If weekends are ruining your diet, here’s what you need to know.
Have you ever found yourself sticking to your diet Monday through Friday, only to completely blow it on the weekends? It’s a common problem that can have serious consequences for your weight loss goals. So if you’re working hard to lose weight during the week, but then undo all your progress with weekend indulgences, it’s time to take a closer look at your habits.
Our bodies are constantly striving to maintain equilibrium, and our metabolism quickly adjusts to balance (counter, resist) changes in energy intake or expenditure. This is why the common advice of EAT LESS MOVE MORE runs out of steam pretty quickly. Especially for those that have already been taking that approach for a while, or has already seen significant body re-composition.
First, let’s be clear, a six pack isn’t for everyone. It’s not necessary, serves no practical purpose and is seen by many as an expression of extreme vanity. And if you’re reading this with a skeptical frown, thinking what the fuck is the obsession with abs in this industry, I totally understand.
However, having just got my coveted six-pack back again after a three-year hiatus, I can assure you that there’s a LOT it teaches you about yourself, the body and most importantly, the mind.
When you pop that snack in your mouth, in almost all such situations, there is one simple reality.
That the individual–in this case my beautiful wife–wants/seeks the joy of eating the [insert favorite snack food] more than they want [insert desired outcome here].
In part one of this topic, we covered the importance of energy balance, how to establish an energy deficit and calculate our macros to help guide our nutritional choices.
In this post, we’ll cover some of the exercise protocols you can use to increase fat loss, and walk through a sample program that draws on many of these techniques.
With travel and work schedule this week, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to maintain my normal three day split and six training-day setup, so I committed early to change in plans. With just three days carved out for training, I hit a lower body session, upper body session, and today, I hit an all-body workout.
Given I’ve been concerned recently with how much is enough, I thought I’d share the [improvised] program along with some narrative as to how it went. I am not going to list the weights used, as that is relevant to me only. Suffice to say the weights were at a level where I was leaving a two-to-three reps in the tank, give or take — so 80-90% of max loads for the given rep-range. Lots of supersets designated with “ss/”.
On February 8th this year, I decided to set a new step-goal of seeing my abs. I can recall the date explicitly, as it’s the same day I signed-up for Adam Bornstein’s Getting Shredded event. Two months later… BOOM; abs!
Yup, that’s not stock imagery on on the right, that’s me sporting my new six-pack!
So what was different this time around?
It all sounds very technical, and to some, very scary; there are certainly negative connotations with the word fasting across large swathes of the populous. However, if you take the time to dig into these topics, you’ll realize a couple of things:
I’m working on getting shredded, aiming to reach single-digit levels of body fat. And I am making progress; down 12lbs and at least 2-3% of body fat from my ~15% starting point. And for perspective, at a starting weight of 168lbs, that’s a 7%+ drop in overall body weight.
My current eating regimen has me cycling carbs; that means higher carbs on training days and lower carbs on rest days. As a result, you end-up eating a lot of lean proteins, which for me means a lot of chicken and fish.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like a perfectly grilled chicken breast as much as the next person; I also like broccoli. But there comes a point at which grilled chicken and broccoli is just no longer satisfying. First world problems, no doubt; but a problem all the same.
Tonight, I decided I’d try to make chicken and broccoli interesting… something I did with aplomb! Apologies in advance for not having a picture — by the time I realized it would be great to share, I’d eaten it all. That’s what happens when you are in calorie deficit!