Tuesday, 24 March 2009

Let The Trials Begin!

The first thing I’m going to say is that I finally decided to download Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training e-book suite. I purchased the deluxe version, and after an initial review am quite pleased.

I will be using the TT program 3 times a week. In addition to this, I will be treating any other swimming or classes at the gym as what Craig describes as “fun” activities.

So, despite the fact that I usually do my weigh in on a Wednesday morning, knowing that I was likely to be writing up my blog, I thought “well one day is not going to matter”.

I’m pleased to say, that despite some difficult family circumstances during late February and early March, I have managed to maintain my weight. The additional stresses meant that my alchohol consumption crept back up to the excessive and unhealthy levels of the recent past.

However, I am determined to change that. After all, if I am to promote my range of health and fitness e-books that focus on losing body fat, I had better set a good example!

Here are my vitals:

Name: Neil Gazzillo

Age: 36 (I will be 37 in June!)

Height: 5 ft 9 ½ inches 176.5 cm

Weight: 177 lb (12st 9lb) 80.2 kg

Body Fat %age: 24.7%

Chest: 39in

Waist: 34in

Hips: 39in

Arms: 13 ¾ in (right) 13 in (left)

Thighs 22 in (right) 22 in (left)

I have set some short and long term fat loss goals;
To lose at least 1% within 4 weeks (I think this will be easily achievable) and to reduce the body fat percentage to 18% by the end of September.

As I intimated earlier, alcohol is likely to the biggest obstacle to overcome in my fat loss quest. That said, other than enjoying far too many glasses of wine, I do have a pretty good diet. I guess the level of exercise I undertake has meant I have been able to maintain my weight.

Whilst at the gym today, I had a good look at myself and thought I was in pretty good shape. Whilst I still have a bit of a spare tyre around my belly, my abs are reasonably well defined, albeit, nowhere close to a “6 pack”! However, the one area I am not happy with is my upper back. I expect this to be the area where the most effect is seen, although, I must admit, that I would love a 6 pack, and that is the whole point of my efforts.

So, this is where I let you know my plans for my workouts over the next 4 weeks:

This week I went in yesterday and did a 25 minute X-trainer interval program as per last entry, used the resistance equipment (rather than free weights), and some abs work.

Today I did my first TT workout (original workout A). Craig recommends using the bike rather than the X-trainer, and whilst my preference is definitely with the X-trainer, given that I did a pretty damned hard workout on it yesterday, I thought the bike would be better. Given that I haven’t used the bike for a while, I must admit I did feel it in the legs!

Tomorrow is “big Wednesday”. I love the body attack class which is a great cardio routine with some upper and lower body conditioning for a well deserved break. I will then do TT (original) workout B with the cardio element on the X-trainer. I expect to feel pretty drained after then, so I will probably give the circuit training class a miss!

Thursday is set to be mainly a rest day, although I haven’t been swimming properly for donkey’s and I think a nice half hour, reasonably paced swim sounds in order!
Friday will be TT workout A again. Saturday will be my usual day with my gorgeous daughter Lydia at the pool, and then followed by circuits and body attack in the late afternoon. There is no way I am doing anything energetic on Sunday!!!

From there, I will start next Monday with workout B and then follow a plan to workout Wednesday as per this week (but TT workout A) then TT B on Friday.

For more information, or to order the Turbulence Training e-book suite, view my sales page (and see other programmes that may interest you or others) click here.

The other thing I am going to talk about is a supplement called CLA (or Conjugated Linolelic Acid). It is reported to have anti-oxidant and fat burning/muscle mass gaining properties. I’ve purchased a tub of 270 500mg tablets from Argos for a reasonable price. I don’t claim to be a scientific expert by any means of its chemical composition can be found through the usual search engines.

I am usually skeptical about supplements, however, in the eyes of my “research” I am quite happy to keep an open mind. Obviously, with this trial, there is no “control” so to speak. So the plan is that I shall analyze my weight/fat loss whilst using the supplement and compare results after I have run out of tablets. I expect that rate to reduce once I have lost a few percent but then again I will be able to compare results after roughly 4 months.

In the meantime, I will be publishing my progress here on my blog, and giving you my (non-expert) opinion on the effectiveness.

In the meantime, keep working hard.

Neil

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