# 31 Day Challenge



## Transk53 (Oct 11, 2014)

From this Monday, I am going to attempt to hit 14 Stones, Six Pounds. As I am now 15,1, I hope that getting down to under 15 will be a big barrier broken. Still not really fit enough for what I plan, but hopefully will be not too bad. It will be mostly conditioing, with some circut weights for that resistence. But what I really want is to lose the Neoprene if I can. First up for the first week will be what I benchmark myself at.

Monday - Body Balance

Tuesday - Gym and TRX

Wednesday - Muay Thai Fitness

Thursday - Swim

Friday - Gym and TRX

Now does that seem like a coherent order, or maybe the swimming on Wednesday. Actually I could do both on a day off. Saturday and Sunday I could only have every other fortnight, so I have designated them as rest days. One bonus I do have is that part of membership allows me to train at Sol Gilberts gym. Blimey I was wrong on that one. Guess I should check my facts before making assertions. I am also going to drop bread and pasta, but keep potatoes. Which is probably bad, but I love my Spuds.


----------



## drop bear (Oct 11, 2014)

Dropping any amount of crap in your diet and increasing exercise will make you loose weight. So until you stop loosing keep the spuds if you want them.

Or sweet potatoes which are supposed to be a bit better.


----------



## Transk53 (Oct 12, 2014)

drop bear said:


> Dropping any amount of crap in your diet and increasing exercise will make you loose weight. So until you stop loosing keep the spuds if you want them.
> 
> Or sweet potatoes which are supposed to be a bit better.



Sweet potatoes are not too bad. Had them as part of a roast. It has been suggested to to look at meal replacement stuff as well. Maybe dropping all carbs for a bit would be a good idea.


----------



## Tez3 (Oct 12, 2014)

Transk53 said:


> Sweet potatoes are not too bad. Had them as part of a roast. It has been suggested to to look at meal replacement stuff as well. Maybe dropping all carbs for a bit would be a good idea.



Advice from an expert, what 'assertions' were you making about Sol?
Gary Turner: Losing Weight and Keeping It Off


----------



## drop bear (Oct 12, 2014)

Transk53 said:


> Sweet potatoes are not too bad. Had them as part of a roast. It has been suggested to to look at meal replacement stuff as well. Maybe dropping all carbs for a bit would be a good idea.




Depends what you eat now. If you are eating clean and exercising and need to drop weight then yeah. If you are eating takeaway and sitting on the couch then fix that first.

The Csiro diet for just healthy walking around on.
The CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet | CSIRO


----------



## Transk53 (Oct 12, 2014)

Tez3 said:


> Advice from an expert, what 'assertions' were you making about Sol?
> Gary Turner: Losing Weight and Keeping It Off



Should have got my facts straight about the ZT stuff. Did not know that the gym is public if you will, thought it was all private and closed to the public.



drop bear said:


> Depends what you eat now. If you are eating clean and exercising and need to drop weight then yeah. If you are eating takeaway and sitting on the couch then fix that first.
> 
> The Csiro diet for just healthy walking around on.
> The CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet | CSIRO



Thanks for the linkage peeps. Yeah drop bear, changed my diet at the beginning of the year, but now need to make a revision. Just not exactly sure what at the moment.


----------



## Tez3 (Oct 12, 2014)

Transk53 said:


> Should have got my facts straight about the ZT stuff. Did not know that the gym is public if you will, thought it was all private and closed to the public.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks for the linkage peeps. Yeah drop bear, changed my diet at the beginning of the year, but now need to make a revision. Just not exactly sure what at the moment.



Ah, Sol's one of the good guys you will do well with him, stay away from any of the pyramid selling type 'supplements' though, Herbalife etc. Really not good for you or your wallet. If you aren't sure what to do ask Gary he's always good for advice.


----------



## Transk53 (Oct 12, 2014)

Tez3 said:


> Gary Turner: Losing Weight and Keeping It Off



Interesting. I have been told that porridge oats are fine and cut out the dairy. Not that matters too much, I do not drink milk and eat very little cheese and never any butter. Some more reading to do me thinks.


----------



## Transk53 (Oct 12, 2014)

Tez3 said:


> Ah, Sol's one of the good guys you will do well with him, stay away from any of the pyramid selling type 'supplements' though, Herbalife etc. Really not good for you or your wallet. If you aren't sure what to do ask Gary he's always good for advice.



When ZT was at Vine Street, heard a lot about him, but never saw him.


----------



## Buka (Oct 12, 2014)

Transk53 said:


> From this Monday, I am going to attempt to hit 14 Stones, Six Pounds. As I am now 15,1, I hope that getting down to under 15 will be a big barrier broken. Still not really fit enough for what I plan, but hopefully will be not too bad. It will be mostly conditioing, with some circut weights for that resistence. But what I really want is to lose the Neoprene if I can. First up for the first week will be what I benchmark myself at.
> 
> Monday - Body Balance
> 
> ...



All the best on your quest, brother, go gettum'!

One thing I want to point out is about the swimming. Great exercise and fun, and easy on the many parts of the body that martial arts hurts, but unless it's trained at a competitive level (living in the pool) it's not a good way to lose weight for most people. Something to do with the buoyancy and the body burning calories and fats in that environment. (maybe part of our survival system)


----------



## Transk53 (Oct 12, 2014)

Buka said:


> All the best on your quest, brother, go gettum'!
> 
> One thing I want to point out is about the swimming. Great exercise and fun, and easy on the many parts of the body that martial arts hurts, but unless it's trained at a competitive level (living in the pool) it's not a good way to lose weight for most people. Something to do with the buoyancy and the body burning calories and fats in that environment. (maybe part of our survival system)



Yeah. Swimming would be just for relaxation, but still doing something if you see what I mean. I swim like a lead weight most of the time lol


----------



## Argus (Oct 12, 2014)

One thing you may want to consider is modifying the quantity you eat - not just the contents. You can condition your body to eating, and wanting to eat, much more than it actually needs. After all, it adapts and comes to expect what you condition it to.

