The Wolverine Diet

The wolverine diet consists of two main parts, the bulk and the cut.
The bulk part of the diet saw Hugh Jackman eating 5000 calories a day and training for up to 3 hours, but the cut side of the diet (which I will be undertaking) is what Hugh did in the months leading up to filming 'The Wolverine' in order to get seriously ripped.

Hugh's diet was incredibly important during his cut, and his diet consisted of mostly chicken and broccoli, and only eating carbs before 3pm.
Also Hugh's trainer introduced Intermittent Fasting into the fold, which saw Hugh only eating between 9am and 5pm, leaving himself fasting for 16 hours, resulting in his body becoming a fat burning machine.

I've decided to give this diet a good go and see what kind of results I can get in a month of struggling to chow down on just chicken and broccoli, and the occasional weetabix in the morning as a pre gym meal.
Initially I expect to drop a lot of weight in the first week due to the lack of carbs and a substantial drop in water weight. But I will of course be recording my results week by week and sharing my results.

My Diet For The Next Month

9-00am - 5 Weetabix with 250ml Milk
Post Workout - 60g Whey Protein
13-00pm - 200g chicken, 150g Broccoli
15-00pm - 30g Whey Protein
16-45pm - 200g Chicken, 150g Broccoli

Training

Training during these 4 weeks are going to stay the same as what I've been doing for the last few weeks.

Monday - Chest & Triceps
Tuesday - Back & Biceps
Wednesday - Legs & Shoulders
Then the same days repeated in that order and Sunday is a rest day.

I'm interested to see just how much a calorie restricted diet such as the wolverine diet has on my  training, I'm just going to have to leave my ego at the door and take it day by day.
From experience of a low carb diet, I know my body will be screaming for energy during heavy compound lifts, So i may have to go slightly lighter, but i will evaluate this as the time comes.

Check back weekly for updates and results and see just what this diet could do for you.

Zero Carb Diets, Good or Bad?

People are often apprehensive about making the switch to a low-carb lifestyle. They are scared about cravings, lack of energy and even weight gain. They aren’t really sure how to start or how to plan the whole thing out. These are all valid concerns. Hopefully, all your questions will be answered and you will be 100 percent confident on changing your lifestyle after reading this post.

A low-carb diet is generally used for losing weight. Some low-carb diets may have health benefits beyond weight loss, such as reducing risk factors associated with diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

As the name says, a Low-carb diet restricts the type and amount of carbohydrates you eat. Carbohydrates are a type of calorie-providing macronutrient found in many foods and beverages.

Many carbohydrates occur naturally in plant-based foods, such as grains. In natural form, carbohydrates can be thought of as complex and fibrous such as the carbohydrates found in whole grains and legumes, or they can be less complex such as those found in milk and fruit. Common sources of naturally occurring carbohydrates include:
Grains
Fruits
Vegetables
Milk
Nuts
Seeds
Legumes (beans, lentils, peas)

Food manufacturers also add refined carbohydrates to processed foods in the form of flour or sugar. These are generally known as simple carbohydrates. Examples of foods that contain simple carbohydrates are white breads and pasta, cookies, cake, candy, and sugar-sweetened sodas and drinks.



Now when attempting a low Carb diet, you must first decide your limit of Carbs, some people limit to 100g, whereas some people (myself included) limit Carbs to under 20g per day.
Now on the lower end of the scale, the only Carbohydrates you will be eating are green vegetables, you NEED to be keeping green vegetables in your diet while attempting this Carb Cut, as almost all of your fibre will be coming from these vegetables.

A typical day may include a cheese omelette or eggs and bacon for breakfast, a chicken salad with a low-Carb salad dressing for lunch, grilled salmon with green vegetables or salad for dinner, and half an avocado, olives, some nuts, and cheese as snacks plus plenty of sugar-free drinks over the day.

My personal diet for a Low Carb day consists of a 4 egg cheese omelette for breakfast, a sardine omelette for lunch and chicken and veg for dinner. this amounts to no more than 10g of Carbs for the day!

So lets get on to what everyone wants to know about, the results you can expect to see.
of course these can vary, but expect to lose anywhere from 5 to 10 lbs in the first week!!
Now the majority of this weight loss will be water weight, so don't worry you're not wasting away too quickly.

Your stomach will appear a lot flatter over the course of the first week, and your skin will feel tighter all over.
Now some down sides (if you can call them downsides) the first 2-3 days you may suffer from Carb Flu, yes that is a real thing. You may feel very lethargic while your body converts your metabolism over to using fats as a primary source of energy, but don't panic this is very normal, and if you just push through, you will be very happy with your results when you start to see your body changing.

I promise you after 1 week of this Low Carb diet you will feel 100x better in yourself and you may even want to go on for another week to see even better results!


I hope this clears a few things up regarding Low Carb diets, And I urge you to give this diet a go, even if it is only for 7 days.... PUSH YOURSELF.

This Is Insanity... Game Day

Max Interval Sports Training

Well this is one hell of a work out!!

