Not Your Average Fitness Tips

After a highly successful Phase 1 of Visual Impact Muscle Building, Phase 2 wasn’t quite as impactful.  However, the blame falls squarely on my shoulders rather than on the inadequacy of the program to generate results.  Phase 2 is focused on a mix of sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and myofibrillar hypertrophy.  In other words, the goal is to get bigger and stronger.  I certainly got bigger and stronger…the problem is that I also gained fat in the process.  The reason for the fat gain is simple…I succumbed to all the temptations from Thanksgiving through the Super Bowl.  That being said, when I looked a little deeper, I realized that Phase 2 was actually more successful than I first thought.  Take a look at the results.

Visual Impact Muscle Building Results

As a refresher, feel free to check out my Phase 1 results too.

Fat Gain

At first glance, it appears that I gained almost 3lbs of fat over the past two months.  As I describe below, it’s inevitable that I gained some fat but I’m not entirely convinced I gained quite that much.  The real lesson here is that you are what you eat.

1. Measurement error: I use a bioelectric impedance scale and body fat analyzer to compute my results.  Unfortunately, these devices can be highly variable and susceptible to measurement error.  Additionally, I made some changes to my routine over the past couple months that may have further exacerbated these potential errors.  It might sound stupid, but sometimes the smallest changes can have a significant impact on results.

For example, my age changed during the measurement period.  I’ve taken measurements twice in a row using a one year difference in age and my body fat is 0.5% higher as a result of this change.  This is because the scale assumes a different body composition based on age.  Maybe I was 0.5% fatter all along; that’s irrelevant.  The problem comes in trying to track results from one period to the next.  I would probably be better off just forcing my age to be one year younger until this experiment is completed, but there are so many other variables that it’s not worth it.

Another factor that changed is that I now perform cardio at night.  If I had my preference, I would still perform morning cardio but my wife began Visual Impact for Women, and I thought it would be motivating for us to exercise together.  Again, because body fat analyzers assume a certain amount of water retention, when you exercise can have a significant impact on calculated body fat percentage.  The proof is in the pudding on this since I just took a couple days off and found my body fat was 1% lower.  So either I lost a lot of fat without exercising or the difference in water retention resulted in a higher calculated value during Phase 2.

While I mention these factors, don’t for a second think I’m making excuses for the results above.  The reason I gained fat is clearly due to my diet (or lack thereof!).  I’m just not convinced I gain as much fat as my body fat tester claims.  This is evident when utilizing other measurement techniques as well.  My abs increased about 2mm using a fat caliper while chest and leg measurements didn’t change (indicating a 1lb fat gain).  Using a tape measure, my waist is ¼” larger.  So it’s clear I added some unwanted fat.

2. Diet: Thanksgiving to the Super Bowl is always my worst time period when it comes to eating well.  Between holiday parties, football, birthdays, vacations, and leftovers, I’m surrounded by junk food.  While I can be pretty disciplined, I have a hard time throwing away or wasting food.  As a result, I ate a lot of food that was high in sugar and fat.  This is a recipe for fat gain.

I normally advocate having a weekly cheat day in order to increase your metabolism and help balance out your cravings.  If I had taken that approach, I’m almost certain I would have seen no fat gain and quite possibly fat loss during Phase 2.  Unfortunately, as it worked out, I counted 36 cheat days over the past 60 days.  Basically I cheated 4 times per week.  This wasn’t simply slipping and having a cookie or a piece of candy here and there…there were days that I had cake, ice cream, pastries and even entire pizzas.  All in all, “disaster” is the best way to describe the last two months when it comes to eating.  In hindsight, I’m surprised I didn’t gain 10lbs of fat.

Muscle Gain

I’ll freely admit that I gained fat during Phase 2 but I’m adamant that I also gained muscle, despite results to the contrary according to my body fat scale.  All the measurement problems described above relate to the muscle calculations as well since they’re reliant on the same assumptions.

1. Measurements: while I gained ¼” on my waist, I also gained 1” on my shoulders and chest and ½” on my arms.  It’s hard for me to believe that these gains were the result of increased fat levels rather than muscle gain especially since my arms, shoulders, and chest feel and look a lot more defined as well.

2. Weight lifting: in my opinion the real proof that I didn’t lose muscle is that I am now stronger than I ever recall being.  By the end of Phase 2 I was lifting more for 5 reps than I was 4 months ago for 3 reps.  To me, increased strength is highly correlated with increased muscle mass.  That being said, an argument can be made that my strength may have increased due to an increase in fat.  Fat provides more leverage which can lead to heavier lifts.

3. Bodyweight training: even if fat was providing more leverage for weight lifting, fat is generally of no value when it comes to bodyweight training.  In fact, when your weight increases, your body generally needs to have a proportional increase in muscle strength just to do the same number of bodyweight exercises.  I’m actually doing more reps for bodyweight exercises than I have in the past.

Perspective

All these factors combined lead me to believe that I really probably gained 1-2lbs of muscle and gained 1-2lbs of fat as well.  Not the best results, but not a huge disappointment either.  Consider the following:

1. I pretty much ate what I wanted, when I wanted it for the past month and still managed to make some progress without a complete setback.  There are some years I’ve gained more than 5lbs during the holiday season.  This year I gained at most 3lbs of fat and more likely 1-2lbs of fat despite the indulgences in junk food.

2. Looking back, while my body fat is higher than it was to start Phase 2, I’m still well ahead of where I’ve been in the past.  When I was previously at this weight, my body fat was 2-3% higher.

3. Consistent with the statement above, my upper body measurements are comparable to those I had when I was 5lbs heavier meaning that I’ve added muscle in the right places.

4. Finally, I’m in a great position to start Phase 3 where the focus turns to fat burning.  I’ve had my fill of junk food which means I should easily be able to go for 8 weeks without too many cravings.

What’s Next?

After a full week off, it’s on to Phase 3 of Visual Impact Muscle Building.  If I achieve similar results to my Six Pack Abs Workout which was built around many of the Phase 3 concepts, I should find myself 5lbs lighter and back to my lowest level of body fat ever.  More importantly, I’ll be at that lower level with significantly more muscle mass.  Once I tack on the bonus phase, I expect I’ll have gained almost 10lbs of lean upper body muscle with little to no fat gain.  If all goes as expected, that would be well worth the 6-7 months effort!

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