Just a background on me and what I plan on doing: I’m a 21 year old male, my height is 5’11, I weigh 188lbs as of today and estimate my LBM to be around 145lbs so
that leaves me at ~23% body fat.
I started lifting weights, jogging and being physically active in 2013. Before that, I was completely sedentary and overweight. I tried going to the neighborhood gym but didn’t adapt too well so I ended up buying some dumbbells, a mat, a bench, plates, a pull-up bar and some other minimal equipment.
Anyway, I lost a bunch of weight, gained some newbie muscle and reached 15% bf. That was over two years ago. Unfortunately, since then, I had some personal issues and the weight started coming back and I became less active too (amongst other things...).
But it’s time for a change!!!
I am now back in the game planning to lose all this fat, and get to sub-10% body fat levels at last. I don’t know at what bf% exactly I’ll land, but I’m aiming for anything between 8% and 10%. When I’m happy with my body composition I'll try to maintain it for at least 2 months.
Starting this week, I’ll eat ~2400kcal every day and keep training 4x a week. I am following some of Lyle McDonald's Guide to Flexible Dieting(which in my opinion is a great book) guidelines. I won’t include free meals or refeeds right away so I can get used to ‘diet mode’
(also, to really find out my maintenance calories).
The idea is to lose around 1lb every week for a number of weeks then bump calories up to maintenance for two weeks (Full Diet Break guidelines). I did some math here, playing with different estimations of my current body fat, rate of fat loss while dieting, the breaks, plateaus, etc. and I think it will take me from 10 to 12 months to get there and I'll probably end up weighing 155-160lbs. But let's just wait and see what happens.. =)
I’m going to weigh myself once a week and take pictures and measurements at 180lbs, 170lbs, 165lbs, etc...
All measurements are taken on an empty stomach. For now, my weigh-ins will be on Fridays, I'll let you know if that changes.
Here are my initial measurements(I converted from centimeters to inches so the numbers aren't round):
height:5'11''
weight: 188.0lbs
wrist: 6.9
ankle:9.25
calves: 16.5
thighs: 23.6
waist: 37.8 (this is the largest part, including 'love handles')
navel: 34.8 (this is a couple of fingers above the belly button)
hip: 40.3
chest: 40.1
delts: 45.8
neck:15.3
arms:14.0 (measured relaxed, at 90 degrees with hands supinated)
forearm: 12.0