55 minutes of high intensity sport including Boxing, Football, Basketball, Gymnastics and Track & Field.

As Usual we start of with a warm up, but today the warm up made me feel like a 6 year old girl!! it was constant skipping rope exercises, and i HATE skipping with a passion. But once all that is out of the way and the important stretches are done, We start off with Boxing, and i must say this is my favourite part of the DVD! Its a shame its right at the beginning as it is quite fun and not too hard on the cardio side, and maybe would have made a nice 'rest' about half way through the DVD.

When we get onto the Football side of the routine, things go up a gear and alot more cardio is involved!

Football wide sprints, Drop push ups and Plank Push ups to name a few.

I found this quite challenging, but the way the DVD is set up, you get so much encouredgement  from all of the people on the DVD and also Shaun T gives little motivational quotes every now and again.

At one point i stopped for a quick drink and the next thing i heard was Shaun T shout

"What the hell you doing? you dont need a break! Get back over here"

And i instantly put down my water and got back to it, just like he was in the room prodding me with a stick to get that extra 10%                                                                    out of me.

Basketball... I Love Playing the sport, but i hated it in this DVD but i have a reason!

As i am 6'3 and the room i am doing insanity in, cant be more than 8 foot high.

So when i jump, i have to be alert to not headbutt the ceiling, which isnt ideal, but thats what ive got to work with so its tough.

Gymnastics is a write off for me, im about as flexible as a 2 pence piece!!

i was crying out in pain whilst doing the ab exercises, and felt like my arms were going to snap when doing the complicated stretches and planks, but i held in there and managed to keep my arms in tack long enough to get to the Track & Field section.

Now Track & Field is getting into Shaun T's stomping ground, so no surprise really that he pushes you to your limits with ladder runs, which is basically sprint for 15 seconds, rest for 15, sprint for 30 seconds and rest for 15, sprint for 45 and rest for 15 and then sprint for 1 minute flat out with everything youve got!

than you go back down the ladder to 45 seconds and 30 then 15.

This was great fun when all of the People on the screen run into the middle into a big huddle and just go for it flat out. It really makes you push yourself that extra bit more.

This add on DVD is great fun when you get the hang of the moves, but maybe it would have been better as 5 seperate DVDs and more exercises for each sport, but you cant complain as this is a great work out, and you can expect to burn anywhere over 600 to 1000 calories (not bad for an hours work).

I would thoroughly recommend this workout! If you are on the fence, just take the plunge!

This Is Insanity... Week 5 Review

Max Out

Basically, wow!!

I've never had to push myself to such limits, in such a short space of time.

This week saw me move on from the 'Basic' insanity workouts, and catapulted into the MAX series of workouts

Catapulted to the next level.

.

The warm up changes slightly for the MAX series, but its still the same principle, to raise your heart rate as quick as possible and then give you a 30 second recovery break to let your heart rate drop slightly, and then straight back into the thick of it.

After the warm up we go into the stretches and they are basically the same as the first 4 weeks, but they didn't need changing, they were great for giving you that ultimate stretch before you got into the real hard work.

Week 5 schedule 

Like i have already said, we go max this week and it puts us up against 4 new training sessions.

Max Interval Circuit

Max Interval Plyo

Max Cardio Conditioning

And finally the Max Recovery

But there is also a bonus DVD available (Max Interval Sports Training) that i will review fully another week.

During each of the 3 Interval training sessions i was burning upwards of 650 Calories per session (and losing about 48962496 litres of sweat)

And the Max Recovery DVD saw me burn around 400 calories, but that is still a lot for a stretch session.

Summary

One thing that's for sure, this set of exercises is not for the faint hearted!!

It takes all of month 1 to prepare you for what is to come, and even that doesn't prepare you for the carnage that you will put your body through.

As i keep a track on my heart rate and stats with my Polar Loop and H7, i have noticed over the last week especially, that when i do take a 30 second rest between intervals, my heart rate has started to come down dramatically. 

I know this program is working for me and i feel at the peak of my cardiovascular levels, and I'm only getting stronger, fitter and faster.

My Fitness Pal

I owe You one.

I've always tried to be healthy and have gone through many fad diets and health kicks, but i always go at it hell for leather for about 2 weeks and then it dwindles away and i fall back into a slump and start to feel crap that i haven't stuck to it and that leads to eating junk, its a vicious circle.

Then i Discovered My Fitness Pal and everything changed.
Its an app that i have used before, but i did not realise the community within the My fitness Pal world, its huge!!  There are forums and groups galore for different types of goals, be it gaining, losing or maintaining weight, or even just some general advice and encouragement.


Ive currently got a 38 day streak going on MFP, but some of my 'Friends' on the app have got streaks ranging from 50 to 1000 days which is just crazy dedication to food logging.

One of the great things about MFP is being able to manipulate your macros.
as i get alot of protein a day, i have mine set at;
45% Protein
35% Carbs
20% Fats

And i always find it very satisfying when i get within 1 or 2% of my goals, and its easy to work out what needs to be cut, or what needs to be added to the diet to get your macros bang on where you want them to be.

