Eat Less Exercise More (ELEM) : I lost 2.6 kilos in 8 days

I had put on 4 kilos in 4 weeks of holidaying, a pretty good effort except it was all water and fat and I think I may have lost a bit of muscle mass as well.

So, to shed those unnecessary kilos I needed to get rid of my fluid retention, boost my metabolic rate and burn calories. This is what I did to lose 2.6 kilos in 8 days:

Every morning* – warm up 400m jog, 10 x 50m sprint intervals with 50m active rest (walking), cool down 400m jog, half an hour of stretching.

HIGH INTENSTIY CARDIO-VASCULAR TRAINING HELPS BURN FAT THROUGHOUT THE DAY – THIS PHENOMENOM IS CALLED EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption)

Breakfast half cup untoasted home-made muesli with ¼ cup natural plain yoghurt and a cup of plunger black coffee with a splash of skim milk.

Every day* – 5km easy bike ride, 30 minute easy freestyle swim, 5km easy bike ride

LOW TO MODERATE INTENSITY CARDIO-VASCULAR TRAINING FOR AN HOUR TO TOP UP THE MORNING’S EFFORT

Lunch 150g fish (wahoo seasoned with salt and pepper and grilled, or raw slices of tuna with wasabi and soy sauce), 1 cup boiled basmati rice, 2 cups steamed broccoli.

FISH HAS OILS GOOD FOR YOUR HEART AND PROTEIN TO BUILD MUSCLE, YOUR BODY CONVERTS RICE TO SUGARS FOR ENERGY AND BROCCOLI HAS FIBRE, VITAMINS AND ANTI-OXIDANTS

Snack of either fresh coconut water or half a piece of fruit.

Every evening* - CrossFit, well a modified Crossfit Work Out of the Day (WOD), and if it was rest day I hit the punching bag for 5 rounds of 2 minutes each with a 30 second rest. This type of training is high intensity, either a heavy weights session of just 10 minutes or not so heavy weights with lots and lots of reps, should be just on the edge of impossibly hard.

HIGH INTENSTIY RESISTANCE (WEIGHT) TRAINING TO BUILD MUSCLE

Dinner of vegetable soup – I base my recipe on the QuickStart Diet Soup recipe; it’s simple and yummy made with garlic, ginger,  tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, green capsicum, green beans, shallots, fresh parsley, beef stock and whole pimento.

VEGETABLES GIVE YOU VITAMINS, MINERALS, FIBRE AND ANTI-OXIDANTS AND ALL IMPORTANT CARBOHYDRATES (CARBS OR CHO) FOR ENERGY

In addition to all that I drank 2L of water every day and had as much green tea (cold, no sugar or sweeteners) to drink as I wanted.

TO GET RID OF FLUID RETENTION DRINK LOTS OF WATER.

GREEN TEA GIVES YOU A LIFT AND HELPS ENERGISE YOU DURING WORKOUTS.

* I had two lay (rest) days. One on day 5 when I stretched and walked everywhere during the day; the second on day 7 when I still did sprint intervals in the morning but then spent the day snorkelling.

The first 5 days went well, on days 6 & 8 I had a blow out eating two mini Reese’s peanut butter cups and a couple of Corona beers, that probably made the 400g difference to losing 3 kilos!

This kind of stringent meal plan is not sustainable long term but it, along with 3 bouts of exercise most days, did the job (I'm at 66.4kg, in the normal weight range for me) so now I’m back to eating normally.

 

Next post - Eat Less: eat what you like and never mind the food snobs