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OPERATION SUMMER BODY – TURKEY WRAPS

Posted on August 13, 2015August 20, 2015 by simonscholes in Blog

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?

HOW TO WORK OUT YOUR MAINTENANCE CALORIE INTAKE

Posted on July 31, 2015August 5, 2015 by simonscholes in Blog

If there’s one thing I’ve had cemented into my daily regime lately it’s that if I’m not eating enough, it’s a really bad thing for my dieting.

Since sitting down with Julian from Titanium Fitness almost 2 months ago now we discussed how me not eating enough actual food and supplementing a lot of my intake was a bad thing. After increasing my intake I’m now back down to the same weight I was when I started this weight / fat loss process and I’m taking in double the amount of calories.

We achieved this by starting the whole process with finding my maintenance calorie intake. This means keeping your current (target) weight reasonably constant. This can be achieved when the number of calories (kilojoules) that you eat is equal to the number of calories (kilojoules) your body uses.

Energy In (Food) = Energy Out => body weight remains stable.

However, for many people, weight maintenance means weighing within 1 to 2 kg of their current (target) weight. The weight on the scale can fluctuate even when you have reached your target weight and there are a number of reasons for this:

Normal body fluctuations related to eating and elimination
Consuming a high salt (sodium) diet
Temporary weight gain due to fluid retention for women near the time of menstruation
Decrease in physical activity

Once you know your actual maintenance level you then have a stage to start from for either adding weight on or taking it off when you get your diet right.

There are many fantastic calculators available on line including this one: CALORIE CALCULATOR

How’s your diet going so far? What are you looking to achieve at the moment from your diet and exercise?

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SUMMER BODY – WEEK 3

Posted on July 18, 2015August 5, 2015 by simonscholes in Blog, Sport

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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SUMMER BODY – WEEK 2

Posted on July 10, 2015 by simonscholes in Blog

Well, week 2 of operation “summer body” thanks to Julian at Titanium Fitness in Newbury, is on us from tomorrow. For those of you who don’t know the process I’m going through, click here for last weeks blog for you to get up to date.

So, now everyone know’s what’s going on, how has my last 7 days been. Well honestly……really hard work. I’ve dropped down a simple 200 calories off my carb in take and it’s made hitting my other numbers on proteins and fat’s really quite difficult, especially as I’m trying to do this diet on a bit of a budget, due to me being self employed at the moment.

So my current diet break down consists of:

350g protein per day, 212.5g carbohydrates per day & 115g fats per day.

However, the hard work I feel is paying off. I’ve had some excellent gym sessions this week, including a PB in the shoulder press on the hammer smith machine of 60kg per side plus the arm weight, and this was done at the end of the session and still for 8 reps, so I’d hazard a guess and there being much more left in me to go heavier soon.

Also, I lifted a new best on the hammer strength inclined chest press as well of 55kg per side plus arm weight and along with those personal bests this week, my general day to day sessions have just felt like they’ve gone really well. The carb cut down has meant I’ve felt tired mid afternoon and wanted to just have an afternoon nap, but, I’ve usually made myself a fruit blender drink and that’s given me a perk up I needed with natural sugars, to keep me going until dinner time and then bed.

One of the big things with this diet is you have to be so careful with your intake. One wrong item and it throws the numbers out of whack, so yet, I can have a choc bar, but, it’s wise not too as everything will be harder to achieve on the numbers front. So instead, I’ve been eating far healthier and no snacking or crap, not even any crisps “which are my achilles heel”.

I have been eating, a lot of tuna (can’t stand the stuff, but it’s great for high protein and low fat and carbs), turkey, turkey mince, chicken and salmon too. Just be sure, if you’re going to do a diet like this, you must include everything, even those juices etc you’re possibly drinking each day, they’ll contain carbs and fats you had no idea where there. A great website I use for nutritional information is Nutrition Data.

So, onto the important stuff. I started this week weighing in at 93.4kg, and after a week on lower carbs I’m currently down to 92.2kg, so that’s a loss of 1.2kg. This means I stay on the diet for another week at least, as I don’t drop any further calories until my body plateaus.

