Paul came in FIRST with a 5.72% bodyweight change, with Stacey REALLY close in 2nd with a 5.51% bodyweight change. Talisa claimed 3rd place with a 3.53% bodyweight change. Amanda and John had nothing to sneeze at with a 3.13% and 2.04% change respectively. In total, 40 pounds were lost by the 5 people who finished out, averaging for 8 pounds per person. After pics will be posted as they are processed here.

Congratulations again!

Weeks one and two have the potential for showing the biggest gains (or losses in our case) as your body hasn’t had much of a chance to adapt to the new eating and training regime. That means that your scale at home should be friendly to you, but your muscles should be complaining (sore), as your body hasn’t adapted to dealing with the heavier training stimuli. If you haven’t kicked it into gear yet, the window isn’t lost on you as week two will still bear you easy fruit.

Everyone is reporting good initial losses from week 1, so the competitive side of you should be having a field day. Everyone’s before pictures will be posted here this week as well. If you have something that’s working for you, feel free to post it here. If you have some smack to talk, that’s welcome as well.

Tips of the week:

Tapering your carb intake from the start of the day to the end is most conducive to your body burning fat. As a general rule, you want to be eating minimal carbs after 7 PM. If you have a real urge for a cookie or bagle, it’s far less damaging to your diet to succumb to that in the morning than the evening.

Cheating on your diet can work FOR you if you plan it correctly. Plan a cheat meal toward the end of the week and relatively early in the day (see the above tip). First, it will increase your willpower as you can look forward to rewarding your diligence throughout the week. Second, the cheat meal can help replinish low glycogen levels from the week of dieting. Third, the cheat meal can actually delay your body’s reaction to lower your metabolism from the calorie restricted diet.

Here’s what you looked like to start!

 Basics to progress on the 6 week challenge:

1. Drink water!
Virtually every cellular activity in your body works much better when there is ample water in your system, especially dropping weight. Aim for at least a half gallon of water a day, that’s only 4 half-liter bottles of water a day. You can swing that!
2. Eat breakfast!
Eating a healthy breakfast actually speeds up your metabolism, helping you burn more bodyweight. If you DON’T eat breakfast, your metabolism drops significantly and looks for pathways to conserve energy (meaning store fat).
3. Exercise!
Every pound of muscle you have on your body actually burns 30 calories a day, just to exist. If you had 10 pounds more muscle, your body would burn 300 calories more a day doing nothing: imagine how much more it burns when you use  that muscle.
4. Eat more often, but less!
By eating every few hours, you ensure more stable insulin throughout the day (spikes in insulin encourage your body to store bodyfat and drops in insulin crash your metabolism). Eating often also keeps another hormone at bay, cortisol. Cortisol is secreted when your body is under stress or thinks it is starving, and results in your body breaking down muscle and lowering your metabolism, both things you don’t want.
5. Eat the big 3!
Protein, carbohydrates, and fat are all important in effective dieting. Protein is what your body uses to build and preserve muscle. Carbohydrates (low gycemic are better) are used to fuel energy and intensity during exercise. Fats (in moderation) are used to manufacture beneficial hormones and regulatory processes. Make sure you eat protein at every meal; carbohydrates should be tapered off at the end of the day, and fats should always be in moderation.

 Post questions and we’ll talk about what works for individuals!

Paul

Where I’ve gone off the hook, however, is my supplements. I’m taking more stuff in than ever! I hate to say it, but much of this stuff seems to be working. The Lipo-6 as a fat burner seems to be a bust (I’m just not getting the metabolism boost that I’ve had from Xenadrine products) but the others are making a difference. The real suprise in the group for me has been Citrulline Malate, with my mood and energy really keeping up. I’m going for a total of 15 pounds lost and taking the pool of a couple hundred bucks to offset all my supp costs. Good thing I make all kinds of cash!

Paul

This routine will have an additional emphasis on chest while keeping the rest of the body in a slowly anabolic state. The high intensity cardio will help drop weight while stimulating fast twitch fibers to help me with my vertical. We’ll run it for 4 weeks and then post progress.

May we all be 14 forever in our passion and 31 in our experience.

The Paul