What 220lbs. At 6% Looks Like According To Dexa

[danieltx]

Just had my yearly Dexa scan - 219.8lbs. at 6.1%. Gained ~18lbs. over the last year and came in at my leanest ever. Been on 0 carbs this week, should be ~230lbs. after filling up this weekend.

The redacted number is from last summer's rebound - wanted to just show dieted down numbers for comparison.

Obviously most of these results are from my training over the last 12 months, but I'm very proud that for the last 8 weeks, in the depths of dieting, I've only trained on my Bowflex. If any of you had doubts about them, they're clearly sufficient for maintaining muscle.

While I love nothing more than getting under heavy weight and pushing myself to the absolute limit, I think I'll slot in more moderate work somewhat regularly (going back to a real gym for the first time tomorrow). I feel one of the reasons I had such good gains over last year and maintained them only on a Bowflex was because my body had much less stress and fatigue from not benching 365-405lbs. every week, not Hack squatting 540-630lbs. every week, etc. I really wonder if training hard like that on previous diets actually made me lose a bit of muscle rather than retain it.

My local Dexa facility had a buy one / get one free special so I'll get another in probably 2 months on my rebound and update this thread.

Happy to answer questions on training / diet / supplementation / what I did over the last year. I've learned a lot from this board and enjoy giving back.

 

[waterscholar]

Really impressive. Nice job!

 

[USMuscle9403]

Daniel, you and I have spoken privately about this, but would you mind posting up a summary of your diet so that people will realize that you all your muscle won't fall off if you dip kinda low in calories?

Had no clue you maintained that long on a Bowflex, that's awesome! Your body might have just needed a break. Just that time of lock down, I came back stronger on some exercises.

 

[brutus69]

detail your workouts please,
and contrast them to how u were doing it at the gym.
those are some great pics. u know what yr doing for sure

 

[johnjuanb1]

You look great! It’s nice to see a true body fat level pic posted. Good job!

 

[NEMSZ]

Daniel, you and I have spoken privately about this, but would you mind posting up a summary of your diet so that people will realize that you all your muscle won't fall off if you dip kinda low in calories?

Had no clue you maintained that long on a Bowflex, that's awesome! Your body might have just needed a break. Just that time of lock down, I came back stronger on some exercises.

I 2nd this request..

About to start cleaning up my diet on Monday so would love to see what you did OP..

 

[danieltx]

Daniel, you and I have spoken privately about this, but would you mind posting up a summary of your diet so that people will realize that you all your muscle won't fall off if you dip kinda low in calories?

I started this diet in March with just a scaled down version of my maintenance diet from the start of the year (which was scaled down from my bulking diet). Calories were around 2,300 - 2,500.

Around April 1 I went to 0 carbs Monday - Friday, carbing up with basically whatever I wanted on the weekends (sushi, potatoes, pancakes, etc., plus some ice cream, candy, etc.). Calories dropped to around 1,600 here.

I've slowly dropped them since, with my lowest day being 1,020 calories on May 12. That's not a typo - 1,020 calories for the day.

Here's a sample day of the last few weeks of my diet:

• Breakfast
  • Omegalyze
  • 1 scoop True Nutrition custom protein mix
  • 1/2 scoop Optimum Nutrition Hydrowhey
  • 1.5 scoops Fiberlyze
• Lunch (eaten as 2 meals spaced 3 hours apart)
  • 8oz. 98% ground beef
  • 6oz. grass fed angus ribeye
  • 3oz. wild caught shrimp
• Postworkout
  • Omegalyze
  • 8oz. 98% ground beef
  • 4oz. grass fed angus ribeye

Basically I consume protein powder, 3lbs. of shrimp per week, and probably 10lbs. of lean red meat per week.

I know my body pretty well and since I don't do fats in my daily diet I occasionally load on fats when I'm getting flat. This is nothing special, just a bunch of cashews and a bowl of natural sunflower butter / protein powder / sugar free chocolate syrup mixed up.

All in all I seem to have a pretty efficient metabolism given how low I can go on calories, and I was doing 30-45 minutes of cardio for the last 2-3 weeks on top of the low calories.

 

[danieltx]

detail your workouts please,
and contrast them to how u were doing it at the gym.
those are some great pics. u know what yr doing for sure

I do push / pull / legs and hit it all twice a week. I take Wednesday off. One push day is upper chest / front delt focus, the other is mid chest and medial delt. One pull day is back thickness, the other is width. One leg day is quads, the other is hamstrings and glutes.

I've managed to replicate everything I do at the gym on my Bowflex - rack deadlifts, leg press, abduction / adduction, etc. I have had to get creative - for example, to exhaust my legs on leg press, I put all weights on both sides, loop a blue EliteFTS band around the tower and over my back, then press with one leg at a time.

I literally didn't change anything from my gym workouts - same exercises, same number of sets. The reps are a little higher on compound lifts simply because the Bowflex doesn't have as much resistance as I'd like.

The key to remember if your muscles aren't smart - they don't know if they're lifting a barbell with 405lbs. or a resistance band, they only know how hard they're working. If you can get the same feeling in your muscles you do with real weights, you're good.

 

[Sides]

Amazing work and results. Also very interesting to see you using a cyclic ketogenic diet (protein and fat during the week, carb up on weekends, like Dan Duchaine's BodyOpus diet.)

Did you find strength decreasing a lot by Friday, before you carbed up again? That was always my problem with that kind of diet. I got great results from it, though, best shape of my life.

 

[danieltx]

Amazing work and results. Also very interesting to see you using a cyclic ketogenic diet (protein and fat during the week, carb up on weekends, like Dan Duchaine's BodyOpus diet.)

