Tag: summer

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

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:

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.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin