NOT My Program: Summary of 30-Day Drastic Recomp Experiments

[air2fakie]

There's been a lot of back-and-forth on a recent thread regarding a series of 30-Day Drastic Recomp Experiments, which can be confusing to readers not familiar with prior threads.

I thought it'd be helpful to summarize the "program" below for anyone considering undertaking it, unsure of the accuracy of statements made, or looking to provide feedback to the creator on his newly posted routine for his next experiment.

This is NOT an endorsement, commentary or review of the drastic recomp program, just a consolidation in the creator's own words - sourced easily from the same few threads. Apologies for the length of post, tried to be concise given the vast amount of data but include all aspects of the "program".

Workout Routine:

to me, doing a high volume at moderate weight mechanically looks similar to aerobic/cardio exercise with a high resistance.

If I continur to do two hours of intense cardio daily, while eating enough, I'll continue to improve fantastically.

Doesn't elliptical on the max resistance or recumbent bike on the max resistance or rowing machine on the max resistance, count as resistance training?

I always do at least one kind of lifting after my cardio, even if it's only half-assed.

Usually each workout session after the cardio, I would do some half-hearted lifts to just remind my muscles not to shrivel away, they're still needed...

The basis of the program is several hours of intense cardio every morning, really as much as you can of it - 3 hours, 4 hours ... This is the entire basis of the program. Do it in a fasted state.

do a bit of haphazard lifting after your cardio without any real rhyme or reason just to keep the muscles shocked and awed

I consulted with the forum several times in the past 30 days. The biggest point of feedback I received was to "get on a program", rather than haphazardly combining exercises without any regard for what I'm doing. I am not going to follow this advice.

Consistency/Progression:

I failed to follow my protocol, because I had very little energy. Sometimes I had slept enough the day before, but decided to take a nap berfore my workout, and after I woke up my gym was closed. Other times the gym was still open for 2 more hours but I had so little energy left that I went home after instead of staying and burning more as I supposedly planned.

Perhaps I only do 200 Calories of cardio one day and 650 on another, but I consistently have gone to the gym every day but 6 out of 25. In one sense that is very consistent. For another, I always do at least one kind of lifting after my cardio, even if it's only half-assed.

I had some cheat days including days I consumed an extra 1,000 or more Calories

The bodybuilders I follow don't follow a very rigorous program, but instead work out based on what they feel in the moment.

I kept in mind the forum advice to "eat less", however on a few different days I couldn't resist the temptation.

Goals and Results:

I set myself out for a 30 day drastic cutting challenge: I wanted to be at a roughly 1100 Calorie deficit a day ... I started off around 180 lbs (83 kg) and ended up at... 179 lbs.

I decided to follow it with a second drastic cut / body recomposition ... (yes I look almost exactly the same.) ... the bodyfat percentage reading on my scale reports 16.3% bodyfat today and 16.6% bodyfat on 5 December). ... Despite failing to make more than the tiniest budge toward my goal, I am very happy with my results.

Interestingly, my weight is almost exactly the same. Today I weighed myself (December 25, 2019) at 83.3 kg with a precise scale, whereas on December 5th I was 83.9 kg. So in these 20 days my weight went down by just 0.6 kg = 1.32 lbs, despite doing 300-600 Calories of cardio most days.

I like the way my body is improving a lot - you can see this if you look at my jawline between the first and the second picture linked at the top. ...

I will continue this plan for a third "drastic 30 day cut" and recomp. ... I am very satisfied with this second 30 day challenge, despite having much lower performance and completely failing to make any of my goals.

If you're new to my threads, I set out on a series of 30-day challenges, in which I attempted to cut vast amount of bodyfat using hours and hours of cardio every day. It hardly worked. But I'm extremely happy with the results.

The scale itself isn't moving much, it is true.

As before, you have to look at my chin to see how much better I look.

You may think they look almost the same (which is true) but the chin looks better slightly. If you look at the collarbone you can can see it a bit more clearly.

I didn't meet my bodyfat percentage goals and I could almost call it a waste of enormous amounts of my time.

Also I didn't get even 1 injury (which often happens when people act like idiots.)

Nutrition - General:

I had some cheat days including days I consumed an extra 1,000 or more Calories (such as from beer, some chips, etc)... I told myself that I'm "just replenishing my glycemes bro" (haha)

From time to time I have "cheat" foods when I'm not at home. My typical strategy is to lift more heavily on the days after this occurs, and attempt to burn off the excess fat. I drink 3-6 beers totalled over the two days of most Friday/Saturday nights which is about 600 to 1200 Calories, which I attempt to compensate for using additional high intensoty (max resistance) cardio time.

Nutrition - Bulking/Cutting:

eat lots (but still lean), especially lots of protein and sort of "bulk" starting the instant my workout ends, until the next day. But the next day, start with 1.5 to 2 hours of "cut" where I work off the extra fat from the previous day, and then do some lifting for hypertrophy. I thought that by doing these workout sessions intensely, I can achieve a bulk and a cut in the same day

The theory is that I want my body to feel like I'm working hard for 2 hours like in the jungle, trying to hunt and kill a moose or whatever cave people did for surviv. My body is tired, but if I then "reward" it with lots of food and protein, it should preferentially build up all the muscles I used in the hunt/fight (which is in fact the intense workout) and build up muscle.

So Mon-Thur cut and Fri-Sun bulk might be viable. However, if I did that then I would feat that the muscles are not getting enough nutrition to properly rebuild every day. I think same day cut and bulk makes sense for my goals.

I think 3 weeks cut/3 weeks bulk repeatedly might be a good (better) target than my current program.

Improvements on Personal Life:

I look much better, people comment and give me lots of looks. Even when I am bundled up with a hat and scarf, just based on the look of my face I am fitter and get more attention.

get more looks and unsolicited touches from the opposite sex, including a hot girl literally jumping up on me and putting her legs around me on the dance floor (didn't happen before)

The last girl to see me without a shirt said wow you obviously work out.

women throw themselves at me and on top of me now, literally jumping on me and wrapping their legs around me on the dance floor, touching me unprovoked, coming and standing or sitting next to me and starting to talk to me, and texting me apologetically that they're on their period before I come over (when I literally never touched them.) And when I take my shirt off (in private) they say it's obvious I work out.

I guess I didn't explain what I meant by girls I haven't touched saying they're on their periods. I'm not going to spell that one out for you guys. I have sex. yay.

yes, "subjective, inaccurate opinions of random girls" is the only thing I value actually. ... I don't care about anything else. Those are my goals... What's wrong with that goal? I think there's nothing wrong with it. I've been making good progress toward that goal. (I have sex, yay.)

To those that do not consider the above "program" to be useful for others or who have a different opinion on his pictures:

If you don't want to learn anything from my hours of work and detailed progress pics and diary, that's on you.

I got a bit derailed by people saying there's no difference in the past 90 days. I felt like they were taking away from the informational value of my post ... They were spreading active misinformation... I don't like someone coming into my posts and writing misinformation. Period. It really bothered me.

COMMENT: Again, a summary of the "program" as described by the creator in his own words. Neither an endorsement or criticism.

[Hutrapper]

Fin lol

[randomcrash]

If preterm comments in this thread, and is anything but ashamed, then preterm is 100% a troll and probably best to not feed the troll.

[Hutrapper]

If preterm comments in this thread, and is anything but ashamed, then preterm is 100% a troll and probably best to not feed the troll.

On the contrary. Please feed it more. Please.


Pleeeeeease.

[WakingOp]

I have a question, regarding the daily bulk/ cut thing

That's stupid af. I have 4 bulk cycles per day. I bulk at breakfast, lunch, after the gym and at dinner. And I cut in between. Why would I switch to just doing this once a day?

[Hutrapper]

I have a question, regarding the daily bulk/ cut thing

That's stupid af. I have 4 bulk cycles per day. I bulk at breakfast, lunch, after the gym and at dinner. And I cut in between. Why would I switch to just doing this once a day?

If you could please read the original post, it would save on unnecessary questions. If you could read the part under "improvements on personal life"

Especially the parts covering sex with females, and the opinions of random members of the opposite sex.


That should answer your question pretty clearly as to why.

[randomcrash]

On the contrary. Please feed it more. Please.


Pleeeeeease.

If you like reading that much drivel, go ahead. But I have never had a random girl wrap their legs around me while dancing, except at my bachelor party, so what do I know?

[Hutrapper]

If you like reading that much drivel, go ahead. But I have never had a random girl wrap their legs around me while dancing, except at my bachelor party, so what do I know?

We are but young padawan learners in the presence of a master.

