What I've been up to this week.

Well we all know I've entered the 5th Turbulence Training Transformation Contest (TTTC). I've been working on that and the comments about that are on my other blog www.neilsturbulencetrainingtransformation.com (tinyurl.com/ngtttc). Please bookmark it, follow it and give me your support as it really will be very much appreciated.

I've not been bad but I've not been brilliant with the booze this week, as I had a couple of bottles of wine over the week, and a beer and bottle of wine tonight. About what I can handle I would say. I didnt find yesterday's TT very intense because it contained exercises I havent done so I had to work them fairly conservatively. That said, I am not doing my TT interval training on the eliptical now (they will be on the treadmill from now on). That will be a challenge because I am a really heavy-footed runner, and whenever I run, for some reason my rhomboids just ache for ages.

So as for my drink tonight which is my treat, I feel I have thoroughly deserved it.

I have done 2 24 hour fasts this week following the "Eat Stop Eat" principles. I've managed not to overeat as well. I'm hoping for some progress this week.

Leaving my TT workouts aside, on my TT rest days I did a cardio/abs from skinny vinny's site, rested on Thursday and was in for the body attack class starting at 5pm. Usually I do circuit training (starting at 4) but it is losing its appeal as now that my fitness has improved I find it is no longer intense enough.

I had been thinking about designing my own workout. I've seen a few of skinny vinny's vids on you tube and he is another documented trainer worthy of trust. I therefore felt that I could design my own workout based on some of his own advice so this is what I did to day:

UPPER BODY

HORIZONTAL PLANE

A BB Chest Press 3X8 @ 40kg
B BB RDL/Bent Over Row Combo 3X8 @ 40kg

VERITCAL PLANE

A BB Shoulder press 3X8 @30kg
B Pull ups 3Xmax (assisted bw - 19kg)

LEGS

A BB Deadlift 3X8 @40kg
B BB Squats 3X8 @40kg
C Burpees 3X12

CLEAN & PRESS

A BB C&P 3X6 @40kg

I then did an abs circuit of

A Plank On Ball 3X90s
B Hanging Knee raises 3X15
C Cable woodchop 3X12 (13.75kg)
D Cable crunch on ball 3X15 (11.25kg)

and then interval training on the cross trainer (Easy = level 13/2 Hard=level 17/25). 3min warm up, 5X 30s hard/30s easy, then 30s hard/90s cool down.

There was only one other person workin out when I had finished. thats dedication.

It took me about an hour and 20 mins to complete the workout, and I was dripping particularly with the resistance training. It wasnt the greatest amount of weight but the supersets were very intense and I found it hard with my grip which is one thing that is on my key improvement goals.

Since doing the TT workouts I've definitely improved in terms of my strength and i can see how much leaner my muscle tone is. my veins are developing on my biceps despite the fact i never do any isolation exercises from my own program or choice.

A funny thing I can relate to is those people who rest too much and dont work hard enough. Today there was a lad who must be in his late teens/early twenties. he hogged the smith machine and rested pretty much most of the time i was doing my supersets. what a waste. I could have done a quick yoga routine between that guy's sets

I may have not done the weight level I wanted but I still had a great workout, that will be more intense and better the next time I do it. I hope I am not too stiff tomorrow.

Enjoy your weekend.

Neil

Trying something different.

As we all know, Turbulence Training is my primary workout program, with my current routine 2k8 being a day on day off, day on day off, day on 2 days off. So what to do in my off days like today?

Well, as an affiliate of, and newsletter subscriber to, Vince Del Monte, I thought I'd give one of his mini programs a whirl. It's imaginitively titled "The 16 week Razor Sharp Abdominal Cardio Workouts".

It goes like this. He gives 6 abs circuits, and 11 cardio routines. I chose workout 1 which was double leg raises (on a ball), and a cable cruch on a ball 3-4 sets, both to failure. I had a real problem with doing the double leg raises on the ball so i moved onto a bench. I was fine with the cable crunch but it took a little bit of experimenting to find the right level of weight, which was 11kg. The only thing is that you do those circuits between 2 rounds of 20 minutes minimum on the treadmill. And they aren't steady state either. My workout was a ladder of 1 minute easy followed by one minute hard, 1 minute easy 2 minutes hard, 1 min easy 3 hard and repeat 2 to 3 times. Well I hate the treadmill and I was going pretty well given my lack of experience on it so rather than repeat I just reversed the process so did 2/1 then 1/1.

