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 fact that phase 1, described as getting acclimated by the creator of this plan, 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<<

#MP45 #MP45review #MP45reviews #MP45workout #MP45workoutreview #MP45workoutpdf #MP45pdf

How was my first impression in regards to the workout. While I had already written down on my notepad each set I needed to do, so when the time came I only had to write the weight and reps information along with any notes for future reference, I didn’t realize how intense the workout was going to be. Personally, I truly believe this program is really not beginner friendly. Let’s just say that even if a beginner was to use light weights, enough to achieve failure or a max amount of reps as stated on the program, they would probably end up light headed, throwing up or running out of energy before the workout is over.

The program claims that it should be completed in about an hour or so, and even though I timed my breaks between sets and exercises, it took me a little over 2 hours from beginning to end (I use an app to calculate my calories burned which I turn on as soon as I start working out and turn it off when I’m done). The intensity is really high. Each exercise during this first workout consisted of strip-sets, which by the end of each set your muscles were already hitting failure, which was the goal by the way.

There’s also a lot of running, which I think could be a major issue for those with bad knees or other health issues that running can be a problem. I’m guessing other alternatives could be used, like the elliptical or any other form of cardiovascular exercises.

In general, the workout really made me sweat, feel sore, and was completely different from what I’m used to, but again, I truly believe this isn’t beginner friendly. This first day was serious when it comes to intensity and even if a beginner finishes the workout, I suspect the DOMS will be an issue a day or two after the workout. The meal plan has kept me from feeling hungry, which is a good thing, but nothing I can really talk about until the end of the week where I’ll have studied how my body reacts to this plan. Until then, keep working out and bring the beast in you!

MP45? What is that thing? Well, in case you haven’t been paying attention to the internet ads, Facebook fitness groups, and Google results for best fitness programs, MP45 seems to be the newest and “hottest” workout system where some people are claiming these amazing results in just 45 days. Yes, you read that right, only 45 days. Of course, me being me, I already have an opinion about this program based on the pictures I have seen and the blogs I’ve kind of over read when looking for reviews. Personally I believe this whole 45 days transformation claims are total BULLSHIT with capital letters. Yes, I don’t care what anyone says, 45 days to go from obese to rip with ridiculous abs and a decent amount of muscle mass? Seriously, GTFO!

I follow online many professional athletes, people who compete in fitness contests, people who are professionals, people who are knowledgeable, people who either have years of experience or have spent months and years (not a weekend taking a seminar to get a certification that allows you to become a leader of a cult… oops), and absolutely no one will come up with such a ridiculous claim that they can turn anyone into a fitness looking freak in just 45 days. I’ve done P90X in the past, a super intense fitness program and while I have achieved amazing results in just 90 days, not even those who do P90X (except for a few bullshitters who want to fool people into joining their coaching teams) will claim such a drastic transformation unless they have done the program more than once.

SO…. what am I going to do about it besides calling it bullshit. Well, considering that not only I truly believe those people who show the 45 transformation didn’t get such results in just 45 days, but also are probably paid by the owner of the program, since they offer people to become affiliates, I decided I will do this program, committing myself 100% to the nutrition plan and workout split (like I have before with other programs), and give a complete accurate and honest review of the program.

Because I’m currently 3 weeks away of finishing the current program I’m doing (my diet has been crap, which in a way is great so I don’t have the best body/muscle definition by when I’m done with the program), on March 7 I will officially start MP45 and take a picture on a daily basis for my weekly review of the program, which will take about 6 weeks to finish? Somewhere around that. So I’m really hoping the creator of this program somehow discovered the magical workout plan that belonged to Merlin, and makes me eat my own words.

Keep tune for more on March 7

I think most people who want to become active find it pretty boring to go walking or running on the streets. While in Miami we don’t have many areas to go hiking (let’s ignore the Everglades where you can either get eaten by an alligator, a snake or mosquitos) like probably people in North Florida do, we do have some nice parks available. Still, walking could be considered a boring activity. Imagine driving 30 or 40 minutes to one of these parks just to walk for an hour and then drive back home. Well, the good news is, you could always get yourself a mountain bike and visit the trails like the one in Virginia Key.

I must admit that, while I didn’t have the courage to throw myself down from some of the obstacles, I did enjoy the whole trail and found it pretty challenging at times, which is great if you want to burn some good calories. For instance, it took me 1:30 hour to ride 2.06 miles (breaks included) and I burned a total of 1,240 calories. For me, that is definitely a good burn.

My goals now are to visit the Amelia Park next weekend, then the Oleta River Park trail and eventually the Marco Island trail. Somehow I have the feeling I will become kind of addicted to mountain biking and I will be planning a ride each weekend, unless I end up getting a kayak and I start enjoying the ocean as well.

In any case, I highly recommend anyone living in Miami or South Florida to get yourself a mountain bike and start enjoying the trails we have available, since we don’t have mountains to explorer.

