Kishi

Yup. Get your carbs from delicious sources, and then save them up until after you work out. It gives you incentive to go to work despite yourself. At least, it works that way for me. Maybe it'll help you too.

Yeah. Supplementation helps. It's good in particular if you're working out while fasted, but it's almost a little much if you're working out after having managed to get some food into you, so.

Welcome! We've got a guild set up for Assassins on down below. You want to stop on by, we'd be happy to see you!

Heck yes. I like seeing this.

I can't speak exactly to which formula works best. If you use the IF Calculator, and you plug in your body fat percentage, it automatically assumes that formula for you. I don't know if that's going to work for you or not. Your calculations regarding the deficit are correct.

Loren's going to beat me up for this one, but Daily Burn has a tracking app that I've found suitable for the task. It's pretty easy to work with - you track how many servings of whatever you eat, search for it in a database, plug in how many servings you ate, and it goes from there. The app uses a similar circular graph that adjusts depending on what you've eaten, and it's quite helpful. It's also apparently not prone to the same serving misunderstandings that you run into with other apps.

As someone who lives in the state of NC, I'd just like to point out that this doesn't surprise me at all. At all. Government in this state is pretty big, and it's getting bigger now that more people are moving down here. There is some good in it, make no mistake, but all the same it makes a move every now and again that makes me pause and wonder, "... really?"

Not a skill so much as a habit: be sure to throw a combination or something at least once per day. It will help you immensely.

Eeeeh... not quite. They do offer resistance through the motion, provided that your motion is carrying your body in such a way that the band is forced to tighten in response. If your direction causes the band to slack, it diminishes the resistance the band offers. If your range of motion is sufficient, you can negate the influence of the band entirely. I'm just saying.

Agreed. It's as if people don't actually acknowledge that they have different goals, and that this is totally okay.

Well, if you hang around here long enough, someone will talk about how the long time between progressions is absolutely what kills the Convict Conditioning System. The patience will be rewarded, but there are a lot of people out here who will say that this patience is really unnecessary. Still, it's a good system for what it is. It does a great job of identifying what parts you can work, and gives a pretty solid base of exercises to level them up. Take what you can from it, learn from it, and move on to the next thing.

So, I took aj's advice, and something interesting happened. I decided to play around with the measurements some to see what it would take to hit the measurements he figured I was at. By expanding the measurable area, and eliminating the use of the 'clicker' on the caliper, I've been able to find a measurement of about 14.3%. Given that the calipers have a 1.1% margin of error, erring on the high side gives me a measurement of 15.4% - very close to the mathematical model he described. Obviously I'll need more practice, and I intend to keep running the measurements on a day by day basis, but. I just wanted to give a heads up.

Nah, I hear you man. My roommate plays most of those. It's a fun way to be.

Dude, that's awesome! Congratulations!

I'm hoping that the park I'm eyeing for training at the moment is half as good as that one. I just want a pull up bar that's high off the ground. That's all I want. You lucked out!

Oh, I agree. Wholeheartedly. Like I said. I have a hard time accepting that these results are accurate. Here's the caliper model that I'm using, if that gives you any insight. Frankly, the fact that I can't really see my abs convinces me that I'm nowhere near the totals that my measurements indicate. Still, I'm open to suggestions. Do you have anything in mind that might help my measurements? Or is my caliper-fu... not strong?

But I want to know now!

Huh. Will not use the blogging format? So what happens, then? Are they all just going to disappear? Also: new challenge! It's gonna be awesome!

That is a wise idea. I've been counting my martial arts training days as general exercise days, but I only counted the strength training days as workouts for the purposes of the protocol. Mark Sisson, in his book on Primal fitness, draws a distinction between conditioning for sports and lifting heavy things. So you'd use your rest day macros on days when you aren't strength training, and save your work day macros for when you lift the heavy things. I dunno if that would work for you, but, I mean. Maybe that could be a starting place for you? Find what works for you!

That does work with the next challenge coming up. Fantastic timing! I'll keep you guys as up to date as I can. Frankly, I'm actually a little surprised at how effective the system appears to be, even if you aren't exactly one hundred percent true to the numbers that end up getting listed. It seems to work with some degree provided that you keep the calories in mind and do your best to follow the macro proportions instead of just the numbers. So even if you end up with more carbs than you meant to, it's okay, provided that the vast majority of your calories come from fatty and protein sources. Good luck, everyone. I'll keep you posted.

That's a good way to look at it.

All right, so, since this is the place to be for Leangains-related stuff, I figure I might as well post some progress. At the end of one week of properly following the protocol, I have managed to cut myself from 16.3% bodyfat down to 12.7%. This according to skin fold caliper measurements. My weight has dropped from 172 lbs down to 170. Two things that were immensely helpful to making this work were the calculator and the Daily Burn tracking app, which is free. This week was mostly about dialing it in and getting used to getting the proper macro amounts on the recommended days. I've been getting my body used to eating lots of protein again, which is a very fine process apparently. Anything in the 100-110 region seems to be just fine. I go too far beyond that range, and it's paint-peeling time. I also wasn't perfect in hitting the exact macro amounts each day. I'd underestimated the carb load in a full pack of vegetables, not to mention that most nuts which are good for fat come with some carbohydrates as well. There were also a few days this week where I went out to do fast food. The past couple days I did, in particular, due to friends and work respectively, and those two days absolutely wrecked my ratios for the day. It really puts things in perspective. I had no idea I was taking in so many calories and wrecking my ratios so thoroughly whenever I went out. Friday in particular, I went out to Wendy's and ordered more than I should have. I ended up starting the fast early to make up for it and pulled... I think a 19 or 20 hour fast to make up for it. I think that mitigated the damage somewhat, and doing karate that night helped to burn some of the extra off. Even so. I think I'mma start going for smaller things when I go out to those places. On the other hand, though, I've actually found the past week to be a lot of fun. Putting together the right foods for me to eat that day is like playing Tetris: the Leangains Edition, and eating this way has allowed me to put a lot of variety back into my diet that I had lost and didn't realize I was missing. My exercises are coming along as well, but this is a diet thread so I won't change the subject. So, while this has been an exciting week, I suspect that this is equivalent to newbie gains in a strength training program. Newbie losses, I guess? Well, regardless, I suspect this is going to get harder in the next week, since I'll only have a couple of days for strength training to work with. Still, that just makes it interesting, right? How's everyone else doing?

Nice! What games do you play? Any we would have heard of?

After a week of doing Leangains on a mostly Primal diet, I can safely conclude that the secret to carbs is fourfold: 1) Sweet Potatoes 2) Dates 3) Pineapple 4) Honey That is all.

Holy... did we just see that?