As you can conclude, I didn't particularly enjoy the treadmill although the abs work was nice as it was different to what I would normally do, which is usually a circuit of things like planks on ball, side planks, ball jacknifes, etc. That said I think if I do continue with some ab work I will start incorporating cable crunches into my circuits.

I have been thinking about starting my swimming back up, as its been a long long while since I did it seriously, so I've scheduled some swimming in on Thursday.

Another thing I have decided to do for a short period is to drop the circuit training class on Saturday afternoon. Two reasons for this and they are both important to me. 1 I can spend a little bit more time Lydia before I take her back to her mum's, and 2 I can stay at the gym a bit longer after the body attack class, and perhaps do some abs or a little bit of steady state to build up my endurance. And, it will mean I go back home later, and start my Saturday treat (nice bottle of wine) a lot later so that I'm not tempted to over-consume.

That moves me on to the nutritional side of things. I'm waiting to hear about Joel Marion's "Cheat Yourself Thin" affiliate program. As I mentioned, I am experimenting with intermittent fasting, having finished my second fast at lunchtime this afternoon. Virtually every exercise/nutrition system is totally against it (apart from TT) for some reason. So lets see how things pan out.

Final thought for tonight. The TT Transformation contest. I weighed myself yesterday 78.5kg 23.8% BF. I have now started a separate blog specifically for that. Please take a look. I did get my composition done at the gym, which said 19.8% BF. I just dont know. Anyway, I will be using my scales for the sake of consistency.

Will now close it at that, as it looks like Arsenal are going to lose to Man U in the Champions League Semi Final :-(. My best mate will be gloating. So will get an early night and some rest ready for tomorrow's TT workout and body attack.

Neil

Quick post on Saturday

Thought I'd just make a quick post before I take Lydi back to her mum's and I go to the gym to do circuits and body attack.

I'm feeling a bit fitter today and ready to go for it. I've also been sorting my eating plan and fasting schedule for next week when the contest starts.

I'm abandoning the Hardcore fat loss pdf for the time being, but it is still in my plans.

So this is the schedule for the next 12 weeks starting on Monday.

Weeks 1-4 2K8

Weeks 5-8 2K9

Weeks 9-12 Hardcore Fat Loss.

Somewhere within these 12 weeks I will be taking a week's holiday down in Somerset so I will take the dumbbells and the stability ball and see if I can do some sort of maintenance program, which I will look into a bit closer to the time. I expect I will be fairly active in any event as Lydi will probably want to go on some sort of day trip a couple of times in the week.

Anyway I'm signing off for now and going away to work on my pull ups and dips before circuits start.

'Til next time

Neil

My first experience of fasting, and Back in Training.

As mentioned on Wednesday my little daughter, Lydia, wasn't able to go to nursery because of a sickness bug. So Thursday was a stay at home day. That added to the fact that the TT hardcore fat loss program totally tires you, and my foot injury meant that I completely rested yesterday.

As you all well know, despite my fitness, I do enjoy wine more than I should (taking me away from what I want to achieve), and I have found Craig's ultimate nutrition plan really tough to follow. So I have therefore been forced to think outside the box. In Craig's, and other writers such as Mike Geary and Vince Delmonte, have discussed Brad Pilon's "Eat Stop Eat" e-book on intermitent fasting.

I had my doubts about whether fasting is for me, but in the interests of experimentation, and given that my discipline has wavered, I have decided that Brad's e-book is well worth investigating. I have really found what Brad has said to be particularly interesting. I have fasted from about 5:30pm yesterday to about the same time today. From then on I am eating "normally", which for me is pretty healthily in any event.