(Next week I’ll give you an idea of a days diet)

What do you think, has my body shape changed in the last 7 days? (P.S. Sorry for the mess on the bed 🙂 )

Front Facing - Week 2 — Front Facing – Week 2

Side Facing - Week 2 — Side Facing – Week 2

Let me know how your summer body diet is going in the comments, I’d love to hear any of your hints and tips to help my diet along and hit those numbers.

Chat next week,

Simon

GETTING MY SUMMER BODY

Posted on July 3, 2015August 4, 2015 by simonscholes in Blog, Sport

So, I’ve been writing my training plans in blog form for a little while now on and off. However, like lots of people I’ve felt things just weren’t quite going my way. My body shape wasn’t changing to how I’d like it and my weight was steady fluctuating by about 500g up and down.

I know I’m not going to look like Steve Cooke anytime soon, but, I wanted to start to make a difference to my body shape and size. I was chatting to a business friend of mine (Titanium Training) I did some filming for a little while ago. He’s a former powerlifter and I filmed a competition for him.

Anyway, he has studied for years and works as a trainer but also helps people with nutrition etc. He kindly offered to sit down with me and discuss my current diet and improve on.

Oh boy, did we improve on it.

I kind of knew it myself, but, he pointed out a lot of my diet was supplement based and there certainly wasn’t enough actual food involved in it at all. We worked out my actual maintenance level of calories which went from around 1600 calories to 3500. Your bodies metabolism alters to suit the calories we take in, and mine had moved to such a low level that for me to drop any weight or mainly lose fat I’d be taking so few calories in my body wouldn’t function or be able to train.

We broke down the calorie intake to my macros which we went for 350g protein, 262.5g Carbohydrates & 115g Fat. My start weight two weeks ago was 91.1kg

So, for the last 2 weeks I’ve been eating more which is been interesting diet wise and I’ve put on weight. Today is the end of my 2 week process of building my metabolism again and have gained weight to 93.4kg.

So from today I’ll be slowly cutting down my calorie intake. We’re starting by removing 200 calories from my carbohydrate intake (My protein level always stays at 350g to keep muscle size). Once my body settles into the new calorie intake and I stop losing weight I’ll then drop another 200 calories and so on and so forth until I get to an ideal body weight for my fat content that I’d like (10%) which is 85kg.

So here we go, this is me now and I’ll keep you updated each week as to my progress with photos and the food I’ve been eating and training I’ve been doing, or you can follow me on instagram (stopjabbaingon) and see daily pictures.

WEEK 1- SIDE 93.4KG — WEEK 1 – SIDE 93.4KG

WEEK 1 - FACING 93.4KG — WEEK 1 – FACING 93.4KG

I hope you enjoy my journey, and I’d love to hear your stories about changes you’ve made to make a difference.

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TRAINING 28TH MAY 2015

Posted on June 4, 2015June 4, 2015 by simonscholes in Blog

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

Deadlift 4 x 12 @ 60kg

Calf Raises (hammer strength seated machine) 6 x 15 @ 40kg

Training 27th May 2015 (Lunch Session)

Posted on May 31, 2015May 31, 2015 by simonscholes in Blog, Sport

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.

What cardio session do you do that works for you?

Circuit Training 29th April 2015

Posted on April 29, 2015 by simonscholes in Blog

10 Minutes exercise bike easy warm up

Circuits, 40 seconds on, 20 seconds recovery per exercise.

Set 1, Plank, Press Up’s, Swinging Kettle Bell, Left Plank, Right Plank, Medicine ball slam, Crunches, Alternate Squat Thrusts, Skipping

Set 2, Press Ups, Medicine Ball / Legs @ 90 degrees crunches, Skipping, DB Curls, Tricep Dips, Kettle Bell Swing, Crunches, Plank, Medicine Ball Slam

Set 3, DB Bicep Curl, DB Shoulder Press, Tricep Dips, Skipping, Plank, Crunches, 90/90 Crunches, Press Ups, Kettle Bell Swing

30 Mins Exercise Bike easy cardio