powerlifting – STOPJABBAINGON

When people talk about being on a diet, the first thing that usually springs to mind for most is…..BORING FOOD

However, that really doesn’t have to be the case. You don’t have to spend your time munching on a bag of beansprouts or nibbling on a raw carrot.

I’ve spoken a lot in my vlogs & previous blogs about my current diet. Mine consists of my calorie intake being broken down to my macro intake. I have created a spreadsheet to calculate my daily intake for protein, carbs and fats so I know I’m staying on track, each and every day.

When it comes down to dieting there’s one important rule to remember. It doesn’t matter how you’re taking in the calories, as long as you’re not taking in more than you need too. One thing Julian from Titanium Fitness told me as we worked out my diet was, if you want to do it all in one hit you can do, and if you want to eat it all at the end of the day, you can do that too. Your body will take in the nutrients exactly the same way. Although I must say, if you can take in my current loads of 350g protein, 180g carbs and 97g fats in one go…..you’re a far better person than I am 🙂

So, todays vlog is about my meal this evening. I like to keep my food interesting, otherwise I’d drive myself crazy. Today I decided to make Turkey wraps, mainly because it was the first thing that came out the freezer when I opened one of the drawers.

Ingredients:
400G Turkey “excellent meat, high in protein and very low in fats”
1 Onion
A hand full mushrooms
Some mini broccoli
Salad
Tortilla Wraps

First, I browned off the turkey in the frying pan, using coconut oil rather than normal cooking oil.

Once I’d done this, I added in some of my favourite herb and spices to give the meat a little extra flavour. Personally, I LOVE TURKEY. However, my wife, she’s not the biggest fan, so I need to make meals with it a bit more interesting for her pallet.

Spices I used to make the Turkey a little more interesting

I then added in the vegetables (onions, mushrooms & broccoli) and let it all steam and cook together, blending in the spices and flavours of everything together.

While this was happening, I then made up a simple salad of leaves, cucumber & cherry tomatoes and gave them a light olive oil dressing.

Finally, I warmed the tortillas up in the oven and served everything up on the table with a selection of sauces to be used in the wraps.

If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a million times. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE YOUR CALORIES / MACROS come from. As long as you keep track of them and make sure you don’t eat too much of a certain thing (i.e. going over on your carbs) then you’re fine. However, you do need to know where you want to be on calories, otherwise you’re just eating without knowing what your body requires.

The final meal was fantastic, and yes, my wife enjoyed the turkey….so much so, she didn’t even realise it was turkey until I told her.

So, what are your favourite meals to make while you’re working on a new diet? What do you do, to keep things interesting on your dinner plate?

So, here we are. My progress, so far:

SUMMER BODY - WEEK 3, FRONT FACING — SUMMER BODY – WEEK 3, FRONT FACING

SUMMER BODY - WEEK 3, SIDE FACING — SUMMER 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.

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Tag: powerlifting

OPERATION SUMMER BODY – TURKEY WRAPS

SUMMER BODY – WEEK 3