New Motivation for getting my 6 pack

As I stated in my last post, I was blessed with the birth of my son last Monday. Honestly, it was quite a surreal experience and I will never forget it!

Even though I had my share of hospital food and take-out while my wife and son were in the hospital I still manged to lose my 2 pounds this week and am down to 190lbs! I even managed to get 3 workouts in this week!

There will be some changes with my goals going forward though.

Getting 7 hours of continuous sleep will be impossible for the next few months.

I think getting to the gym 6 days a week will also be very hard too!

So I have come up with a plan to try and stick to my long-term goal of 6 pack abs.

First I am going to try and get to bed a lot earlier ( I already blew that one tonight, lol) so I can get some more sleep. I am also going to schedule a nap for myself during the weekends.

Since I will not be able to get to the gym as much as I wanted, I plan to hit the heavy bag a lot more and pick more workouts from the Turbulence Training 6 Month Body Weight Manual or the many other TT Body Weight Workouts for my off-day workouts.

Surprisingly my eating has been very clean since we left the hospital. The new grandparents have been cooking for us, but knowing that I am trying to reach my goal, they have been cooking some very healthy and delicious meals!

Once I am a couple more weeks into the competition I will re-evaluate my weight and measurements. If I feel I have not progressed I may start doing Eat Stop Eat two times a week instead of one.

Get a 6 pack with a CHEAP TT Membership!

It's been a long time since I've posted, but I have 2 announcements, both of which are great!

1. My wife gave birth to our first child on Monday night! Jeffrey was born at 6:26pm, weighed 8.4lbs and was 21.5 inches long! I'll post more on my little bundle of joy later tonight, but both Jeffrey and Mommy are doing great!!

2. Craig from Turbulence Training is offering a great deal that ends tonight at midnight!! Remember I've used Turbulence Training to lose 25lbs so far this year.

Today is your last day to get a free 3-month TT membership...
...and you can get it when you take the Turbulence Training trial offer.
A $59.85 value for only $4.95...

Click here to get started:

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Helping you transform your body this summer,

Mike

PS - This offer expires on TONIGHT at midnight (sorry for the short notice, the baby has been my #1 priority lately).

Click here so you don't miss out:
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Knowledge = 6 Pack Abs?

In order to achieve the goal of 6 pack abs you need to know what you are doing with your eating habits and your exercise program. If you mess up either one of those, then you most likely won't get lean and won't see your 6 pack.

That is why I think knowledge is a key part of getting 6 pack abs. With the internet there are plenty of useful places to look.

I know exactly what you are thinking:

1. "Mike, how am I supposed to find something that works and isn't a scam?"

2. "Mike most of the sites on the internet want me to pay for an ebook!"

To find information that isn't a scam is actually pretty easy. Find sites that are written by well established trainers. If you find a blog, see how many followers there are and see if the trainer posts success stories.

A lot of the sites out there do want you to buy their ebooks. So how did I get around this? Most of those sites offer FREE email news letters. In these news letters the trainers usually give away some free tips. If you read and collect these newsletters you can obtain a lot of FREE information!

Now not all sites will work for you, that's why I will subscribe to the newsletters to see if the trainers basic techniques work. After all, you are the only person with your body and you need to find out what works for you.

For example look at the bodyweight workout I got off of Workoutmuse.com. I plan to do this for my next off-day workout:

Do 3-5 Circuits and take 1-2 minutes rest between circuits:

1. Burpees - 40 sec on, 20 sec off

2. Jump Squats -- 40 sec on, 20 sec off

3. Mountain Climbers- 40 sec on, 20 sec off

4. Rolling Pushups- 40 sec on, 20 sec off

5. Burpees- 40 sec on, 20 sec off

I did this with Craig's newsletter and then subscribed to Turbulence Training and it has worked out great so far.

I am still subscribing to newsletters because I know that the body adapts pretty quickly and I am looking for a possible change of pace to Turbulence Training. When I do decide to purchase something I will review it here.

