, for aid in doing so. What follows is probably uncomfortably much text and a shameless plea for advice, so only keep reading if yer prepared to waste time on someone else’s happiness, and possibly prepared for a challenge Let me explain my situation, first, for I believe it might impact both my opportunities for exercise, and a regulated diet. I’ll most probably ramble, and possibly even reminisce:
I’m 30 years old. Three years back, I decided to impose some strict limitations on my diet, as a first step towards the body I had lazily been dreaming about for the past 10 years, but never worked with any kind of fervor or passion to achieve. So, I cut down my calorie intake by 500-800 kcal per day, most it from sucrose-based calorie sources. (And boy, do I miss that daily morning glass of chocolate milk
)Leap through time three years, and nothing has changed. In spite of cutting my daily calorie intake by almost a third (and making sure I don’t replace it with a substitute), there is no perceptible change to my body, and my weight stays the same. This in spite of the fact that the previous level of intake (the one I reduced) had been maintained for the last 6-7 years or so, with no perceptible or measurable increase in body mass.
So, basically, I go neither up nor down in spite of long-variations of almost 1000 kcal a day, based on sample data from over a period of almost 10 years. It might not be a medical conundrum, but it certainly does confound me. A normal day, I eat about 1500-2000 kcal, which, combined with an estimated passive calorie burn of 2300, plus irregular exercise amounting to, perhaps, another 200-400 burned calories per day, ought to produce a, at least, long-term weight loss effect. But after three years, the absolute lack of change has me stumped.
That’s it for nutrition. Body-wise, I suppose I am a rather common sight. I’ve wide shoulders, rather short but well-built, but with that telltale slightly protruding stomach of a (previously) well-fed western male. There is hardly *any* visible fat anywhere else on my body, but that is a small comfort when those abs is what makes you look all California
As mentioned above, I actually do practice irregularly. I’m an amateur martial artists since 15 years back (with auxiliary running, gym and weight lifting as complementary training), and I’m both quick and strong for my lack of dedicated training (with a particular emphasis on muscular stamina, my only potentially exceptional physical quality), but for the past 7 years, I haven’t been able to keep a regular and frequent training schedule, thanks to my chosen profession and (hopefully) artistic work.
As a journalist and singer, it is also hard for me to make any pretenses at regularity in my meals. Or in sleeping. Or in getting any sleep or food at all, some days
So, people with swelling abs and blood-pumping biceps, and the exercise- and nutrition-infused brain cells to match, what do you make of this?
I have no ambitions (nor the time) to eventually look like a Mark Dacascos/Chris Evans adonis-like hybrid, but it would be nice to have visible abs, a defined pectoralis major, no directly clearly identifiable masses of body fat on my person, and the occasional protruding vein very now and then.
The question is two-pronged:
- Why do I stay at the same weight (and visible body shape, so no muscle-fat-or-the-reverse transference in the works here) over the course of three years, in spite of a (carefully measured) calorie deficit of at east 400 every day?
- With my above-mentioned lifestyle/career in mind, and the fact that I realize I have neither the time nor place to train for hours every day, and am thus prepared to wait for several years to attain my (realistic) ideal body, how should I go about making further changes to my diet and training to actually reach my goals before I am too old to ever do so?
Here’s to abs, a chest upon which to beat fists, and the vain smile to match.
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