LEFT IMAGE – DAY 1 – 64kg
RIGHT IMAGE – DAY 8 – 62.9kg
As I mentioned in my blog post last week, I’ve been in a gaining phase since December 2019, meaning I’ve been progressively increasing my calories, lifting volumes and intensities, while decreasing my cardio over the course of the last few months.
I’d been wanting to start a fat loss phase for a few weeks, but the timing didn’t feel overly imperative, so I was mulling over when to start while continuing to gain.
I realised as soon as lock down was implemented and I wasn’t going to be able to keep pushing for progressive overload in the gym anymore, that the time had finally presented itself…
I’m now into my second week of my fat loss phase, and although the sales have jumped up and down erratically over the last few days, my average weight starting week 2 is 62.9kg, which means I have lost 2.4lbs right off the bat.
Big losses are common week 1, you’re eating less food, and for me personally, I start my diets by pulling from carb calories alone, which means that I store less glycogen and water in the muscle. Add to that, because I’m not lifting like I was, my body is under less stress and inflammation will have decreased.
Taking all of the above into account, it’s fair to say that I can SEE a difference, too. This is actually not that common for week 1, so I feel confident that the home body weight circuits and changes to my calories and macros are having an impact on my physique in the way that I want them to.
Because I decrease calories via carbs alone at first, will normally give myself x1 refeed day a week (almost always on Sundays), where I bump up calories by increasing my carbohydrate intake.
As I get deeper and deeper into my diet, I will usually increase this and implement x2 consecutive refeed days a week (Saturdays and Sundays).
This keeps my body able to train hard, recover well, and more metabolically and hormonally stable.
If you would like to see the types of bodyweight workouts I do at home (while you may not be able to grow the muscle, you can certainly keep hold of what you do have), and I how I instruct a fat loss diet (both meal plans for non trackers AND calorie and macro instructions for trackers), have a read of The STAY AT HOME 12 Week Body Transformation plan description page, and see if the download is right for you.
