March fat test results, changes to my diet and daily workouts

So I got a bit of a surprise from my body fat test on Sunday 9 March. I was expecting to have increased over the last few months, considering the last test I had was in December. I thought the frivolities of xmas and getting back into uni might have taken their toll.

I also felt I wasn't happy with what my body looked like because I felt like I had put some body fat on, but I vowed to work harder and push through it.

What happened was my body fat was 13.5%...seems a little on the lean side for just over 6 months out from competing.

There were two main responses to this, from my wonderful, knowledgeable friends.
The first is that I was probably fine and that I should just continue with my diet and training as per usual. This seems like a good plan, since I seem to be dropping body fat like a machine.

The second was a little more tersely delivered. This was that I've been on a pretty strict diet for a while now, and I am pretty lean for this far out from the competition. One option would be to take a break for a couple of weeks and give my body a little more (healthy!) fuel to build muscle. Once the "refeed" was over, then I could go back to what I was doing before and would get even better results.

So as you can imagine, this has been a pretty difficult decision for me and I haven't taken it lightly. I respect both groups of people very much and think they both have equal weight. I've done a lot of my own research on this and because of how far out from comp I am, I've decided to take the refeed option. It's just for four weeks, so 7 April I'll be back on my strict comp diet. I'm doing it clean, so doesn't mean I'm going to dive head first into a cake! I'm just going to add more good proteins; eggs, red meat, dairy products back into my diet for a bit and see how I go. I'm not changing my training, except with more cals for a little bit I might get some big lifts again!

I do need to add more cardio into my training and I've talked about how bad I've been with this in the past, but I will resolve to do better.

I realised that for people who don’t follow me on Fitocracy it’s a little hard to know what my workouts look like. So for the next week I’m going to post my daily workouts to show what my lifting routines look like. Here’s the first one:

Wednesday 12/3/2014

 Walking- Morning walk to work

o    00:25:00 | 3 km

Group A - Lunchtime arm session (50 minutes)

o  Triceps Pushdown - Rope Attachment

§  8.8 kg x 15 reps

§  8.8 kg x 15 reps

§  8.8 kg x 15 reps

o  Dips - Chest Version

§  6 reps

§  6 reps

§  6 reps

o  Dips - Triceps Version

§  10 reps

§  10 reps | weighted | 10 kg

§  10 reps | weighted | 10 kg

§  10 reps | weighted | 10 kg

o  Dumbbell Bicep Curl

§  10 kg x 20 reps

§  10 kg x 24 reps

§  10 kg x 20 reps

§  12 kg x 6 reps

o  Hammer Dumbbell Curl

§  9 kg x 20 reps

§  9 kg x 20 reps

§  9 kg x 20 reps

§  9 kg x 20 reps

o  Triceps Pushdown

§  11.2 kg x 7 reps

§  13.8 kg x 7 reps

§  16.2 kg x 7 reps

§  18.8 kg x 7 reps

o  Cable One Arm Tricep Extension

§  1.2 kg x 10 reps

§  1.2 kg x 10 reps

§  1.2 kg x 10 reps

§  1.2 kg x 10 reps

§  1.2 kg x 10 reps

§  1.2 kg x 10 reps

§  1.2 kg x 10 reps

§  1.2 kg x 10 reps

o  Tricep Dumbbell Kickback

§  4 kg x 10 reps

§  4 kg x 10 reps

§  4 kg x 10 reps

§  4 kg x 10 reps

§  4 kg x 10 reps

§  4 kg x 10 reps

o  Dumbbell Bicep Curl

§  7 kg x 20 reps

Group B - Evening leg session (65 minutes)

o  Romanian Deadlift

§  25 kg x 10 reps

§  45 kg x 10 reps

§  55 kg x 10 reps

§  55 kg x 10 reps

o  Barbell Squat

§  20 kg x 10 reps

§  40 kg x 10 reps

§  50 kg x 8 reps

§  55 kg x 6 reps

§  60 kg x 5 reps

§  65 kg x 3 reps

§  67.5 kg x 3 reps

§  50 kg x 6 reps

o  Lying Leg Curls

§  20 kg x 10 reps

§  25 kg x 10 reps

§  32 kg x 6 reps