So…..! What’s new? Well, after losing 1 lb during week one, I gained back that one pound after my third week. I adjusted my macros to 185 lbs once I had lost the pound, yet, I gained it back. Amazingly, it seems that I have gain muscle mass and dropped body fat based on the physical changes, weight and clothes. Again, I can’t really show anything more than one picture I took on day 0 there have been changes without doubt.

One thing is certain, using the proper lightning angle to help create better shadows of my muscles, my abs when flexed, are looking ridiculously good, and again, this has just been with 3 weeks of training.

Before I show the pictures, I want to make sure I mention I have done a couple of things different from what instructed in the program.

• First one is, although I have followed the total caloric intake suggested, and as close as possible the macro ratio, in many occasions I have altered the macro ratios, sometimes eating more fat than suggested and less carbs at some point, but always balancing the macros so at the end of the day I still have eaten the right amount of macros.

•Second, I have more often than I’d like to admit, ignored the 3 big meals and 2 small meals suggestion. At times I only have 3 meals and one snack, or 2 meals and 3 snacks. Again, always staying within the daily caloric intake.

• Third, for the cardio days, I’ve been implementing Lyle McDonald’s Stubborn Fat Protocol, only twice a week.

• Forth and last, I have added extra sets and in rare occasions extra exercises to some of my workouts when I have the energy and I have felt I can exercises more. One I always do is the abs crunches. I can’t just do 3 sets of 12 reps and be satisfied. In this case I do 5 sets of 15 reps of kneeling cable crunches with the maximum weight the machine allows me, and this is because my abs can handle it since before I started this plan.

With that said, here are the photo comparison of day 0 and day 24, and below the picture I took flexing with the light coming from above.

Today I decided to do a review on the Polar M400 Smart Fitness Watch. Why? Because that’s the one I use. Now, what’s so special about this watch anyway, considering the enormous amount of fitness trackers and watches in the present market? Well, it all depends on what you’re looking for, your budget, and what kind of activities you do.

Before I decided to get my hands on a fitness watch or a fitness tracker, I had been using the Polar H7 Heart Rate Monitor for a while. Although in the past I had used some fitness trackers that didn’t really satisfied my needs and weren’t too accurate, I decided to go for this heart rate monitor (the H7) since some fitness professionals had given it good reviews, and since I carried my phone with me everywhere and this monitor connects to your mobile devices via bluetooth, I didn’t hesitate much before I order (besides, the price isn’t bad at all, starting around $49 USD).

All was fine until I started to realize carrying my phone with me to every physical activities I like to do (Spartan races, mountain biking, gym, running, etc) can be a little bit of a pain, since sometimes I don’t have pockets or I might need a waterproof case (or ziploc bag) to avoid my phone getting ruined. That’s when I decided to get a fitness tracker.

After reading online which were the top rated fitness trackers and picking the top few options that would work for me, I went to Amazon and started reading the reviews and questions left by users. I came to realize that most trackers, even those with the HRM sensors on the back like the Fitbit, aren’t too accurate when it comes to reading your heart rate. Add to this the fact that watches like Apple Watch have trouble reading the heart rate through tattoo’s ink (I have a full sleeve), would make it even worse for me, so spending a lot of money on a fancy tracker that won’t do the job as it should was out of the question. So, that’s where the Polar M400 became the winner.

The M400 doesn’t have a heart rate monitor sensor, instead it works with the H7 sensor. So yes, unless you already have the sensor, you won’t be able to get your heart rate recorded, hence your calories burned will be ridiculously inaccurate. The fact you can get the watch with the heart rate sensor from Amazon for only $132.69 USD that alone makes it a good investment. The watch has integrated GPS, and with Polar’s Flow app (free) you can create and customize fitness profiles based on what activities you do, and what information to be displayed in the watch while you perform such fitness activities.

The watch’s battery last about a week or so using it everyday to track 1+ hour of exercising a day and about twice GPS activities tracking. GPS of course uses more battery, so if your workouts don’t use GPS the battery will definitely last longer than a week. If you don’t workout everyday, that will also extend the battery for even longer. The fact I use my watch to display my cell’s notifications, which means it is connected via bluetooth 24/7 and still last a week+ on one charge, that is very good for me.

The smart notifications only works by displaying whatever notifications you get in your cell (texts, emails, app notifications, reminders, etc) in a very limited way. You can only read the first line maybe, plus who the text or email is from. You cannot reply to any messages though. It will also show you who’s calling you and give you the option to silence the phone or answer but you still need to use the phone to talk).

Other than that, the watch is water resistant and it seems it is made of good material since it hasn’t shown any scratches yet with all the abuse I’ve given it.