It wasn't as hard as I expected it to be, and I will go into a little something that might be of interest. I took Lydia to MacDonalds today as a little treat to cheer her up. Not long after we sat down with her "Happy Meal" and my bottle of Buxton Spring Water (only, no "food"), a rather obese couple sat down with their large maccy meals. It was interesting to watch this couple of slobs. Lydia ate about 2 1/2 chicken mcnuggets,about a dozen french fries and drank a very small amount of her chocolate shake in roughly 15 minutes. The male member of the "couple" wolfed his nuggets and fries chewing them about 5 or 6 times, then shovelling the next load into his mouth as fast as his "hunger" made him. He then went and ordered a mcflurry or whatever they call it. What's more astonishing is that they couldn't have even taken a total 5 minutes to consume all those calories. No wonder they were shockingly overweight, and I was very sad to see people choose to be in such a state.

This experience, however, makes me feel much better about my own little vice. But it also makes me feel more commited to eating healthily and to intermittent fasting. That way I can feel much less guilty about my passion for wine. A couple of days fasting for me would represent a caloric defit of about 5,500 calories (which would represent a 1.5 lb fat loss) so personally, it would be very worthwhile using the East Stop Eat lifestyle.

Another product that I have seen that is launching today is Joel Marion's "Cheat Yourself Thin". Joel is an advocate of using "Cheat Days" where if you are on a restricted diet, you eat massive calories of whatever you like, so that your body is fooled into thinking that food is in abundance after having calories restricted. I'm not going to dismiss Joel's system, as I'm sure it will work for many people and (despite being in pre-launch) already has many testamonials from people that he has helped with this system before publishing it. However, Brad Pilon explains this phenomenon in Eat Stop Eat, and is referred to as diet edema. I'm not going to claim I know anything about what they are talking about, but it seems that normal eating after some form of calorie restriction, whether total intermittent fasting, or a reduced calorie controlled diet, increases fat loss rates for many participants.

Moving back to resuming Turbulence Training today, I was unable to complete the week's TT hardcore fat loss program for the week as I do not have any equipment at home to do chin ups or dips. So I did a nice TT program from this year's "March Madness". Craig demonstrates it in the video below:


It was nice to workout at home, and in fact I worked out in the back yard (except for the stability ball part of the circuit). I don't have a kettlebell so I used my adjustable dumbbells. I started off at 10kg for the first circuit, moved up to 13kg for the second, and 16kg for the third and final circuit. I've done this routine before, last month (links on my facebook page!!!). All I can say is that I was completely whacked out, despite being used to doing circuit training on a regular basis at my gym.

Lydi goes back to her mum's tomorrow afternoon so I will be back to the gym afterwards to do circuits and body attack at 4pm. I'm looking forward to seeing what delights Sophie has in store for us after an interesting class last week. I've got a suspicion that it will be the strength supersets again.

The Transformation contest starts on Monday. I am launching a new blog specifically to cover my transformation progress, but I will still continue to write to this blog too.

Keep motivated, eat healthily, enjoy your life.

Neil

I'm injured and my daughter has a virus!

Oh dear. My left foot has been killing me for a couple of weeks. I spraigned my ankle very badly when at school (nearly 20 years ago, but it has never been the same). I think spraigned it again Easter Sunday, when I first walked up the Wrekin (local hill and beauty spot). It wasnt going up that did it, it was coming down.

Anyway, I've been favouring it for a little while and both the top muscles and my tendons and ligaments in my ankle have been hurting ever since. It's been really affecting my ability to do the good old bulgarian split squat for a while. Anyway, I have struggled on for a good 3 weeks, I have been going on full tilt in the gym and studio, but it is hurting so much that enough is enough; I've just got to rest it.

And today, my (ex)wife rang me up to tell me our daughter has been throwing up since she came back from nursery. Proper projectile vomiting!!! I will pick her up first thing and look after her at home for a couple of days as she would be passing whatever she has on to the other kids, and that just isnt fair to them.

With the TT Transformation contest coming up on May 4 it seems sensible to just calm things down for 4 days. I am going to give 100% to that contest. Whether I win it or not, giving it 100% commitment is what matters.

