An encouragement to our many fitness-interested readers: For the past few months people have been asking me whether I have lost weight.
Quite the contrary. I look like I have lost but thus far actually have been able to gain 6 lbs in 4 months by forcing myself to eat more than my normal, and to keep that pace up I am doing this: a meat or egg sandwich for lunch, a banana for morning snack, a 20 or 30-gm protein smoothie for after-work-out breakfast, and my usual American supper of a carb, meat, and a vegetable or two. Small portions, no seconds. My genius trainer wants me to gain another 4 at about 1 lb/month. He says my gain has been in bone and muscle. Most of my several lbs of disgusting middle-age abdominal pudge has evaporated which probably means a net gain of almost 8 lbs of bone, gristle, and muscle. And grit too which weighs nothing, has no substance, but matters a lot. Anyway, not bad at all for only 14 months' dedicated and fairly intense effort usually 6 days/wk for about an hour.
With pushing the lifting, plus cardio and heavy calisthenics, the most an average person can gain in muscle/bone is optimistically 1 lb/month. That can only be done by pushing the weights constantly. Fat loss is quicker: a healthy dietary weight loss should be limited to 1-2 lbs/wk except in a temporary regime. In other words, it's far easier to lose fat than to gain strength and fitness. You can lose fat just by sitting and sleeping with a low-carb diet.
In another 6 months I should be in reasonably good condition, and it will be time to move in the direction of a more maintenance-oriented program for the indefinite future. I do not need to do multiple reps of 300 lb deadlifts - just upping the reps of 200 lbs is fine with me. I do not have a muscular build, more ectomorphic - a runner's build. Mesomorphic is the ideal multi-purpose athletic physique, but that's genes.
Mrs. BD says she'll need to buy me a new head to match my semi-buffish youthful body. That's fine with me as long as it comes with a brain that doesn't worry so much about stuff the way my current one does.