While I wouldn't advise going this extreme, I read an article about an obese man in Ireland who, under medical supervision, fasted for a whole year, and lost most of his weight. It makes sense that he was able to do that; after all, fat is just the body's way of storing up extra energy which it can't use straight away. When people lived as hunter gatherers, you might not get to eat that often, so it makes sense. Store up enough fat and you can survive the whole winter.

Of course, who am I to give advice? I'm on the complete opposite of the spectrum. I'd be the first to starve to death in those days!  In my case, my small size is probably mostly a result of my body's build and high metabolism, but I do notice that I have pretty different eating habits than many Americans. I definitely don't starve myself, and eat until I'm full, and yet I still eat less than average. It's as if my haven't "expanded" my stomach to the same degree, if you will. The second thing is that I tend to eat mostly rice, meat, and lots of vegetables, which I usually cook at home. So the difference in diet may be part of it as well. If anything, I need to put on weight, so perhaps I should eat more potatoes and pasta 

Edit: Ah, one related note!
You may want to consider lowering your sugar intake. You need not cut it out completely, of course, but it's frankly insane how much sugar is in everything these days. Soft drinks, especially, are really bad. I mostly drink tea and coffee, and neither of those even need sugar if you brew them well.


----------



## Transk53 (Oct 12, 2014)

Argus said:


> One thing you may want to consider is modifying the quantity you eat - not just the contents. You can condition your body to eating, and wanting to eat, much more than it actually needs. After all, it adapts and comes to expect what you condition it to.
> 
> While I wouldn't advise going this extreme, I read an article about an obese man in Ireland who, under medical supervision, fasted for a whole year, and lost most of his weight. It makes sense that he was able to do that; after all, fat is just the body's way of storing up extra energy which it can't use straight away. When people lived as hunter gatherers, you might not get to eat that often, so it makes sense. Store up enough fat and you can survive the whole winter.
> 
> ...



Don't take sugar or cook with it. Eat the occasional Mars Bar or Snickers. Coffee though, may as well give me an IV.


----------



## Carol (Oct 12, 2014)

Cutting out sugary and starchy carbs nearly in total was what I had to do to lose weight.   Exercises is good and needed but you cannot out-exercise what you eat.

I'd recommend cutting out the white potatoes too, but that may depend on how your body adapts to changes in diet.  Grains were very hard for me to give up. It was like a physical addiction, and I fell off the wagon a few times before getting more adapted to my new way of eating.   Change too much and it becomes too much of a shock to your system.   

On a side note, from time to time I can find these purple Asian yams that are white on the inside.  They have the nutritional advantages of sweet potatoes but are less sweet, and have a flavor closer to white potatoes.   If you can find them, they are delicious!  


Sent from my tinfoil hat.


----------



## Zero (Nov 18, 2014)

Transk53 said:


> From this Monday, I am going to attempt to hit 14 Stones, Six Pounds. As I am now 15,1, I hope that getting down to under 15 will be a big barrier broken. Still not really fit enough for what I plan, but hopefully will be not too bad. It will be mostly conditioing, with some circut weights for that resistence. But what I really want is to lose the Neoprene if I can. First up for the first week will be what I benchmark myself at.
> 
> Monday - Body Balance
> 
> ...



I am no nutritionist but have researched and experimented to good effect on cutting and losing weight for both MA competitions and for bodybuilding for a long whiles.  As said by Carol, you can't out-exercise what you eat (or at least that's all but impossible unless you are able to devote all of your time to pure training). Also, diet is key, if it is a weight loss target you have as your goal. Reducing your portion sizes and increasing their frequency helps immensely.  Reducing down your carbs significantly, and completely binning anything but whole food carbs (ie bread completely out (as Arnold said, bread is poison), sweet potatoes or the like once or twice a day max and after your training sessions).  Increase your fish and berry intake and reduce or get rid of starch and potassium filled fruits such as bananas.  Chuck all that fruit juice in your fridge down the sink and save your waste line and your kids' teeth!!   : )
Also, hate to say it but the king of cardio for losing weight and stripping fat is good ol' fashioned running.  I don't see that in your regime, why?  Do you have injured knees or something preventing some road work? Short bursts of high intensity interval training, such as each morning for just ten minutes, will also reap big rewards.

 Unless you have to work shifts, try to get to bed earlier, good sleep is also beneficial for losing weight and goes to regulating eating habits also.

I also appreciate that not everyone is keen on muscling up but muscle in itself is very good at burning calories and in itself helps to burn off your fat so stacking on some extra muscle will also help.  Obviously muscle is denser and heavier than fat so if you have a particular weight you need to get to, then that needs to be kept in mind.


----------



## Flatfish (Nov 18, 2014)

I just wanted to expand a little bit on one point Zero mentioned. If you lose weight  by dieting and doing mostly cardio you will lose fat but you will also lose muscle. If you strength train with heavy weights (compound exercises) you should be able to preserve muscle mass with all it's benefits of burning more calories etc while mostly losing fat. One additional benefit of doing compound exercises with heavy weights is that is has helped me at least with gaining more flexibility, especially in the hips . Think of heavy squats and deadlifts.  YMMV. And yes, diet is key.


----------



## Transk53 (Nov 18, 2014)

I did manage to dip below 15, but now at that weight. Not unhappy tbh, feel pretty good considering the usual aches and pains.


----------

