Finished up the program and the weight loss competition today.
I didn't win. Someone much heavier than me went in and lost about 10% body weight. The word on the street was he pulled the keto diet, and I think he went from about 285 to 256. I'm glad he won. He looks pretty happy and - him being the same height as me - he was probably pretty uncomfortable at that weight.
In ~7 weeks, I went (according to the scale the nurse was using, wearing shirt and jeans but no shoes) from 245 to 235. So 10 pounds lighter.
On my waist, I went from 41 inches to 38 inches, so about 3 inches lost on waist. I didn't measure my shoulders, but they feel a bit more toned.
With my workouts, I was about 65% compliant from my original plan. I noticed towards middle that switching back and forth between the conditioning and hypertrophy every day, both workouts were losing quality. With 3 weeks left I pretty much dropped the conditioning, focused on they hypertrophy, and made sure to get 10K steps everyday. I think - like many have said here - walking has a much bigger impact on weight loss than we realize.
As far as dieting goes, I think the potato hack definitely gave me a good jump start when I stalled. My microbiome feels a lot better and I've definitely cut way back on the animal based proteins. I wish I had come to this conclusion much earlier. I'm hardly a vegetarian, but I have seriously upped the beans and we use meat more for flavor and color than we were doing. My wife is pretty pleased.
Doing Dr. Marker's HIRT for Hypertrophy plan has
definitely increased my work capacity. That's what I noticed the most. At first I
hated cranking out those 25 swings with the bulldog kettlebell, and now it's a breeze. My legs and especially my core - tho still under a layer of chub - are rock solid. I didn't know my core could even get that muscular. When I play with my little boy, I have to be careful not to throw him too high.
Attached are some before and after pics.
I didn't win my competition, but I will claim the spiritual victory. I put on a pair of shorts this morning that I bought last summer thinking I would slim my way into. I never did and next thing I knew it was winter. Now that it's March, they're a little loose.
TLDR - Lesson's learned:
Craig's HIRT for Hypertrophy is an
awesome program for body
composition changes, tho I think it had minimal effect on my scale weight. I think we can all agree tho which is more important.
10,000 steps a day are the easiest way to increase activity level to have an impact on scale weight.
Chicken breast after chicken breast after chicken breast is not for everyone for building muscle and losing fat. Carbs and and plant based protein sources are more effective for some - at least they are for me. Thank you
@vegpedlr . I feel a lot better all around switching out most of my meat for plants. Apparently 3 days of potatoes will teach you a thing or two.
I encourage anyone to try Craig's program if they are looking for body comp changes. Just like his article promised, my waist shrunk and my clothes fit differently. My favorite t-shirt now looks baggy.
Thanks for keeping up with me! Best!