In the meantime, my daughter is all that matters so I will take this opportunity to rest and then JUST DO IT!

I am launching a seperate blog to monitor my progress during the TT Transformation contest. Links will be posted through here and my pages on the social networks that I'm on. Be prepared for the "ugly" photos.

Wish me well

Neil

4 weeks in and going "Hardcore"

Just been re-reading last Monday's post. It's now 4 weeks since I started on Craig Ballantyne's world reknown Turbulence Training programme. Although I did weigh myself this Monday, I have decided to return back to Wednesday weigh ins as this will remain true and consistent to my previous records.

I'm pleased to say that in 4 weeks I have actually lost 1.8kg (4lb) of body fat (now down to 18kg/40lb of fat) , which represents a 1.3% reduction. My initial goal was to lose 1%. At that time I had not really made any calculations as to how much fat mass I was to lose, and based it on percentages. I made the following video not long after I started the programme.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I've had a big struggle with my alcohol consumption. Whilst I do believe that life is for living, and I have no problem with people responsibly enjoying their tipples of choice, I sometimes feel guilty about my passion for wine, particularly as it is preventing me from achieving what I want in terms of getting a great mid-section! At the moment it really is too hard a task to just eliminate my level of consumption so I have decided to do a much more gradual reduction.

We brew some lovely beer here in the UK and there is one brewery that I am a big fan of, the Badger Brewery based down in Dorset. So my treat is a (as in ONE!) bottle from their range of very fine ales every other night in the week (i.e. Monday, Wednesday and Friday). On Saturday, I will apply the John Berrardi 90% rule and enjoy some wine after going to my back to back classes at the Gym.

Anyway, moving back to the main point of my blog, I have achieved my goal despite enjoying a more than what would we be called normal amount of beer and wine. Whilst I wonder what I could have achived if I had been more disciplined, I will learn from my mistakes, and not get too down on myself as states in the TTFFL manual that advanced exercisers are likely to expect a lb fat loss per week. So I do still feel really pleased and positive that I can get great results. I just have to be more disciplined.

Its not just the fat loss results that are great. I'm really impressed with my improvements in my strength. Before TT I just played with resistance training doing it twice a week at my own pace. Now I am straight in, resting as little as possible between sets and supersets, lifting as heavy weights as possible, bearing in mind that my right shoulder is still compromised from last year and is nowhere near as strong as the left. The results...

I have noticed a dramatic increase in definition of my muscles in my arms, and my main vains are now starting to become noticeable on my arms and...

I am definitely a lot stronger than I was before I started the programme, even in just 4 weeks.

An example of this is the upper body workout track in the body attack class at the gym. There is a lot of core strengthening and a hell of a lot of press-ups both bicep and tricep. I used to manage bicep press-ups with my knees off the floor, but practically all the tricep push-ups were done with my knees down. Today I managed all but 4 knees off the floor. I know I will get to the stage where I no longer have my knees down on either.

Ok so thats the original programme completed my sheet is below.

Its time to move on to the next programme. I have downloaded the Hardcore Fat Loss programme from TTmembers.com. Time to up the ante and the intensity. Monday's workout was a killer, particularly the 30s/30s intervals where I have also started increased the resistance on the cross trainer at the peaks to level 17 of 25. I was knackered.

However, the thing that scared me most was Craig's nutrition plan with 8 meals a day totalling 2,100 kcals. My god!!! I am however taking some steps to move towards Craig's eating plan, and increasing my fruit and (unsalted) nuts intake with whole graprefruits, dried apricots and almonds has made an incredibly surprising impact. Yesterday I worked out til about 9:10am. I had a protein shake, a grapefruit, a banana and then a ricotta and ham fritata with some baby carrots and cherry tomatoes for my lunch at about 12 ish. I didnt actually feel that I needed to eat my evening meal which I took at about 7:15pm, and I had taken another walk up the wrekin as well to burn off my lunch!

It just goes to prove that if you are disciplined you can make those step by step, but critical nutritional changes a part of your lifestyle. If I can so can anyone!

