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I've been a lurker on Nerd Fitness for quite a while, and finally decided I'd start a thread of my own to track my progress to gain muscle mass while staying lean. Here's a little back story to who I am, and my fitness/diet history. I'm 32 years old, and have 3 daughters with ages 10 years, 2 years, and 15 weeks. I have a wonderfully supportive wife, who does more for me than I deserve. So basically the only males in the house are me and my Alaskan Malamute, so we're quite outnumbered. This will be a long post consisting of my dieting/fitness history, but I'll provide a simple summary of current goals and fitness/diet plan at the end, so feel free to skip the long story section if you want or it gets boring. Long Story: I didn't really get overweight until after I separated from the military in 2006. I was a Seabee in the military (construction), and tended to stay in pretty good shape the majority of the time. I got my college degree, separated from the military, and started working as a Software Engineer a month later. Over several years the weight started piling on, and I topped out at a weight of 192 pounds and 30% body fat in April 2011 due to stress, poor eating habits, and decreased activity. I'm only 5'6" tall, and had typically hovered in the range of 155-165 for my adult life. I decided on 4/9/2011 to get a handle on the weight through a combination of tracking calories, running, and weight training. I moved to maintenance on 8/27/2011 when I made it down to 154 lbs, and a body fat of about 18%. I fluctuated up and down between 146-165 lbs. for the next two years, and focused on increasing my running ability. I ran a 5k, 10k, half marathon, marathon, and finally a 50k during this time. After running the 50k, I decided that I wanted to have a lower body fat and weight than the 155 lbs. and 18% body fat I had fluctuated around up to this point. On 10/14/2013 I dedicated myself to getting down to 145 lbs., and re-evaluating at that point. I reached that goal on 11/6/2013, but my body fat had only decreased to 17%. I still looked pretty similar, since I had lost probably about half muscle mass and half body fat. I seem to lose a decent amount of muscle mass when I diet, and I knew that if I wanted to lower my body fat further I'd probably lose muscle right along with it. I then decided I'd just go all the way down to about 10%, and just accept the loss of muscle mass that comes with it. I reached mid-10% body fat on 7/3/2014, and have been eating maintenance for the past four weeks to give my body some time to stabilize and it seems to have settled at 129-130 lbs. and 10.8% body fat. I'm now on a quest to slowly add back some muscle mass, while staying lean. As of Monday I've set my weekly calories in an estimated surplus of 2000, and I'm using a calorie cycling strategy of: Mon (+700), Tue (+700), Wed (-750), Thurs (+700), Sat (+700), Sun (-750). Why the drastic cycle of calories, you ask? Well I enjoy eating big, and I have a bottomless stomach. I'm very much a man of extremes, and I find it easier to eat big when I'm letting myself eat, and eat small when I'm trying to keep things restrained. I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting, and I follow the blogs of Anthony Mychal, Leangains, Brad Pilon, etc. I've been doing 16/8 fasting since around January for days that I eat maintenance, while also incorporating two days of Eat Stop Eat style where I just eat dinner one day each week (so I only had below maintenance calories two days per week). Currently I lift weights every day, as I've slowly built up the tolerance to it since last October, and I just lift lighter when I feel residual soreness. This may change in the future, as I've started lifting heavier and adding weight now that I'm increasing calories, and may need more recovery time. I follow a 3-day split primarily composed of all compound movements: Day 1 Back/Biceps, Day 2 Chest/Shoulders/Triceps, Day 3 Lower Body. The exercises done on any given day may change, but the body parts I work don't. We'll just have to see how my body holds up. I also run 4 miles in steady state cardio fashion twice a week on my below maintenance calorie days. I'm debating on just eating in Warrior Diet fashion each day. I've been eating in a window from 12PM-8PM, but I find that I don't want to stop eating at 8. I think I'd rather just not eat until I get home from work about 5 PM, and just eat until I go to sleep around 9:30 PM. I'll probably switch back and forth on various days based on how I feel, and what fits my life best on the specific day. For instance I'm going to a daytime company picnic for my wife's job on Friday and then out to dinner for my sister-in-law's birthday that night, so it'll probably be a 16/8 day. After this post I'll add my data for the past couple days, and I'll try to update the log with my daily workouts and diet adherence. Hopefully this will add a little bit of pressure for adherence. I've attached my start pictures from Monday, and I'll try to upload monthly progress pictures, which will help to gauge my results. Summary: Stats: 5'6", 32 years old, Male, 129.18 lb trend, 10.85% body fat trend Goal: Add muscle mass while staying lean or until 15% body fat (hopefully the former) Diet Calories: Mon +700, Tues +700, Wed -750, Thurs +700, Fri +700, Sat +700, Sun -750 Macros: Protein (1.15 * bodyweight), Carbs (1.5 * bodyweight on +cal days), Fat (.4 * bodyweight) Strategy: Various fashions of intermittent fasting Workout Day 1 Back/Biceps, Day 2 Chest/Shoulders/Triceps, Day 3 Lower Body Two 4 mile runs per week on -cal days

