So the summer body fun is continuing. It’s been a bit of strange week to be fair, for some reason at the start of the week I started to put on a little bit of weight. Not a huge amount, but, enough for me to wonder what was going on.
So after a chat with Julian from Titanium Fitness, we decided it was probably time to drop down by another 200 calories and we split it 50/50 through carbs and fats.
This made a small difference to my weight and it has again started to drop slowly but surely which is really good.
As for my training itself, I’ve changed nothing except for the fact I’m going heavier than I have done in a long time on most of my exercises, and, as an added bonus…….it’s not difficult. This eating more, and losing weight malarky, really does work.
We recently took delivery at our gym of a stair master which is fantastic fun….and a really steady state cardio machine which totally destroys me. I’m not blowing through my rear end after a session on it, but, I am sweating like crazy and burn some real calories too.
Then, this weekend it was our first anniversary so the diet went completely out the window. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over time, it’s that, sometimes, you just need to have a little fun and forget about the diet. Just like with exercising, your body needs a rest from it all sometimes, not weeks and weeks worth of rest, but, a day or two won’t kill you.
We spent two fantastic days together in Paris, a first for us both. We saw all the sights, we walked and walked, we ate and ate and when I stepped on the scales on Tuesday morning…….I’d lost more weight. Now, that could have been the lack of food or the amount of walking we did. Either way, I’ll take it after the amount of pastries I’ve eaten in two days.
Anyway, it’s back on the game now and hitting it hard this week, but, before I go. I must say, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my wonderful wife. If you follow me on youtube or other social medias you’ll know it’s been quite a 12 months since our wedding day, and I’m just grateful she’s put up with me for this long.
SUMMER BODY – WEEK 3, FRONT FACINGSUMMER BODY – WEEK 3, SIDE FACING
Week number 3 of my brand new diet and attempt at the summer body side of things, and it’s going pretty good I’d say. I was given a brand new way of eating just over a month ago by Julian at Titanium Fitness and since that day I’ve gone through a process of increasing my calorie intake to a sensible maintenance level.
This week has been a little easier on the reduction of carbs by 50g. Most of last week and the first few days of this week I have found myself training well and hard, BUT, feeling exceptionally tired an hour or so after sessions. To the point that on Monday & Tuesday I actually had a quick power nap to catch myself up a little bit.
However, forgetting the fact I’ve felt tired this weeks training has gone exceptionally well. On Monday I completed my shoulder session with yet another personal best on the hammer strength shoulder press of 65kg per side plus the weight of the arm itself, meaning I lifted almost 70kg per shoulder which is a massive improvement from where I was. I also did my usual inclined, treadmill walk at lunch for some steady state cardio work.
Tuesday was a chest day, I’ve not been lifting very heavy with my chest for a while now, and have instead been doing quite high rep work. However, I wanted to try actually testing myself a little again so have began working my way back up the weight tree. This week on Inclined & Flat bench I worked on the dumbbells lifting the 40kg bells for reps of 8 on both exercises. I then concluded the session on the cable flyes & dip machine with some high rep work to keep the burn going. Tuesday lunch was my biceps session, this is one of my weakest body parts so it’s all about trying to lift heavier weights and with the EZ bar I’ve currently built up to 40kg plus the bar itself making the entire weight about 52kg.
Wednesday was something new…ish for me. As an ex decathlete and specifically pole vaulter, my core strength use to be what I’d consider very good. However, I’m the first to admit I don’t do enough core work. Every session I do ends with me doing 15 / 20 minutes of core work but it’s not enough and I skip a lot of the exercises i should really be doing. So this week I dedicated an entire session to this body part. OH MY GOD, it was by far the hardest session of the week for me. I went through multiple routines I’ve learnt over the years 50 double crunches, 40 twisting crunches, 30 crunches, 20 doorbell raises, 10 v sits is just one example of what I did. The lunch time session was my usual cardio work out.
Thursday was a strange day and actually ended up being a rest day. I didn’t sleep well at all and had an exceptionally busy day, I was in basingstoke with my business at a convention and then visited my old pole vault coach for the evening, before getting home at 11pm.
Friday was my usual Thursday session of legs in the morning. The gym I go to (anytime fitness, newbury) has recently extended the club in size and so we’ve some new kit to be working on. For my leg session I took advantage of the hack squat machine. Blimey, it’s amazing how weak a body part can be if you work it in a new way. I found this machine exceptionally hard and made sure I used it most of the session along with leg press, calf raises and quad extensions. Brilliant session, and I felt great afterwards….although I was walking like Bambi on ice.
I still did a lunch session Friday, and another of the new machines was a stair master / power mill. I’ve not done cardio like this, in a very, very long time. I started the machine far too quickly and after about 7 minutes, I knew, if I kept at this pace, there was no way I’d finish my 30 minute work out. I slowed it down just a little and powered through the session. I hurt A LOT, but, it was a great work out, I got a real sweat on, and as far as steady state cardio goes, this really hit the spot.
