Fasting: A new alternative for weight loss

‘Fasting has been reported to be effective for fat loss’ say industry insiders.

 

Fasting appears to be the newest weapon in the ‘battle of the bulges’ as research continues to be done and interpreted again and again. Fasting has been a discipline that many different people have utilized at different times. Some do it as a form of ritual purification, some as a means of attaining favor with the gods they worship, and some simply as a way of getting rid of toxins in the body.

 

Fasting takes many forms, such as total fasts, known as ‘Black Fasts’ among some communities, while others may choose to limit themselves in certain areas only, such as a abstaining from meat, or solid foods, or even other activities such as abstaining from games, TV and a host of other activities.

Continue reading…

 

What am I doing right now?

Some of you guys who’ve checked out my blog before might be a ‘little’ freaked out to find out what i am doing right now.

Why?

Well, it just so happens that what I am doing is the complete opposite of what my blog has so far been about – WEIGHT GAIN!

To be honest, I have been on a weight gain cycle for the last three months, and have already put on 20 lbs of bulk (fat and muscle included).

Again, why would I want to do that? Well, it’s just that for a long time I have been on a kick to get big muscles (aren’t we all), and for a long time have been trying to juggle some fat loss and some muscle gain – basically tried to gain lean muscle while keeping fat stores down. How much time did I spend doing this? Almost 5 or so years.

So what have I learnt? That it is IMPOSSIBLE to do something like that, no matter how many muscle and fitness rags tell us that. Man, we just end up spinning our wheels in the air, thinking that we’re about to get somewhere. Hah…what a joke!

The real fact of the matter is that one must focus on one of the two, and decide what your end result is going to be. You see, if you don’t have a picture in your mind, then how will you know if you’ve got what you aimed for?

For those who want big muscles to go along with the low fat, there will HAVE to be a time when you will have to run a couple of bulking cycles, and first get the muscle you want, and then cut up.

If muscles are not important to you, then go the ‘gain lean muscle’ route, and check out www.turbulence-training.co.cc and sculpt what you got already.

As for me…I had to sit down and think hard about things, and I decided that I wanted to be at least 220 lbs of muscle, which translates to aroud 240 lbs total bodyweight at around 19%BF (which is where I am right now). Hence the bulking cycle.

Well, I hope someone finds this to be of help in clarifying your goals, coz that’s what it is all about – clarity of mind and purpose.

Cheers!

Weight Loss Extreme: How I got in shape for my wedding

Yeah…that’s a really good topic, and true to life too. So what exactly did I do? Do you really want to know? Then here goes…

 

I like to make plans, and tweak them for a few weeks before I commit myself to it. The reason for making a plan, and then tweaking it further, is to come up with something that I am convinced about. You see, I really need to be convinced about something before I will go ahead and do it. And once I get convinced, there are no limits to the extent to which I can go.

 

First thing I did was to sit down and analyze my present diet and exercise protocols. I found a couple of ideas that I thought would be perfect for me, such as:

 

• An exercise program that does not involve lots of aerobics (I really dislike the idea of lots of running in particular, coz I suck at running long distances)!
• A diet program that is something I have previously tested out and found to have worked
• A program that is not too time-consuming, and can in fact be incorporated into my life rather easily

 

Well this is what I did:

 

I ate low carbs for about 3 months, with a week of no carbs around week 9 (no particular reason for this). I would eat cans of tuna, and my workmates would actually wave pastries under my nose (ha ha ha … thought they could get me eh)! I stayed on the same general diet for the whole time, eating around 5~6 small meals a day.

 

I began to train on a something called an “Escalating Density Training” type of program for around 4 weeks. That was followed by a program where the weights were medium, reps were medium-high, rest periods were short, and upper and lower body exercises were supersetted for around 4 weeks.

 

This was followed by a stretch of around 3 weeks again with upper and lower body exercises done on different days, with an escalating density type of schedule again, albeit with different exercises than the first time I did something like this. After week 11 I began to train heavier again, trying to preserve muscle mass.

 

As for the ‘A’ word (aerobics) – well, like I said…I don’t like to run. But what I did do was begin to walk. I walked around 3~4 km each day. I would walk to the main bus stop, catch a bus to work, get off at the junction, then walk another kilometer to school, and do the same in the afternoon. This I did for a full 4 months.

 

So did I need to spend more hours running around? Not at all.

 

So what were the results like?

 

I lost around 15 lbs of fat in 3 months, and actually appeared at my wedding looking very trim and fit. Was it overkill? Maybe, but then…I never used a single supplement at all, and basically did it all naturally, as in just food, and exercise. Could I have had better results if I had used thermogenics and lipotropics? Maybe. But the fact is, we don’t always need lots of expensive supplements to help us with our goals. In fact, that is mostly A crutch we end up using, and an excuse for not looking good if we fail.

 

So what do you need?

 

Just these:

• Education – you need to learn about your body, and how it operates
• Common sense – the kind necessary to go against the ideas of people who have no clue as to why things work or not
• Lots of determination – an undying will to succeed in your endeavor!

 

Question is…do you have what it takes?