My Shredded Experience Compared to AlphaDestiny

My Shredded Experience Compared to Alpha Destiny

Getting shredded isn’t easy, and it's harder the first time. It does get easier and we’ll explore this today by comparing my recent shredded experience to Alex Leonidas’s from Alpha destiny.

I’ll link his video where he talks about the side effects of getting shredded in the top comment so you can check it out for yourself.

One of the things we’re going to see is a line where you go from losing weight and feeling better to losing weight and feeling worse.

I realize most guys in the fit and 50 crew aren’t trying to get shredded, but a lot would like to get leaner. Some are shooting for under 20% body fat others would like to be around 15%. This video will help you out.

So a couple of significant differences we need to address right away is how lean we got. I would say I’m around 10 to 10.5% body fat, whereas Alex dropped below 10%.

He also had a lot more weight to lose, starting at 180 lbs and cutting all the way down to 146 losing an average of a pound and a half a week.

He finished his cut around 9 percent body fat, So he must have been over 20% when he started. This is the biggest difference between the 2 of us. I haven’t been over 13% body fat since I turned 50. So I started at a much lower body fat setpoint.

My body used to being lean where it would be a bit of a shock for Alex. I haven’t weighed over 180 since my 30s and the heaviest I weighed last year was just over 161.

When I started my cut in March, I was 160 lbs and ended it the beginning of October, weighing 152. Then I went into maintenance, allowing my body to get used to the new body fat percentage.

I lost a little over a pound a month. This made it, so I didn’t have to cut as much food and a more comfortable fat loss.

You might want to lose fat faster, but I would encourage taking a break and going into maintenance for a while to let your body get used to the lower weight if you find cutting is getting too hard and you’re eating like a bird.

Once your body is used to the new weight, it will develop a new set point, and you can continue your cut.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20101008/

Alex said it didn’t get tough for him until he dropped below 160 lbs. I think it would’ve been interesting to see if the rest of the cut would’ve went better if he had taken a break and gone into maintenance for a couple of months. This would let his body get used to the new fat percentage before losing the last 14 pounds.

Alex had to cut down to 1500 calories to reach his goal, and the first time I ever got shredded, I damn near starved myself too.

His experience of denial is relatable when I look back to my first cut, having to say no to the treat foods I like or meticulously calculating my calories to see how bad I had to starve myself to make room for a piece of chocolate.

I don’t have to do this anymore. I started this cut at about 2500 calories a day. By the end, I was down to 2150. A lot more comfortable than Alex’s 1500.

I eat pretty plain but only Monday to Friday, and this ends at dinner on Friday, which is still pretty healthy, but I have it with wine and dessert.

I keep my calories lower during the week, around 1900 to 2000, giving me 800 or so extra for the weekend.

Alex said he ate a ton of veggies and protein. Which helps with satiety, and of course, the extra protein helps preserve muscle mass during a cut.

He talks about losing muscle but not much strength. He carry’s more muscle than I do. So you’d think he’d have a higher metabolism.

Now we’re going to talk about the negatives, and I had a couple of side effects, even fixed one, so that’s worth talking about.

Brain fog, low energy levels, unusually cold, and low blood pressure. This last one is something I suffered from. When I checked my blood pressure, it would show normal, but when I was working on my house reno, stripping baseboard or drywalling down low, and I’d stand up, I’d get that lightheaded feeling like I was going to pass out.

Alex actually passed out once, and his blood pressure reading confirmed he had low blood pressure. Interestingly enough, some of the symptoms are lack of concentration or brain fog, fatigue or a lack of energy, cold, clammy, pale skin. Could that be defined as unusually cold?

Alex’s symptoms may have all been related to low blood pressure. I was able to fix my feeling of passing out by increasing the number of carbs I was taking in.

My result is an experiment of one so take it with a grain of salt. If you suffer from low blood pressure, you should see your doctor.

Insomnia, Alex couldn’t fall asleep. I couldn’t stay asleep. I wake up every night and have to get up for a while and sit in my chair until sleep slowly comes back to me.

It wasn’t until after watching Alex’s video that I realized this might be shred-related. But It will be interesting to see if my sleep gets better as my weight increases and I go back up over 12% body fat.