Fat 2 Fit @ 40: Week 0 to 8 of 20

8 Weeks of hard work.

Fat 2 Fit @ 40 Week 0 to 8 of 20.

The journey continues, I started out with the vision of being as fit as possible within a certain time-frame and then maintaining my fitness from that point onward. I am writing this at the close of week 8 and as you can see in the picture to the right, there has been a definite change in myself. At the moment it's all about trimming down the fat (cutting) and in a few weeks it'll all be about the bulking and putting on lean muscle.

Quite a few have now asked for my diet so I thought it best to impart how I got to this point and most importantly debunk any thoughts of this being a "diet". I tried and failed before until I realised that you can't become awesome by following the crowd, with their diet pills and shakes; I had to go back to basics, I needed to learn everything as best as I could in the little amount of time I had. So this is a holistic transformation, I changed everything to get to this point, not just my diet. My mindset, diet, lifestyle, exercise, sleep pattern; even the way I shave!

I'll put all the information on this one page and attempt to link it all together so you can jump around and not get lost. For those of you wanting just the diet then you can get to just that part. Like I say though, that's not what's at work here people.

Why

You have to understand the why, otherwise it just becomes a process of going through the motions, for me it's all about my mindset, I built simple targets, I found out what motivates me and I exploited them.  I'll talk more about that in the mindset section below but my 20 week cut off date is when we go on holiday. I plan on being insanely strict until then, it could have been less but that holiday gives me the focus I need. I also have some other targets, most of all though to take me past that I have one target written down on my wall which is.

I aim to be the best I can be in fitness, focus, drive and kindness so that I and those close to me can live the life we dream of without any limits.

How

So I knew how why but how do I get to that point? Truth be told I studied a lot, looked at what the successful people are doing, took on board advice from trainers and mostly read around the science of it all. It all boils down to one simple thing for this phase:

Eat less calories than you need.

That's it, pretty simple huh? So yes, all the fat ones out there that use weak bitch ass excuses about how their genetics don't allow them to lose weight, or that they are too busy to exercise, not enough hours in the day, not enough energy, old injuries, waiting for the right moment. Bullshit excuses. Wake up and smell the coffee, you're fat because you've eaten more than you burn off and you have no willpower. Plain and simple, lay off the pies and stop feeding yourself lies! That's the point I was at when I started, loved takeaways, made every excuse not to exercise because doing so put me back on my crutches (old bike injury) and didn't have enough hours in the day.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against being fat as long as those that are fat don't constantly bitch and whine about it. If you're comfortable with the way you are then that's cool.

It all had to change.

Nutrition - Exercise - Mindset - Lifestyle

Mindset

I couldn't get to where I need to be without changing my mindset. 

#1 Imagine yourself and how your life will be.

How can you aim for a goal if you don't have a clear vision of what that goal is?

I wrote it down along with 5 reasons that I deserve it and downloaded some photos which I printed out and made a multi photo frame that I can look at each day. Why? because it's going to be tough, there's times when I want to skip those last 10 pressups because my arms are burning, mornings when I get up and have to use my crutches because it was hard on my legs the previous day, and days where nothing goes right at work and my motivation to exercise wanes. By having a clear vision that I can refer to every morning and night gives me that glimmer of hope in the dark times. Most think I'm a happy go lucky guy, in the main I am but let me tell you, when you're running a 1500 calorie deficit with 20% carbs across a day and getting up at 5am, working out twice a day and stacked out with work, it gets to you. I get exhausted, I get frustrated but then I learn to get angry, tie a knot around myself, double tie it and hold on. 

No point in having a plan B, it only distracts from plan A.

#2 Exploit yourself

Find out what makes you tick! I love to think that somehow in my life I am able to inspire people, make a positive ripple somewhere in the universe. So talking about what I do and showing others that it's possible works for me. I love to feel accountable, publicly if possible, so posting online what I'm aiming for, no matter how many "Ah you'll never get to that point" comments, it proves to spur me on. To dispel the non believers to which I draw great strength from. The fear of failure is there too but in a good way. I've said I am going to look a certain way by a point in time and therefore there is no option but to succeed.

#3 Create your home team

That's right, it's not easy going it alone and equally not as easy if those around you don't buy into it. I spoke to my other half about it, told her how I had planned on getting where I am going and why, I asked for some simple things, such as not asking me if I would like a sweet, never asking me if I would like a bit of her tea no matter how tempted I looked and most of all to be understanding that this is only temporary. The journey will become easier, a lot easier, but in the meantime I have to make sacrifices.

