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 this afternoon was a quick lunch session and I concentrated on biceps and just two exercises until exhaustion in the muscle. The first was inclined seated dumb bell curls:
16 sets of 12 reps @ 15kg 5 sets of 8 @ 10kg
EZ Bar 21’s 7 sets @ 20kg + bar
As you can see, I got the numbers into the reps and a real pump on the muscle too which was fun. It doesn’t take much to put the muscle into fatigue and get some real build going on.
It would seem my training is going well at the moment, now I just need to sort out my diet and get this summer body happening.
So, it was chest fun this morning. Just went for major repave. So much so, I forgot to keep a note of how many reps and sets I did this morning. I can honestly say though with seated incline, smith incline, flat bench, cable flyers low, cable flyers high and tricep chest based push downs I completed about 10 sets on each exercise.
We didn’t go too high on the weights, mainly because we where knackered but we kept the intensity high and hard.
Sometimes, it’s not about the numbers but more about getting the session out in the first place.
Do you always keep a copy of what you’ve done in the gym session wise?
It is wise to do so obviously, so you can see improvements etc, but sometimes, well it’s just not that simple, like with my session today.
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
As it was a bank holiday weekend we missed our usual Monday international chest session day. This meant we moved the session to Wednesday AM and after a shoulder session on Tuesday we knew this would be a difficult session.
Essentially it was like doing a pre exhaust exercise before the main compound movements.
So we cracked on, and I was frankly in bits.
Inclined Dumbell Chest Press: 4 x 8 @ 35kg Flat Dumbell Bench Press: 4 x 8 @ 35kg 1 x 8 @ 30kg 1 x 8 @ 25kg 1 x 8 @ 20kg 1 x 10 @ 17.5kg Cable Flyes: 1 x 12 @ 12.5kg 1 x 10 @ 15kg 1 x 6 @ 17.5kg 1 x 15 @ 10kg
Finish off with some core:
Machine crunch 5 x 15 @ 55kg
Roll Outs 2 x 10
Weighted Cable rope crunch 3 x 20 @ 55kg
After doing this session we’ve decided to move our shoulder session to Mondays and chest to Tuesday. The main reason being is it not only shakes up our sessions a little and keeps the body guessing, but, we also found the weight wasn’t needed to get a good pump as the shoulders where out of the equation when it came to lifting, hence why the weights where kept so low.
STOPJABBAINGON 