Day 6 - TSC Challenge

Week 1 - Day 6 - TSC Challenge

Hey hey! I've completed week one! :-)

First let's talk about my statistics. I'm still the same height just in case you thought that might change! (6' 4"). I weighed myself today and was 100.5kg, last week I was 102.5kg and 103kg during the week so it's about a 2kg drop. My BMI is now working out at 27 flat which is a drop of 0.4. My waist has reduced by an inch to 39". So these are all great things that I'm very happy about.

My score today was higher overall but I was unable to do any pull ups at all. None! :-( this is down to my back being tired and sore from the work outs all week but I'm am determined to push myself hard this coming week to then perform next weekend. So, 0 pull ups, 27 press ups (up by 4), and 23:25 on the run (58 seconds faster). So that adds up to 123 points, and increase of 5 points even though I lost 10 points by not being able to do any pull ups. I'm ok with that.

I'm going to stop blogging on the meals that I'm eating as I'm sure you've gotten the idea by now but I will post updates about interesting things I've learned about nutrition etc.

Something I've learned is that sugar is a bad thing for the fat burning and you need to be careful on how much sugar you eat. Sugar is a simple carbohydrate and is digested and turned into energy quickly by the body. Imagine that your body gets a massive intake of sugar (chocolate bar etc), your body reacts by storing some of that energy in your liver for quick fire use, any excess tends to be stored as fat. So if you eat something sugary just before working out then you will have a good boost of energy however you will burn less fat as you body with use the quick fire energy first. Complex carbohydrates, such as vegetables and fruit are digested slower, releasing the energy slower into the body. This energy is used throughout the day and is less likely to be stored as fat. Carbohydrates are (mostly) made up of starches and sugars.

Cereals tend to be high in sugar. As an example, kellogs special k is marketed as a healthy option. Yes, it's low in fat but reasonably high in sugars. Let's say that a cereal has 30g of carbohydrates per 100g, you need to check the "of which sugar" value on the packet too. If it's high in sugar then steer clear if you want to burn fat. I'd look for a sugar to carb ratio of less than half, 30g of carb then look for less than 15g of which sugar but the lower the better. This will then limit the amount of quick fire energy your body has available and force it to burn more fat. I've just got myself a pack of Jordan's muesli which I have with skimmed milk and some fruit in it (quite nice actually). This muesli has about a third of the carbs as sugars so whilst it's not perfect, it's much better than other cereals.

This is similar to the reason for not drinking fruit juice during the program. Fruit when converted to liquid is digested quicker so the body gets a big intake of energy and stores it in the liver again and uses that before burning fat (my friend will probably shout at me for my simplistic explanation). So that's why fruit juice is not allowed during the ten weeks and I like to know the "why".

My body is a tale of two cities. My legs are fine again, a little pain in my calves but nothing much. My arms, shoulders are quite tired and sore especially my left arm, but overall I think I'm in pretty good shape for week one. It is tough and does hurt but I've found that the psychological strength required to drag my body out of bed at 6am to go to the gym to be very tough too. Saying that, I did need to take an ice bath on Tuesday night as my legs were really sore and painful to walk until they had stretched a bit.

Heart of a champion - body of a cripple! ;-)

All in all, I'm confident that I can complete the program and make my body transform into something fitter, faster and stronger. Right now I would say that if you're like me, or like my friend Blair who wants to put on muscle, buy the program and stop delaying yourself from achieving what you want for. Make it happen people, make it happen.

Later,
Lee