Shredding diary

I’ve always said that it’s not about how much you lift, but what you look like. I believe that training isn’t a competition, but a lifestyle choice; you’re not competing with anyone but yourself.
I really love this quote from Zyzz – “My end goal is not to be some massed up freak, but rather to have a physique that can be looked as art; streamlined, tapered, and universally appealing"

So I decided to see the full extent of my training and shed the fat this month. This is my progress diary for the two weeks.

Week 1:

Start – weight 81kg

I started a new nutrition plan, which was basically to have more protein than carbs, and aimed to hit the following amounts of each for this week. For protein I aimed for over 850 grams in the week and for carbs less than 700 grams. This meant roughly less than 100 grams a day.
As far as training goes I kept to the same routines, and had Wednesday as a cardio day where I ran for 40 minutes around my local park with 30 push-ups at the end of each lap. Then later on I did the military circuit and abs circuit from this blog at the gym.

As an extra metabolism boost I spent about 15 minutes in the sauna 3 days of this week after my workout, to rev up the fat burning a little more.

 Results – protein total for week = 873grams

               Carbs total for week = 663 grams

Week 2:

After 1 week = 77kg (lost 4 kilos)
This week I set myself the same nutritional targets having seen such good progress in week 1 and having learnt how to manage the carbs counter more effectively I was able to plan a basic meal plan for this week. Good meals for this are tuna salads with a small red pepper pesto dressing, 130 grams of tuna and bowl of salad (33 grams of protein and 7 grams of carbs) and 3 scrambled eggs with 100g chicken and 50g mixed peppers (36 grams of protein and 9 grams of carbs). These were my typical lunches.
Breakfast was either a protein shake or the banana and nut Smoothie from this blog. Sticking to this kind of meal plan means that virtually all healthy/high protein dinners are acceptable as long as they don’t have over 75 grams of carbs.
In terms of training I stuck to my usually routines again, but this time added three 10 minute abs sessions to the end of every other workout to help with the chiselled core look. Also upped the intensity of the cardio a bit. Again I was ending the other 3 weights workouts with a 15-minute sauna session to keep the metabolism revved up for several ours after leaving the gym.

Results – protein count for week = 903 grams

                Carbs count for week = 658 grams

 Current weight = 75kg. 

As a final thing I found that once you reach your desired weight and definition it is much more motivating in terms of dieting as you want to maintain it. But also now you no longer need to lose weight you can increase your carbs intake per week by around 100-150 grams and still stay ripped.

Hopefully you’ll find this motivating and helpful for your own training and I wish you all luck in achieving your aims. 
to watch the video of my progress and see the change yourselves check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drg-zb-iDh4

Importance of Variation

The importance of varying your workouts is enormous. Firstly it not only forces your muscles to work and perform in different ways, hence building more muscle in different areas, but it also makes it more fun, challenging and gets your brain more activated an focused in every workout, rather than simply going through the motions.

So how do I add variation to my workout? Simple:

1. Keep on climbing:

If you get comfortable banging out a weight or running, cycling, swimming at a certain pace or for a certain time then you need to make it harder. Try going up to the next set of dumbbells or going faster or for longer on the cardio. Always set yourself a target to beat every time you train and 9/10 times you’ll improve.

2. Mix it up:

Instead of simply sticking to the same routines every day of every week try to mix it up every few weeks or months. I train in a solid routine for 50 days and then evaluate my performance, weight, strength and cardio and then start chopping and changing the things that I need to improve on, or have maxed out to keep my workouts fresh and enjoyable. For example I wasn’t happy with my Tricep techniques recently and hadn’t noticed any real gains so I swapped 2/3 of the exercises around and I’m seeing results. In terms of cardio try swapping running for 40 minutes for a 40 minute circuit or swimming session, or vice versa. Always keep your body guessing.

3. Nutrition:

This too needs to stay fresh, but on a much more regular basis. Studies have clearly shown that people who train, but don’t vary their healthy diets enough soon slip up into bad habits or cheat days far too often. So every week plan your meals, even if its just your main meal each day and try to swap a few around each week to give you some new healthy combo’s and keep the diet enjoyable. This also applies to protein, keep changing the sources and you’ll get extra gains due to the extra nutrients each different source has to offer.

