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?
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, 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 2Side 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.
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, we hit the gym again this lunch time for a cardio session. I’m trying to keep up the steady state cardio work at the moment rather than HIIT training. In the last 3 weeks or so, I must admit, I’ve found I’m getting more muscular definition and size, especially in my shoulders and legs and although it’s still early days so I can’t be sure, I’d like to think it’s the alterations to my cardio sessions that are making a big difference.
Rather than burning muscle to complete a cardio session I’m just burning fat, which is never a bad thing.
So todays session was:
30 minutes, incline of 15% (maximum for machine) at 5kph. Calorie burn of 462.
What kind of cardio training do you do in your weekly sessions?
Hope you’re all well and had a fantastic weekend. So, I’m sorry, I’ve been very remiss the last few weeks getting my training posted up for you to take a look at.
We’ve been switching things up a little to really try and get some higher rep work out, using heavier weights and also trying to work on my diet a little too.
My maintenance calorie intake is 3304 a day, however, I’m in a process of trying to lose a little of the fat right now, especially around the love handles area, and at 38 years old, it ain’t gonna go easily.
I’ve lowered the fat in take I have every day and I’m generally trying to just snack less on crap, which isn’t easy when you pop into a coffee shop, grab a green tea and then see the CAKES.
Anyway, on to this mornings training session. We’re working on pyramid reps starts high, working down, back up and back down again every set.
It’s only 4 exercises, but with that number of reps I certainly got a good sweat going on so decided to cool down on the bike rather than go for any real extra calories burn. I ticked along for just 15 minutes as I know I have a hard cardio session coming up at lunch time.
How’s your summer body training going? Are you getting the results you’d like, maybe you need to switch things up a little bit in your diet or your training plan.
STOPJABBAINGON 