The one issue I find with this watch is the GPS, but then again it is something to expect. The GPS only works accurately when you use it mostly in places where there aren’t trees above you (it doesn’t work indoors), and if you don’t do sharp u-turns like in some mountain bike trails. This is an issue that also happens with phones as well, and it all has to do with the GPS sensor not registering too good when you do a narrow u-turn, skipping a few feet/meters at a time, which when done repeatedly it can add up to a mile+. With my phone trees aren’t a big issue, but with the watch it is. Eliminating those two issues, when calculating distance, the watch, the phone and the mechanical bicycle computer mark the exact distance.

In any case, I love this watch and it has worked for me as I expected. The activities I use it for are for running, road biking, mountain biking, strength training and I will be using it for swimming as well. It also helps track sleeping time if you don’t mind wearing it while sleeping.

For a list of all the features, click here.

Add to this the constant negative attacks from society, friends, significant other and family members. People will question your motives, will tell you the opposite of encouraging comments, will try to hold you down from growing and achieving your goals.

This is why it is so important to work on the mental attitude, to train yourself to ignore your mind, to stop listening to that “quitter” voice inside your head and from those around you, that will constantly to drag you back down to that place you hate to be. Surrounding yourself with people who will encourage you either with words, their hard work or both, and who won’t judge you, will also help you achieve this.

Some people say fitness is 70% eating and 30% workouts. I’d say for most it is 50% mental, 35% eating and 15% fitness.

So! What are my first impressions and what results did I get, if any? Well, while I’ve been used to longer workouts, with way more sets, mainly because I try to focus on lower reps since I aim for heavier weights (except for a few specific exercises that I do higher reps), I have to say this plan has felt great. I have personally added extra sets to some of the exercises, again, because I’m used to more sets, so for me it has been easier and more effective to add a forth set to some of the exercises. If you’re not familiar with this plan, so far it seems each exercises consist of 3 sets only, with 10 to 12 reps per set.

When it comes to cardio, I have to admit the only cardio I’m used to do is going mountain biking (more like off road biking, since we don’t have mountains in Miami) on Sundays. So having to do cardio one day after a weight lifting session, and on my two rest days is kind of a challenge. To make it more challenging and efficient, I decided that my cardio sessions on my rest days should follow Lyle McDonald’s protocol for the stubborn body fat. I’m not gonna get into the details of the protocol (you can either Google it, or buy his book), but I’ll just say it is cardio on an empty stomach. Tomorrow, which is my cardio day, I will implement the supplements suggested by him as well. Needless to say, cardio on an empty stomach is a pain!

Now, what about the results? Well, although it’s been just one week, I was expecting some sort of visual changes, even if they were minimal. As you will see in the picture below, I took the picture on the left Monday morning last week, and the one on the right this Monday morning. The reason I only show this area is because this is where I see the most significant change in my body. The “love handle” area and mid-side torso are where I notice the bigger change. A visible fat reduction that is definitely a good sign. I also want to mention, I’ve only lost exactly 1 lb since I started the program. Hopefully this isn’t much from muscle mass and mostly from body fat. In any case, I’m now looking forward to see what week 2 brings to the plate.

Until next time!

(Click the picture to expand)

Anyway, I found a couple of videos on YouTube that I feel are pretty interesting and provide really good information.

Interview focusing mostly on diet.

Interview focusing on training.

1- A Spartan Race Trifecta
• Spartan Sprint
• Spartan Super
• Spartan Beast
2- An Olympic Triathlon
• Swim 0.93mi (1.5km)
• Bike 24.8mi (40km)
• Run 6.2mi (10km)
3- The 50 mile Fakawi Mountain Bike Fest

Now, you might think with so many fitness programs I’ve done I shouldn’t have any problems achieving these goals next year, but that’s where you (whoever is reading this blog) is wrong. You need to understand two very important aspects of my fitness background. I don’t do cardio and I suffered from major ITBS. I have focused on weight lifting, and either circuit training or HIIT for my cardio since ITBS wouldn’t allow me to run for more than 5 minutes before my knees would be in major pain. Then, knowing long cardio sessions are not recommended for those trying to gain muscle size, I always avoided any form of cardio, except for my latest hobby which is riding mountain bike. Yet, I have done two Spartan races (since you get to stop every now and then to complete obstacles) and recently I did a 30 mile Fakawi Mountain Bike Fest.

