on my website week after week, my plateau seems to start after I bumped my caloric intake to 2400.

So, after these 2 weeks are over I may bring it down to 2000 and get rid of the hiit. Because this just plain sucks. :)

I'd imagine that if I ever get to hell it's just satan forcing everyone to do non-stop hiit. That would suck.

I've also updated my 2-week-experiment page for the last 3 days. Not much different but eh, what can happen in three days?

I was noticing when I was in the hotel I was looking at the mirror and my abs are getting more defined every week. Exciting!

So...

DONE WITH WEEK 1 BABY!!

I feel this week was perfectly executed (at least as closely as possible) And the results are pretty significant. I definatly SLAUGHTERED my plateau, weighing in at 171 this morning. Updated pictures and details on my website as well.

What a tough week. I feel like I went through the meat grinder and my wife is giving me hell because I'm acting like a friggin' mo-mo.

:d_frown: Ack! I just entered in all my stuff and everythings updated on the site, and according to mybodycomp.com the following happened:

Lost 4 lbs from the previous week
Gained .75 lbs of fat from the previous week
Lost 5 lbs of Lean Body mass from the previous week

Doesn't look good - but i think the picture looks good and my total body fat went down...

I'm hoping it's water weight and not any muscle I'm losing there... Any help? Looks like this is turning into a ghost thread... :d_frown:

Its likely water weight, and I bet your BF measurements are off because the water is moving around

You surely didnt lose 5 pounds of muscle. I can easily gain 6-7 pounds and an inch or two with water weight, so dont worry too much.

Mybodycomp uses tape measurements to estimate BF, right? Are you doing the measurements yourself or getting someone else to do it? If you're doing them yourself it's going to be hard to be consistent.

Yeah, the wife does it :)

So - heres another update -- it's tuesday, time for my first hiit of the second week, and my body is tired. Going to rest today and pick it up on thursday.

Ok, the experiment is complete. Click on my webpage for more details, but here is what happened:

Analysis of Experiement: Well, it's tough to tell. As you can see, I lost nearly 5 pounds, divided between fat and lean body mass. I seem to be looking better - My abs seem to be showing better and more definition. Another thing is that I did lower the amount of calories I took in - which was a contributing factor.

Conclusion: I think that 6 days of cardio, 3 days of HIIT and 3 days of Weights per week is quite a bit, especially at only 2100 cals/day. I'm almost positive I lost muscle - I'm lifting about the same and my LBM went down. It definatly shocked my system though!

Start of experiement:
http://www.thesteckers.net/images/jeremy/fitness/april2a.jpghttp://www.thesteckers.net/images/jeremy/fitness/april2b.jpg

Middle of experiment:
http://www.thesteckers.net/images/jeremy/fitness/april9a.jpghttp://www.thesteckers.net/images/jeremy/fitness/april9b.jpg

End of experiment:
http://www.thesteckers.net/images/jeremy/fitness/april17a.jpghttp://www.thesteckers.net/images/jeremy/fitness/april17a.jpg

Nice job man, thats really quite a visual improvement for 2 weeks of work

I wouldnt be so hard on yourself, you probably didnt lose as much LBM as you though. Synthesizing amino acids (muscle tissue), is really one of the last things the body will do to create ATP. It is much more willing to use fat as fuel.

A couple sessions of HIIT isnt going to burn that much muscle.

I might try something similar in the next following weeks, im sort of plateauing in the 180 pound range as well.