New BFL Challenge Starting Today

Posted on Posted in Fitness

I’ve spent the past 6 months spending too much time in front of my desk and not enough time in my home gym. I’ve officially registered to do another Body-For-Life Challenge starting today. I have my competitor application just waiting to be filled out. While there are many programs that may be superior to Body-For-Life, I know that it will work for me and I like the structure of it. I need to take picture yet but I have completed the measuring and it is not pretty. My clothes still fit in spite of the gained inches, which is strange. I’ve also shrunk. Must be aging. So I’m now officially 5 feet 6.5 inches. On the plus side, I’m completely proportional at the moment.

Current Measurements:

  • 134.2 lbs
  • 21.9% body fat (Omron)
  • Shoulder: 40.5 inches
  • Chest (at armpit): 34.5
  • Chest (fullest): 37.5
  • Waist (smallest): 27.5
  • Abdomen (navel): 30.5
  • Hip (at bones): 35.0
  • Hip (fullest): 37.5
  • Thigh: 22.0
  • Calf: 13.75
  • Bicep: 10.1
  • Forearm: 9.25

Goals:

  • I want to be lean, strong and fast!
  • ~125 lbs
  • ~16% body fat (more concerned with body fat % than scale weight; this requires a loss of 9.5 lbs of fat with no lean loss) Using Maggie’s Weight Loss Calculator. I should meet this goal if I lose about 0.78 lbs of fat per week over the 12 week cycle.
  • Lose at least an inch from Breast area, Hips, Thighs, Waist and Abdomen.
  • Increase a quarter to half inch in forearm, bicep, and calf

Challenges: I’ve developed some sort of allergy or intolerance for Casein (one of the milk proteins), lactose (milk sugar) and wheat products. I’ve recently cut these out of my diet and have had many skin and gastrointestinal issues clear up. I need to find an EAS product without these ingredients to be compliant with the official challenge. I do still have some myoplex lite but that does have some dairy products. Any recommendations?

My schedule is still incredibly full between work, school and other must-do obligations. However, I’m less productive when I’m not at optimum health. This is worth an hour or so a day of my time.

Overall Plan: Basic Body for Life

  • 3 days of lifting
  • 3 days of HIIT Cardio
  • 1 day off (this will be Monday due to my schedule)
  • 6 meals a day, 40% Carb, 40% Protein, 20% Fat (may slide to Zone values of 40/30/30)–targeting about 1700 calories a day (using Maggie’s Calculator) with a "free day" of about 2200 calories (generally on either Friday or Saturday; generally just dinner out will be off plan).
  • Extra’s that may be added: Extra steady state running. I’d like to get back to running 6 to 8 miles comfortably during this 12 week cycle. Suppleness training like yoga may be added to other short workout days.