Hi everyone! My name's Mike - first time poster, long time lurker. I started eating Paleo back in March of 2014, after stumbling upon Steve's "Beginner's Guide to the Paleo Diet" article. Since then I've lost about 88lbs! Here are my before and after photos: I still eat non-Paleo stuff on occassion, cheeseburgers, pizzas, soda, etc. I try to keep it 80-20. I definitely indulged myself a little too much over the course of December, with holiday gatherings and whatnot. Hoping this month I can be a little more disciplined. I want to further improve my physique; I'd like to cut down my body fat a little more, then start bulking. Here are my goals for this month's challenge: Diet Reduce cheat meals to once a weekEspecially no cheats during fasts (currently doing the LeanGains intermittent fasting program)Cut down to 9-10% body fat (I'm currently around 12.2%)Fitness Increase vertical leap 3-5 inches (can currently reach a 10ft basketball rim with the tip of my finger). I'd love to one day be able to dunk a basketball Life Increase meditation to 20 minutes a day. Currently on a 102-day streak in the Calm app (similar to Headspace), doing around 10-15 minutes a day.

Welcome! I'm a wannabe powerlifter, aiming to attend my first meet sometime this fall. This is where I record the stuff I do to get stronger.

This last challenge my goals were to get to the gym and focus on fundamental body weight exercises (rows, pushups, pullups, dips), keep my eating clean, and get in the habit of meditating each day. I learned that (for me) making it to the gym is pretty easy at and eating right is the hard part. So I figure with that said I am going to focus primarily on my diet and nutrition and let the strength training continue as it is. So here we go: Main Quest: Be way more awesome at the end of tomorrow then I was at the beginning of today. Quest 1: Leangains. I'm going to do a leangains bulk aiming to put on .5 lbs a week for 6 weeks. So I will ideally gain 3 lbs over the next six weeks. I am also going to go buy a digital scale and start measuring my macro intake so I have an idea of what I'm eating and can judge how it's working. I will start eating my food in the 8-10 hour window on monday and give myself one week to figure out the macro counting and scale down to an 8 hour eating window. I'm really apathetic about the macro counting but I figure I only have to learn how to do this shit once right. Quest 2: Keep Gymin' It M-F Three days a week, bright and early, 8am gym days. I will continue to work the same routine that I have been for the last 2 months adjusting the skills and progressions as needed. The other two days a week I will either do skill work, yoga, or maybe rest. Quest 3: Read I've been netflix binging hardcore so I need to get that shit under control. I am going to read at least 10 minutes a day, but hopefully once I turn off the tv shows and get into a book I'll keep going. Life Quest: The Muscle Up I need to learn to do this. I don't know if I will be able to learn it in six weeks but I can start to learn more about the progressions and work on the skills and the negatives and everything. Except I did just see that they will be teaching the muscle up at NF camp so maybe that will speed up my skill acquisition. Motivation: because no one ever got anywhere in life by sitting on their ass. As for my Gym Routine: The Routine Breaks down like so: Warmup (15 min) Skill Work (30 min) Strength Work (50 min) Stretch (10 min) Warmup: Dynamic Stretches, Jump Rope, Bear Crawls, Wrist Stretching Skill Work: Handstands and L-sits are my primary focus. I will also start working on my frog stand working up to a tuck planche, front lever, and back lever as secondary skills. Strength: Rows, Dips, Pushups, and Pull ups. I made great progress the last 6WC but I still have a ways to go. Keep pushing and pulling until I feel comfortable with these. I'm also going to include a variety of squats and work on my deadlift. I've been active on the form check forum to improve my form before increasing weight and that will continue until I get it down.

