Weight Gains vs BF%

by **as19700915** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 6:00 pm

Hi, I have been training now for 30 weeks. The 5x5 program is the 3rd prgram I have tried, I have used 3 day splits & full body programs and wanted to try something different.
Over this time i have slowely gained weight which is good and have now reached my target of 80 Kg. I could probably add more weight but I am worried about my BF% which has started to increase. Do you have any tips to prevent this? all my stats are logged and you can see here by the links that I am very early on in the 5x5 program. Will this BF% increase stop or should I add some cardio (against all reccomendations) to the program?
5x5 Progress:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p0mdABZGENq7RbFQnfOTYcA&output=html&gid=0&single=true
GREEN = OK
YELLOW = DID NOT COMPLETE SETS/REPS
RED = MISSED
Traning Stats:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p0mdABZGENq4c1v2kL0blLw&output=html&gid=0&single=true

I have a clean diet and eat 6 - 7 times per day. I have considered lowering my cal intake by 500cals but am worried that I will not have enough energy to complete the weights once they become heavy.
Thanks for a great site (I have read alot the last 30 weeks :-)

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by **Mehdi** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 6:04 pm

What programs did you do before? Your body fat will decrease as you get stronger. I don't know what your current Squat max is, but once you can squat 1.5x your body-weight (about 3 months from now), you'll see differences in body fat.
Don't lower calories right now, eat clean, get stronger. continue tracking everything, that's a good appraoch. Good luck with the routine, and thanks for the motivating words.

by **as19700915** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 6:17 pm

Th first was a simple split (chest / back, arms/ shoulders, legs),
Scond a 3 day full body and now the 5x5...I am entering the 3rd week of this (and even now I have stalled on the bench press), the weights are light and I have spent 1 week with an empty bar before I started logging. What I am worried is that the BF% will rise above the 17% which it is at now. I would like to slow this down if possible.
btw "2nd edition Starting Strenght" just arrived.....well reccomended!

by **JonHarris40** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:01 pm

Keep squatting and keep doing the program and you BF% will drop. Mine has dropped abot 3% and I am in week 8 of the 5x5 and I think it would have dropped more if my squat form wasn't so out of wack I had to do a hard deload to fix it. I and several others do carido after workouts too in order to help drop the fat, I also do it because I play a sport compitively and want to keep my endurance and lung capacity up.