My first training goal is to get to run 6.2 miles, which is something I haven’t been able to do EVER. For that, I’ll be using the Easy 10k With Jeff Galloway app for iOS. Knowing the Triathlon won’t be until next year, I have plenty of time to train and see if my knees can handle this first phase of the training, by not getting back any of the ITBS pain. If I am able to reach that goal, my second goal would be to ride the 24.8 miles on a road bike, which that isn’t an issue at all, followed by the 6.2 miles run. That right there would be another achievement. And last but not least, I need to train swimming the 0.93 mile, and combine it with the bike ride and run. While I know how to swim, I haven’t swim in a long time, and my swimming technique is not the proper one, so I’ll have to focus on that as well to avoid wasting unnecessary energy.

That training alone would be more than enough to do the 50 mile Fakawi ride, and to finish each of the Spartan races (at least the running/endurance part). Now, for strength training I have a different plan. I’ll be dividing the training in phases, mainly because I will do different fitness programs to put my body through a variety of weight lifting training.

First I’m going back to my roots (so to speak). P90X was my first major fitness program to try which gave me amazing results. This time I’m going to try P90X3. The idea is to break the gym routine for 90 days, getting leaner and helping with my endurance. After that, I’ll jump back in the gym for the all famous StrongLift 5 x 5 (<<< not sure if that’s the real website or it is just a random website that talks about this program), followed by a strength targeting program put together by me.

Also, as part of doing the P90X3 routine, I’m going to be building a Muay Thai punching bag stand which will allow me to do pull ups and dips with hanging rings instead of using a static or fixed pull-up bar and dips handles (I’ll post the instructional video to build one below). The cool thing about this is, I’ll also be able to train my punching and kicking techniques while getting some cardio done at the same time. All part of the endurance training.

It is a lot to do, but this training will help me get physically and mentally ready as well for a year full of accomplishments. And unless the 5×5 training helps me get to my 400 lbs deadlifts new goal and break my 265 lbs bench press PR, I will focus on my one-rep max goals after I’m done with all the races.

Here’s the instructional video for the punching bag stand.

I’m not planning on posting a long blog, since I don’t have much to talk about this topic, more than I’ve already talked, but as I might try do P90X3 because I want to do something short enough due to my work schedule, avoiding having to drive to the gym, and at the same time giving myself a break from the gym environment, I was hoping to see the kind of results people have gotten with one cycle of P90X3, but all I’ve found is coaches selling the program through their incredible reviews… Reviews that claim it is better than the original P90X.

In any case, if I get to do this program, I’ll surely be posting my review and progress throughout the whole 90 days.

Be aware though, some of the info I’m providing here has been extensively criticized by the “know it all douches” from the MFP forums (I can’t wait for the day they get to see this post), the same people who also claim GMO, soda and McDonalds are as healthy and nutritive as organic food, and the same people who will criticize any approach or study other than the ones they chose to believe in. Truth is, at the end of the day we all believe whatever we want to believe, and it is all a matter of perspective. At least for me, it seems to work pretty good, to the point I’m pretty healthy, my blood test results shows everything perfect (even sometimes red blood count and potassium a little higher than what’s consider normal), and my fitness progress always seem to work as planned.

Before I continue, I want to clarify something. First and most importantly, at no point I consider myself an expert. Everything I’m writing here is either based on my own experience or what I have read/seen before. Results will vary from individual to individual, and even what works for you at some point might not work the same way after a while, which is why I always suggest flexibility, adjustment and experimentation, keeping in mind that undesired changes are NOT a cause to freak out, but just a sign to reverse the change made and head towards the opposite direction or simply try a different approach. And always be patient. Fitness takes time, and there is this absurd idea that if it doesn’t show out of this world progress in a short period of time, it doesn’t work. This same idea is what lead people to make the terrible mistake of eating too little hoping to get results faster.

With that out of the way, I want to start with something many new people to MFP don’t understand…. “Why to eat your workout calories back?” So here’s why:

I’m sure most of you got your numbers (calories) from entering your info in the MFP app, which calculates your calories based on your weight, age, gender, etc, and how many lbs a week you want to lose. Did you choose 1 or 2 lbs per week? Most people choose 2 lbs because they are dying to get rid of the extra weight as fast as possible, but here’s what you need to understand. MFP gives you an estimate based on what you selected (how active you are during the day and how many times a week you are willing to workout). Selecting a level of activity doesn’t really mean you’re being accurate and MFP only uses a range of numbers to come up with how much you should eat. What happens is, MFP calculates how many calories you should eat giving you a deficit so you lose that weight you selected (1 or 2 lbs per week) without exercising but knowing you will workout X amount of times a week, BUT (and this is the important part), the calories are calculated without knowing how much you will burn with each workout because even if you had the option to select a workout plan, each person burns different amounts of calories, therefore MFP leaves those burned calories out of the equation, and that’s why when you burn the X amount of calories, you need to eat them back, otherwise the deficit will be much bigger and it could be unhealthy to your body.

