Fitness Minimalism
What is up? Once again I have gone quite a while without writing. Let this be a lesson in anything that you care about: though consistency is important, if you lose it just get back to it. It doesn’t matter what you did. What matters is what you do next. That said, let’s get caught up. Several things have happened over the past few months leading into a new year and beyond. The most relevant to you guys is probably the revival of my offering fitness coaching services (click here to apply for a limited slot if interested). In all honesty I wasn’t as fired up about it as I should have been, and after some soul searching decided to take a different approach. For example, where I used to try to figure out where I can find clients I have shifted to just providing value everywhere and making sure that potential clients receive that value, know what I do, and know where to find me. So I also share that lesson with you: find joy and contentment in what you do. Your actions will produce the natural results (and maybe some SUPER-natural ones if your prayers are intentional).
My fitness journey over the past few months has been one of what I like to call “controlled sloppiness” (nice ring, right lol). It has basically been a bulk where I eat pretty much whatever I want and in the weight room I just do what I want as long as I hit some pretty unimpressive minimums. The purpose of doing that was to give my joints a much-needed break while testing out where my strength could go with reduced intensity and then checking how my body responded. Well at this point I weigh about 202lbs so over the course of the bulk from around August to January I gained roughly 15-17lbs. Not too bad. From a purely cosmetic perspective I just didn’t want to gain a ton of belly fat and I didn’t so I guess mission accomplished. Most people in my life have suggested that this is a good size for me, but personally I like the lean look; decently ripped with a 6-pack around 12-13% body fat or so. So now it’s time to cut.
I haven’t really been excited about cutting. Main reason is the gym atmosphere is always so different in January with the New Year resolutioners (did I make up that word?) controlling the vibe. I’ve nonetheless cut back on my calorie intake and continued to train. I also learned I had a hernia and that I would need a surgery to repair it. After talking with the doctors I learned that though the repair should be straight-forward, I won’t be able to lift weights afterwards until after 6 weeks. What’s a gym bro to do? Okay so fast forward, I just had the repair done yesterday so it’s on now for the next month and a half. My philosophy for cutting has always been to lift heavy while cutting calories. This way you preserve as much muscle and strength as possible while losing fat. Well I can’t do that at the moment so what I will do instead is shift my programming to accomplish a cut without heavy lifting. And I’ll log the details of the journey here in my blog if you care to follow, but for today I’ll show you how I start.
I’m calling this a minimalist approach because it will get the primary job done (cutting fat) but it is certainly not ideal. This strategy will appeal most to 3 categories of people that I can think of off the top of my head. Category one are people in my current situation, who are limited in the activity they can do either due to physical ailment or some other condition. The second category is women who might not want to lift at all but are at least interested in alternative exercise (which to be clear I won’t be doing a ton) and constructing a diet to suit their goals. The third category is people who generally just want to drop some pounds on the scale but don’t have a desire to get jacked. For these guys this program is perfect because there no possible way for you to get there if you use it. For me the goal is to see how much fat I can drop while seeing how much muscle I can preserve over these 6 weeks. So let the fun begin.
Okay so with the current limitations, there are only a few levers I can pull. Actually they are the same levers no matter what, but how we operate will be different. Those levers are nutrition, activity, and recovery. Put another way they are food, exercise, and sleep. I’ll start with the food. I typically like an intermittent fasting protocol with an 8-10 hour feeding window. I eat a late breakfast, a light lunch, and pretty much no holds barred for dinner. The way I’m going to work it is I’ll set my daily calorie intake to about 2200. That should put me on track to lose 1 pound to 1.5 pounds per week. The way I’ll structure it is to have no more than 700 calories before dinner. That will leave 1500 calories for dinner and a dessert if I choose. It doesn’t particularly matter how nutrients are partitioned since the goal is fat loss, but if I want to limit muscle loss I’ll make sure I get at least 100g protein (or 400 calories worth) from high quality protein sources. But if you want to get the most bang for your buck and not feel hungry, most of your calories need to come from whole foods rather than more highly processed meal choices. Next is exercise. Since I can’t lift I’ll rely on step count. For me I’ve found that shooting for between 10000 and 15000 steps a day is sufficient and do-able. These steps can be split up throughout the day or it can just be one long walk. We’ll call it about 5 miles per day. You can do any activity that gets you moving, but I personally enjoy walking outside and listening to a good podcast or just using the time to think and strategize for my other goals. Finally, I have the sleep and rest components. This one is simple. I’ll try my best to get 8 hours of sleep. Since I like to wake up early that will look like getting in bed around 8 or 9 PM and getting up around 4 or 5 AM.
Okay so there you have it. My full outline. People often tell me that the reason they don’t stick to a plan is a lack of accountability. If that’s you and you want to give this a try just fill out the application here, and we can work together. I will give regular updates across the blog, my “Black Diamonds Fitness Millennial Muscle” facebook group, and my Instagram @black_diamonds_fit. Drop in and let me know as you’re making progress or if you have questions. You can also always make comment here! Until next time!
- Chris