BTC Journal - Week 3 to 8

Progress Photo - 5/26, start of week 7

Stats

Weight - 161 lbs

Going off raw diet

I went off the raw diet after week five.  I was not able to meet my daily caloric requirements while on this diet.  I was losing weight and had dropped to a low point of 150 lbs at one time.  This included a drop in bodyfat% as well.  However, the drop in weight was too drastic and out of line with my goal of gaining body weight.  So in the best interest of my goals, I decided to let go of the diet and allow myself to eat meat products and cooked foods.

Gained 11 pounds since going off the raw diet

I've now regained all the body weight I lost, plus about three more pounds.  My highest weight was 163 lbs at one point.  I'm hovering around 161 lbs at the moment.  I've been able to eat more calories per meal as a result of going back to a more traditional meat and cooked diet.  Adding milk, eggs, chicken and beef have helped me to increase my protein requirements as well as my caloric requirements.  It's amazing how fast my body gained the weight.  I gained almost ten pounds in less than three weeks.

However, I cannot say all the weight gains have been due to a change in diet alone.  In the fifth week of training, I also finally got my gym membership and started hitting the heavy weights again.  Prior to this, I was making do with exercising solely with body weight exercises, elastic ropes and a 65 lb barbell that was lying around.  I have to say, my training in terms of weight-training, got off to a bad start.

Benefits of the raw diet

This isn't to say my raw diet has been a benefit for me.  There are many things I've learned and gained from while going through this diet:

Self Confidence.  First off, it was a great learning experience and showed me what I could achieve if I set my mind to it.  It was'nt easy to suddenly switch to a raw diet.  There was a lot of temptations and distractions that I had to deal with.  I am happy for being able to stick to the diet for as long as I did.  

Emotional Detox.  The first two weeks of the diet, I went through some drastic emotional surges.  I read about "emotional detoxes" while going raw, but I wasn't fully prepared to deal with the full force of it.  I had my arguments and fights with my significant other, to the point where we broke up.  Of course the break up lasted only a day as we came to our senses and talked things over.  It was as if a well of suppressed emotional feelings I had "bottled" up, finally exploded out into the open.  Most of them were anger, frustration and impatience.  However, ever since the first two weeks, I hadn't experienced any more "eruptions" of feelings.  In fact, I haven't had one eruption since then.  It's as if, I allowed myself to release these emotions which I haven't had the need for anymore.  

Clearer Skin.  One of the benefits I've heard about raw was clearer skin.  I got to say, during the time I was going through the diet, I never even thought about this.  However, after the diet, I did notice it and asked myself, "how my skin cleared up?"  That's when I put two and two together and realized that perhaps, the raw diet had something to do with it.  I haven't had a break out since starting the diet and even after being off of it for the past three weeks.  Prior to this, my face was prone to break outs.  

Body fat Loss.  One of the changes I noticed right away was a drop in body fat %.  It seems that the raw diet is a great diet for losing weight!  However, my goal for this challenge was to gain weight!  If I was on a cutting phase, then I would definitely see myself staying on the diet.  I dropped three pounds in the first two weeks and at my lowest point had dropped eight pounds.  By itself, this may not seem suprising, but consider the fact, that I was not doing any cardio at all.  In other words, I wasn't training to lose body fat.  The drops in weight, were all contributed to the diet.  

This may very well be the physical "cleansing" that is talked about while going on a raw diet.  That is, your body gets rid of excess "gunk" that it no longer needs because it is on a more "nutrient rich" diet.  Therefore, you notice a quick decline in body weight.  

Training

Finally got my gym membership after the fifth week of the challenge.  I have to say, that training with heavy weights is critical if you want to gain mass.  I've been able to gain about 11 lbs since I've started lifting at the gym and switched back to a traditional diet.

Boy does it feel good to lift heavy!  It's the best way to increase the testosterone in your system, which is critical for muscle hypertrophy.  I've also added slow negative reps to my workouts which are killer for growth.  The days after I do

I'm now at a two times a week body part split.  Meaning, I workout my body parts twice a week.  Before this, I was doing a full body workout three times a week.  Now my split is:

• Mondays - Legs/Shoulders/Calves
• Tuesdays - Chest/Back/Arms
• Wednesdays - off
• Thursdays - Legs/Shoulders/Calves
• Fridays - Chest/Back/Arms
• Saturday - Off
• Sunday - Off (Basketball)

I've read that a training each body group twice a week is optimal for growth.  Any more or any less is not as efficient.  So this is the reason why I switched to this split.  It seems to be working so far and I will continue to do this split.  One thing I will add is to increase my training with slow negative reps.  I planned to train one whole week out of the month with them, but now I will do them once a week.

I feel they have been helping me tremendously, so I will use them more often.  The only concern is if I will be overtraining with them.