But for me, the USP (unique selling point) of MFP is the people that use it!
if you're like me and you struggle with motivation, and just need some extra get up and go, the people you get to know on MFP will give you exactly what you need.
Be it a 'you can do it' or if you've had a bad day, a comforting message. Without it i don't think i would be doing anywhere near as well as i am, and if you know me from My Fitness Pal, i just want to say thank you.

This Is Insanity... Week 4 Review

That S#*!S Bananas Yoooo

As the week started, i didn't!

I had a horrible bug that struck me down in my prime, BUT i wasn't going to let that stop me and i went ahead and completed 7 insanity sessions this week. yes 7.

On Thursday, rather than just do the Recovery DVD, i decided to do the Fast & Furious DVD first, and it was definitely a good choice. It made the Recovery Yoga session feel 10 times better.

As i said above, Monday and Tuesday i wasn't performing at my best as i had a 24/48 hour bug, but come Wednesday, i don't know what came over me.

Plyometric Cardio Circuit has been without doubt my least favourite Insanity DVD over the course of the first 4 weeks, but on Wednesday it was like i had an outer body experience and i wasn't actually doing the exercise, almost like i was drunk on a cross between testosterone and adrenaline!

Not that I'm complaining about this outer body experience, it actually felt amazing to feel like i was doing the hardest DVD (in my opinion) and not feeling exhausted, but still pushing myself to my limits and keeping my heart rate high. Id happily like to feel like that alot more ;)

Cardiovascular 

If you've Ever done Insanity, you will know that Sunday is rest day. But whenever rest day comes around, i always feel very lazy and tend to eat far too much junk food, so i decided this particular Sunday i was going to test how much insanity had helped my cardiovascular levels over the past month. And my oh my, didn't it just!!

I turned up at the gym not knowing what to expect as i stepped on the treadmill, but to my extreme surprise, i just kept going and going, and my heart rate was nowhere near where it used to be when i was running at 7/8 mph.

Before i knew it i was closing in on 5km, and i had no idea what my previous personal best was, but as it turns out, my previous best was 26:33.

Boom i hit 5km at a time of 25:38.

Knocking 55 seconds off my PB, But i wasn't going to stop there, i had 10k in sight, and i kept pushing and was alternating the speed between 7 and 10 mph up until i hit 9k, and then i 'went for it' smashed the speed up to 12mph and was sprinting my ass off like poor old Forrest Gump and i crossed the finish line so to speak at 50:02, and to be honest i was gutted i missed the 50 minute mark, even though it was only 2 seconds out.

Now i knew id only ever run 10k once before and i knew it was around 55 minutes the last time, so i had to wait till i got home to analyse, and analyses i did, 55:20 was my previous time, and i had gone and knocked 5 MINUTES AND 18 SECONDS off that time, i was completely buzzing! And i cant wait to try and beat that time again come the end of month 2 of insanity.

Month 1 Review

To say insanity has changed my life would be an understatement.

From day 1 i have continued to push myself through the barriers of sweat, pain and a 24 hour bug, and its been so worth it, I'm in the shape of my life and i feel 100 times better than i did at the start of day 1!

If you can spare 1 hour a day to improve yourself, i would thoroughly recommend jumping on this Shaun T life changing program.

With month 2 starting today, i don't know whether i am nervous or excited, but one thing i can tell you, i cant wait to write my month 2 review and to see the results.

Pump HD Pre Workout

Since I've started going to the gym alot more, i decided to take the plunge into the supplements market and get myself a pre workout.
The geek that i am, i spent many hours browsing the web looking for the perfect supplement for me.

I came across alot of good reviews for the Pump HD Pre Workout, so i took the plunge.

When it arrived just in time for chest day, i was pumped (pun intended) to give this a go and see what all the fuss was about.
With any powdered supplement the first thing you always notice is the Mixability and i was not impressed to say the least. as you start to swill the powder around in the water, it instantly goes a beautiful blue colour, but ass soon as you stop stirring, you notice alot of the white powder floats to the top of the glass, and i constantly found myself swishing the glass as i was drinking it, which is no big problem, but you expect a powder to at least mix into the water.

Ok so mixability wasn't the best, but Taste was amazing for a supplement!
I had the blue ice lemonade flavour, and that 100% gets the thumbs up from me.

Onto the results of this supplement, and i was very surprised at just how much of a 'pump' you got from Pump HD.
On my bench press i felt i had that extra oomph, and i could just push out that extra rep at the end of the 5th set. And also my recovery time was alot quicker between sets, normally i would have 90 seconds between sets, but when i have used Pump HD i have been able to cut that 90 seconds almost in half, and as I'm in the gym before work and on a strict schedule, that's a big deal for me, and i would suspect alot of other early morning gym goers.

Verdict

This is a great supplement and i have incorporated it into my array of different supplements, but specifically for Chest day.

I would definitely recommend Pump HD if you have hit a plateau with your previous pre workout, or if its your first time in the pre workout market.

8 out of 10