Day 57 – Monday

I fell off the posting radar for a while there! I didn’t really have the impetus to post every day. Coupled with loosing some focus over the last week and a half, didn’t keep me motivated.

I’ll back post the days I’ve missed with what I can remember. A quick update, last week in the re test of the week 4 challenge I yet again reduced my time, now to 11.50. I managed to get to the gym on Monday &Tuesday but did nothing for the rest of the week. Work commitments just got the better of me. I even missed Fridays new challenge.

So today, I got up early and headed to the gym with new focus and vigour! Determined to put in a good first day of the last 4 weeks. I loved the supersets, I have been looking forward to them from the start. I motored through my work day, then come 4.30pm I headed back to the gym to do the test I missed from last Friday.  I showed my colleagues what the test entailed (they’re both on their own fitness journey) and they were mightily impressed with what was in store, and commented on how hard it must be as even just finishing 16 of the total 20 rounds in the allotted time results in a pass!

Well, I only have one word to describe my performance, machine! I smashed through all 20 rounds in 19 min 04 sec 🙂 That has really given me a boost to start off these last weeks and get the absolute best out of every session.

I can really see changes in my body, muscle definition and the like. And my weight is now nearly at my projected goal (just a couple of k’s to go!)

Scooby’s secret

Too funny not to share 🙂

 

Day 45 – Wednesday

I was in need of catching up on some needed sleep, I have been getting to bed earlier (around 9pm), but I think the change in sleep, and sometimes less then 8 hours has also taken a toll on me, and led to the loss of mojo at the end of week 6. Tuesday night was a good early night and then I decided to not get up at 5am and instead have a lie-in and set the alarm for 6. The extra hour was lovely and I felt much better for it.

My work day was pretty hectic, and I was glad to bail out of there by about 4:30 and head to the gym to clear my head. Unfortunately I had forgotten to look at the exercises for today and so was left feeling a little deflated when I got to the gym. I have the athlean videos and without them I feel a little lost trying to figure out any new moves (and the vid’s are flash so don’t work on apple mobile devices).

Instead I did a good 15 minute warm up on a treadmill, followed by my Saturday chest workout from Ryan Masters (Theworkoutcorner.com), then finished off with another cardio session on the treadmill for 20 mins. I felt good and felt it was a good session.

I have to say, after finishing reading Tom’s book, which basically sets you up with the framework for a workout routine, and also from reading other peoples blogs etc, I kinda just want to do my own thing now and not follow the program. That said, I will continue with Athlean as it is prescribed, until at least 1 full round. I can see myself looking to build my own program soon after though.

I still need to work on my diet plan. I have stopped counting calories and tracking them through an iPhone app, I know what the right quantities are now  of most of my food items and loving them was just getting repetitive. I do though need to review the data and set meal plans that actually meet my nutritional requirements. This I still have never done! Hopefully this weekend.

Day 44 – Tuesday

Another Athlean cardio day, one day I might do the prescribed cardio sessions, but I’m still sticking with my treadmill and/or rower. Today I split 15 mins on the rower with 15 mins on the treadmill.

Day 43 – Monday

Monday was a good day, I enjoyed the athlean session and was well recovered from a weekend of rest. My PT saw me and asked what I was doing back in the gym as on Friday he had suggested a week off after I told him how I was feeling (a little run down), but I said that I was sticking to the plan and would continue, I have a goal in mind.

I went back to the gym after work and put in the extra cardio session too.

Day 41~42

The weekend was rest days. Didn’t go to the gym on Saturday and didn’t even do anything at home. Wasn’t feeling very motivated. My diet was kept clean though and weigh in’s were still trending the right way. I think it was on the weekend I decided to stop logging all my calories though my iPhone app and actually make some meal plans based on the data I had collected. I’ve collected all this info, but not done anything with it.

I think it was in Tom’s Burn The Fat:Feed The Muscle “Knowledge is not power, knowledge applied is power” not something I have done yet (applied). I tend to over analyse everything and know that’s happened again.

Onwards and upwards!

Day 39 – Day 40 Thursday & Friday

All I can say is I really lost my mojo towards the end of Week 6. I got my cardio in on Thursday, and then the normal Friday PT session before work but the rest of the day was a shocker. In the PT session we did some big compound movements, proper squats with bar bells and clean and press. I was properly knackered after this session and I think that carried through. My Back and shoulder blades were sore, and I didn’t push through it and stretch them and it just kinda compounded on me.

I really enjoyed the PT session, doing the lifts. Now I know how to do them with good form I feel it is a good string I have added to my workout bow. Not much more to say about these days.

Day 38 – Wednesday

That’s another day down!

Not a bad day either, actually the Athlean-X session for today was quite intense. 4 exercises all up, but all core and the first one to failure made all the rest even more difficult. The second and third exercise I actually had to take a short 5-10 second break in the middle to recover before I could continue.

I finished up the morning session with 3 sets of 6 body weight dips, I can now do these pretty well so will look into starting weighted dips in the next week or so. Then moved on to the smith machine where I did a quick 3 sets 12 reps at 15kg each side and kept the rep temp real slow 2 up/3 down.

It was nice to get into my chest again and will try to do this every Wednesday.

After work I headed back to the gym for my daily cardio session. My ankles are still sore, but with double socks and well tied shoes I managed 15 minutes on the rower, then switched over to the treadmill to round out the half hour.

My diet has been really clean this week and I am starting to see some small reductions in daily weight, I’m hoping the double-dose Mon/Wed/Fri (totalling 6 days cardio per week) smashes me through this little plateau I find myself on.

I’ve just knocked down a very nice vanilla micellar protein shake and it’s time for bed.

Good night 🙂

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle, an eBook by Tom Venuto

This book came recommended by commentaries to Andy’s Athlean-X blog, namely a gent called David. He has been a wealth of knowledge and has put in a lot of time researching and investigating various nutritional subjects – far more than I have, but he was willing to email me and give me some good pointers, one of which was Tom’s book.

Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle really is a great starting point for anyone wanting to get the low-down on nutritional info and I would highly suggest reading it rather than just blindly following the Athlean-X Meal plan. I believe it is worth the effort if you want to ensure that you do not loose lean body fat while on a reduced calorie diet.

The website link below has a write up on the book, if your looking for a review see the Scooby link (also by buying the link through Scooby’s site he gets a small commission, Scooby doesn’t charge anything for his free videos or website, so this is a nice way to give back to him).

Burn The Fat:Feed The Muscle – Tom’s website

Burn The Fat:Feed The Muscle – Scooby’s book review and purchase link

 

Day 37 – Tuesday

That’s another cardio day in the books 🙂

Today was tough as I have done cardio 4 days in a row now. My thighs are really quite sore, but in a good way! I can’t face the rower though, my ankles have blistered up good and proper after only two session and I was not wearing my shoes all day while I was in the office! I stuck to the treadmill this morning and got through a good 30 minutes @ 9 kph and 1% gradient.

New Athlean day tomorrow, can’t wait!