Craig has announced another 12 week transformation contest with entries to be in between 4th and 26th May. Check here to see the links to the last contest winners with their respective stories. I am going to enter, which is the reason why I have not posted any photos after my first 4 weeks. I am not entering to win, although that would really be amazing. My main reason is that it will make me even more accountable to my friends and family whose support I will be needing. Wish me luck!!!

Click here to obtain a FREE 10 minute workout from Turbulence Training. This gives you half a dozen QUICK and SIMPLE fat-melting workouts. It's in PDF format and you can save from there. If you are interested in the full Turbulence Training programme you can follow the links from the PDF or order from Godzilla Marketing Health & Fitness (where you can view other weight and fat reduction programmes as seen below) on the following link by clicking here.

Keep working hard, stay disciplined, get results.

Neil

Time to re-group and start again. Diet VS Exercise

Where do I start? The last 2 weeks haven't been very well disciplined for me. I haven't been following the Turbulence Training plan to the full. In terms of exercise, yes, I've been following the resistance and interval training programs, as well as doing my own thing on off days. However, I haven't cut my alcohol consumption and this has dramatically affected my goals. I actually gained 2 lb of weight this week although my body fat percentage only went up by .2%. So now 78.7kg/173lb with 18.8kg/41lb of body fat.

I've embeded one of Craig's diet vs exercise videos to the blog below. It makes interesting (and amusing) entertainment and I have posted links on my facebook pages. It's a pity I never took much heed of the message it contains as I could have achieved my goals if I had.


Whilst I'm not a big beer drinker (wine is my tipple of choice), I do drink far too much of the booze. I know its been a bank holiday (and a long one at that) but 5 bottles of wine and 3 half litre bottles of 5% beer must equal at least another 5000 calories and no body fat loss!!!

That said, enough is now enough. Its time to write off the last 2 weeks and re-group to start again from scratch. And this time I'm more determined than ever to shake off this horrible fat that I'm carrying.

So, I've taken a few simple but effective measures.

Instead of setting just targets, I've actually thought about how I am going to achieve those goals.

The big problem is the vino. So I've printed my calendar off for the rest of this month and next and have scheduled when I am allowed to take a drink. I will add a "smiley" on the chart for each day i remain "dry", and start giving myself some small (non-alcoholic) rewards to keep myself motivated.

I have signed up to Craig's Twitter page and already I have 27 new followers on there, so please followers and friends keep kicking my ass to keep me off the wine cos I really do struggle at times to control it.

I've also set up an account on Fitday to allow me to keep a food journal, and I will re-do the 21 day kickstart plan on the TT for fat loss manual. I am also seriously thinking about posting my progress on the TT members forums.

Anyway, I have been doing a bit too much "guilty" exercise to compensate. However, that might contribute to dehydration and even worse, potential injury. So that is why it is important that I cut down.

To move away from my sins (for which I now repent!!!) I have had a nice long weekend. I decided to walk up The Wrekin, which is a local hill here in Shropshire. Its 407m (1,335 ft) high (according to Wikipedia). At school, we used to do our sponsored walks there (2 circuits) and it was quite a challenge. I haven't been up there for what must be 20 years. Yesterday I jogged around the base and climbed up the steepest part. It took me about 35 minutes from leaving the car to do it and it is quite a bit of a hike. I'd intended to shoot a quick video but the video cam battery had discharged so that wasn't to be.

Today I did the body attack class before doing my TT program. I have added a 5 exercise abs circuit for which I do 3 circuits before going on to do the intervals. The air conditioning hasn't been working properly at the gym (and it was worse in the studio) so it was a tough day today. The new body attack routine has now started and its a little bit complex. That said, I know I will pick it up shortly.

This afternoon I went for another trip up the Wrekin. I just walked it and did the easier route. However, I did it at a fairly brisk pace, and that combined with the abs work from earlier, I could feel the work I was doing and did break a bit of a sweat.

I am going to wrap it up for tonight and will make more of an effort to post a new entry more often

Keep kicking my ass if youre following my blog or twitter and I am still drinking the booze, and keep praising me for each bottle of diet ginger ale I consume.

Neil

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