New log! Background: Been doing some sort of barbell strength stuff for about 18mo consistently now, from SL 5x5 thru 531 and now TM. Have been (deliberately) eating ad libitum and so got big and strong and fat. Just did my first powerlifting meet and totalled 467.5kg in the 125kg weight class. Midterm goals: Get to a 500+ total. Lose some of this belly. A bit more biking. Methods: Moar Texas Method, I enjoy it - I'm doing a slightly reduced volume flavour to allow my 42yo carcass to cope with the load. Leangains recomposition eating plan (carb cycling, IF) rather than a cut even though I'm well in cut territory, because strength is my primary objective. TM is more of the same; Leangains is new to me.

Hi Everyone, I've been trying desperately for years and years to lose the excess body fat on me, everytime I've tried I've made progress for 2 or 3 weeks then I turn back to junk food and gain back all the weight I've lost plus some more :-( Well now I want to put an end to that, I've been doing Starting Strength for the past year and weightlifting for the past 2 years or so. I've been dabbling with Intermittent Fasting since April (whilst still eating junk food so my results haven't been good at all). This is my battle log to help track my progress, keep myself accountable, and hopefully inspire others. My Goals Lose 10kg by Christmas Eve Not eat any junk food at all over the next 12 weeks Cut down on smoking, by Christmas to only 3 cigarettes/cigars per week Maintain or Increase my current lifts Go to Kickboxing once per week Go Weightlifting three times per week on non-consecutive days Stick to my diet plan Cut 10cm off stomach measurements Current Lifts(as of 2nd October 2013, all 3x5 except Deadlift is 1x5) Squat: 140kg Deadlift: 162.5kg Bench Press: 60kg Overhead Press: 60kg Power Cleans: 70kg Diet Some Leangains style intermittent fasting with a bit of paleo involved. I count my macros and try to hit that, so on a day I do weightlifting I'll eat 160g of Protein, 230g of Carbohydrates, and 55g of Fat, eating Protein from only lean sources of meat and having lots of fruit, veg, and whole grains like rice. On my days when I'm not weightlifting I'll eat 170g of Protein, 50g of Carbohydrates, and 75g of Fat. So I'll cut out Carbs except for fruit and veg, and eat fattier cuts of meat such of beef mince. On the days I go to Kickboxing I'll eat more carbs. Starting Stats and Measurements (2nd October 2013) Weight (kg): 87.0 Body Fat %: 25.5% Chest (cm): 104.1 Right Arm: 35.2 Left Arm: 34.3 2 inches above Belly Button: 99.1 Around Belly Button: 103.2 2 inches bellow Belly Button: 102.1 Hips: 99.6 Right Thigh: 62.5 Left Thigh: 62.0 For Pictures see below, so far I've only uploaded pictures from 2/10/13, but I aim to upload new ones every 4 to 6 weeks Thanks Everyone and Wish me Luck, Any Help or Advice would be appreciated!

