I got some awesome news about my RMR (resting metabolic rate).  He says I am awesome at burning fat while resting. In fact, as I sat down my body was burning mostly sugar.  He says this is due to the flight response–you are in a strange place and a mask is on you and you're hooked to a machine, so you want to run!  As I relaxed I quickly turned to burning fat.  It turns out that if I went into a coma I'd burn 1939 calories.  Add to that the normal activities in a day (minus exercise) and I burn 2481 calories a day just by being myself.  It turns out that my maintenance level of calories (when you include exercise into the equation) is 3108.  No wonder I wasn't gaining muscle as fast as I should at 3100 calories!

The bad news is that my body doesn't do as well when exercising.  Ideally I would want to burn fat around a heart rate of 135, but I start at around 105.  He says that is way too low and needs to be adjusted.  He has given me a plan to adjust that.  Over time my body will adjust and I will start burning fat at a higher heart rate, which is the desired effect.  The bad news is that he doesn't want me running at all until I get that number up higher.  The reason is that running will raise my heart rate to a level where I am burning sugar instead of fat and that is bad.  For now I am supposed to do 2 cardio sessions a week where I go for 60 minutes (at least) and keep my heart rate between 105 and 115.  I am then supposed to do 2 more cardio sessions where I do intervals, but in a very different way.  He wants me to bring my heart rate up to 145 and then go for 1 full minute at that level, then slow down for 5 minutes until I recover to 105–that's one interval.  I am to do this for a full 30 minutes.  All of this is supposed to bring my fat burning level up higher (to around 135 where it should be).

He tells me that my respiratory recovery isn't so great (and that's part of why I burn fat too soon), but my heart is in tip top shape (thank God for that!).  The really shocking news to me is that he says if I am going for optimal fat burn, I should take longer rest periods during my weight training because my heart rate gets up too high and I start burning sugar and not fat.  He suggests lifting very heavy (yay!) and then taking a 3 minute rest before doing the next set.  I'm not so sure about that right now, but I will decide that over time.  If the cardio can do it for me I will ignore the weight part.

The final news I got is that my stomach Ph is too base and not enough acid.  As a result of this situation, I am not utilizing the protein I am giving to my body.  This is also another reason why I am not gaining muscle the way I'd like.  He suggested that I get Betaine HCL and take one caplet with every meal. This will help my body digest the protein I give it.  I am going to run out tomorrow and get myself Betaine HCL and then start taking it with every meal. 

He has asked me to adjust some things with my diet.  He wants me to take in 2 grams of protein per pound of LBM and then .8 grams of carbs per pound of LBM.  This adjusts my numbers drastically.  I will be at a new ratio of 20/50/30 and you will see this represented on my Accountability Log below.

It is all about knowing you can do it.  It is about confidence and practice.  When you have confidence that you can do something you will be successful at it as long as you practice it.  It is the same with your nutrition and exercise programs.  They will be successful if you actually work the plan.  If you try to change things up midstream for no good reason you won't be successful in the long run.  The thing is that it takes patience.  Most people do not have the patience it really takes to make it happen.

Think about your own reaction when you track your stats and they are not going in the direction you'd like or they are not changing fast enough for your liking.  Your natural inclination is to just change things up, but why would you change things up if you have no evidence one way or the other that the plan is working or not?

Total time of 20 minutes start to finish.

Week 1 – Deadlifts
Week 2 – Squats
Week 3 – Bench Press
Week 4 – Lat pulldowns

The idea is to one exercise for five training sessions in a row.  You use very heavy weight and extremely high volume.  I will do 3 rep sets.  When I will take 30 seconds rest between each set and when I can only complete 2 reps I will lower the weight.  I will continue doing this for a set period of time.  Once I've reached my allotted time I will rest 2 minutes and finish off with a set with as many reps as I can manage.  I will begin with 20 minutes and each subsequent day I will increase the time by 5 minutes.  I will report back my results when I have completed this 4 week cycle.

I am honestly not interested in doing the entire Muscle Explosion program for alot of different reasons.  However, I believe the 5-day Structural Attack portion (as described above) is going to be awesome for my strength and my muscle building efforts.  It is all about keeping the body guessing.