[randomcrash]

We are but young padawan learners in the presence of a master.

I think preterm is somewhere ON THE SPECTRUM between padawan and master.

[WakingOp]

I think preterm is somewhere ON THE SPECTRUM between padawan and master.

He's on the spectrum of sweet sweet random thot action

[TolerantLactose]

The sad thing is that dumpster fires like him are dime a dozen at gyms all over. They're usually not so stubborn, deluded and vocal though.

[peterm28]

@air2fakie,

For the most part your summary was fair, thanks for doing this hard work of collecting it into one place. There are just a couple of pieces of important missing information.

1. your summary is 100% misleading if you do not include pictures and also don't mention that my scale body fat dropped from 16.6% at start of the third 30-day challenge to 15.6% at the end of it.

(I didn't have this scale at the start of the program.)

Additionally I fit into jeans that were clearly far too small for me, an objective measurement that I have pictures for that I shared. (You don't have to include those pictures).

Without this information your post is misleading, especially given that others suggested that there was no change. These are objective changes. (Either I can button jeans easily or I obviously can't; the fat reading is also objective.)

I failed to meet my 90-day goal of cutting to 12% bodyfat on this program but I did succeed in dropping fat somewhat.

2.

This statement was only true in my second cut it is false in the third 30-day challenge:

-> "I failed to follow my protocol, because I had very little energy."

That is from the 2nd challenge. In the 3rd challenge to solve this issue I returned to doing cardio in a fasted state. I no longer had any issue like that, and had no problem doing 2.5-3.5 hours of cardio, including breaking out in a huge sweat, even on consecutive days. I had no limit to the amount of my energy.

This leads me to say to strongly recommend doing cardio in a fasted state.

3.

"I consistently have gone to the gym every day but 6 out of 25. In one sense that is very consistent."

In my third challenge I went 17 days out of 30 and had 13 rest days.


4.

For this quotation I have a clarification:

"I set myself out for a 30 day drastic cutting challenge: I wanted to be at a roughly 1100 Calorie deficit a day ..."

While it is true that I set out on this, I was not able to sustain it. I ended up with a smaller calorie deficit.


5.

Important program note:

* There are 3 very big items you left out which is caffeine, creatine, and protein consumption.

I request you to add this information:

* The program includes consumption of soy or whey powder. By the end I ate approximately 200grams of soy/whey protein daily which includes 166 grams of protein, in addition to other protein sources.

* I supplemented with 5 mg of creatine daily.

* I consumed 300 mg of caffeine (about 3 coffees) before each workout without exception. These were in the form of caffeine pills.

Optionally you can add that I tried to always eat a source of fiber such as oats, broccoli, whole grain bread, or puffed wheat or puffed rice cakes, as I find that drinking protein powder without also eating any source of fiber or "real" food causes protein farts. I suppose you don't have to include that but I think that is very helpful advice.

6.

I kept detailed workout logs for the last 30 days including weigh-ins. You can find these here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...GgC4tx/pubhtml

Because these are so detailed I would request that you include it.

There is a research tab which includes forum questions I asked.

Other than these points I think your post is quite fair, and thank you for collecting and summarizing all this information.

[Ghawk21]

Y'all gotta stop feeding this guy and just let him tire himself out and leave.

[WakingOp]

But it's funny. It's like when you see a car crash about to happen and all you can do is watch

[Hutrapper]

But it's funny. It's like when you see a car crash about to happen and all you can do is watch

Ya but this is like cutting the brakes on the car.

[jademonkey]

On the contrary. Please feed it more. Please.


Pleeeeeease.

The only reason the troll keeps failing his drastic cut is air2fakie single handedly feeding it all it needs every day.

[WakingOp]

Ya but this is like cutting the brakes on the car.

But he's drunk, so he was gonna crash anyway

[Hutrapper]

The only reason the troll keeps failing his drastic cut is air2fakie single handedly feeding it all it needs every day.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to air2fakie again

[air2fakie]

Not meant to promote or troll. The program was presented to potential followers as a success in lengthy, erratic posts, and there had been an ongoing two-way debate over accuracy of statements, so it's useful to list the program in an organized fashion.

Also thought creator might gain a diff perspective seeing it as a cumulative program instead of one-off posts/responses. I wish him luck in his new program and as encouraged in the past, further progress updates would be more appropriate on his workout journal.

[rsid97]

This is gold! Sadly on spread