With only 4 weeks left until the photoshoot I think it is about time for an update on this one. But first if you haven’t read Part 1 yet I suggest you do that first.
I was going to post about this earlier in the week as Wednesday was officially the halfway point. Due to a couple of social commitments we were required to push the photoshoot back by a week meaning that the total prep time was now 9 weeks from the start of the year.
I’m glad I didn’t post earlier in the week though because there have been two developments since then that I think are worth mentioning. We will come to these shortly.
So the diet started a little lower on the calorie side of things than initially planned. I am using carb and calorie cycling for this stage with high, medium and low days for both calories and carbs. The highest being 3600kcals and the lowest being my old maintenance of 2800.
Now thanks to my body being used to 4500kcals a day the first week was an absolute success. Despite having gone up to slightly over 108kg from Christmas to New Year (this is what I meant about the food quality being poor) I had dropped rather comfortably back to 104 within the first week.
The weight loss continued a 1kg per week for the next couple of weeks and then it was apparent that things were starting to stall. In 4 weeks my body had grown accustomed to the new calorie values, but nothing to fear, thanks to keeping them high going into the diet there was still a bit of room to play with.
A few tweaks from my awesome mentor Mr Daniel Wheeler and the weight loss kicked off again. Which brings us to the two things that happened this week.
Firstly I must say that throughout these first 4 1/2 weeks I have felt absolutely fantastic. My energy levels have been consistent and using key indicator lifts in my training has shown an increase in strength whilst simultaneously losing weight. My sleep has been deep and uninterrupted and I have woke up at 5am ready to start the next day with a spring in my step. I have looked forward to my workouts and to the vast majority of my meals. It has been a lot of work in terms of preparation, however it has been an enjoyable process that to call a sacrifice would be a bit uncalled for.
Then there’s this week… Now I think in another weeks time I will look back on this last week as a small blip as I’m sure it is all just a few too many things adding up. In the space of the last few days the following things happened: my calories came down, my exercise went up, my sleep became broken and my stress levels skyrocketed. I’m annoyed because I felt ready for less food, ready for more exercise, I had energy to spare and although I got hungry I was never truly desperate for food. But when all of these things happened at once I’ll be honest I found it all a bit overwhelming.
Now I’ve dieted before and to be fair it has never been as easy as the first few weeks of this one, so maybe I just led myself into a false sense of security. Maybe this what I am feeling right now is only bad by comparison and if I could fully recall how I felt the last time I did a low carb phase for example I may feel different.
The second thing that has happened this week however is the silver lining to this cloud. I have dropped below 100kg. So in 5 weeks I have now lost over 8kg which is a victory in itself. Things are looking good and are very much on track for the photoshoot. I can’t wait to see what I can achieve with the next 4 weeks!
So the message behind this update is a bit mixed due to my (hopefully) temporary blip. But what I’m trying to say is that dieting can be extremely tough, but it doesn’t have to be hell. I got great results in the first few weeks without every really feeling deprived and if you’re clever about your own weight loss you can achieve all of that too.
I’ll hopefully get one more update in during the final week of the prep. I’ll see you all then.