If you are looking for sites to start with, please look at the links on the right side of my blog. They all offer free newsletters so you can gain the knowledge you need to get lean and get 6 pack abs! I will also be updating my blog roll as I find good training and dieting sites.

Week 1 Results, 1 Week Closer to a 6 Pack!

Well 1 week is officially over! I weighed in at 191.5lbs, down 2.5lbs for the week from 194!

I was actually expecting to lose more. The first week is usually the week I'd lose all of my bloat from retained water. However, between the transformation contests I didn't drink nearly as much soda as I would have back in my 'bigger' days!

As long as I continue to lose 2lbs of fat a week I will be happy. If next week is not around that number than I will probably go back to using FitDay. But for now, since I am trying to make this a lifestyle change I want to see if I can control my portions and calories myself and not have a dependence on FitDay. I think that is the best way to get lean and stay there, hopefully staying there with my 6 pack abs once this contest is over.

Eat Stop Eat my way to 6 Pack Abs!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I keep saying that a great fat loss diet (ie. healthy lifestyle eating) is the fastest way to 6 pack abs. Friday my eating was totally clean. It was clean because I ate NOTHING!!

I know you are saying that this can't be healthy. Although I was burning calories, I must have been burning muscle, right? Well you're wrong! Brad Pilon has a great book about fasting called Eat Stop Eat.

I'm not going to get into the scientifics of it, but Brad tells us that fasting 1-2 days a week can actually be helpful in fat loss. He states that this will not bring your body into starvation mode, but can actually help with insulin levels and help increase growth hormone in the body. Both of these play key roles in burning fat and muscle growth.

I am personally going to do Eat Stop Eat once per week along with my healthy eating habits the other 6 days a week.

Here are some questions friends have asked me about Eat Stop Eat:

I can't make the 24 hours without eating, how do you do it?

If you time your fasts the right way, you can sleep through a majority of the fast. I started at 7pm Thursday night and ended at 7pm Friday night. I went to bed at 10pm on Thurs night and slept until 7am on Friday morning. That's 9 hours of the fast and I wasn't even awake!!

If I'm fasting that means I can't eat or drink anything?

No, you can drink zero calorie drinks. This means you can have plenty of water, green tea, BLACK coffee, and although I don't recommend it, you can have diet soda.

Won't I get light headed?

I have been doing Eat Stop Eat since January and have yet to feel light headed. I always make sure to keep drinking to avoid this. During my fasting days, I take in at least double the amount of water I normally do. This keeps me from becoming light headed and also keeps me from feeling hungry.

Here is some detail from 24 hour fast.

Thursday at 7pm I finished my dinner and started my fast. I had a couple glasses of water and then went to bed at 10pm.

I awoke at 7am and got ready for work. I drank a glass of water and made a pot of coffee. I had a BLACK cup of coffee and began work.

From 9am -11:30am I was able to do all of my work without any problems or any feeling of being hungry. I continued to drink water during this time period to try and keep myself from feeling hungry.

At 11:30 I had another cup of black coffee to get ready for the gym. I immediately followed this with a glass of water to keep from becoming dehydrated.

12pm - I went to the gym and the fast had NO effect on my workout. I got my workout done in under 45 minutes and it was very intense. I felt no energy lost from fasting at all.

1pm - 5pm. I did my work as usual, constantly sipping on water. I felt no effects from not eating. My mind actually seemed clearer during the afternoon. I did notice that most days after lunch I usually felt like taking a nap. This did not happen today!! My afternoon was a lot more productive because of it.

6pm - With an hour to go, I started to feel a little hungry. To combat this I made myself a cup of green tea and then chugged a cold glass of water. This did the trick!!

7pm - Sat down to a great dinner of chicken breast with spinach and a salad.


So as you can see I made it through the 24 hour fast without any problems. I did this and got a great workout in too. I will have my weight loss for the week posted tomorrow so we will see if fasting helped or not. I do suggest that you go check out Brad's site for Eat Stop Eat. He offers a free newsletter that you can sign-up for to obtain more information on intermittent fasting.

