Life After a Body Transformation
“Last year, in 2012, Jim T embarked on the 12 week warrior workout program and documented his journey as he went. He spoke of the highs and lows of such intense training, diet and life style changes. We saw him change in the pictures as well as his attitude to his new found fitness prowess. Now a year on Jim has let it slip after a few massive changes to his personal life led to him neglecting his exercise and dietary regime. I’ll leave this one to the man himself.”
A Deadline is a deadline.
After finishing a successful EoM Warrior Workout cycle back in October 2012, (http://eomfitness.com/blog/jims-body-transformation-week-12/)
I thought that was it… I was spiritually in line with the Gods of Health and Fitness. I had it all – the knowledge of how to build super sets, how to make lean gains, body conditioning. I knew how to change up my diet to keep losing the weight, and with Tim’s continued exercise sheets I had it all worked out. But as John Lennon said; “Life is what happens while your making other plans.”
In short, the wife got pregnant. This life-changing event provided me with just the excuses I needed to start to let things slide, and it all started after her morning sickness had passed. Man, can pregnant women eat a lot! Anyone who has done the EoM Warrior Workout knows how hard it is to grow a little bit of muscle, let alone a whole new person! It requires a shed load of energy.
So suddenly you find yourself literally surrounded by food…. and the carbs, oh my God the carbs. You will wake up in the middle of the night with her munching her way through a jacket potato with cheese and tuna and a round of toast and jam. Or ordering a super size pizza at 10.30pm after you’ve had your evening meal… and chocolate is everywhere.
So, with your ever-increasing wife steamrolling her way through this refined sugar and carb fest, you slowly but surely start to sympathy eat. ”Oh no, you can’t finish those chips?” “Of course 12pm is not too early to pop down to the kebab house for you.” “Yep the 4-person set menu is definitely the best value for money.”
Couple this with one too many nights drinking like your 21 – a backlash to the dawning realization that you’re going be a Dad – and before you know it you’re here:
Yes, this is me after living 6 months like an alcoholic pregnant woman! Not good.
Drastic measures were required and anyone who’s trained with a Personal Trainer knows you never work as hard by yourself. Re-enter Tim Walker with a 6-8 week EoM refresher course.
The initial meeting didn’t go well.
Tim “What the Hell have you done to yourself?”
Me “Err… I… well… the Wife got pregnant.”
Tim “So you decided to race her to see who could get bigger first”
Me “Well not exactly…”
Tim “But you know how to eat properly!”
This went on for a while.
Once he was on board, the next step was to address my lifestyle.
1. Booze – Off the menu. And just to make sure, I jumped on the MacMillan “Stay Sober For October” (http://www.gosober.org.uk/about/) wagon to keep me from cheating and to do something for a very worthwhile charity. If you do feel like donating my donation profile is http://www.gosober.org.uk/
2. Food – Last time round, dieting was one of my weaker areas. Not that I didn’t follow the rules, but I might have overdone the fat content and not really monitored what I was eating as closely as I needed to. This time round it’s ALL about the preparation!
Okay this is pretty blurry, but then it was pretty early! What you should be looking at is this:
Breakfast: Omelet with prawns and spinach: (Calories 203, Carbs 3, Protein 28, Fat 13)
Lunch: Cod with Broccoli: (Calories 308, Carbs 8, Protein 30, Fat 3)
Pre-work our dinner: Last night chili, with cauliflower and carrots (Calories 308, Carbs 28, Protein 26, Fat 9)
Post workout Dinner: Cajun chicken cauliflower and carrots. (Calories 242, Carbs 9, Protein 32, Fat 8)
Snacks: 20 grams mixed seeds, 20-30grams walnuts (Calories 318, Carbs 4, Protein 8, Fat 30)
Drinks: Water, Black Coffee, water
I eat every 3-4 hours pretty much on the dot, which I have built around my training, so it’s:
Breakfast – 8.30am
Lunch -12.00
Pre-workout Dinner – 3.00
Training – 5.00
Post-work out dinner – 7.30
This probably needs a protein shake in it somewhere, (Calories 160, Carbs 8, Protein 30, Fat 2) – maybe just after training or just before bed? It sounds like a lot, but by closely measuring my intake it is in fact: Calories 1,260, Carbs 52, Protein 124, Fat 64 without the shake.
It also includes 23 grams of fibre, 5 grams more than a your RDA… so the low carb haters can stick that argument up the collective arses!
3. Training – Well it’s been two weeks with 4 sessions a week and God DAMN the first one was painful… hobbling up and downstairs… lifting like a girl but its been great getting back into it!
We started Week 1 with super-sets – squats to assisted pull downs then chest press or press ups to dead-lifts to get the muscles working again.
Week 2 started the same but ending up with a bit of mini circuit training, not a ‘dirty circuit’ by any stretch of the imagination, but it got the heart pumping.
Week 3 and we’re moving onto German Body Conditioning – In a nutshell it is a method of super-setting different body parts in a session, alternating between upper and lower muscles, in my case a range of 4 exercises per set, for up to 3-4 sets per body part split over 8 exercises. In addition, you utilise a controlled rep-tempo.
It really is a knackering as it sounds!
Have a look at http://eomfitness.com/12-week-program/ for more info.
So there you go… Tim can add any details or observations that he thinks appropriate… I will leave you with this omelet I cooked this morning with onions mushrooms, celery, and mixed seeds… just coz I think it looks great and literally has EVERYTHING you need in one meal.