In other words, if MFP already had you with a 500 calories deficit and you burned 300 calories that you won’t eat back, your deficit increases to 800 (500+300), and while you might think the bigger the deficit the better to lose weight, you need to understand your body needs to eat and needs nutrients to work and perform properly, otherwise it will either store some of what you eat as body fat (body fat is nothing but stored energy) for whenever it needs the extra energy, or start using muscle fibers as a source of energy as well along with body fat, costing you some of that lean muscle you want or have.

Here’s my second advice. I would personally try to use multiple online formulas to calculate what’s your maintenance amount of calories in order to get an average from all the results you get. I don’t trust MFP calculations at all. Every time I have done a plan, whether to bulk up or lean down, the macros/calories I need to eat based on the program I’m doing are completely different from what MFP always suggest me to eat, and I always get the results I’m looking for when I follow the plans. So, if using these plans work, and they differ from MFP numbers, it could only means MFP is most probably wrong.

Update:
Although at the end of this post I have provided a link to a really good article posted on BodyBuilding.com about calculating calories and macros (which I suggest you to read), I’m feeling the need to clarify a couple of very important points you need to know in order to get as accurate as possible with your calories.

BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is the amount of calories you need to consume to maintain if you were comatose. Please, do not confuse this with the amount of calories you need on a daily basis. BMR only calculates what you need to live while in complete rest, or coma state. If you use your BMR as your maintenance for a regular day of your life, you’re already under-eating big time.

NEAT (Non-Exercise Associated Thermogenesis) is the calorie of daily activity that is NOT exercise (eg: washing, walking, talking, shopping, working).

EAT (Exercise Associated Thermogenesis) is the calorie requirements associated with planned exercise.

TEF (Thermic effect of feeding) is the calorie expenditure associated with eating.

TEE (Total Energy Expenditure) is the total calories you require. It = sum of the above (BMR + NEAT + EAT + TEF). This could also be known as TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure).

This is why it is VERY important to know what you’re calculating in order to get your REAL and HEALTHY maintenance calorie amount. Again, you will find the formulas in this article Calories and Macro’s 

In regards to this topic, someone on MFP also suggested me to provide you (the readers) with a few formulas from different sources. I won’t be doing that. I rather you guys go online, look up different pages, and try them yourselves. What I will do at some point is, put together a small Excel or Google sheet with multiple hidden formulas (so you don’t have to worry about which is which), and provide you with an average result from all the formulas I end up using.

Now, to lose weight you need to eat with a deficit. Once you know how many calories is your maintenance, I personally believe a safe deficit would be no more than 500 calories a day for most people, but this depends on how many calories you need to eat for maintenance, which means, you have to eat your workout calories to avoid increasing that deficit goal. Something very important, when calculating your maintenance, you need to be as brutally accurate and realistic as possible with the information you provide to any calculating system you get to use. Considering the fact 3500 calories equal 1 pound, the more accurate your calculation is, the better results you’ll get assuming you end up using a 500 calories deficit a day, which means you could be losing one pound per week). So let’s assume you say “But Yass, I want to lose more than 1 pound a week”, and I’ll say, “Let’s focus first on adjusting your macros/calories first, and then focus on how much you want to lose”. The truth is, I’m keeping a secret from you, which is while you might have burned 300 calories during your workout and you ate those 300 calories back, your metabolism will continue to burn extra calories after your workout, which will increase the deficit whether you are aware of it or not.

So, let’s say you already have your maintenance and deficit figured out and you’re ready to lose that stupid body fat. Now you need to understand weight loss and goals, something many people overlook. Losing weight could mean losing body fat or losing body fat with muscle. Which one is the good and which one is the bad? I think it is pretty obvious. Scales don’t know the difference between losing fat only or fat with muscle, so weight can be irrelevant in most cases, especially when you don’t lose any weight, yet your clothes fit better than they did two weeks before. But how can this be? Well, since muscle is denser than fat (the eternal online debate that will last for as long as humanity exist), if you put 1 lb of fat next to 1 lb of muscle, the size difference is huge (see the image below). Basically, gaining a little bit of muscle can replace the equivalent weight of a bigger amount of fat you might lose, making the scale show you little to no weight you loss or maybe even weight gain. But who cares when you’re looking better and clothes fit better, right?

Fat vs Muscle

Now that you understand this, the weight number you had in mind originally might not be as important now since finally know it is more important to look great and be able to fit in whatever you might have in your closet that you haven’t been able to wear in centuries (ok ok not that long, but you get the point). So finally it is time to work on macros/calories adjustments.