Get rid of the nay sayers! Yes that's right, Unfollow all the "OMG I hate today" posts on your social media accounts. You know the ones, bleeding you dry of life by constantly attention grabbing. If you know the "I'll believe it when I see it" people, don't include them until the end, you don't need that negativity in your life because right now you need to believe it to be able to see it later.

Surround yourself with positive people and build your team, know who you can call on to make you smile, know which friends you can call on to rant, know which ones give good hugs and know which ones will give you that extra kick if you need it. 

#4 Be happy

Smile, face skyward and feel the warm sun on your face, find something positive in the smallest of things. Happiness is always there within us, you just have to know which thoughts to get rid of in order to see true happiness. (I meditate every day)

Lifestyle

 I work for myself and have two spaniels that require walking and I contribute my share of the housework, including ironing, hoovering, washing etc. So my day had to change from my 7.30am wakeup and 10:30 / 11:00pm bedtime to 5am wakeup and 10pm bedtime. 2 hours walking dogs, housework, 8 hours of work, exercise and what was left over is my time of which I usually get around 30 minutes to an hour at the end of a day. You can get a feel of my day by clicking on the image to the right.

Exercise

Now we get down to the nuts and bolts. As I have mentioned, this phase is all about getting rid of the excess fat, so good fat burning exercises were a must, HIIT was my weapon of choice but I have been down this path before and to do what I needed to in the time that I had and without a gym membership I needed something more. So I added in cardio.

Put simply it means that I do HIIT (Freeletics) in a morning to make use of the afterburn effect to burn calories off during the morning and then after work I complete an hour of cardio on the exercise bike 110bpm to 120bpm to keep me in the fat burning zone. There are theories debunking this and theories supporting it, all I know is that by doing what I am doing it's working for me.

A typical Freeletics session (yesterday's) was as follows:

50 Burpees

50 Pullups

100 Pressups

150 Squats

50 Burpees

10 Burpees

10 Situps

10 Pullups

25 Burpees

25 Situps

25 Pullups

10 Burpees

10 Situps

10 Pullups

I subscribe to the coach so it takes the thinking out of it for me and I feel more accountable. However you can equally just download the app and choose the exercises yourself.

Nutrition

Tuna, light philadelphia and lemon on sweet potato

Last but not least it's the fuel you need to allow you to do all of the above but still lose weight. So remembering that you need to eat less than you spend in calories you now need to do some calculations, not everyone is the same so you need to find these out for yourself. However this is how I got to my figures.

My Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) 1770 which is based on a scientific equation of which one is the Harris-Benedict equation created nearly 100 years ago. There are many BMR calculators online to make things easier. This needs adjusting as you lose weight.

Then I needed to add in my lifestyle, which is pretty easy, other than walking the dogs I do little else apart from housework and sitting infront of the PC all day. Walking 1 mile is roughly 100 calories for my weight so take an average of 4 miles, that's 400 calories, plus around maybe 300 calories from HIIT and 650 calories from cardio. That's an extra loss of 1350 calories, add that to the 1770 and I have a loss of around 3120 calories which for arguments sake we will round down to 3000 because there is some overlap. There is a lot of science and much more in depth than what I provide here which is a brief overview in comparison and misses out quite a few variables but it's enough to gauge what I need.

Chicken, curry paste & peanut butter.

Bearing in mind that 3500 calories is 1 pound in weight and I am to lose around 2 pounds per week that means I need to be in deficit of 7000 calories a week, that's 1000 calories per day. So I took my 3000 calories and reduced it down to 2000. Then again I drop one day cardio as I only do 6 and I only do 4 to 5 days a week of freeletics. Not to bore you any more with figures i'll cut to the chase and say that I aim for 1500 calories per day.

It doesn't stop there though, so I know I need 1500 calories but how is that made up? Well, eating often (I eat 7 times a day) keeps your metabolic rate up and burns the fuel more efficiently, leading to less fat storage. I reduced my macros down to 20% carbs 25% fat and 55% protein and kept to some rules:

1. No fats 1 hour either side of exercise
2. More carbs in a morning
3. No carbs 3 hours before bed
4. Slow release protein at bedtime

All made possible by pre-preparing my meals. Yes it's boring as hell but it doesn't have to be, it's not forever so I don't mind and I would rather eat boring food for a short time and be more organised than have to think about my meals all the time.

Finally.... Water, I drink a gallon of water a day. It's a lot I hear you say but it's not really. Get a big bottle, fill it up and chug on that all day long.

That my friends is how I got to where I am now.

Sacrifice, hard work, dedication, self-belief and the ever tempting vision of cheat day.

Grillstock for lunch!

Gelato Village for dessert.