4. Don’t be afraid of change:

I’ve trained with guys who never changed their routines and yet they always complain that they hat one of their sessions! (usually legs) I always get the ‘Oh no its legs tonight’ crap every week. But this if you keep on swapping your moves about you’ll see the results faster and you’ll actually start to love your training again.

5. Brain power:

It has been proven that by changing your normal routines several times a year can improve the number of neurones in your brain and thus improve not only memory but reaction times and natural recall. The body likes to adapt to survive so give it a new workout to adapt to!

My Legs Workout

I thought I'd lay out another one of my workout routines for you to try and at the minute I'm really enjoying my legs training and thought I would share this with you.

Leg Raise resistance machine - 5 sets of 10 reps 97.5kg (mainly a warm up so keep rest times low -30 seconds)
Leg curl resistance machine - 5 sets of 10 reps 97.5kg (mainly a warm up so keep rest times low -30 seconds)
Calf press machine - 5 sets of 12 reps 265kg (calfs need high intensity so aim for less rest also)
Incline leg press - 4 sets 8 reps 260kg ( you can rest more for this compound move)
Held ab crunches (100 reps) as a short break from legs, remove lactic acid
Box squatts - 5 sets of 10 reps 100kg (all about the depth, get a low bench and sit down till your glutes are brushing it and the back up again, DO NOT REST ON THE BENCH!)
Standing Barbell calf press - 5 sets of 15 reps 85kg (again short intense calf session)
Held ab crunches (100 reps with 15 kg weight disc)
Stair master cardio machine - 6 mins at 115 steps per minute
Walking dumbell lunges - 4 sets of 20 reps (10 per leg) 28kg dumbells (try not to stop in between reps, stay low and keep walking them out till you've done 20 reps)

I normally aim to finish this in around 1 hour 5mins. So keep the rest times low and keep working, best results come from putting in more effort and less yapping. So get the ipod plugged in and really pump this one out cause it has really worked well for me over the past few weeks.

Bulking up

Surprisingly spring-time has been chosen as one of the best times for you to start a bulking nutrition plan, and this may come as a shock to many of you who prefer to gain the pounds over Christmas, during your hibernation periods. But there’s a good reason for this;

Firstly all the junk food that you have stocked up on over Christmas like selection boxes and comfort foods are now gone and its back to the old diet again. But this means that you will be fuelling your muscle growth on more healthy, and protein high foods rather than empty calories stashed away for winter.

Secondly as its spring your less likely to pie out on comfort foods due to the increased vitamin D in the sunlight and the general feeling of content on a sunny day, and thus again you wont gain weight around your waist but on your muscles!

Thirdly, the lighter nights mean that you will have the chance to keep up your cardio programme and so burn off the fat that comes in the bulking diet. Mind you cardio should be kept to a once a week basis for the duration of a bulking programme, mainly just as a safeguard from any return of your gut.

Finally it’s a good way to add some t-shirt muscle mass, before summer, and don’t worry about summer bodies yet, you still have all of June to get shredded for your holidays, so just go for it!

Basics for bulking:

Nutrition: The key is to drip feed your muscles and get your body into an anabolic state so feel free to graze all day on high protein and carb foods, but keep it smart and aim for foods low in fat and in terms of carbs I mean good carbs, not sugar!

Aim to get 2-3 grams of protein, 3-5 grams of carbs and 1gram of fats per kilo of your bodyweight daily, i.e if you weight 75 kilos aim for at least 150grams of protein and only 75 grams of fat.

Also keep getting plenty of fruit and veg to supply your muscles with all the key nutrients.  This may seem like a lot of food, but its necessary to get your body into its anabolic state and after a few days you will start to notice the gains and increased recovery your body has started to make.

Training: In terms of training you want to aim for 8-12 reps per set and lift around 80% of your one rep max. Also keep your rest at a medium level of around 90 seconds-2mins at most! Train with weights 4-5 times a week with one cardio day and a few rest days to allow your body to grow.