I personally focus on macros and not calories (macros being carbohydrates, proteins and fats by the way). It is very important to know that 1 gram of carbs equals 4 calories, 1 gram of protein equals 4 calories and 1 gram of fat equals 9 calories. Many people use different macro ratios when putting together a meal plan. What can be yours? That’s totally up to you, but some examples are as follows:

C / P / F (carbs / proteins / fats)
35/35/30
40/35/25
40/30/30
30/40/30
35/40/25

Note: these ratios are percentages, not grams.

Now fats aren’t necessarily bad, in fact, they help a lot with metabolism, helping to burn body fat. Crazy, right? The important part is to minimize non-saturated fats and eat the good fats like those that contain Omega-3.

Honestly, you can pick whichever ration you prefer and try it out to see how it works for you, and if it doesn’t, you can always change it. By the way, I don’t want you to assume that whichever you pick will have an effect on you losing body fat faster than with another, remember that your original deficit is what counts towards your weight loss, not your macros ratio. Macro ratio helps with how much protein, carbs and fats you’ll eat and how your energy levels will be affected, since carbs are the energy source, protein your muscle builder and fats helps you boost your metabolism among other benefits.

To use as an example, let’s assume you have to eat 1600 calories a day to lose 1 pound a week, and let’s assume that you chose to eat 40% carbs, 35% protein and 25% fat a day. Now, let’s convert the calories to macros.

1600 multiplied by 0.40 (which is 40%) = 640 calories of carbs
1600 multiplied by 0.35 (which is 35%) = 560 calories of proteins
And for the fats you can either add 640 + 560 = 1200 and then subtract it from 1600 leaving you with 400 calories of fat
or multiply 1600 by 0.25 (which is 25%) = 400 calories of fats

That easy…. Oh wait, there’s more. We now need to figure out how many grams of each you need to eat a day. Well, this is even easier.

640 calories of carb divided by 4 = 160 grams
560 calories of protein divided by 4 = 140 grams
400 calories of fat divided by 9 = 44.4 grams

Now we are getting somewhere. REMEMBER, these are hypothetical numbers assuming your maintenance is 2100 calories a day and you are using a 500 calories deficit, leaving you with 1600 calories a day.

Note: Something I noticed recently, among the many issues MFP has, is that if you multiply your Diary’s total carbs and proteins by 4 and total fats by 9, adding them all to find out the total amount of calories for the day, it is different from the total amount of calories MFP shows in your Diary. The difference is small, but be aware that the calories displayed on MFP are not that accurate.

Note: At some point I had two different MFP accounts. One thing I discovered during that time was, that the nutritional facts from a specific food where different when accessed from each account. Therefore, my advice is to always go for the certified entries (they have a green circle with a check mark next to it), scan your own food’s barcodes, or enter them manually and save them if is a food you eat frequently.

The interesting part is finally here IF this post hasn’t been interesting yet. How many meals, and how much of each macro should you eat per meal?

The options are limitless and I’ll share my experience.

Some people like to split macros equally between each meal you eat, whichever amount of meals you get to eat. It could be 2, 3, 4 or 7 meals a day. Totally up to you.

Some trainers say macro timing is useless, the same as how many meals. Meaning, you can eat once a day, twice a day, 20 times a day and arrange your macros however the hell you want, and you’ll still achieve the same results, since what counts is that you eat your macros goal on a daily basis.

Some other trainers say macro timing is essential to get results and you should be eating at least 4 times a day. So let’s say you eat 6 meals a day, but you’ll need to distribute your macros in a way that your body takes full advantage of the nutrients and that way you’ll achieve the best results.

Which way do I follow? Since I got the best results with macro timing, that’s what I do. Is it really that important? Many people say it is total BS (especially the “know it all” in the MFP forums), but I choose to eat how I prefer based on my previous experience.

While lately I haven’t been super precise about macros distribution, I do follow one rule, the most amount of carbs I eat are distributed mainly before and after my workout. Carbs before working out give me the energy to workout, and after working out because they help with muscle recovery and protein absorption.

So ideally, I should be eating 5 meals a day, where proteins should be divided equally among all meals, carbs for my pre and post workout meal are around 50% total, and the other 50% should be divided between the other 3 meals. Fats should be divided equally between all meals, although I used to eat the least amount of fats with my pre and post workout meals. But that’s if you want to be ridiculously accurate like I was at one point. Now I focus more on the carbs for the pre and post workout and the rest I try to distribute between the other meals trying to keep a balance.

One more thing before I get to the last part of this post (by now you’re thinking, about damn time man, this is longer than a freaking book), I do carb cycling. What that means is, I have days with higher carbs, days with medium carbs, and days with low carbs. What’s the benefit and how do I do it? The benefit is that you should retain more muscle this way or even grow some muscle while losing body fat. Any fitness competitor would tell you carb cycling is one of the best tools they use to keep their gains from going away.

