This post was created simply because I was feeling sorry for myself this morning.
I wasn’t making any gains. Lifting weights was stupid. All I was doing was maintaining – complete waste of my time.
(Yes, I was being a baby)
So I took my measurements… then compared them to all of my older measurements.
At first, it looked like I had confirmed my suspicion – no growth ever! …But on further inspection I realized that I had been making slow but steady improvements all along.
I then pulled out the records of my DEXA scans at plugged them into a new row…
As you can see, I was mistaken – Slow but steady gains, slow but steady improvements in my circumferences.
This is why we keep measurements – because without measurements we are just guessing. And weight on its own is a terrible way to measure progress… On each and every one of these measurement days I weighed somewhere between 170 and 180 pounds, but weight fluctuates so much it’s really not a valuable measurement tool unless it is accompanied by your circumference measurements.
So lesson learned –
- Our eyes (and emotions) can deceive us… don’t trust them 😉
- Over the last 3+ years with Eat Stop Eat, How Much Protein and Adonis Styled Workouts I’ve been slowly adding muscle
- 5 pounds of muscle makes a big difference.
- I’ve managed to keep my body fat levels fairly stable (as measured by DEXA and my waist circumference).
- Focusing on one muscle group at a time (specializations) has helped (Focused on legs for 5 months in 2013)
- Some days you just can’t trust the mirror… so keep track of your measurements – You don’t have to do it every day, week or even month, but every once in a while.. pull out the measuring tape and write down your results.
BP
(the two July experiments included the 2012 experiment where I only trained arms for 12 weeks and the 2013 experiment where I took 7 weeks off from working out and fasting)
