2014 a Year to Change

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Soldato
Joined
9 Apr 2004
Posts
2,694
So after many stops and starts, this year I am going to be serious and no longer use excuses for letting myself go. The purpose of posting here is to try and ensure that I stick to my plan.

About me: Married, 33 years old, 5 kids, self employed business consultant. So what does that mean? Time is always at a premium, most of my working day is sedentary and food is always a bit of a nightmare.

Why bother: I am sick to death of looking and feeling bloody awful. I used to have loads of energy, but have so little these days. I have always been fortunate in naturally having strong legs and a V-shape body. The legs are still good, but the v-shape is rapidly disappearing.

Goals: Ultimately I want to have the physique of someone like Stephen Amell - his salmon ladder pull ups just blew me away and made me extremely envious. I am not looking for massive bulk, but I would like that sort of look. I would hope to achieve that in a year, my short term goal is to increase muscle stamina and lose weight.

Approach: So the plan is going to be split into 3 components; better eating regime, 30 day shred, weight lifting.

Eating: At the moment I never eat breakfast, hit or miss whether I have lunch and usually end up having a takeaway at around 9pm. So to change this I am planning on the following:

Breakfast: muesli with yogurt, glass of grapefruit juice, green tea with lemon
Mid morning snack: 200 calorie pre-measured mix of nuts and dried fruit.
Lunch: Salad with Chicken breast and boiled egg
Afternoon snack: 200 calorie fruit and nut mix
Tea: baked potato, vegetables, lean meat (chicken / venison)
Evening snack: TBD

Also plan on massively uplifting my water intake - at least 2 - 3 litres. From a supplement I plan on taking Welman multivitamin and omega oil tablets along with feroglobin. I have creatine, but from what I have read this will only come into play later on and I wont benefit from it or whey powder while I am getting started.

30 day shred: This is standard shred DVD

Weight Lifting: I have free weights and a weight bench but ultimately I am going to start off light to ensure right technique and then build up as the muscle stamina increases.

Plan:

Monday

6:30am - 30 day shred DVD
8pm - Dumbbell Bench Press 3 * 12
Dumbbell Fly 3 * 12
Barbell Bench Press 3 * 8
Wide Row 3 * 12
Back Fly 3 * 12

Tuesdays
6:30am - 30 day shred DVD
8pm - Cross Trainer (30 minutes)

Wednesdays
6:30 am - 30 day shred DVD
8pm - Palms in Shoulder Press 3 * 12
Lateral Raise 3 * 12
Hammer Curl 3 * 12
Preacher Bicep Curl 3 * 12
Two Arm Tricep Extension 3 * 12

Thursdays
6:30am - 30 day shred DVD
8pm - Exercise Bike (30 minutes)

Fridays
6:30am - 30 day shred DVD
8pm - Bicep Curl (Matrix 28)
Barbell Upright Row - 3 * 10
Military Press - 3 * 10
Leg Extension - 3 * 10
Chin Ups - To Fail

Saturday / Sunday - Rest

Current Stats:

Weight: 213lbs
Height: 5' 9"
Chest: 44"
Waist: 43.5" (at biggest point)
Hips: 42.5"
Thigh: 22.5"
Calf: 16.5"
Neck: 17"
Bicep: 14"

Would really appreciate some thoughts on the plan and approach to see if there is anything stupid or counterproductive within it. The exercises I have chosen are the ones that I enjoy doing the most and I am planning on using the 30 day shred to work multiple muscles, whereas the evening sessions I am trying to work on specific areas.

Once I gain a little more confidence I will upload some current photos. I have built an excel tracker to keep an eye on both exercises as well as body measurements. I intend to update this post weekly with measurements to hopefully show constant improvement.

Cheers,

Matt
 
Last edited:
The 200 calorie snack bags are made up as follows:

10g Almonds
5g Blueberries
5g Mango
10g Cranberries
10g Cashews
4g Pumpkin Seeds
 
I don't want to be a negative nancy, but you may want to manage your expectations. Gaining the physique of Stephen Amell in one year without barbell exercises and at your current waist/weight/height measurements is unlikely. If you manage it, then amazing :)

Just one single lower body exercise per week in your weight routines? If you don't have access to a barbell and rack/stands for squats, then get some bulgarian split squats, goblet squats or weighted lunges in there.
 
Hi UV, not negative at all, this is me doing this seriously for the first time, so any advice is much appreciated.

I am determined to achieve my goals, but if it takes longer than a year, then fair enough. I know I will be much happier in 3 months time.

The 30 day shred is doing a lot of lower body stuff and my legs are my strongest part of my body, dont get me wrong I will start to build in a lot more targeted exercises but my upper body is shockingly weak. To give an idea the shred I am doing includes: weighted lunges, weighted squats, push ups, weighted side squats (no idea if this is what they are called) .

Equipment wise I have the following in the house:

Cross Trainer
Treadmill
Exercise Bike
Weights Bench
Barbell / Dumbbell
Assorted weights upto about 90Kg Max

My plan initially is to build up general fitness, improve muscle stamina and kick start the weight loss. Most of my weight is around my belly so I need to shift that first and foremost.

Health wise I do need to keep an eye on things as my resting heart rate is shocking (averages between 96 and 110) and is something I am hoping to see improve massively.

