It’s funny because the people around these forums – who exercise regularly and do resistance training – are the last people who really need something like keto. We actually earn our carbs. But 95% of the US population, who are sedentary and overconsuming junk foods, could probably benefit from going keto.
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I’d say that for me, my biggest focus is cardiovascular and overall health. A very close second is that I like to look like I workout. If I’m putting in all the effort, I want it to show you know? Being “peeled” is not so much a priority for me anymore. That level of BF is not healthy, and it’s really more about gaining the approval of, and impressing other people. Think about it… You push yourself into an unhealthy state to “prove to yourself that you can do it”? Unless it’s making you money it’s not worth the strain and stresses to your body. The only really reason outside of that (if we’re being honest with ourselves) is that affirmation of someone else saying DAMN!! I guess as you get older you really don’t care as much about what others think of you. You try to be the best person you can be, and just be happy with yourself. My target (where I like to live) is around 12%-15% BF. That’s a good healthy level and it’s low enough to show definition without being “stage ready”.
Thanks for your kind words brother. This is definitely a very bad angle for a pic. I just posted that because it highlighted my love handles lol. Arms have always been naturally big but I’ve evened out over the last couple years. I‘ve put a ton of focus on other areas to try and balance out. I’m starting my house hunting / moving recomp on Monday. I’ll try to get some better pics at the end of the 6 weeks and do a before / after comparison. Should be fun and a I love putting my money where my mouth is. It keeps me honest and retains humility, and at the same time gives me the opportunity to re evaluate things and purge out bullshit.
I’m going to push the limits of everything I’ve learned for the next 6 weeks and see what level of change is actually possible in that short of a time frame at my age. We’ll see! Lol
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This gaining phase has been revealing. I hadn’t previously been on a precise ‘bulk’ where I was eating totally clean, hitting protein daily, and tracking…ever. It had always been messy.
This time around, I’m armed with more knowledge and a far improved endocrine system.
I’ve been hovering in the low 180s (weighing daily) and actually struggling to consistently gain weight (T3 playing a role, perhaps?). I’m up to 2700 cals/day without really gaining weight and thought my maintenance was 2200. My midsection is a bit blurrier than usual, but I haven’t been packing on fat — no love handles.
I’m confident I’m gaining good mass…just very slowly. I was sure eating this much would lead to way more rapid weight and fat gain. It speaks to the value of tracking everything.
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I know I’m going to care more about this as I age. In your 20s, it’s still easy to prioritize other things, like aesthetics, because cardio comes easily and death feels far away (which is a silly POV, but everyone feels bulletproof when they’re younger).
I could run a 5K without training pretty effortlessly right now. But I’m certain that won’t be the case for long and this – prioritizing my heart – is going to be a game-changer in the coming years. I’m also trying to accrue mass when I’m younger because I view adding muscle as the hardest thing to do, fitness-wise, and I know I won’t have as much bandwidth when I have kids.
I agree with you about the lack of health at a certain point (like sub-7%), but I don’t see any issue with maintaining a very lean look (7-10%), which shouldn’t harm your health.
Knowing you look awesome does a ton for self-confidence, for some reason, and that has downstream effects. You know what Deion said: You look good, you feel good; you feel good, you play good; you play good, they pay good. It just gives you a pep in your step that translates to other domains of life.
Looking forward to tracking your progress! Given your knowledge and all the motivation you must have stored up over the past few months, I bet you can pull off something amazing if you’re able to make the space in your life for it.
I’m not a big dessert guy, but the wife is, and she loves it when I join her. This stuff is prime – not very expensive ($3/pint where I live), 240 calories per pint, and tastes way better than Halo Top (much creamier).
She made some black-bean brownies (actually taste incredible, regardless of how they sound) that we devoured with this.
Highly recommend if you’re dieting and have a sweet tooth.
Grow facial hair, fellas: Women prefer men with beards as they're seen as more 'dominant and attractive' - Daily Star
“In almost all scenarios the more facially masculine photos were rated as more attractive than the feminised photos…masculine faces signal a physically stronger and more socially dominant male.”
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It’s already there. I keep mine short which also shows my jawline. Wife likes it that way.
Gotta listen to the wife!
Have you noticed any differences from the T3 meds you’ve been taking?
Since I started trying to gain a month ago, I’ve put on 4 lbs — but some of that is likely water, and I put on the weight almost immediately. Weight gain has since leveled off, with me hovering around 183 since the New Year.
I’ve been shocked by this, as I’m eating 3000+ cals/day and was sure maintenance was 2200. I think the T3 is playing a role — though hopefully not hindering muscle gain.
I have to say, it’s quite nice eating more and feeling full all day 
Slightly better libido is the only real difference. Nothing too noteworthy.
