My progress in the first 9 weeks, 21.5% down to 14% body fat
I’m the Founder and CEO of Bodyhack a new fitness website which has an ambitious vision, which is currently accepting beta testers (get your free invite here). I felt it was really important for me to be one of the initial guinea pigs, how can I expect others to follow a strict fitness program if I wasn’t prepared to? So on the 9th January 2012 I started on a strict diet, no alcohol, and three hour long training sessions per week.
I’m pleased with the progress to date, see pictures above. The goal was to get down from 21.5% body fat to 10% within 12 weeks, I’m just off target but with a final push I might be just able to do it. The reason for aiming for 10% body fat is because at this percentage a visable six pack and good definition should appear.
Over the years I have trained quite a lot, on and off, but never been really fit and certainly never had a six pack. I’ve been training with Martin at Fitbox, the other founder of Bodyhack, who’s made it clear that just working hard in the gym is not enough, its vital to get all six of the element below spot on. If you don’t get one of these elements right, it can mess up all your hard work:
- Diet – Mega important, if you eat too much or the wrong stuff you simply wont lose the body fat. It’s important to get the proportion right, so get some kitchen scales, it sounds a pain but it is really easy to weigh stuff and get it spot on.
- Exercise – 3 training session per week, with 1 day rest between session, 1 hour per session.
- Sleep – 8 hours per night, in bed by 11pm at latest
- Hydration – 3 litres of water per day (no drinks apart from black coffee, water and protein drinks. Not even diet coke, orange juice, etc)
- Supplements – protein shake, omega 3 oils, flaxseed oil, multi vit.
- Stretching – I hate stretching, but its important to do it most days to protect you from getting injuries. Think of it as an insurance policy against injury.
My Meal Plan
This is roughly the meal plan I’m on for non-training day (I find it easier to eat the same stuff most of the time. It makes shopping and cooking easy as you get in a habit and it becomes v easy and fast).
Meal 1 – 8am – 5mins
- 5 x egg whites
- 50g porridge oats (plain not sweetened)
- 20g blueberries (I buy the frozen packs, they last a lot longer this way)
- (Mix the egg whites with the oats, and cook in a frying pan, makes a tasty pancake in about 3 mins, put blueberrys on top)
- 39g whey protein – shake
- 1 x fish oil
- 1 x multi vit
Meal 2 – 10.30 – 1min
- 50g raspberries
- 30g whey protein
Meal 3 – 1pm – 30mins
- 170g turkey breast
- 50g Quinoa
- 10g Olive oil
- 50g green beans
- 50g asparagus
Meal 4 – 4pm – 2mins
- 30g x Whey protein – shake
- 2 x wholemeal plain rice cakes
- 20g x almond butter (like peanut butter but better for you and tastes good)
Meal 5 – 7pm – 25mins
- 250g x Cod (20 – 25 mins in oven)
- 200g x cauliflower (4 mins in microwave, tiny bit of water)
- 200g green beans (4 mins in microwave, tiny bit of water)
- 20g Olive oil
Meal 6 – 10.30pm – 1min
39g Whey protein
Substitutions
- Cod = haddock, chicken, steak, pork
- Turkey = chicken, other white meats
- Cauliflower = sweet potatoe, butternut squash, baby spinach, broccoli, carrots, asparagus
- Green beans = baby spinach, broccoli, carrots, asparagus
On training day just before training eat this:
- 24g whey protein
- 50g raspberries
After training eat this:
- 48g whey protein
- 50g raspberries
- 10g cashew nuts (plain)
My exercise Plan
My training program has changed over the first 9 weeks, but fundamentally I’ve been doing circuits.
Week 1 we started by finding my 15 rep max for each exercise, see below. Do this by guessing a weight and doing as many as you can, if you do 25 reps the weight is too light, and if you do 10 it’s too heavy. So adjust the weight and try again, do this unless you find the weight at which you can do 15, but not 16 reps.
Note down the 15 rep max weight for all the exercises below, this should take 1 session to get the 15 rep max for all of the 12 exercises below. Then drop the weight a bit, say 20%, for each exercise and do two circuits. Over the next four weeks add more weight each session. Start by doing two circuits with 2 minutes break. The goal is after four week to be able to do three full circuits at your original 15 rep max.
If you are unsure of an exercise you can set videos of them here: Bodybuilding.com’s Exercise Guides, just type into the search box below the header “exercise guide”
- Back squat
- bench press DB
- seated row
- reserve crunch
- lunges (with db)
- Seated shoulder press DB
- Bend-over row
- Crunch on swissball
- Deadlift
- Upright row
- Lying reverse fly
- Standing twist – cable
I will be writing up a full review in three week’s time once the full 12 week challenge has been completed.
Also I just wanted to say that I’ve also been training with Jon at Core Strength Gym.
If you have any questions just add a comment below.