So how do I calculate it? Again, using the example numbers mentioned before, we know 1,600 calories a day is the goal. If we multiply 1600 by 7 (days of the week) we know you would be eating 11,200 calories a week. This number is magical, because no matter how you distribute your calories during the week, if you log your food and keep record of how much you can eat, you’ll always end the week with the same amount. So, when having a high carbs day, you only have those twice a week and leaving at least 2 days in between them. Then you have 5 days to decide which are the 2 days of low carbs and 3 days of medium carbs. How would your days look then?

If a normal day looks like this based on the above calculations
160 grams carbs
140 grams protein
44.4 grams fats

I would have the high day like this
220 grams carbs
140 grams protein
44.4 grams fats

And the low carb day like this
100 grams carbs
140 grams protein
44.4 grams fat

Basically what I did was, I took 60 grams of carbs from a day to make it a low carb day (from 160 grams of carbs to 100 grams) and added it to another day to make it a high carb day. You do this with 2 days, and by the end of the week you’ll still have your 11,200 calories.

Ideally, high carbs day are meant for days you either workout big group of muscles (like legs day or back) or muscles you want to maintain or get them to grow. Low carbs day on the other hand, are either rest days or cardio days, since your energy levels will be lower.

One thing I wanted to mention is, some of you found out about MyFitnessPal via the App Store or Play Store if you use Android. While the app allows you to do many things, I feel like accessing the account via a web browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc), gives you a better display of your food diary, as well as other options like being able to upload a total of 18 photos to your album. So yes, in case you had no idea you could access your account via the browser, you definitely can and I suggest you do check it out.

Last but not least, once you get to calculate your numbers, like I said, don’t focus so much on your scale, but instead on your overall progress. Taking pics of yourself for your own record wearing underwear or swimsuit and measurements once a week is the ideal way to see your progress. Both pictures and measurements are equally important. Also, pick the same day of the week to do this, but avoid taking measurements and pics the day after high carbs, because you will be retaining water for a day after the high carbs day and lead you to think you aren’t getting any progress. So a normal day is more appropriate for that in my opinion. After two weeks, if you see you’re getting a nice progress, you can start reducing 5 grams of carbs from your daily goals for two weeks and then wait another week before you reduce another 5 grams. If the progress is somehow slow, you can reduce 10 grams of carbs one week, stay at that another week, then reduce another 10 grams of carbs, and stay there for another week. The idea is to see how your body reacts to those changes each week until you find what works best for you. Keep in mind you can always revert this changes if you see it didn’t work as you expected.

I want to finish this post with a link to a previous post where I talked about calculating calories and macros. It was written by a user on BodyBuilding.com but since the user doesn’t give permission to copy her post, even if giving her credit for the post, I can only post a link to it.

The article was written by Emma Leigh and it can be found in the following link

Calories and Macro’s

And if you ever have a hard time trying to add food to your MFP diary in a way that your total macros/calories hit your goal, just send me a message, and I’ll explain to you an easy way to achieve this.

It is unfortunate that I cannot give a detailed example of why I am stopping this program by showing you the actual list of the workouts and diet, but I will try to explain the best I can why this program is 100% crap. I’ll try to do this in a short summary below, and then I’ll explain in better detail everything there is wrong about this program.

As I posted yesterday, last week’s training was a very intense, so intense that I honestly said this program wasn’t suited for beginners. From an excessive load of strip-sets to very short breaks between sets, and relatively low caloric days when it came to cardio and days off, plus a ridiculous amount of coffee on a daily basis, made it a tough week even for someone like who spends over an hour a day 6 times a week, lifting heavy all the time and not wasting any time talking or taking extra long breaks. Now, all of the sudden, I start the second week with an increase in macros (or calories if you prefer) in comparison to last week, with a workout that other than the warm up run and push ups, I didn’t get a drop of sweat out of my body. We’re talking about a one set per exercise with very few exercises in general. To explain better how different this workout was compared to last week’s workouts, is like comparing a marathon to a 5k race. So for anyone to tell me, this kind of plan can get someone ripped with a muscular body in 45 days, is the biggest lie anyone could ever say, leading me to the conclusion that MP45 is one of the biggest scams every created.

If after reading this short summary you still feel like reading more of what I have to say, then feel free to continue reading below, otherwise, by now you should already know is not worth it spending a minute of your life reading anything related this program. You’ll do 110% better watching youtube workout videos and getting a gym membership than dedicating any of your time to MP45.

