Rapid Fat Loss Week 4

I must admit these 4 weeks have flown by and my results each week were pleasing! I was strict pretty much all the time apart from the odd day or two where I was a bit unwell and just needed to feel like a slob for a few days!

The whole purpose of me doing this “diet” was to drop some fat, I know I mentioned before how I prefer changing lifestyles etc but I started this with the intention of only doing a 4 week cycle!

Now this week was a bit difficult as I’ve had no carbohydrates (no free meals etc) all week and I trained everyday lifting silly weight! This was a mistake as it totally KO’d me!

I noticed my strength has gone down slightly which isn’t surprising as the carbs really do help fuel you when you’re training with intensity!  On the plus side I slept so well this week as I’d get home exhausted eat then just pass out in bed!

So I got up this morning showered, had breakfast (steaks – yeah I now, odd but I fancied it) then weighed myself!

12st 8lb’s

So 4 weeks ago I weighed 13st 9lb’, I’m so pleased with this drop in weight but I must be realistic and presume that I did drop a little muscle as my training suffered when I couldn’t be bothered to go that is!

Today I’m eating normally and I’m not going to worry too much what I consume as now I have some room to play around with! Next week I will be eating at maintenance (2000 calories a day) which I’ll keep a diary of so I can post it next week so you can see what my normal week is like!

After next week I’m going to run another 4 week cycle but this time I will be taking pictures from week to week.

I believe this way of eating is perfect (for me anyway) as I don’t eat much carbs as a rule anyway so I might just incorporate these methods into my lifestyle but with a few tweaks!

Firstly I’m going to try and stick to a strict training routine but this time I’m going to consume a few good carbs beforehand to fuel my workouts, for this I’ll most likely take a protein shake or protein bar 30 minutes before my workout.

Secondly I’m going to increase my protein intake overall to try and keep as much lean muscle as I can so I’ll be getting a few tubs of protein myself as I find it easier to knock back a shake than to eat all the time!

So my plan is to do 4 weeks on 1 week off as a guideline but I’m not going to restrict myself from having a good time as I know now I can drop weight easily. I was in pretty shape good anyway but now I have a feeling I’ll be getting rid of the washing machine sooner than I thought!

Store Now Up and Running......

After a stupid amount of hours I can happily say the store is on-line! It still needs some tweaking regarding embedding it into my main site but all in all it works! 

Store

All the items that I'm selling are from well established brands, I picked these companies as I have used all their products in the past and highly recommend them! I could of sold any old supplements but I wouldn't sell anything that I wouldn't take myself!

Over the next few days there might be a few changes to the site but it's all for the greater good!

So please have a look and support the guy who's trying to get you all looking awesome! 

Store

Diet.............I mean lifestyle change! Part 2

In part 1 I talked about how diets fail as we get caught up in negative mind sets! No one enjoys being on a diet!

How many times have you heard?

"I can't, I'm on a diet!"

What I'm proposing is a new way of thinking about how to live so eating healthy isn't a big deal!

So forget about diets and adopt a new lifestyle, how much better does that sound?





First of all I want you to get rid of all the junk food and sugary treats including the Coke and Pepsi! (Diet drinks are fine) and while you’re at it get rid of the starchy carbs (White bread, crisps etc)

Now the logic behind this is "if the junk food is not there then you can't eat it"

You may be thinking "well duh!" but it's surprising what people think is classed as healthy food. As I mentioned in the part 1, those slimming bars are full of sugar and even your beloved special k is packed with sugar!  

While I’m talking cereal, did you know that shredded wheat has a higher glycemic index rating than refined sugar!



Yeah I was shocked too!



So now you know what sorts of things to avoid when you do go shopping buy food you wouldn’t normally buy, as you are changing your lifestyle after all!  If you have doubts about it just think........

It's all about thinking smart and once you get into the habit of thinking smart in terms of nutrition you are on your way to a better lifestyle and a healthier way of life!

I first started making changes by cutting out sugar from my diet (mainly tea) at first I hated it, it was so bland but eventually I got used to it and now sugar tastes foul to me! It's the small changes we make on a daily basis which will affect us in the long term.

So now my diet consists of lean meats, poultry, fish and vegetables and dairy, I still drink the occasional protein shake when I’m running late in the mornings but normally I have bacon (fat trimmed) and eggs for breakfast and that leaves me full till lunch. If I feel like snacking throughout the day I reach for nuts!

Seriously though nuts are a great source of protein and good fats but be careful they are so calorie dense you wouldn’t believe! An 80 gram bag of cashew nuts contain around 600 calories, and if you’re on a low calorie diet that is a big deal! So just read labels and be aware what you’re consuming!

Fruit is also a winner and yes fruit contains natural sugar but the fibre that accompanies the sugar balances it out nicely. I’m not a fan of dried fruits as you can find some have more sugar than the natural thing and in general fresh fruit is cheaper!

I still eat what I want from time to time and when I do it's the best feeling in the world as you tend to enjoy it more as it's a treat and not part of your daily ritual!

