Welcome back to 2012

So, I haven't posted in a while.  I've had a hectic last couple of months...I know, I know...welcome to the real world.  My last post was from before Thanksgiving.  Since that time, much has happened.  The holidays came & went, my son went to and graduated from Air Force basic training, and my workout partner and good friend Dave hit the century fat loss mark within 6 months of being on The Program.  It's been an exciting last few months and I expect much more excitement to come.

Regarding my own training, I've been largely in maintenance mode since beginning to train Dave.  I picked up some cool weather cycling gear and went for my first ride today in over 6 months (cool & windy, but I was feeling good).  I've been working Dave through his progressions through various mesocycles (strength to end the summer, power through Thanksgiving, and we are currently in a hypertrophy phase) and he's responded tremendously to each cycle.  We are both learning a lot through this journey together.  He's learning what it truly means to be lean and healthy.  I'm learning how to use strength and conditioning principles to help obese people get lean and regain their fitness.  The following are some key points I've learned through this experience (the list is by no means exhaustive):

1) Strength training is absolutely key to fat loss...Dave has achieved his fat loss with some HIIT cardio during the power mesocycle we did during the fall, and virtually no cardio the rest of the time.
2) Periodizing your training is fundamental as it keeps the body guessing and forces your muscles to adapt to new stimulation every 6-8 weeks spurring greater fat loss...consult a strength and conditioning specialist to figure out a good macrocycle (usually a year long broken up into mesocycles and microcycles).
3) Keep your workouts intense.  Working at the low end of the intensity range will cause you to burn some extra calories, but upping the intensity of your workouts (weight training and cardio) will send your body into fat burning overdrive.
4) All of your work in the gym will be for naught if you don't have your diet dialed in.  If most of what you're consuming is processed, crap food, you are selling yourself short.  Dave consistently tracks his caloric intake with http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ and runs under the prescribed calories for fat loss.  I've worked with him to balance his nutrient intake and the combination of these two things (controlled caloric intake + balanced nutrients) has resulted in his amazing fat loss.  Another cool thing about this approach to fat loss dieting is we gauged his caloric needs by his energy level.  As long as he didn't feel hungry & was able to put 100% effort into his workouts, we figured he was getting the foundation of what he needed from his diet with the rest coming from his fat stores.  Golden.
So, that's it for today.  We'll be transitioning to another strength mesocycle in March.  Until then, I'll be chiming in with more stories from time to time.