Hello All!

I hope you folks are doing well. As of yesterday, I am starting a
new challenge. I have taken the last 4-5 months to relax my
nutritional restrictions. This means that essentially I ate whatever
I wanted, but still maintained water intake and ate approx. 5 times
each day. Over this period I have taken various notes about changes
on how I felt, strength, etc.

Additionally, I have changed my cardio patterns. Instead of doing
intervals I have gone back to hard quick runs. This has actually
amounted to more distance per workout than the intervals for me...
actually about a half mile more. I plan on doing some fun runs this
year so I wanted to get back to some speedy steady runs. I had been
pushing into the 5's per mile before I got a cold about 6 weeks ago,
however, with a slight cough still lingering, I am currently hovering
back in the 6's.

My lifting patterns have been a modified BFL that was suggested for
women in the magazine. It is essentially doing circuit exercising
with 2 min cardio at the start of each circuit. Instead of cardio, I
did abs. The workout was very enjoyable and allowed me to finish
workouts in about 30 minutes. There were no breaks between sets.

My weight when I decided to relax all was around 163 and my body fat
was around 8%. I plan on getting my body fat done this week to see
where that is, but my guess is 13%. My weight is currently 177.

The change since I have been off of BFL has been good and bad.
Before in BFL, I was very strict about my eating. The last few months
I ate sensibly for the most part but did eat a lot of junk. To do
that was actually relaxing. I wanted to pick up weight and it really
feels good to be the new weight. I really don't get the icky
feelings from eating a ton of bad food. Just full : ). But the
stomach does stretch and the abs do dissapear. However, I have
noticed that I am not able to move as quickly on the raquetball court
and have lost a bit of flexibility. I have not had the lifting
stamina that I did before as well - the ability to push through a
final lift.

The reason I am beginning a new challenge is to:
1) Eat healthier (which I know is critical for long term health).
2) Regain the energy/speed level I had previously.

Alterations:
Initially, I will drop my weight down to approx. 170 but I am not
going to follow palm size methods at that point. When I do so my
weight simply drops like a rock. I will follow BFL with slightly
larger servings of the proper food. This will allow me to keep a
more comfortable weight level while attaining my above goals. I
pretty much assume once summer hits I will lose weight anyway because
of my revved up activity level, so I do not want to lose too much too
soon.

Well all, have a nice holiday season and keep BFLing.

Travis