I Can Transform

As you all know Saturday’s are my big “cheat day” where I binge, slob out and usually get drunk to my hearts content. This means that on Sundays I have a “fast day” when I only drink green tea and coffee all day. I have really noticed that this helps to kick the bloated disgusting feeling I have from the day before pretty quickly.

My Sundays usually consist of massive amounts of cardio and stretching along with a very tough core workout however when you have running is sometimes the last thing you could make yourself do. Last week after a night out I instead went swimming on Sunday morning and WOW. It’s brilliant. I have been paying for swimming for 3 months, not a clue why I didn’t try it before. It is the perfect hangover cure. It helps stretch out all the aches you have from the previous weeks training and it’s also nice and relaxing whilst still being thoroughly exhausting. You have to swim lengths mind.

I’m thinking of adding it into the mix after my gym session maybe a couple of times a week instead of just Sunday as it’s so invigorating, even just a few extra lengths I think would be beneficial.

On an aside I have had some minor pain in my left forearm, just a strong aching that comes on, like when you work out but to the point that I have physically have to stop. Guessing I’ve overdone something slightly however I don’t want to stop completely. Swimming may help this.

Two months complete!

Ten months to go. Bring it on!

Well well well.
I have been an avid user of monstersupplements.com ever since I first started buying  supplements. This was back in the day when I’d go to the gym for a month, and then stop for a few months and make virtually no progress. Anyway. I was always impressed with their service. They deliver quickly. Their prices are very reasonable and I always just felt comfortable using their website, especially when compared to some of the websites out there that look like they are purposefully made to confuse you into submission.

One thing in particular that I always really liked about MonsterSupplements was their “Reviews” section. Where you can take a look at usually tens if not hundreds of reviews for each product and see what people liked. On almost every occasion pHd nutrition products were amongst the most highly rated, hence why I have been trialing them.

Well. It was recently brought to my attention that pHd Nutrition and Monster Supplements are owned by the same company. Now I’m not going to make drastic claims like “all the reviews are fake” as I just don’t know however they are so positive I am now looking over them with a some-what suspicious eye.

This isn’t to say pHd nutrition products are worthless. Lets face it all nutrition companies are going to be owned by a larger conglomerate however I can’t help but feel duped. I have had some good results using pHd products however I think I may now trial some others, in particular protein supplements and have a good scour of the internet before making decisions based on reviews on ecommerce sites.

Just a heads up.
I will let you know who I decide to go with. Reflex look interesting.

Jesus, cant believe it’s nearly the end of two months!

Bit annoyed that progress seems to have slowed. Not quite sure why. I have been working out just as much and my diet has been fine. I think its something that I just need to push through. Also really need to step up the fat burning to keep dropping my body fat. That six-pack and ripped body isn’t going to build itself! lol.

One interesting thing to mention is the more I work out the more I enjoy the fact it takes FOREVER to get more lean/built/muscley simply because the more happy I get with how I look the more achievement I feel and also, like tattoo’s, the more pain required to get them, the less people that have them.

Anyway, heres photo 8.

Haha, ok so I just made that up however I was wondering the other day whether it would be possible to make a sub at subway that wasn’t too bad for you. Maybe even, dare I say it, beneficial?

So in the interests of research (and lunch) I went into my local subway and came up with this beauty of a creation.

Bread? – Wholegrain (the boring brown one). Not the one with honey! Obviously brown bread is much better for you than white as it takes longer to breakdown. Plus in comparison to the other breads its reasonably low calorie, the lowest calorie they have.

Meat? – Initially I thought the tuna would be best for the protein however you get relativly little tuna because of the amount of light mayo they mix it with. Go with the roast chicken breast, has  a reasonably high protein content in relation to its calories.

Cheese? – None! Obviously. Don’t even think about it.

Toasted? – Up to you, I will do some research to see if this makes any difference nutrionally, I doubt it.

Salad? – Yes definately!! I’m not going to list them all but a few to consider, Lettuce – Low in calories so you can eat loads to fill up, Jalapeno’s – A MUST HAVE we all known chilli’s help boost your metabolism and make you sweat, Olives – full of antioxidants although be careful as they contain fat, Cucumber – people label this a “negative calorie” food which im not so sure about however it is mostly water so you can eat as much as you want.

I think its important to keep your diet so varying your salad is always a good way of adding a bit more variety.