Hello fellow rebellion armies, I'm a skinny-fat Southeast Asian dude weighted at a whooping 60kg and 167cm tall. On level 50, I'd want to be able to be present at any point on earth within 24 hours of prior notice. But that's a really long way to go. Right now I just want to build muscles, lose fats, and take control of my life. On my first challenge, I was able to gain 4.5kg by consuming 2500kcal every day (before joining the rebellion I was only 55kg). However, as I'm still not rich enough to buy "clean food", I managed to get those calories by eating a lot of stuff, even junk foods. I did consume protein shake and managed to increase my daily dose of protein. Those, with a HIIT training using 7 Minute Workout program, I got some newbie muscle gains (mostly just on biceps and triceps, also some increase on the chest and thigh if I stare at my body at the mirror long enough). HOWEVER.. My belly is getting bigger (fatter) faster than the muscles I gained from exercising. I mean, dude, I didn't want any of this. So, in this challenge, I want to focus on losing these belly fats, and to gain even more muscles by doing harder exercise (I'm not in a hurry to build huge muscles, no, not yet, maybe not ever). Current Objective: Keep getting fitter, happier, and leaner. Goal 1: On the 27th of October, I wanna be able to see some abs on my tummy. Meaning, cutting to 10-12% body fats, but I don't have the tool to measure that accurately, so if abs can be seen, even just a little bit, that's a success. Goal 2: Do a customized Advanced Body Workout 3 times a week. Increasing the difficulty as needed. Goal 3: Wake up at 7am every day. Once I able to do this 7 times in a row, try to sleep for at least 8 hours a day, which is important for muscle recovery. Current Life Goal: Because I'm on my final year of a college degree, at the end of this 6 week challenge, I would like my thesis proposal to have been accepted by my professor. That's it! Let's go!

After successfully tracking my food habits last challenge (I eat ALL things), i received the following communication in my Superhero inbox: It is time for me to don my battle armor and ride to war against Galactus, the Devourer. Goal #1 - Strengthen My Army: My fitness habits are pretty good, so I am not too worried about this. I will be completing Stage 3 of NRoLfW and then moving onto another strength program, although i am not entirely sure which one just yet. I will also be partaking in the Spark Challenges on Fitocracy with Chammy (another one of our intrepid Guild Leaders). My workout is 2 days on and 1 day off, in rotation. So some weeks I'll be off 2 days and others 3 days. Goal: Achieve 10500 points on Fitocracy during the course of the challenge Measurement: 9900 - 10500pts = A, 9000 - 9899 = B, 8500 - 8999 = C Reward: STR +2, DEX +2, STA +1 Goal #2 - Do NOT Devour All Things: In order to break habits, I need to cut out more bad things so I will continue to avoid the things I've already identified as well as continue to make at least 80% of my meals from home. The past two challenges, i have not measured my macros but rather the moods that effect my eating and the foods that i am actually eating. This challenge i will actually measure macros - average 1700 cals/day at a 50.2/24.9/24.9% split for Protein:Carb:Fats. I am doing Leangains, so it's essential that i measure. Goal: Achieve 12000 calories per week Measurement: within 5% of target = A, within 10% = B, within 15% = C Reward: CON +5 Goal #3 - Keep the Armory and Troops Organised I hate doing chores. I seriously hate it, but it's necessary (cos i hate living in a mess too - double edged sword). I get lazy and then the chores pile up until a Sunday morning and I then spend a few hours cleaning. Luckily I was dishes when i cook so there's barely any mess in the kitchen, but if i do a few things everyday i can at least have those few hours on a Sunday to do things I really want to do. I've decided to employ chore wars for this as it's a fun way for both J and I to get involved (and he just loves this kind of thing). Goal: Achieve 400 points per week Measurement: 375 - 400 points = A, 350-374 points = B, 300 - 349 points = C Reward: WIS +2, CHA +1

TL;DR: Doing a Leangains recomp and the numbers seem a bit insane. Is this newbie eyes, or am I about to buy a catering quantity of steak and lamb mince? Backstory: I've been lifting heavy for strength, and eating ad libitum, and so I've got big and strong and fat. I don't want to lose the strength. I'm patient enough. The 16/8 fast/feed window study with mice impressed me and the logic behind it is at least as convincing as paleo without any of the "but eskimos don't have sweet potatoes" problems. So, I'm going for a recomposition, which I've calculated as something like: BW 112kg; TDEE 3400cal; estimated LBM 80kg Training days: 4080 cals: protein 264g, carb 567g, fat 84g Rest days: 2720 cals: protien 264g, carb 104g, fa 139g This is the first time I've paid attention to macros. It's a bit daunting. Am I in the right ball-park?