So this is an example of my current lifestyle, it’s nothing fancy but it works for me! You could follow my food examples and it might work wonders then again it might not, you have to find out what works for you and tweak things until you’re eating healthier without even thinking about it!

                               From now on stop dieting and start living a healthier lifestyle!



Full Site Coming Soon with Supplement Store!

After weeks of hunting around I finally got a deal with a supplement company which will allow me to sell some amazing products at reasonable prices!

The brands available to me are............

I couldn’t resist!

The brands I have at my disposal are:

CNP

Met-RX

Muscle Tech

Garnell Nutrition

Boditronics

BSN

Ultralife

Sci-MX

USN

SAN Nutrition

Reflex Nutrition

PhD Nutrition

I’m working things out at the moment to get the full site up and running along with the e-commerce side of things so I’ll decide which brands to stock then. If you have any requests regarding products to stock now is the time to tell me!

Rapid Fat Loss Week 3

So week 3 is done and dusted and I must hold my hands up and confess my diet slipped many times this week. Some days I ate a bit too much and I went a bit crazy on the carbs, but in my defence I did have a go at making my own protein bars so I had to taste them!

All week I stopped myself from stepping on the scales as I was afraid of the outcome and it was nice actually not caring as over the past 3 weeks I’ve been a bit obsessed with what the scales say!

So with the eating carelessly and drinking on Friday and Saturday I was thinking “I’ve completely blown my hard work”. I must admit it felt nice drinking and not thinking about it for once!

Regards to training, I didn’t do anything this week as I felt a bit under the weather and didn’t want to stress my body or my immune system. I don’t know if it’s just me but when I don’t train I feel like I’m letting myself down and turning into a slob!

Needless to say I enjoyed last week!

So after a week of neglect I was surprised to find that I weighed in at 13st. I imagine it could have been lower if I kept to the diet but still 9lbs in 3 weeks is still pretty awesome! 

For the final week I’m going to step it up a notch!

I’m going to be as strict as possible while training with more intensity and do cardio even though it’s not recommended due to the low calories that you consume!  

I’ll be posting week 4 on Friday as I’m away on the weekend for a boys jolly so there will be a vast amount of empty calories being consumed!

Until then.............keep it clean! 

Diet.............I mean lifestyle change! Part 1

Let’s face it, unless you’re extremely disciplined long term diets fail! Why?

I don’t think it’s because of the same old boring food day in day out or the constant checking of the scales, I think it’s down to mindset!

We get wrapped up in the idea of “If I eat that my diet is ruined” or the famous one liner “I’ll start again tomorrow!” as they are reaching for a cream cake!

People fool themselves into thinking they are doing well but in reality they say “I’ll start again tomorrow!” every day of the week then when they do check their weight they are disheartened feel sorry for themselves and more than likely jump on the junk food train! Most days I eat strict but when I fancy a pizza or my current junk food obsession (pop tarts) I have it because 80% of the time I’m eating well and my calories for the week are still on target and you can’t get fat in a day!

Some people find it difficult to stay on track and I totally understand as I’ve been there as we are only human and crave sweet things, which brings me on to my next topic “Slimming Clubs!”

They are good for people who tend to stray now and again and need the motivation to keep on track and I also think it’s always a good idea to exchange success stories and to encourage people so they leave with their head held high thinking “I can do this!”

What I don’t like about these clubs is that they peddle their wares and the people who attend happily throw their money away buying the sweets and chocolate claiming its fat free!  

Yes it maybe fat free but it’s full of sugar instead! That’s why they taste so good!

Companies say their products are fat free and they probably are but as soon as people see that they assume it’s good for them and ignore any other nutritional information!

Now please watch where you step as I’m about to drop some knowledge:

“Fat doesn’t make you fat! “

I know what you’re thinking.....................

I’ll go into detail in part 2 about what makes you fat and how to get away from the diet way of life which I’ll be posting early next week!

Delayed Introduction

My name is David Shaw and I’m a YMCA fit gym instructor from South Wales. I’ve been coaching people for over three years and have had great pleasure watching people transform physically and emotionally as their self confidence grew.

In my teen years I never did any sport and rarely exerted myself to the point where I let myself get to around 17st, I was miserable and hated the way I looked and wondered how this weight just crept up on me!  When I left school I joined a gym and started to weight train nonstop and I must admit I was a pretty strong 18 year old but I was still big as I hated cardio work (who doesn’t?) and still ate like crap!

It wasn’t until I started to read everything I could get my hands on regarding nutrition I started to understand my mistakes and totally transformed myself! 

Over the course of 18 months I went from 17st to a mere 11st! It looks great on paper but it was hell! I didn’t touch a carbohydrate for a year, I stopped drinking! I basically stopped doing anything fun as I was so concerned about what I can and can’t eat, it drove my friends crazy!

I then had a moment of clarity and thought:

“What’s the point of losing all this weight and looking and feeling great when I don’t even enjoy the simple things in life like having a drink on the weekends with my friends?”

