it took another week, but i finally regained most of my strength after having the flu. kept my calories above 2400 to try and speed up that recovery. bodyweight rebounded a little back to 202, and now its hovering around 200. for the rest of this month i'm dropping calories to 2300. hopefully that will put me on track to lose about 1 lb a month. my plan this round is to slowly drop calories over time. next month i'll probably drop it down to 2200 calories, etc... with 2000 being the lowest i would go. another option is to add in some extra cardio along the way. nutritionally, i'm targeting 20 to 25% good fats, 250 grams of protein, and the rest as carbs. there is some variation here, because i'm also modifying calorie levels based on the intensity of the workout. so i'll get extra calories (mostly carbs) on heavy days, and less calories (less carbs) on light days and days off. this has the added benefit of forcing me to vary what i'm eating from day to day.

the 'flu diet' worked too good. lost 5 lbs in a week. strength and energy levels are down. at least i've recovered enough to start working out again. since i lifted heavy the last 2 months, this month will be : lower weights, higher reps, more sets, and slower tempo. also switching back to doing cardio everyday. this time i'll only do low intensity cardio to burn fat. for nutrition, i estimate that i need 2750 calories a day (including a workout). dropped to 2400 calories to start off, will keep dropping over the following months. the biggest change is that i'm now preparing all my meals. so i'm pretty much off processed foods : sugar intake is reduced, and sodium is reduced a ton. finally, i cleaned out my kitchen last weekend. there were some foods and supplements that i could eat while bulking, but they have to go while cutting. most dairy and fruits are out too.

i was 205 lbs last week, but went under 200 today. bodyfat is about 10 or 11%. if my measurements and estimates are correct, i'm hoping to finish this round in 3 months. 5 months max.

my germ collection center is the gym. since i had heard about swine flu on monday morning, i made sure to wash my hands after the monday afternoon workout. of course i get the flu that night ... and it kicked my ass. didn't need to visit a doctor, so i have no way of knowing if i had the swine flavor. i'm assuming i just had the regular kind, and it's just coincidence. the only thing that would lead me to think it was the swine flu, is that i've been ultra healthy for the last year, so my immune system is maxed, and the swine flu supposedly tears up good immune systems.

at least it had good timing, because i needed to get away from the gym for more than a couple days. the bad news is my diet is all screwed up. only managed to eat about 500 calories within the first 24 hrs. that sucked! right now i'm just trying to push caloric dense foods to get my energy (and any strength) back. so dairy and fruits are back in. been getting lots of simple carbs, because that is about all i can stomach. slowly increasing protein intake, because its way down, but my appetite isn't interested in the protein at all.

i had been really motivated to start another round of cutting tomorrow. that's been delayed.