Monday, 7 Jan 2008
As I may have mentioned last week, I am re-starting my 12-week TT challenge today after admitting to myself that trying to cut during the month of December is utterly moronic and a textbook example of “Setting yourself up for guaranteed, ignominious failure.”
Believe me, I will never, EVER attempt a cut between Halloween and New Year’s again. I should have noted that I have never been able to do anything but hold the status quo during these months. It would have made much more sense to set aside hardcore cutting plans and focus on mass gain/retention during those months.
Well, lesson learned. Finally. 
Since I am starting again today, this program will run from January 7, 2008 through March 31, 2008. Progress photos will be taken every two weeks for accountability, and all workouts will be performed with a Polar F6 heartrate monitor present to track calories burned. Food will be logged in Diet & Exercise Assistant on my PDA and daily logs will be edited the following day to reflect actual calories burned and eaten. I will also make a cool graph of all this stuff once I have a few minutes to figure out how the graphing function works in Openoffice’s Calc spreadsheet application.
Here are my starting stats for this challenge. I am up a few pounds due to water retention and delicious, unclean holiday eats, but my body fat is relatively unchanged.
=========================================
MEASUREMENTS 1/6/08
=========================================
Age 32
Weight 145.8
Neck 13
Shoulder 42
Chest 36.5
Waist 27.25
Abdomen 29.5
Hips 39.25
Thigh 23.5
Knee 13.5
Calf 15
Ankle 7.75
Arm 12 (relaxed)/12.5 (flexed)
Forearm 9.5
Wrist 5.75
W-H Ratio 0.69
BF% (Omron) 20.8%
=========================================
TRAINING & Nutrition PLAN (Jan. 7 - Mar. 31, 2008)
=========================================
TT for Fat Loss: 2K3 Workout (Weeks 1-4)
- M/W/F: Lifting + Intervals
- T/Th/Sa: Intervals (15 min) + Medium intensity steady state cardio (30 min)
- Nutrition: 40/30/30 c/p/f, 1550-1700 calories daily
- 2 cheat meals per week
TT for Fat Loss: 2K4 Workout (Weeks 5-8)
- M/W/F: Lifting + Intervals
- T/Th/Sa: Intervals (15 min) + Medium intensity steady state cardio (30 min)
- Nutrition: 40/30/30 c/p/f, 1350-1550 calories zigzag
- 2 cheat meals per week
January 2008 TT 2K8 or TT Hardcore Fat Loss (Weeks 9-12)
- M/W/F: Lifting + Intervals
- T/Th/Sa: Intervals (15 min) + Medium intensity steady state cardio (30 min)
- Nutrition: 40/30/30 c/p/f, 1350-1550 calories zigzag
- 1 cheat meal per week
Nutrition will be my own plan, but it is based on the plan by Dr. Mohr for women with some tweaks that have worked for me in the past.
Actually, nutrition will mostly be about pre-cooking most of my meals on Sunday and Wednesday, munching every 3 hours or so, selecting lots of veggies, fruits, nuts, and lean protein sources, drinking plenty of water and green tea, avoiding refined carbs and sugars, and generally not stuffing myself until my seams are popping. Yeah, yeah, there’s nothing new or groundbreaking here. It all boils down to consistency for me.
Luckily, I will have lots of other activities from Project Wonder Woman going on to keep me busy so I won’t have time to obsess over this challenge.
Powered by FireStats
January 7th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Good luck, Maggie!
Your diligence, dedication, and organization continue to be massively inspiring for me. I had to “break” for a week from P90X during last week’s couch-surfing travels (still working out, but not able to perform the specific P90X workouts) and am now ramping up to take it into month 2.
Results so far have been great and I have another comp test at the end of January to keep me honest.
I’ll be thinking about you… go kill it like you do.
H
PS - the Issey dress is killer. Can’t wait to see final version! I have an Issey pattern in my box that has been waiting for me for years…
January 9th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Maggie, do you use calipers any longer to track your bodyfat, or just the Omron? Just curious…to me, relying on Omron would be depressing, but maybe it’s ultimately more motivating.
January 9th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Kristin - I still use calipers about once a month, but it’s just easier for me to pick up the Omron in the mornings after I weigh in.
Heidi - Your P90X stats are looking great! You make me want to do another round of the program after I finish this TT challenge. As for the Issey dress…I think that is all I will be doing with it for the foreseeable future. I have too many other sewing projects I’d like to try!
January 9th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
so do you notice a variation between omron and calipers results?
One thing that works for everybody: more hard work! 
btw, i couldn’t agree with you more about TT. obviously it’s a really sound program. but as much as i’d like to believe that i’ll get amazing progression on that low a training volume (less than three hours a week), as a fairly-fit meso/endo, i know better. i actually have a theory about training programs and fitness professionals: there tends to be an ‘ectomorphic bias’. I think it’s likely that ectomorphs and ecto-mesomorphs are overrepresented in this field, because, hey, it’s more likely you will get into bodybuilding/fat-loss/figure, etc., when it’s ‘easier’ to succeed at it. i also think that people with this body type are conditioned towards feeling that athleticism is ‘appropriate’ for them, ipso facto, they perform sports, become trainers, etc. hence—a lot of programs need to be taken with a grain of salt: they may have been designed—and subsequently championed and hyped— by ectomorphic types, and may not yield the same results for you. hehe- this has become a long comment, and it also kind of sounds ‘ecto vs. endo’. i love my ectomorphic sisters and brothers— don’t get me wrong, you adorable skinny people!
January 9th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Kristin - Great theory about the preponderance of ecto/ecto-meso types in the fitness industry. In regards to calipers vs. Omron, yes, there is usually a gap of around 4-5% between what I get from a caliper-based calculator (I’m generally 15-16% according to those) and the Omron (currently 20-21% depending on hydration). The Tanita scale is telling me that I’m a fluffy 27% right now, too. I had a caliper bf% reading of 14% back in October after the UCF 2-miler when the test was performed by a tech from the local hospital, but frankly, I know I’m not that low!
I rely more on photos and clothing fit to gauge progress these days.
March 24th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Hey Maggie,
I have to say that your body is inspiring and I want to look as good as you. What is Omron? Is that some kind of device to measure fat? Where can I get it? I am trying to get more lean, but I don’t know what certain foods to eat other than the ones I am eating now. I’ve cut a lot already, but I don’t know if there are certain foods that will give me better results, like you. Let me know if you can help me with this. I would appreciate it.