I’ve been through hell with weight loss and know how hard and frustrating it can be when your 100% strict and still nothing is happening and I bet you’ve tried all the diets out there, I know I have!  I’ve experimented with some crazy diets and I still do as I like to keep on top of my game so I know exactly what to do when I’m helping others!

That’s basically me! A human guinea pig doing the experimenting so you don’t have to!

Rapid Fat Loss Week 2

So I have just finished week 2 of the Rapid Fat Loss diet and for some reason it was a little harder than the previous week, Not because I was hungry throughout the week or I was craving foods, it was down to lack of sleep.

It’s a funny thing when you minimise carbohydrates, you tend to find it hard to get to sleep as your body is craving for something carby so you’re wide awake no matter how hard you try and get to sleep!

This happens because when you eat all the blood diverts to your stomach in order to digest the food you have eaten, thus you have no will and mood for anything else, you just feel lazy and doing nothing apart from sleep!

Anyway, back to the weight loss, I weighed myself today and I’m still 13st 2lb which is pretty good considering I did break the diet a few times this week due to a birthday and food with friends on Saturday night. I’m positive I would of weighed less as midweek I was 12st 13lb, I’m still happy with my results so far as I’ve dropped 7lbs over a two week period .

In other news I’ve been working on developing a site which will include diet and training sections where you can contact me and I will provide you with a diet/training plan and we will work on your goals from fat loss to packing on some lean muscle! I still have to iron out a few details but it’s heading in the right direction.

I have also been looking into stocking some supplements to sell on the site, I’ve wanted to get into selling supplements for a while and now I have the perfect opportunity.  Everything I stock will be 100% as I wouldn’t sell anything that I wouldn’t take myself. If you have any requests please feel free to comment or send me an email.

One more bit of news before I rush to the kitchen for my caffeine fix; I have gone all out and designed t shirts and hoodies with the Fitness 4 Shaw logo. Now before you pass judgement I encourage you to take a look.

http://www.redbubble.com/products/configure/7478664-t-shirt

Falling off the bandwagon!

So it was Wednesday night and I was attending a friend’s birthday BBQ, now before I went I had nothing but good intentions. I decided if I was going to eat I’d skip the burger buns and just have the meat!

Needless to say I failed! Then a friend pulls out a can of Budweiser!

I haven’t had a drink for two weeks and have started to feel a lot better for it; my mind seems clearer and it’s an amazing feeling waking up on a Saturday/Sunday without feeling like crap!

So I take the Bud and honestly it tasted pretty good, then the old think tank kicks in and I’m worrying about my calories for the day are going to be off the chart, especially with the burger buns!

Then I started to put things in perspective, right now on average I’m consuming around 700 calories a day, so say it that’s 5000 calories a week (give or take a few), that is still a caloric deficit of 9000 assuming I was normally consuming 2000 calories a day!

So what am I getting at? I think at times we need to switch off and enjoy life; we aren’t machines on a mission to eat and train with 100% perfection all the time! Even though we are strict with what we eat and drink we still need to socialise with friends and family and if that means we have the odd beer so be it!

When it comes to eating healthy if you have the first 80% spot on, the last 20% isn’t a big deal!



Rapid Fat Loss Week 1

Recently I have just finished reading Rapid Fat Loss by Lyle McDonald www.bodyrecomposition.com which is a scientific approach to crash dieting and claims you can lose 4-7 pounds of fat and 10-20 pounds of weight in 2 weeks.

Now I’m always dubious with crash diets which claim amazing results as in my experience nothing is easy regarding fat loss unless you are genetically blessed.

The diet is basically a form of PSMF (Protein sparring Modified Fast) which encourages you to increase your protein and lower your carbohydrate to force your body to burn fat for fuel but Lyle’s approach is a little different as you only need to consume around 600-1000 calories a day. Now for the scientific part, after about 4-5 days on little to no carbohydrates the body will try to slow down fat loss as a survival instinct, so to trick the body on the 6^th day you have a 5 hour refeed which lets you eat rice, pasta bagels etc to refill glycogen stores in the liver but during this refeed you have to basically have no fat consumption.

After reading his book twice back to back to make sure I had everything down I decided to give it a go. I started on the 4^th July and I weighed in at 13st 9lbs, during the week my weight fluctuated which was a little confusing. Now the book recommends that you cut back on training (weights and cardio) which I did, so I only lift about twice a week and do absolutely no cardio.

So what happened after 7 days?

I weighed myself last night and the scales said 13st 2lb. Now this looks impressive but I have to be realistic and take into account weight loss from water retention but it’s going the right way and I’m happy so far.

Now regards to what I’ve ate the past week, basically all I’ve had is:

Breakfast – egg white omelettes

Lunch – Chicken salad, cottage cheese

Dinner - Tuna with fat free mayo, cottage cheese

Not the most exciting meal plan but it does the job!

I’ll report in again next week with some more good news hopefully!