My Progress

I started resistance training last November (2010).  I can see some gains--my shoulders and biceps look better--but the muscle just hasn't been growing like I would like, and I hadn't gained a pound.  So I started bumping up the calories.  I found this really hard after so many months of keeping calores consumed either balanced or at a slight deficit with calories burned.  I found the only way to really let myself do it was to adjust my activity level here on FitClick from "sedentary" to "moderately active."  I figured my increased standing at work (got a sit/stand workstation), plus my desire to eat a couple hundred calories more than I burned would factor in to let me start gaining a bit of muscle weight.

That didn't happen.  I gained a few pounds, but my body fat went up a few points, too.  I think.  The caliper measurements are still about the same, but my pants fit a bit tighter, the "calculate body fat %" on this site showed a 3% increase, and I swear I can just look and feel a bit flabbier.  The scale showed a 4 lb increase one day, but that dropped by 2 when I weighed again the next day.

Then the week of the Fourth was rough.  I only had one lifting workout, and I had more than a couple "re-feed" days with the holiday (4 beers, pulled pork, cake, ice cream!).  Then Cub Scout camp with it's horrible food.

So I backed my activity level back to sedentary and the last couple days I've hit a decent deficit below that.  Not sure this is the right move.  I just read a couple articles on Mark Sisson's site that make me think maybe I just really need to dial back on the carbs to get rid of this last bit 'o flab. 

So first I want to make sure I'm back to at least 11% body fat.

I think my next thing to try is to make sure I hit my workouts and only go into a calories surplus around those workouts.  Weekends are tough since I don't get a resistance workout and I tend to eat more and worse.  So either get a lift in on the weekend, and/or eat better.  I also need to work on decreasing the carbs, and making sure I always eat a bit of protein when I consume carbs.