Not mine >.<</div>
After my weekly core and circuit training a friend of mine and I got talking. It was his first time joining one of my workout sessions and he was wondering if there were other things he could do besides HIITs to lean out as he wanted to get fitter for his trip to Kathmandu.
Reducing your body fat percentage to the fitness (14-17% for men and 21-24% for women) or athletic range (6-13% for men and 14-20% for women) has it's benefits towards the sports you like to do. You increase speed, have an increased strength to weight ratio, are more insulin sensitive and are more likely to recover faster.
I have no statistics to prove this but strictly from an anecdotal point it seems to me that for most people those benefits are all nice to have but the main objective is rather to improve their body composition with visible abs as being the main gauge and also reward.
When browsing the Paleo Hacks Forum, questions about how to get lean and if possible ASAP are quite common especially coming from women. When men switch to Paleo it seems that they see results far quicker than women. There is a reason why men perform much better in the Biggest Loser Show as well.
Of course it's a natural (so not fair) gender thing. And I admit that it can be annoying to look at 12 week challenge before and after pics and see a bigger transformation in dudes than in gals. I went through some of the leaning out advice given in the forum and was amazed how much women were willing to suffer on their quest for fat loss.
Here's one example:
Reducing your body fat percentage to the fitness (14-17% for men and 21-24% for women) or athletic range (6-13% for men and 14-20% for women) has it's benefits towards the sports you like to do. You increase speed, have an increased strength to weight ratio, are more insulin sensitive and are more likely to recover faster.
I have no statistics to prove this but strictly from an anecdotal point it seems to me that for most people those benefits are all nice to have but the main objective is rather to improve their body composition with visible abs as being the main gauge and also reward.
When browsing the Paleo Hacks Forum, questions about how to get lean and if possible ASAP are quite common especially coming from women. When men switch to Paleo it seems that they see results far quicker than women. There is a reason why men perform much better in the Biggest Loser Show as well.
Of course it's a natural (so not fair) gender thing. And I admit that it can be annoying to look at 12 week challenge before and after pics and see a bigger transformation in dudes than in gals. I went through some of the leaning out advice given in the forum and was amazed how much women were willing to suffer on their quest for fat loss.
Here's one example:
Right now I am doing the following:
Lauren
- Fasting 16 hours out of every 24 hours. (I only eat between 10am and 6pm daily)
- HIIT every other day for 20 mins (Sprinting on treadmill)
- Strength training every day on one muscle group each day.
- Limiting calories to 1,200
- Limiting carbs to under 20g and strict paleo.
Lauren
I think my initial reaction to Lauren's program was along the lines of "Whoa! Hardcore". Now Lauren does not mention any more details about her workout and nutrition plan and to which BF% she wants to drop down to. But before Paleo I used to be on a similar hypocaloric diet also with an daily calorie intake of 1100-1500 kcal. I drove up my daily protein intake to 1g per lbs of body weight, lowered my carbs to a daily intake of 40-50 g. I was eating 5-6 meals a day, 3 very moderately sized ones and the remaining would be small snacks. Of course everything had to be weighed, measured and recorded. Well, I gathered some interesting data about myself, my running was sub-optimal, I leaned out and gained strength... something you can only do on a novice level to weight training, More seasoned lifters would most likely experience strength loss. On Saturdays I would have a cheat day also known as binge day, gain 2-3 pounds and lose it by the following Wednesday.
My energy levels weren't that great then. Coffee and thermogenics were part of my regime to bridge my midday and afternoon energy drops. Actually coffee with 1 tablespoon of cream already counted as snack. In a nut shell being that low on kcals was not an improvement to my quality of life.
I consider Lauren's program to be even a notch tougher than mine since she is fasting, clearly on a hypocaloric diet, is extremely low carb, lifting everyday, doing HIIT several times a week and does not mention recovery days. I'm not saying that she won't see any results if she sticks to that program but chances are high that putting her body under that much stress will lead to over-training.
Even metcon beasty Paleo Crossfitters treat themselves to more carbs and recovery as they know that over-training will not only be a major setback to their performance (Fran will get ya) but it will also lead to increased fat gain and muscle loss.
So I was wondering if there is a way to lean out with more ease. Note the difference between with ease and easy. The work has still to be put in, but possibly in a way which will allow you to go at it more relaxed and less like going through an OCD. Hence I will experiment how far I can lean out within a month without punishing myself too much.
In his podcast Robb Wolf mentioned that many of his female trainers actually managed to lean out by going for un-weighed, un-measured Paleo. That will be my starting point nutrition wise. I changed to Paleo for the real food and to enjoy it, and therefore do not want to bother myself with calorie counting and not seeing the food for all those numbers.
For the sake of this little experiment the training will be more systematic, based on Scott Kustes' article in the Performance Menu: Speed Training For Non-Track Athletes which of course includes strength training. Strength training-wise I decided to go with Wendler's 5-3-1 which is suitable for weight lifting beginners. The assistance work for the main lifts will just basically be 2 body weight exercises with 72 reps each... or just 50... tehee.
But I'd like to combine that with the more laid back and intuitive approach described by Mark Sisson in his book Primal Blueprint Fitness to allow myself to listen to my body and tweak things if necessary. For good measure and because it's fun I will also throw in a Movnat Walkout in which you just hit the trail or park to run, crawl, jump and climb like a kid on a slight sugar high riding the Skittles rainbow.
