Diet finished a couple days ago

So I finished up the diet a couple days ago, but I've been busy with midterms and assignments so I didn't get a chance to post my "after" picture.  Either way, I went through 16 lbs in 30 days, and I've been back to the gym since haven't lost that much strength.

I still can't check my squats or my deadlifts because of my knee but I did get the go ahead from my physiotherapist to do empty bar, or lighter dumbell squats and deadlifts.

I now need to go and figure out how many plates I need to stack up to get an empty bar at the right level from the ground.  A 45 lb plate is actually made at the perfect height to be broken from the ground to do deadlifts with, so I never had to do this before (I started with 1 plate on each side).  The act of breaking the bar from an unmoving position (a "dead" position, thus the name) is extremely important for deadlifts too because it's the hardest part of the lift, so I'm not going to just lift it without putting the bar back down on something.

I always see people at the gym doing deadlifts where they don't put the bar back on the ground after each rep.  This is wrong.  Those are not deadlifts and they don't work your body the way deadlifts do.  Don't be that guy!

Now to relax, get back to promoting this blog, checking things out at bb.com and going to the gym!

Day 25 - new pic

Getting pretty close to the end. Just wanted to give you guys a look at what the difference has been over the last 20 days.

Day 5:

and today:

I've managed to keep up most of the muscle.  Went to the gym yesterday and was able to lift the same amount of weight, but for a couple fewer reps than when I started.  This could be because my muscles just don't have as much energy in them because of the diet, so I'll have to retest after I finish, but everything looks good.  Maybe NO-XPLODE really does help get those extra couple reps out.

Day 22

Had a chance to weigh myself today - looking at 214 lbs - so a good 16 lbs in.  I was hoping to have lost a bit more, but still, 16 in 22 days is pretty decent.  I'm thinking I'll keep up the diet until the end of May at least, but we'll see how things are at the end of next week for that decision.

Day 15 - new pic again

Finally have a new pic to put up.  Looked back at my starting pictures - progress looks good!  We'll see how these next 15 days go, then I'll decide if I'm going to continue cutting or if I should do bulking or whatever.

My knee is getting better, slowly.  My physiotherapist said it was looking really good today compared to last Friday.  At first she thought I may have torn my PCL, but it looks like there may have just been so much swelling that it was some of the swelling that was hanging down instead of my tendon.  I'll know this Friday if I need to get an MRI or anything.

First pic up!

So it's day 5 of my keto diet, and I have my first picture up.  This is my start:

Now that I look at it, I may have bulked a little too hard towards the end of last semester, haha.  Oh well, the keto diet in the past has helped me lose ~1 lb per day.  Based on the fact that I really was overeating at the end of last semester and I've stopped taking NO-XPLODE, I should be able to reduce my weight pretty quickly (because of the reduction in creatine).

Going for 30 days (day 5 now) I should be able to get down to my goal weight of 205.  If I don't reach it by then, I'll take a closer look at my diet, and lose the rest using a lowered calorie 50% protein, 30% fat, 20% carbs diet with 500 calories less than my BMR.

Next post I'll go into more detail about what I'm eating while on this diet.