Sauce? – Don’t you dare add mayo. To be honest your best going with nothing however if you really want to make this baby firey add lots of their “Hot chilli sauce”. Lot of salt but reasonably low calories for a massive metabolism boost.

And thats it! Give it a try, it actually tastes pretty good and is sometimes fulfilling to eat something “bad” for you even if its not really that bad. That said don’t eat it every day. You will be much better off making this at home, doing that I’d also substitute the chicken for tuna to up your protein but that depends what you want to achieve.

Well we’re half way into February now and I’m still just as shocked at how fast time is flying. Loving working out at the moment. Spend a good couple of hours most evenings working out if I’m not doing Muay Thai. Also doing very well with my diet keeping to the 5 healthy days, 1 cheat day, 1 fast day rule.

When I’m looking at these photos I cannot see any real changes from week to week however when I compare the most recent photo with the starting photo I am really pleased. Still plenty of room for more improvement though.

Just reading that heading you are probably pretty confused. You might have heard the phrase “pyramid training” being thrown around at your gym. Well I had but it can be pretty confusing what this actually means. The other night my gym buddy and me took the time to give it a go and damn is it worth trying from time to time.

Typically when your doing weight training at the gym you’ll do 4 sets of 10, or 5 sets of 8 or whatever. You don’t usually increase or decrease the amount of weight during your session. Pyramid training is different, instead of focusing on one weight you increase/decrease the amount of weights and reps to maximise the stress you can put on that muscle. You have probably noticed when you have finished a set your arms are killing but they would still have enough stamina to do lighter weights immediately afterwards.

Standard Pyramid Training
Kind of like a pyramid, with standard pyramid training you start with a large amount of light weights and increase the weight and decrease the reps as you go. Good way of building strength.
e.g
10 reps @ 70% (strength)
6 reps @ 85%
2 reps @ 95%
1 reps @ 100%

Truncated Pyramid Training
Similar to standard pyramid training however limits the weights to maximise the reps you are doing. This helps to build muscle muscle size and mass more effectively.
e.g
12 reps @ 60%
10 reps @ 70%
8 reps @ 80%
6 reps @ 85%

Reverse Truncated Pyramid Training
The same as the normal truncated pyramid however doing it this way puts more stress on your muscles (especially if you start at a high weight) as you are giving your muscle no time to recover.
e.g
6 reps @ 60%
8 reps @ 70%
10 reps @ 80%
12 reps @ 85%

Double Pyramid Training
The most intense form of all pyramid training as it builds up and back down. Be careful when training like this. Will build strength and muscle size (and will tire your muscles very fast).
e.g
12 reps @ 60%
10 reps @ 70%
8 reps @ 80%
6 reps @ 85%
6 reps @ 85%
8 reps @ 80%
10 reps @ 70%
12 reps @ 60%

Well that just about covers it. On Monday night I did all my weight training using pyramids to keep things varied and I loved it. Anyway, give it a go and let me know how you find it!

Sorry for the slightly late update. It was my Birthday last week and what with seeing my family at the weekend I had very little time to update. I did manage to stick religiously to my diet which I am really pleased about. Today I am waiting for pHd Synergy to arrive that I ordered so I will post a review of that later.

Heres Photo 6

Just a quick update regarding this new fat burner. Been using it since Sunday and I’ve got to say I’m not all that impressed. I started off taking two tablets on Sunday, one in the morning and one 30mins before my workout as recommended by a lot of people in reviews. Now, I’m not sure if I should be feeling anything but staggering two tablets like this I felt nothing. No buzz, no more energy. Monday I did the same thing however as I was back to eating healthily thought that may help. No such luck, still no buzz.

Today instead of staggering the two tablets I took them both about 45min before my workout. I felt quite alert however it could almost be a placebo. I did notice however that I was sweating more at the gym and a friend of mine also taking them noticed a similar effect, particularly during the intense cardio we do at the end of our session. So perhaps it is doing something. I also felt slightly less “flabby”, well, just a bit firmer but that could be down to anything. More than likely after my first day eating healthy after the fast day.

So all in all not quite the start I was hoping for. After doing just a little bit of research, the 200mg of caffeine is not quite as much as I had expected. I thought this was the equivalent of about 4 coffee’s (8 in two tablets) however it turns out a coffee is more like 100mg so each tablet is like two coffees. This kind of explains the lack of buzz. Anyway, who cares about buzz if they work. Only time will tell. Will definately keep you all updated

know its far too early to tell how effective the product actually is however obviousl