I promised myself at the beginning of the summer that I was going to post my my before/after shots on my 40th birthday.

Since my birthday is only a week after Thanksgiving, I thought I'd better post now 'cause it ain't gonna get any better after a 3 day binge.

So here goes.

Before:
Height - 5"10'
Weight - 216
BF% - 19.5% using fat-trackII digital calipers.
LBM - 174

After:
Height - 5"10
Weight - 210
BF% - 13%
LBM - 185

I gained 11 pounds of muscle
I lost 16 pounds of fat.

Let me have it.

Good job man, and happy birthday!

Happy Birthday Rainjack!

You are a credit to this site. That back looks big enough to land a Chopper on.

Great job!!! I made the same birthday promise myself. I'll be posting my before and after pics in a few months.

Rainjack,

The proofs in the puddin' and clearly you got the proof. Thick, powerful and athletic. Great job and happy B-Day.

Thanks for all the compliments. I just have 2 questions for some of the more experienced iron-lovers.

1. It looks like my rear delts are way under developed compared to the front delts. What exercises can I do to put some size on my rear delts?

2. Maybe it's age, or something, but I can't shed the love handles. There are weeks where I'm at less than 2000Kcals/day, and still the flabby, soft, grotesque love handles. Any magic tricks to kill these bastards?

Thanks

Great pics. I'm no expert, but I have the same problem with love handles and mid-section fat you're describing. I'm a few years younger than you (34), and a little smaller, but until recently I've had a really hard time whittling those suckers away.

What is starting to work for me---I'm eating my carb/protein meals in the AM, and my protein/fat meals in the PM. I am keeping my daily calorie intake for fat loss the same as before (about 2/3 maintenance), but replacing the PM carbs with flax oil, salmon fat, natural peanut butter, etc. Finally, I am seeing some real progress. I'm hitting approximately my BW in grams of carbs per day (170 or so). Oh yeah, and I'm eating a buttload of greens (mostly spinach) in the PM.

Everything I'm eating is clean except for a couple moderate cheat/carb-up meals on Saturdays.

This is what's working for me...YMMV.

rainjack,
good job dude.try reverse flies on a pec-deck and face pulls to build up those rear delts.....bigal64

Make sure you put your rear delt training early in your training week AND early in your workout. Too many people list things as a priority only to add them on as an extra at the end of a workout.

Try doing a rear delt isolation exercise (like reverse pec deck or bent over laterals) at the start of a pulling workout. Focus on the squeeze at the top of all of your rowing and chinning movements thereafter.

Damn....now I feel like I'm going to have to post for my 21st birthday!

Rainjack-

Looking very good! You can definitely see the progress from the pics. Deadlifts actually helped my rear delts and traps quite a bit.

What, you couldn't add an inch or two to your height?
Good job! Love handles do suck, I'm only 26 and they are the hardest thing to get rid of. The worst part is I developed them in what seemed like the span of a week! To get rid of them you need to get extremely lean. I never really go below 8%, which is low enough for me and they are still slightly there, despite being able to see abs, etc.
So don't sweat the small stuff, again, good job. BTW, did you use a specific diet protocol?

apayne,

Yeah, I did everything I could think of - but still no added height.

I tried to stick with the original t-dawg diet. The second version of that diet allowed for too many carbs.

I was able to lose fat while gaining lbm using the carb-cycling diet that Tampa-Terry suggested to me, 13% to 9%.

How long did it take you to drop from 13 to 9?

You should take a look at the "When to Bulk/Cut" thread.

Seems to be quite the argument over this 'gaining muscle while cutting fat' approach to bodybuilding.

bompa(tudor)

Why the bump? RJ hasn't been here in months.

Yea, it's quiet since he has been gone. I like his noise.

Now I miss the big guy again.

But yeah, why the bump?

i miss the veterans