Anyone with a little knowledge about how muscles work is aware that in order to make a muscle grow you need two things, eat and lift, and by lift I mean lifting enough weights to put stress on the muscle fiber which will cause macro-tears on that will lead the muscle to grow in size and strength. Of course, you can do this the right way (minimizing the amount of body fat you gain along the process) or the wrong way (increasing your body far tremendously along the way). Similar concept applies to body fat loss. With proper eating and exercising you will lose body fat, but just like with gaining muscle, you can lose more body fat than muscle or lose a lot of muscle along the way, depending on how you eat and exercise. Anyone that spends lots of hours a week at the gym trying to gain muscle knows how hard that is and how horrible is the experience to lose muscle because of a poor diet and exercise plan. So far MP45 has demonstrated to me that it is a bad plan that will make anyone who has worked hard for their muscles lose their gains and those without much muscle won’t gain any at all.

For a workout plan to put me through a day of exercises that literally didn’t get my muscles exhausted, burning, feeling a “pump” and sweating like I always do, that says a lot about how bad this plan is. And believe me, this wasn’t because of me not giving 100% of me or using enough weight. One exercise of one set only for back, chest and shoulders is not going to make absolutely anyone lose body fat or gain any muscle ever, especially when the total amount of calories today is even higher than during last week’s excessive lifting. And while earlier today after I finished the workout, I refused to even look at what was due for tomorrow, I just did and is exactly the same thing than today. A couple of warm up sets followed by 1 set for the lower body, that includes 4 weights exercises and some body weight squats and lunges. Not to mention Wednesday is rest day. What in the world…..?

I have tried many programs since I got into fitness, some made by companies like BeachBody, other programs made my trainers, and even some by online fitness celebrities, and in all the years I have been trying programs, I’ve never come across with such a horrible workout program. This is literally the first time I have stopped using a fitness program ever, and on top of that only after a week of doing it. When I started this program I was already convinced it was a scam based on the claims of getting results that usually take months, and sometimes over a year to achieve. In fact, the reason that got me into trying the program was because of this false claims. The one thing I didn’t know was how bad this program really is, starting with the absolutely horrible grammar and layout. It feels like the person putting it together at times was thinking of one exercise when he was supposed to write another exercise, making it very hard to understand the exercise flow. And last but not least, the PDF files have a LOT of pages, which means you’ll spend a lot of time reading explanations about so many things that in my opinion are trying to create this image on the reader’s mind that this program is the best in the world by following all this scientific explanations when the reality they’re just justifying the $97 dollars the reader just paid.

Conclusion: Do NOT spend a dime or waste your time in this program even if you get it for free from a friend. It won’t provide you with any benefit whatsoever. Any of those muscular people posting pictures of them wearing MP45 gear and claiming their looks are thanks to that program are lying and getting paid to attract people to buy the program through the affiliate program MP45 offers.

Is this how I look after completing one week of MP45? By the end of this post you’ll know whether or not that’s the case.

This is my first official review of the MP45 fitness program after one week of following both the exercises routines and meal plan. The workout plan doesn’t get any easy, although I’m disappointed at the description of phase 1 of getting acclimated by the creator of this plan when stating “focusing on full body workouts 3 times during the week plus 2 cardio workouts on different days”. My main issue with this, being someone who has been working out for a while, is the lack of focus on muscle groups. I’m a huge fan of giving each muscle group plenty of attention, especially working my shoulders a lot since they are muscles I’m trying to develop more, but for now I’ve been limited to what the program suggests. As part of my review I have to stick to the plan, even if I would prefer to be doing a wider variety of exercises and targeting muscle groups directly. But in order to be accurate and prove this plan can’t give the results they claim, I have to just go with he flow.

So, what other issues I have encountered with the program? When it comes to the PDF, it is very poorly written. There are instructions that make no sense at all. For instance, one of the instructions seems to ask to increase weight on each set after already fatiguing your muscle on the previous set, making it absolutely impossible to increase the weight. Now, this is an assumption because the note is absolutely confusing. I even asked a friend to help me decipher the instructions and she agreed with me it is far from being clear and possible indicated what I assumed. Also, in various occasions the plan indicates to do warm up sets for an exercise (legs exercise), but right after tells you to do a different exercise (arms exercise). Or to warm up for a muscle group and then describe the exercises you already did for another muscle group. Kind of insane if you ask me. 

When it comes to meals, sometimes the plan asks you to eat 8 times a day, while others you have 6 meals… if you can describe a small amount of protein with water as a meal. The amount of coffee suggested to drink is ridiculous, especially for someone who doesn’t drink coffee like myself (Wait, what? You don’t drink coffee? What a weirdo).

In general, and as I mentioned on my previous post, this isn’t a program for beginners. I guarantee you if you do this program without previous muscle conditioning, you will either be sore for weeks, or you won’t be able to finish a full workout if you really push yourself to meet the reps and sets goals.