Fat Burning 30 Minute Workout - 6 Pack Abs here I come!

I did an awesome fat burning workout today for my 'off-day' 30 minutes of activity. I ran to the gym during my lunch and got this workout done in under 30 minutes. I was drenched with sweat when I was done too!

1A) Clean and Press: 3 sets of 8
1B) Plank on Stability Ball: 3 sets of 45 seconds on the ball.

2) Kettle Bell Swing - 75 Reps - I took 30 second breaks as needed until I reached the 75 repetition.

3) 20 second active/10 second rest tabatas jumping rope - I did this 12 times

Overall it was a quick, but very effective workout. When I do my off-day workouts I always make sure that I do not do any exercise that will effect my Turbulence Training workouts the next day.

Body Fat % Measurement

There's one thing between my 6 pack-abs and the mirror, literally. It's FAT!! I know that in order to get lean and see my 6 pack abs I need to lose that fat. The question is how much fat is there? That's where body fat measurements come in. In order to get 6 pack abs you need to have a body fat % below 10%.

If you can find a doctor or trainer to measure your body fat %, I'd highly recommend it as they are probably more accurate measures.

If you are like me and can not find a trainer or doctor that has accurate equipment (the BF measurement device you can get at GNC doesn't count) then there 2 methods that I use.

1. The web!! Yes, you can get your BF% over the web with some basic measurements. All you need is your height, weight, waist-line and age!

Here's the site: http://home.fuse.net/clymer/bmi/

2. The next method you can do at home, but will need a little bit of help. It requires purchasing calipers. I recommend these: http://www.accumeasurefitness.com/

Read the directions on how to use the caliper.

You are going to be taking 7 measurements at different body locations. You are going to go through the 7 locations and then measure everything 2 more times for 3 sets of measurements. Some of these locations you will not be able to do yourself so you will need to find someone to do the measurements for you. I actually recommend that person do all of the measurements for you. In the caliper I listed above I use the millimeters side to read the caliper.

The 7 Locations:

1. The abs - This site is located 1 inch directly to the left of, and in line with, the belly
button. You’ll want to measure a vertical fold of skin, so your calipers are horizontal.

2. Triceps - Back of your arm, halfway between the elbow and the bony point on the top of your shoulder.

3. Chest - This site is located on the diagonal line between the armpit and the nipple and measure a diagonal fold there.

4. Underneath your arm-pit - is located on a vertical line between the armpit and the hip. Your vertical pinch will be on the same plane as the bony spot where your ribs meet at the center of your chest.

5. Just below shoulder blade - have your friend find your shoulder blade and pinch at an inch under at the angle your shoulder blade approaches your spine.

6. Hip - Find where you hip bone ends and go an inch above it and take a horizontal fold. The fold should align just above your belly button.

7. Thigh - Go to the mid point of your thigh, both in height and width, and measure with a vertical pinch.

Since I am going to be measuring this once a month, I am going to make sure that I measure from the same sides of my body each time I check my BF%.

The Calculation:

Once you measure each of the 7 sites take the average from each site. Then sum the 7 averages.

This sum will = 'SUM7' in the equation below

Body Density = 1.112 - (0.00043499 * SUM7) + (0.00000055 * SUM72 ) - (0.00028826 * AGE)

Once we have Body Density (BD) we can now calculate my BF%.

%BF = [(4.57/ BD) - 4.142] * 100

Now, you may be scratching your head saying "Mike, you have 2 completely different readings. What gives?"

1. http://home.fuse.net/clymer/bmi/: 13.8%

2. Caliper 7 site calculation: 19.3%

Obviously I'd love to say that the web is right, but I know I'm not that close to 6 pack abs. I just don't look that lean in the mirror YET.

I also don't think I'm at 19% BF either. There is a lot of human error that can occur when using the calipers.

So what am I going to do? Take the average. As of now, I'm saying I have 16.5% BF. Don't worry, once I see my 6 pack in the mirror, I won't need these calculations!!