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Your body is smart. Whatever your caloric intake is (within a certain window of course), your body will adapt itself to make that your new maintenance if you hold that intake and activity level for long enough. If you are telling your body that you need more muscle mass by consistently overloading your muscle, then you body will adapt by adding more muscle mass (if it is getting the right nutrients to do so). If not, it will adapt by storing those new calories in fat cells. And then dumping the rest. Once your fat cell volume and current muscle mass are balanced for that new caloric intake, as long as you don’t change your eating habits or your activity level, you will go stagnant.
This is why we have to continually have to keep throwing curve balls here. If you want to gain MORE muscle, you’ll have to increase calories and muscle energy expenditure. If you want to keep your current mass and lose fat, you’ll have to keep your muscle energy expenditure the same (not good for long term), and lower your intake, OR…keep your intake the same and increase your activity.
Your body is always trying to reach a state of rest. Our goal with body building is to never let it reach that state.
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One note to add on the above, just to make it more simplistic for clarification…
Think about this… If you throw a tennis ball into a closed room what happens? It will bounce and bounce and bounce until finally it comes to a rest somewhere. It will do this every time no matter how hard you throw it. It ALWAYS WANTS to return to a state of rest. Everything in nature, including us humans, will exhibit this behavior. We live and then our ultimate destination is to die, or come to a state of rest.
Now imagine that the tennis ball is your body. How hard you throw it (energy IN) is your caloric intake. Once you let the ball go, that is all the energy that the ball will have to keep bouncing unless you add more right?
What do you do if you want the ball to bounce higher? You throw it harder! (MORE ENERGY IN)
If you want it to KEEP bouncing that high, you’ll have to keep hitting the ball with that same added force on every bounce, else it will start slowing bouncing lower and lower until it just stops and comes to rest, or if you hit it with less force, it will level out at the height of bounce that corresponds to that amount of force.
Now this is all well and good until you reach a force that is too great for the walls of the ball to tolerate, and then it explodes. Luckily, our body is smarter than that. If the tennis ball were human tissue (muscle), then some of that energy would go into making the walls thicker so that it could tolerate the new harder force. This is the part of the equation that we are trying to target. Muscle thickening or, simply growth. Gotta love the body!!
Simply put, maintenance intake means that output energy + energy lost as dissipation (heat dissipation, sweat, energy loss from fighting a foreign virus, etc) equals input energy.
We call it surplus and deficit, but in reality, that’s only in relation to whatever we are doing NOW. Today’s deficit or surplus will be tomorrow’s new maintenance… unless you force it not to be.
Hope all this rambling makes sense lol!
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Definitely does make sense. I like the tennis ball analogy.
The struggle, I think, is finding the correct rate of fitness/consumption that moves you in the direction of your goals but is also sustainable given your lifestyle. You can’t push your T dose higher forever, you can’t scale protein higher forever, you can’t increase workout volume forever, you can’t increase your movement target forever, etc.
For that reason, I’m liking how Israetel’s programming scales up in terms of intensity and duration…seems to promote constant changes and progression. For all we shit on “muscle confusion” – damn you, P90X – I do believe there’s some legit value to frequently changing the stimulus.
That said, I’m now entering a mini cut. I haven’t gained that much weight (186 this AM), but I’ve lost all sight of my abs, so that tells me it’s time to pull back on the reins for a little bit. Given what we know about fat cells, I don’t see any value in ever going above 20% BF. I think in the long-term, I’ll probably settle in the 8-15% range.
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Gonna be in FL in a couple months and the wife and I are going to visit MI 40 gym in Tampa – excited to see Ben Pak’s spot and get a lift in there. He’s one of the brightest minds in bodybuilding, in my opinion, and I’ve heard great things about his facilities.
I was prescribed Tesamorelin and am excited to give it a shot. Ibutamoren and Ipamorelin did next to nothing for my IGF-1 – won’t be trying those again – but I’ve read Tesa is far superior. Rave reviews about this peptide and how it affects belly fat. I was prescribed a dose of 250 mcg per night but that sounds quite low – thinking I might go with 500.
Anyone here tried Tesa before? @jackolee?
I haven’t tried it man. Excited to hear if it is effective for you though. I only did sermorelin and ghrp2 for a bit. The combo definitely elevated my igf1 though. Currently on month 3 or GH at 3 1/3 iu daily. Mostly to help with recovery from ACL surgery though. Keep me posted
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Will do, brother. That’s quite a dose of GH from an anti-aging perspective but definitely get it given the nature of that surgery. Bet it’s costing a pretty penny 
Any idea how it’s impacted your IGF-1?
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I had labs done after 1 month. Igf1 was like 335 and top of normal for my age is like 200 or so. Honestly it’s not that expensive on my opinion. I’m getting 100iu which lasts a month for like $165.
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