Submitted my pics for the Reddit Body Transformation Challenge
This was a 90 day competition and I was entered in the Cutting category. I started my cut in January after a 4 month bulk. Was 83kg and roughly 15-17% body fat on Jan 1st. I also had a hip injury so couldn't squat. I started doing HIIT for the first time in January and just did 4 sessions a week until March. From March I kept HIIT but also combined it with weights, still couldn't squat due to the hip injury. By the time the competition started I was 77.8kg and roughly 12-13% body fat. Today I'm 72.8kg and 7-8% body fat.
The rules say that all pics have to be relaxed and untensed but I've seen a lot of completion pics where the subjects are definitely flexing their abs. I got a warning from the mods for calling people out lol. I literally picked the worst spot to take the pictures, my room is really bright and oversaturated with natural light which makes it hard for the definition to show up. So in order to stand a chance against the flexers and with the poor lighting in my room I attempted a "peak week"....I started drinking 1.5+ gallons water daily from Wednesday and was zero carb Wednesday-Thursday. Friday and Saturday I carb loaded with 1.25kg of sweet potato a day, protein was 150g sliced turkey breast on these days with no fat sources. I got a spray tan yesterday and I stopped drinking water at 6pm Saturday evening and before I went to bed I ordered a medium dominos meateor pizza, didn't eat any though.
I woke up at 7am today and took some pics, then I ate 4 slices of pizza. At 10am I drove to McDonalds and got 2 sausage & bacon muffins and ate those. Then I took some more pics. After waiting for the muffins to digest I got some weights out my garage and did some shoulder presses, press ups and dumbbell curls, I also had some haribo candy on hand...then I took some more pics.
The idea is that after 2 days of no carbs my muscles will be hungry for carbs and will soak up more glycogen on the days that I carb load - making the muscles look bigger. Drinking excessive amounts of water gets my body into a water flushing mode and this continues even after I cut water at 6pm on saturday, flushing water out the body makes the skin tighter and the muscles look bigger again. Then the high fat/carb/salt junk food should accelerate the process of driving fluid into the muscle cells.
I just about had enough time before the submission deadline to sort the best photos and get them uploaded. I honestly don't know if I will win, if I picked a better photo location then I think I'd blitz it. Regardless, I'm in the best shape of my life. 73kg is usually the point where I'd start bulking, the last two attempts just saw me eat lesser quality food more often than not. I'm more motivated than ever now and I also enjoy HIIT which was not something I'd done previously. Hopefully I can start adding some muscle without getting too much fat. I think I'm gonna cut to 70kg just for lolz then start bulking...some fat gain is inevitable, but if I can start from 5-6% body fat and bulk till 10-12% then cut again, I will always stay in pretty good shape