Did you find strength decreasing a lot by Friday, before you carbed up again? That was always my problem with that kind of diet. I got great results from it, though, best shape of my life.

Strength doesn't really decrease through the week, but it's a little harder to compare this time since I trained completely differently. More than anything I notice better endurance on Sunday / Monday - get through my workout quicker, feel like I can keep going forever on cardio, etc.

 

[psychor]

Great job Bro! You have definitely put the hard work in both with your training and diet.

In your training how do you arrange your sets and reps scheme? Ie...rest-pause..straight sets..or do you mix it up with “instinctive” training?

Thanks Bro

 

[thethinker48]

I've seen you continue to pack on muscle year after year.

You look great. You have a fullness to your quads that's pretty remarkable at a low bf, most people have theirs flatten out like pancakes. Yours look like balloons.

 

[NEMSZ]

I started this diet in March with just a scaled down version of my maintenance diet from the start of the year (which was scaled down from my bulking diet). Calories were around 2,300 - 2,500.

Around April 1 I went to 0 carbs Monday - Friday, carbing up with basically whatever I wanted on the weekends (sushi, potatoes, pancakes, etc., plus some ice cream, candy, etc.). Calories dropped to around 1,600 here.

I've slowly dropped them since, with my lowest day being 1,020 calories on May 12. That's not a typo - 1,020 calories for the day.

Here's a sample day of the last few weeks of my diet:

• Breakfast
  • Omegalyze
  • 1 scoop True Nutrition custom protein mix
  • 1/2 scoop Optimum Nutrition Hydrowhey
  • 1.5 scoops Fiberlyze
• Lunch (eaten as 2 meals spaced 3 hours apart)
  • 8oz. 98% ground beef
  • 6oz. grass fed angus ribeye
  • 3oz. wild caught shrimp
• Postworkout
  • Omegalyze
  • 8oz. 98% ground beef
  • 4oz. grass fed angus ribeye

Basically I consume protein powder, 3lbs. of shrimp per week, and probably 10lbs. of lean red meat per week.

I know my body pretty well and since I don't do fats in my daily diet I occasionally load on fats when I'm getting flat. This is nothing special, just a bunch of cashews and a bowl of natural sunflower butter / protein powder / sugar free chocolate syrup mixed up.

All in all I seem to have a pretty efficient metabolism given how low I can go on calories, and I was doing 30-45 minutes of cardio for the last 2-3 weeks on top of the low calories.

Thanks for the info, so basically you would do trace fats/carbs through the week, just high protein and then carb ups on weekends not adding any fats unless it was the occasional fat load as mentioned above?

So you went from 201lbs @ 7% to 219lbs @ 6%, care to share what your gaining diet was like before this cut? I assume similar protein sources but what were your carbs/fats like while you were gaining?

 

[tripleOT]

You look great Daniel. Hard work and dedication, you’ve got it bro. Be proud of yourself.

 

[nihilixm]

You said you've gained 20lb of lbm in a year? Congrats bro. Just curious. What types of doses do you cruise and what type do you blast? Assume cruising rn since Corona? Also damn that's a crazy low amount of calories

 

[danieltx]

Great job Bro! You have definitely put the hard work in both with your training and diet.

In your training how do you arrange your sets and reps scheme? Ie...rest-pause..straight sets..or do you mix it up with “instinctive” training?

Thanks Bro

I've always done straight sets. Very occasionally I'll do a rest-pause on the last set of something. I never do 'instinctive' training, I always stick with my plans.

For reps, I generally like 8-12 on upper body and 10-15 on lower body, but will go as low as 6 for upper and 8 on lower for really heavy sets of compound movements.

 

[danieltx]

Thanks for the info, so basically you would do trace fats/carbs through the week, just high protein and then carb ups on weekends not adding any fats unless it was the occasional fat load as mentioned above?

Correct.

So you went from 201lbs @ 7% to 219lbs @ 6%, care to share what your gaining diet was like before this cut? I assume similar protein sources but what were your carbs/fats like while you were gaining?

I peaked last year at 259lbs. on Labor Day so here's a what I ate in a day in August, close to my peak:

• Breakfast
  • Omegalyze
  • 1.5 scoops Fiberlyze
  • 3 scoops True Nutrition custom protein mix
• Lunch (eaten as 2 meals spaced 3 hours apart)
  • 3 cups Uncle Ben's Spanish Ready Rice
  • 8oz. Bob Evans garlic mashed potatoes
  • 1oz. organic roasted cashews w/ sea salt
  • 14oz. 98% ground beef
  • 6oz. skirt steak
  • 3oz. bison strip loin
• Postworkout shake
  • 1 scoop Optimum Nutrition Hydrowhey
• Postworkout meal
  • Omegalyze
  • 1.5 scoops Fiberlyze
  • 4 scoops True Nutrition custom protein mix
  • 1-2 pints Enlightened ice cream OR 1-2 cups oatmeal
  • Maybe a big chocolate chip cookie depending on what I trained and how I'm looking

 

[xpoc]

That is a different level of dedication right there...holy shxt.

 

[johnnyboy]

shredded wheat! Thanks for sharing the info!

 

[sazo75]

Great work. I've also had Dexa performed and will upload mine towards the end of my cut, because I did mine right before the cut and end of my bulk @ 249 lbs of 26% body fat LMAO. Do you go and get the Dexas fasting first thing in am? I might've missed it but what's your height, if I recall from another thread you're 6'2 ?

Also, did you bother to count calories on the weekend when you would carb up? Also when you went for the lowest calorie day of 1020 on May 12th was that for all 5 days and than two days of carbing up ?