Would it be worth building in more lower body exercises now, or should I wait until general fitness has improved? Any suggestions based on the above equipment would be much appreciated. It needs to be regimented otherwise I will just end up stopping which I have done so many times in the past.
 
Can you fit all ~90kg onto the barbell at once (as in, there's some big plates)?

It's never the wrong time (barring injury) to be doing lower body exercises, and if you can actually fit the weight onto your barbell then I'd be making sure the routine included deadlifts. In fact, with your available equipment, deadlifts are probably the single best exercise you could be doing for building full body strength.
 
The biggest single plates I have are 5kg. My strength however is quite ridiculous. I can do a one off lift of quite a heavy weight - maybe even three to five reps, but thats it. Even small weights my stamina is dire. Havent actually done any max lifts to see what I am capable of, as small weights kill me after 2 or 3 sets - office job for many years really doesnt help things.

The other area that advice would be welcomed on would be around diet and nutrition. As mentioned above I am trying to eat on a regular basis and when I am eating keep the food as whole / pure as possible. So far today thats included:

museli with onken cherry yogurt and a glass of grapefruit juice for breakfast
home mixed fruit and nut portion
Chicken Salad with mayonaisse and two wholegrain thins
About a liter of water.

according to myfitnesspal thats working out at:

Calories:
Carbs: 45% (88g)
Fat: 36% (31g)
Protein: 19% (38g)

It also accounts for 1003 calories

I will be having another fruit and nut mix in an hour odd which will be another 200 calories. This will then be followed by an evening meal involving broccoli, baked potato and either chicken or venison. I expect that to be about 700 calories.

After my weights tonight I was planning on having a pint of semi skimmed milk and a banana. Ultimately is this too much / too little? the right things / the wrong things? I estimate that I will burn about 400 - 500 calories today between the shred and weights.
 
In general, you're better off asking questions in the specific threads on the main forum as not everyone will be reading the all of the logs daily.

A couple of mistakes you are making:

1) Doing lots of cardio.

This is fine if you want to increase fitness, but completely unnecessary for fat loss. Conversely, it's great for losing lean mass if your diet isn't in check. Another common pitfall is to estimate the amount of calories you burn during exercise and factor your daily calories around this. These estimations are essentially worthless, especially since over time your body will burn less calories doing the same work.

2) Not doing a proper weights routine.

If your goal is a muscular physique in a year, time is not on your side. You need to start lifting weights immediately, as even though you won't build much while dieting, you will get stronger and more practised at the movements so you can use more load when the time comes to increase your calories and gain mass.

3) Your lower body is never strong enough to avoid lower body exercises. Cardio/circuit training doesn't count.

4) Your food choices are quite sugary, which is not a great idea when cutting. More protein required too.
 
So week one has been a bit up and down. Granted its been more down than up but such are the way of things.

I have lacked focus and direction. Keep getting pulled between losing weight, gaining mass, getting fitter. Trying to do everything at once and reading far too many articles - the amount of contradictory advice out there is astonishing.

So, I have decided to aim for a single focus over the next 5 months. I have decided to enter a tough mudder in June with the intention of finishing in a quick time. I hope this is going to give me the balance that I am looking for in terms of fitness and practical strength.

Food as ever is my biggest weakness, I have found it incredibly hard to stay "good" and eat the right things. Although its nothing more than an excuse 5 kids and a wife do increase the challenge, as there is rarely time to plan things out.

I am trying to reduce the sugar that I eat and not bother to count the calories burned as a result of exercise. Still aiming to take in about 1900 calories a day as I have at least 3 stone to lose in the next 5 months.

Doing something I should have done at the start I am going to adopt Steedies routine for beginners until I can see/feel some improvement. There is going to be a lot of cardio as I am really quite exceptionally unfit. I have a lot of "inner" fat as opposed to it all being on the outside which I understand is more dangerous health wise and really should be the priority for me. I would like to get my resting heart rate down from its current position.

I am trying to do this naturally at the moment so I will get the benefits of supplements if I take them at some point in the future, but I am stuggling to get enough protein in without overdoing the fat / carbs. I am getting better, but I still have some way to go.

In summary, it could have been better, but I do feel better mentally and I have lost 2 lbs. I will get there, its just not going as I had initially planned.
 
Whey is byproduct of the cheese-making process. As long as you don't waste your money on anything other than basic bulk whey powder from the online direct suppliers it's great for that extra 20-40g protein with virtually no carb/fat - it's a dirt cheap protein source per serving and it's not hard to do more than just neck it with water (I just had 'proats' - whey/milk/instant oats/calorie-free flavouring). The main mark against it is compared to meat or fish, it's obviously less filling which is why it's preferable to use it to finish off your daily target rather than relying on it, especially when dieting as satiety/fullness is important for maintainng adherence.
 
Gone for Raspberry Impact Whey to try it out and see what difference it makes if anything. Managed to hit my protein target today, but it has been meat heavy today.
 
Delvis said:
What difference it makes? What are you expecting exactly? It's a form of food, it'll up your overall calorie and protein intake, that's about it :p
Click to expand...

It was somewhat tongue in cheek :P

Ultimately the effect I am looking for from it, will be whatever effect I will get from hitting my protein quota, combined with the exercise routines.

Dont believe in magic pills, this is just going to be one bloody long hard slog, however if there are things that will help, I am all for it :D
 
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