So that’s been my week. I started it weighing in just over 92kg and I’ve ended it weighing in at 91.8kg so the weight is still coming off which is excellent, and means the diet stays the same for yet another week.
Speaking of my diet, I promised I’d give you a small break down of a day so you could see what I’m eating to hit my macros of 350g Protein, 212.5kg carbs, 115g fat. So here you go:
Protein Bar (cnp professional)
30
20
4.9
Protein Shake (omni core)
50
80
3.9
Bacon x 2
16
0.4
12.6
Eggs X 2
12
1.4
18
Tuna 120g
36
0
7.2
Meatballs
24
14
11
Protein Bar (cnp professional)
30
20
4.9
Minced Beef
46
0
36
Pasta
11
24
2
Protein Shake (diet shake – sci mx)
52
32.2
3.6
Minced Beef (small portion)
40
0
32
Rice 50g
2.1
22
0.2
As you can see from the table, I don’t really take in any snacks, although I do like to class the protein bar as a sort of snack. The main reason for this was the following: As Julian put together my plan I asked about good things to snack on between meals etc. His very excellent point was this…..”if you need to snack, you’re not eating enough”. This really struck a chord with me and since that point I’ve eaten no chocolate bars, no crisps, no fizzy drinks etc etc.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t easy, but, this far into the diet and seeing the results so far, well, I certainly don’t crave things as much as I have done in the past.
So there we go, another week down, and we roll into the next weeks worth of training and dieting. It’s been fantastic fun so far, all be it very hard work.
So, how is your diet going, are you working hard still on your summer body, what is it you’re finding hard to do at the moment?
Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to follow me on instagram, twitter and youtube, for daily updates etc.
So today was a leg’s session for the morning. I’m trying to exhaust the muscles during my sessions at the moment so I work through hypertrophy. I’ve a couple of leg niggles so have to be careful still managed this session
Hammer strength leg raises, 12 x 10 (for 6) 8 (for 3) 4 (for 3) @ 20kg per leg
Leg Press, 1 x 8 @ 100,150,200,250,300,350,300,250,200,150,100kg super setted with leg raises @ 10kg per leg x 8
So, my training partner and I have decided that as good as doing HIIT sessions is we need to do something different that’s less counter productive to what we’re trying to achieve body wise.
Many people talk about constant low effort walking etc etc. So we thought we’d give it a crack. We normally burn around 600 calories in a 30 minute session of HIIT so didn’t expect to come anywhere near this during our cardio walking session.
We set the treadmill on an incline of 15% (as high as it would go) and set the pace at 5kph and cracked on.
Bloody hell fire. 8 minutes in and we’re both sweating, 20 minutes in and we up the pace to 5.5 then 6kph for the final 5 minutes. Just a little over 500 calories in 30 minutes and we where both sweating just as much as we would doing HIIT. However, I think the walking was actually a little bit harder than the usual cross trainer session. I was frankly blowing out my arse, and was loving every minute of it. Here’s to more walking sessions in the future (3 a week) and let’s see what happens.
So, I’ve had a few people in the past ask me what I do training wise and how to train themselves. I’d never suggest what I do as training will work for someone else, hell, it barely works for me sometimes unless I get my diet sorted out. Anyway, I’m going to start posting my training each day so you have a rough idea what I’m doing each day work out wise. So let’s get this thing started, Monday 27th April 2015 7am – Weights, Chest Session Incline Bench Dumbell Press, warm up 3 x 8 reps with 10kg bells. Main session, 35kg bells x 8, 32.5kg x 8, 30kg x 8, 27.5kg x 8, 25kg x 8, 22.5kg x 8, 20kg x 8, 17.5kg x 8, 15kg x 8, 12.5kg x 8, 10kg x 8, 7.5kg x 8 Flat Bench Dumbbell Press, warm up 3 x 8 reps with 10kg bells. Main session, 35kg bells x 8, 32.5kg x 8, 30kg x 8, 27.5kg x 8, 25kg x 8, 22.5kg x 8, 20kg x 8, 17.5kg x 8, 15kg x 8, 12.5kg x 8, 10kg x 8, 7.5kg x 8 Cable Flyes, 3 x 8 @15kg Tricep Press machine (chest exercise), 70kg x 8, 60kg x 8, 50kg x 8, 40kg x 8, 30kg x 8, 20kg x 8, 10kg x 20 30 minutes on the exercise bike easy calm cycle. 1pm lunch session, Hard cardio session. 30 mins x-trainer, 502 calories done in total. So there we go, that’s today’s sessions, keep your eyes peeled to be bored more by my training sessions. Let me know what you’re getting up to training wise guys. Cheers Si
STOPJABBAINGON 