I consider Lauren's program to be even a notch tougher than mine since she is fasting, clearly on a hypocaloric diet, is extremely low carb, lifting everyday, doing HIIT several times a week and does not mention recovery days. I'm not saying that she won't see any results if she sticks to that program but chances are high that putting her body under that much stress will lead to over-training.
Even metcon beasty Paleo Crossfitters treat themselves to more carbs and recovery as they know that over-training will not only be a major setback to their performance (Fran will get ya) but it will also lead to increased fat gain and muscle loss.
So I was wondering if there is a way to lean out with more ease. Note the difference between with ease and easy. The work has still to be put in, but possibly in a way which will allow you to go at it more relaxed and less like going through an OCD. Hence I will experiment how far I can lean out within a month without punishing myself too much.
In his podcast Robb Wolf mentioned that many of his female trainers actually managed to lean out by going for un-weighed, un-measured Paleo. That will be my starting point nutrition wise. I changed to Paleo for the real food and to enjoy it, and therefore do not want to bother myself with calorie counting and not seeing the food for all those numbers.
For the sake of this little experiment the training will be more systematic, based on Scott Kustes' article in the Performance Menu: Speed Training For Non-Track Athletes which of course includes strength training. Strength training-wise I decided to go with Wendler's 5-3-1 which is suitable for weight lifting beginners. The assistance work for the main lifts will just basically be 2 body weight exercises with 72 reps each... or just 50... tehee.
But I'd like to combine that with the more laid back and intuitive approach described by Mark Sisson in his book Primal Blueprint Fitness to allow myself to listen to my body and tweak things if necessary. For good measure and because it's fun I will also throw in a Movnat Walkout in which you just hit the trail or park to run, crawl, jump and climb like a kid on a slight sugar high riding the Skittles rainbow.
Nutrition:
* The reason why I added intermittent fasting to the mix is because I've been doing that pretty much from the beginning of my Paleo existence.
Training:
based on a 14-day cycle.
- Unweighed, unmeasured Paleo
- *16 hour intermittent fasting,
- 9:30 am: 500 ml water +mix with 8 g super greens powder + 8g collagen + 4 g creatine,
- largest meal at 12:30 pm
- last and moderately sized meal at 7:30 pm
- 8 g of BCAA pre workout - Slightly reduced calories. Eating until satiety but only just.
- No daily comfort smoothies with whey any more *sad*. Only for recovery on those harder workout days.
- Low carb: Carb sources mainly veggie. No fruits. Yams and sweet potatoes o.k. on workout days
- Supplements: Calcium, magnesium, vitamin D3, fish oil, seraphos and melatonin
* The reason why I added intermittent fasting to the mix is because I've been doing that pretty much from the beginning of my Paleo existence.
Training:
based on a 14-day cycle.
- Speed: 15 m acceleration + 40 m top speed, 4 minutes recovery. Do 6x
- Lifting: Squats: Warmup, 75% x 5, 80% x 5, 85% x 5, body weight assistance work
- Metcon:. HIIT bit of the Happy Valley core and circuit training
- Rest
- MoveNat Walkout
- Short Metcon: Warm up, x-cycles in 10 minutes: 50 m sprint, 10 squat jumps, 10 pushups
- Rest
- Speed: 4 x 200 m at 400 m goal pace with 4 minutes rest in-between. Rest 8 minutes and repeat
- Lifting: Bench Press: Warmup, 75% x 5, 80% x 5, 85% x 5, body weight assistance work
- MoveNat Walkout or short Metcon : Tabata squats and tabata push-ups
- Rest
- Speed: run 4x 400 m at 75% 400 m goal pace with 3 minutes rest in-between
- Lifting Deadlift: Warmup, 75% x 5, 80% x 5, 85% x 5, body weight assistance work
- Rest
- Speed: 15 m acceleration + 40 m top speed, 4 minutes recovery. Do 6x
- Lifting: Reverse pull up 5 x 5
- Metcon:. HIIT bit of the Happy Valley core and circuit training
- Rest
- MoveNat Walkout
- Short Metcon: Warm up, 3 minute head stand
- Rest
- Speed: 4 x 200 m at 400 m goal pace with 4 minutes rest in-between. Rest 8 minutes and repeat
- Lifting: Squats:Warmup, 80% x 3, 85% x 3, 90% x 3
- MoveNat Walkout or short Metcon : 5 burpees, 50 m sprint, 5 rounds
- Rest
- Speed: run 4x 400 m at 80% 400 m goal pace with 3 minutes rest in-between
- Lifting: Bench Press: Warmup, 80% x 3, 85% x 3, 90% x 3, body weight assistance work
- Rest
Ok, so got almost a month's worth of workout. I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of tweaking along the way. From right now this still looks like a lot of work to me. I'd actually prefer it to be less since I am a lazy bugger. But 2 resting days/ week, I like.
Again this is only an experiment and not a well thought out program for the Paleo sisterhood to follow. We'll just want to see how much is necessary to get to lean out, maintain strength and aiming for the minimal effort. Maybe we'll see nice results or maybe I'll run to the next McDonalds.
Of course any suggestions or comments are more than welcome. If nothing major comes up I will start the program this coming Sunday. Will keep you posted.
Again this is only an experiment and not a well thought out program for the Paleo sisterhood to follow. We'll just want to see how much is necessary to get to lean out, maintain strength and aiming for the minimal effort. Maybe we'll see nice results or maybe I'll run to the next McDonalds.
Of course any suggestions or comments are more than welcome. If nothing major comes up I will start the program this coming Sunday. Will keep you posted.
