Part 5........The comeback I hope!

Over the last few weeks I have been toying with the idea of competing again.



I have spent the summer hitting the gym hard and getting back in to shape. Most say but you didn’t need to lose weight. When I tell them I haven’t lost any weight they look confused. In fact I have gone down a dress size, so to those who don’t train and or don’t realise muscle weighs more than fat I look like I’ve lost weight.

All this training and simply being in the gym daily has given me the bug to compete again. I don’t think the bug really went away, just got buried a little deeper under work commitments and lack of access to a gym. So as the summer drew to a close and the commitments of work was upon me, I armed myself with a set of dumbbells (thanks to a new friend) and took to working out a home routine. To maintain and develop the body I sculpted over the summer.

I worked each body part first thing in the morning and ran cross country 3 times a week. Now I know it’s the wrong way round. I should be running in the morning and doing weights in the evening. However here at work I run a cross country running club in the evenings so I train weights before work. The buzz I have on my way to work is great. Weight training really sets me up for the day. The good positive feeling from training is with me all day. So at the moment, it’s working for me.



Now I’m seeing more of my abs and greater definition in my muscles. I am more motivated than ever to get back to competing. So a bit of research and science later and I now have my new routine for diet and exercise.

The science for the diet.



I worked out my BMR – Basal Metabolic Rate, then factored in the exercise and worked out how many calories I can consume without gaining weight.



I measured my body fat.



I measured my weight.



Currently I’m around 22% body fat and I weigh 154 lbs.



My aim is to be about 14% body fat for the competition. That means I have 8% body fat to lose. That is about 12 lbs of body fat.



Now 1l lbs of body fat equals about 3500 calories. So that’s 41,000 calories I need to burn.



So my daily BMR including exercise is about 2300 calories daily. That’s 16,100 calories a week.



Now to lose 12 lbs of fat, I need to create a calorie deficit to burn the body fat.



I want to burn the 12 lbs of fat in 8 weeks. That means that I need to burn 5,125 calories a week.



So 16,100 calories (Maximum weekly consumption to prevent weight gain) – 5,125 (calories of fat I need to burn) = 10,975 calories (Maximum weekly consumption to lose 12lbs of fat in 8 weeks)



Now that means a daily consumption of 1,567 calories. However if I stick to consuming this each day my metabolic rate will slow down and therefore I’ll store that fat I want to lose.



So, this is what I’m going to do.



Mon – Wed, Fri and Sat – My maximum daily consumption will be 1495 calories



Thurs and Sun – My maximum daily consumption will be 2000 calories.



This means I will keep within the maximum weekly consumption and prevent my metabolic rate from slowing down.



In the hope I’ll gain maximum fat burning.



Next time I’ll let you know what I’m eating to stay within these limits..... see you soon.....x