4 Week Fat Loss Progress

celestial

Right so here is my fat loss plan for the four weeks up until I go away on hols. I've attached pics taken first thing out of bed yesterday. Plan is to post again in two weeks and then at the end of the end of the four weeks.

STATS:

Height: 5'9"
Weight: 83kg
Jeans size: 34in

For me, exercise isn't enough to keep my weight in check. Just looking at a bar of chocolate is enough to make me put on weight. To really drop the fat I need to look at insulin manipulation. Bread and pasta are not my friends and my body can't really handle carbs (or likes them too much and promptly turns them to fat). I don't eat all that much but I'm hungry a lot of the time.

So, to remedy this, I'm gonna be eating as much protein and veg as possible and keeping starchy carbs as low as possible. My diet is gonna be a bit all over the shop next week though for medical reasons (nothing too serious!), so my posts might be a bit scattered.

Roughly, food structure will look like this:

m1 - eggs and/or meat
m2 - whey shake
m3 - meat and veg
m4 - fish (tin of tuna) with veg
workout
m5 - meat and veg (with small amount of wholegrain carb if I really want it)
m6 - (optional) whey shake

The intention is to get over my carb addiction, essentially, so that I can start to burn mainly fat as fuel instead of glucose.

Al_Fernz

Nice forearms dude!:D

Looking forward to seeing how this goes for you man. Good luck.

celestial

Al_Fernz wrote: »

Nice forearms dude!:D

Looking forward to seeing how this goes for you man. Good luck.

Haha!!:D

Cheers dude.

Woddle

yeah best of look I'll be keeping a sharp eye on this one, similar boat and all that.

gabgab

yeh I am very interested in this and the progress, take a pic a week I reckon, its better to see incremental changes. You dont have to put them up, but I find it made a bit of a difference and helped me focus, knowing I was taking a picture each monday night or whatever night suits you,

Hanley

Looks liek a fairly simple high protein and fat, low carb diet?

Good luck with it. Once you can still to the scheduele you shuld be ok.

littlefriend

Hey there, best of luck with it - i'm trying to do something similar myself so fingerscrossed I really do it this time. BTW you don't have far to go at all - have a look at gabgab's stuff, particularly the photos and the short amount of time between them. I guess we'll really have to follow how diligent he was too etc
Talk again
L

g'em

It's eggs or whey for breakfast, egg whites or whey with oats mid-morning, carbs again at dinner.

Remember there's a reason for each meal having the consituents it does. Half your bodyweight each day of carbs and a minimum of your bodyweight in grams of protein.

eclectichoney

Sorry for the stoopid question g'em, do you mean half your bodyweight in lbs or kgs for the grams of carbs??

g'em

eclectichoney wrote: »

Sorry for the stoopid question g'em, do you mean half your bodyweight in lbs or kgs for the grams of carbs??

Not stupid at all, I should have clarified that, it's lbs.

I'm working on a excel sheet for folk to use to help them figure all this stuff out so bare with me and I'll get that up and running. In the meantime we'll leave celestial to rock on with his thread

celestial

Cheers guys.

@Hanley - yep it's pretty much all about keeping the protein as high as poss, similar to yerself, with starchy carbs kept to a minimum - in the morning or post-workout only. g'em's plan (very grateful for all her advice - thanks g'em) allows starchy carbs in the morning and evening but I'm gonna try and push that a bit and do 'either or'. For example, today I had starchy carbs for breakfast but I haven't worked out this evening so I had just meat+veg for dinner.

I'm going in for wisdom teeth (2 of them, lower) extraction tomorrow (oh joy) so my diet may be pretty haphazard for up to a week or maybe even longer (apparently you can't really eat anything that requires any significant chewing for up to a week or even longer and your appetite will likely be reduced) - but I'm still gonna try and stick to the plan - I may just live off of eggs, protein shakes, a little mash and peas for a week or so........

Al_Fernz

Best of luck with the wisdom teeth. Having them out can effect different people in different ways. Some people can eat well again after a day. I couldn't eat properly for a week tho - and lost over a stone

brianthebard

at the very least you will be able to knock back some protein shakes for a few days?good luck with the plan.
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celestial

Al_Fernz wrote: »

Best of luck with the wisdom teeth. Having them out can effect different people in different ways. Some people can eat well again after a day. I couldn't eat properly for a week tho - and lost over a stone

Cheers dude. What did you eat then after you had them taken out-anything?! Yea been reading on the net bout it and seems have varying effects - been taking arnica tabs to try and minimise any potential swelling....