So, what’s the MY plan then? The plan is to weight and measure myself by the end of each week plus take daily pictures (which by the end of the week I realized this is tiring and totally a waste of time, not only because those daily transformation people are showing are not real, but also because once a week is more than enough to show results if they happen), to track the progress. Things I will be looking for are body composition changes, including increase or decrease of muscle mass, body fat, and weight (this one is kind of irrelevant). Muscle and body fat are the two main factors I’ll be paying attention to very closely, mainly because I will hate if I lose muscle volume because of a program with a poor meal plan (not saying that’s the case YET) that doesn’t go hand to hand with the amount of exercises that need to be done. And of course, body fat because as expected, it needs to decrease (supposedly in 45 days you’ll go from being a Sumo Wrestler to a Lazar Angelov physique).

In any case, here are small reviews of how each day went for me during this past week.

Day 1- As mentioned before, while I’ve been working out for a while (even if my current pictures makes you think I haven’t), I don’t consider this program to be beginner friendly. The level of intensity, if each set is done properly, looking for failure, is very intense. Also, even when timing the breaks betweens sets and exercises, it was literally impossible to finish the workout in one hour.

Day 2- A cardio based workout with lots and lots of running. This could be a major issue for those who either have bad knees or don’t run at all. I got to the point my left knee was bothering me a little. I was able to finish the workout, but I see myself looking for an alternative. Either running for warm up and then replace the actual running workout with elliptical or other form of cardio, or I’ll have to see what can I do to get to run without having my knees get affected.

Day 3- This workout was a little harder than Day 1 considering the fact the break time between sets was 45 seconds. The amount of exercises is just ridiculous. More exercises have been added to the routine which extended the total length of the workout to over 2:30 hours.

Day 4- Rest day. Very much appreciated and nothing to talk about here. I’m not sore because prior to beginning this program I was already lifting a lot. BUT since I’m not a runner, my tibialis anterior and probably the fibularis brevis are kind of sore.

Day 5- Today’s workout proved to me that whoever put together this workout is out of his f*cking mind and those who have posted reviews praising this program as the best world are 110% full of S…. Now, why do I say that? Because who in their right mind would think it is healthy or productive at all a workout that asks you to do a full body workout where all sets are strip-sets (more than 3 times dropping weights), looking for failure reps each time and only getting 30 seconds break in between sets, and I’m not talking about 30 seconds break between dropping weight, that only takes a couple of seconds when changing weight using the machines, I’m talking in between each full strip-set. Not only this is definitely NOT beginner friendly, but also, even for those who lift weight regularly like myself (6 times a week), it is absolutely insane. I can’t talk for professional athletes, but if I had to guess, this kind of workout would be more like what they would do. Therefore, today’s workout has been crowned the King of the ________ (choose any of the following: impossible, puking, passing out, stupid, crazy ass, idiotic, wtf) workout. Thank you very much.

Day 6- Today was pretty much a mess if you ask me. Low calories was already giving me a slight headache, add to that a cardio session, of course it would be kind of hellish. I was hungry the whole day and in my own personal opinion, calories were too low for my body weight/composition.

Day 7- Rest day. Once again, very appreciated but looking forward to the new phase tomorrow to see what’s next with this program.

PROGRESS

Below you can see my pictures, taken everyday in the morning before drinking any water or eating any food. Underneath you can see the pictures of one of the people who claim drastic changes in just one week. Which changes do you think are more realistic?

And last but not least, at the end of this post you can find the measurements taken before and after this week doing MP45. So, go ahead and be the judge and leave any comments if you’d like.

MP45 Week 1 Progress Pictures

NOTE: The following pictures are what this guy claims to be his progress in one week. Obviously, there are more than a few things wrong about the pictures, besides the fact this is definitely not a one week progress. Posture is a big issue in these pictures. He seems to be pushing his stomach out on the first and second picture. shoulders forward and kind of curved back, as he takes the other pictures he contracts the abdomen giving the impression of losing the belly, pulls the shoulders back and gets a more straight posture, all giving the impression of a transformation that anyone would love to have if this was possible to achieve in one week.

MY STATS

Note: My initial weight of 196.6 lbs might have been affected by the fact the two previous days my diet was kind of high in carbs, which of course causes water retention, so the whole 6.2 lbs drop in one week has to be wrong considering it surely has to do with water.

In conclusion, the only thing that me and the picture at the beginning of this blog have in common is how I feel on this low caloric days and how ridiculous is the working out with 30 seconds break between strip down sets.

Update: See my final review for this program >>HERE<< and why I truly believe this program is a scam.

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