Were you off work or anything for long?

Al_Fernz

Nah I was 18 and on my summer holidays, but I wouldn't have worked for the week.

I didn't really eat anything because of the pain. I didn't like drinking anything either because of the way it felt in my mouth. When I did it was just Lucozade. If I did it again I'd eat through the pain and try and get more calories in. I didn't manage it well.

However, I don't want to alarm you. A good few of my friends had it done too and were 100% after a few days.

celestial

Aye, good to hear. Really depends on the person anyway as ya say

Yeah, wanna try and keep the calorie intake up alright, even if it's just a bit of whatever every few hours or so, don't want the old metabolism to slow down for obv reasons!

celestial

brianthebard wrote: »

at the very least you will be able to knock back some protein shakes for a few days?good luck with the plan.
Posted via Mobile Device

Cheers man.

Yep - I reckon there's a fair chance I'll have finished my massive tub of maximuscle strawberry flavour (mmm) before the week is out:D

Hanley

celestial wrote: »

@Hanley - yep it's pretty much all about keeping the protein as high as poss, similar to yerself, with starchy carbs kept to a minimum - in the morning or post-workout only. g'em's plan (very grateful for all her advice - thanks g'em) allows starchy carbs in the morning and evening but I'm gonna try and push that a bit and do 'either or'. For example, today I had starchy carbs for breakfast but I haven't worked out this evening so I had just meat+veg for dinner.

Aye... that's what I thought. Seems like the old reliable common sense approach to dieting that's worked forever. High protein and carb brekkie and post workout, high protein and some fats the rest of the day!

Hope it works out well for ya. I've employed a similar approach over the last month and I'm around 4kg down at this stage. I found dropping fast/overly processed foods and salt immediately made a difference and left me less bloated.

celestial

Hanley wrote: »

Aye... that's what I thought. Seems like the old reliable common sense approach to dieting that's worked forever. High protein and carb brekkie and post workout, high protein and some fats the rest of the day!

Hope it works out well for ya. I've employed a similar approach over the last month and I'm around 4kg down at this stage. I found dropping fast/overly processed foods and salt immediately made a difference and left me less bloated.

Cheers man. Yep - it's quite simple alright - keep it high protein and skimp on the carbs (except the right kind of veg of course).

The approach has so many benefits I feel. Eating high protein naturally makes you feel fuller -> which makes you naturally eat a bit less -> which makes you think less about food -> which makes you eat less!! A great circle:) Part of the problem with things like bread and pasta and the like is that they don't really fill you for very long and just make you hungrier sometimes.

Case in point - I came home at 5.30ish yesterday and threw on a nice amount of mince, browned it in the pan with some seasoning and then did up a 'taco salad' (minus the tacos obv:)) with some lettuce and sour cream.

My bro, on the other hand, came home at the same time and had a bowl of Kellogg's Start. Then he threw on a couple slices of 'wholegrain' toast. Very soon after that he jumped up again and boiled up some Koka noodles. Less than half an hour later he said that the noodles 'didn't hit the spot' and fired on another couple slices of toast!!!! He may even had some more slices before bed.

On the other hand I just ate the mince and salad and didn't go for anything other than a couple cups of tea and water til I went to bed at 11! I can't imagine the amount of calories in what he had compared to what I had - and who was fuller and more satisfied?

celestial

Had the surgery yesterday.

Today my appetite is way down really. On antibiotics too. Got up at 2pm and so far have had just:

3 potato waffles and beans
50g protein shake with water
1 Actimel
3/4 of a yoghurt
1 tuc cracker....

Later will prob have some veg soup and maybe another whey shake.

Eating like a horse then:eek:

celestial

Not so much pain on the tooth front today which is good. Bit of swelling but not too bad - would only frighten very small children I think.

Food today is so far like this:

Up at 12 - tin of creamed rice
1.30 - banana
Just now (3.15) 60g whey shake (MMuscle Promax Diet) with water

Appetite is down so will prob just have some veg soup and maybe an egg later - or more likely some Weetabix with a little cream and that'll be it for the day I reckon....

Out for a quick walk now - it's nice and sunny between the showers.

celestial

Right so pretty much nothing has gone to plan over the past week - a combo of a swollen jaw and antibiotics did weird sh*t to my appetite and meant I couldn't taste stuff properly - and I have to go through it all again next week on another tooth! Overall though I am going to try and keep it high protein from now til then at least and try to keep kcals down - plus lots of exercise in store from now til next Tues.

celestial

Surprised myself today!! Went to gym after a day of not eating very much, mainly cos I was in a hotel and didn't really prepare well food-wise, but mainly cos dinner wasn't great and I didn't eat much anyway. Did 15-20 mins of weights and then hit the treadmill. Didn't think I was even gonna make 10 mins as I thought i'd get a stitch or wear out or something. Said I'll do 10 and then hit the bike or something. Hit 10, then 15, then 20 then before I knew it I was at 30...finally finished it up at 40 mins! 5.31km @average of 8km. I'm no runner so I don't think that is too shabby??! Could have gone to 50 mins to an hour I reckon - had enough in the tank. Got a bit of a chafed foot so stopped cos wanna do it all again tomorrow!

Could be the start of something...

celestial

More running today I'm getting into it - I may be joining the ranks of Woddle, Sungod, Ike et al soon!!

5.13k in 40 mins today:D Without a doubt I could have gone faster but I want to ease myself into these runs as I want to them very regularly from here on in - gonna be heading back to gym tomorrow after work for another one, and one on Sat too.

Food was like this:

breakfast: 2 boiled eggs
lunch: meat and veg, oat and yoghurt smoothie
mid-afo: apple
later-afo: cashew nuts, green tea
workout
post-workout: (just now) plate of lean mince beef with bolognese sauce

celestial

gym:

bike 10 mins
treadmill average 8km/hr pace - 5.3km in 40mins.

Gonna keep up this running, am enjoying it. Can really feel the effects of it afterwards, stiff legs and the rest. Plan is to go for a slightly faster session in less time tomorrow morning.

celestial

So..updating ya'll..

Progress pics at just under the 3 week stage attached. Noticing a nice progression. Lower gut is leaning out a bit, not majorly but can notice it and that's the area I really want to target and that is most resistant.

Keeping diet pretty clean, few beers (ok more than a few) and a handful of chips last Sat is about the worst I've consumed. Am at home at min recovering from last tooth extraction and there's nothing but Walkers crisps and cake and chocolate bars but I ain't touchin none of it!

celestial

5k in 35 mins on treadmill. Gonna aim for 5k in sub 30 mins over next week - know I can do it but decided half way through run today that I'd go for faster pace in less time, had originally planned to just run for 45 mins. So will aim for an avg 10km/hr pace tomorrow or Wed so I can hit the 5k in 30mins.

Tomorrow weights+cardio.

SUNGOD

be careful celestial once you've gotten the running bug it's hard to shake off:D

celestial

SUNGOD wrote: »

be careful celestial once you've gotten the running bug it's hard to shake off:D

Ha yeah I don't doubt you!! I forgot to mention above that I did push-ups after the run - maybe 40-50 of them. Enjoy the different feeling you get from running and weights - the pump from weights/bodyweight exercises means I always feel more 'worked out' than when I just run. Def gonna keep up the running though I reckon - you really feel like you're pushing your fitness and general conditioning up and up all the time.

celestial

Gym - 1 hour 5 mins cardio binge:D

Treadmill 5k in 35/36 mins
Bike 30 mins

Also:

20-30 push-ups
10 mins boxing with the gloves and pads with a mate of mine, built up a nice sweat.
Bit of ab work.

Weighed myself on digital scales - 82.5kg, last week was 83kg, have dropped maybe a kg as the crappy analogue scales I have at home is showing a loss too from what I usually see. Have cut cals (no mid-morning food, no mid-afternoon food) so would mainly attribute it to that. Also noticing more shape in abs area, can make out 6 pack (still a long way off!) shape and belly looks flatter and smaller in general.

celestial

Today:

15 mins light weights session to keep the strength up

dbell bench 16kg and 18kg bells. Can lift 24kg+ bells but wanted to save max amount of energy for running today.

dbell rows, dbell shoulder press

Treadmill 4.56k in 30 mins. Pushed up the speed to 10km/hr in last few mins and sprinted for it, shot from 3.5k to 4.56 in a matter of mins. will hit sub 5k in 30 no problem next time (incidentally, will be in a gym in California:) - just need to up my pace, didnt want to run too fast last few sessions to ease my body into running, so i'll be just going for it from now on and clocking up the mileage.

Finished off with 2 mins fast rowing, 40 push-ups, 20 bodyweight squats