While the answer could be narrowed to two very simple facts, I would dare to say it goes beyond those two reasons, but for the purpose of this blog and to avoid getting into a ridiculously long post, I’ll stick with those two, which are diet and health.

I’ve been following Josef Rakich on Instagram which got me into trying his program. I mean, considering the price and pictures of those who have tried his program, I dare to say there really wasn’t much to lose.

So, is it really worth it? That’s the question that brought you here, and here’s my answer.

IF you are one of the many people out there overwhelmed with the amount of information online where every “expert” says a different thing and you feel like you’re walking around in circles without getting any solid information or getting any results, the answer is yes. Just like I’d say yes to P90X, Insanity, the Jillian Michaels DVDs you can by at your local Walmart, etc.

IF you are looking to get your fitness to a new level, and maybe achieve the looks of those people who apparently have tried his program and look amazing? I would say you should probably look somewhere else for a different plan. And here’s why. While you will get results, there’s no question about it, based on my experience with other plans I’ve done, there are two major factors in this equation that I don’t like.

1- The workout plans are exactly the same for the most part during the 3 months of training. The one thing that changes is the amount of reps/sets. I even went from the lean option to the bulk option and the workout plan was exactly the same. Now, I personally get bored easily of the same routines after a few weeks of doing them. I usually change them between 4 and 6 weeks. With this plan, you go will stick to the same plan with no changes. Is this a bad thing? I’d say YES. Forgetting about boredom or hitting a plateau, there’s never a personalized assessment where Josef or anyone working for him looks at your pics and says, hey, you seem to be lacking of shoulder mass, or chest, so we’ll make the program for you to develop those muscles you’re lacking a little more to get you to a proportionate look. That right there is not a good thing.

2- The diet plan gives you the option to select which kind of foods you don’t like to eat. That is a good thing, the same way they provide you with how much of each food to eat per meal and the total amount of macros per meal. So far so good, BUT, anyone who knows how fitness works knows, food is the most important part of how your body composition will be affected with the exercises you do. So what I found with the meal plan is, as closed as I followed the meal plan, my body didn’t change as expected. Now, I’m not saying the meal plan is badly designed, I just believe it is a little generic in the sense, from previous experiences, based on my fitness goals, there were modifications and certain adjustments made to the plan in order to achieve the desired goals.

So in conclusion, when doing both the lean and bulk plan, I felt there was something missing with the meals, something to get better results, and the workouts got me bored even if with some exercises I got strong and with others I got better. It was the lack of variety and change that got me bored of this plan.

At the end, my results didn’t match any of those who claim they got amazing results in the 90 days. Was it my fault? I’m not sure. I dare to say it wasn’t, but who really knows.

Left home at 4am to drive up to Tampa, with enough time to get ready for the race, including setting up my GoPro camera. Temperature was around 42º by the time my race was about to start, which is not a big deal, but when you’re about to run and most probably jump in cold water, it becomes one of those “oh crap, this is going to be fun…. not” moments.

Overall, I thought the race was tougher than my Super race from last year, but I think two main factors that got me to this realization has to do with to very specific issues. The first one, right at the beginning of the race, during the second obstacle, while helping a lady jump over the wooden obstacle, the force she applied in order to reach the top wasn’t downwards but find of forward, literally throwing me to the floor and hitting my knee and wrist against the concrete floor. Although my knee hurt just at that moment, my wrist was the one with more damage, which became worse as I had to keep using my hand throughout the race. The pain became excruciating and there was nothing I could do about it… because I wasn’t going to quit and I wasn’t going to do 30 burpees just to skip each obstacle. The second issue was the amount of stairs we had to climb during 75 to 80 percent of the race. I’ve never in my life climbed so many stairs before in a single day.

I’ll be honest, while I enjoy helping others to overcome obstacles, that initial injury that cost me having to deal with so much pain and ending up not being able to use my hand for a week after the race, taught me that not always I can sacrifice myself for those around me, especially during a race. The worse that can happen during a Spartan race is, that if you can’t complete an obstacle, you’ll have to do 30 burpees, and even then you’re getting something physically positive out of it.

My goal now is to prepare and focus for next year’s Beast race, which most probably will be in Atlanta, and for once I will try to focus on timing other than recording videos with my GoPro. This along with a Tough Mudder race and smaller obstacle races will keep me busy for a while when it comes about outdoors physical activities.

As mentioned before, Shortcut to Shred seemed to be a promising solution to cut down or shred body fat. The concept, which is mainly based on reducing carbohydrates during a 3 phase setting, puts you on a caloric deficit, which one way or another would make anyone lose weight. Of course, the main goal is to lose body fat and little to no muscle mass, but this is where it gets tricky.

My Experience
I have to admit that, as much as I tried to stick as close as possible to the macros, I found it pretty hard to reach the amount of fats I needed to eat without affecting the protein and carbs quantities. It could have been easy to just add a spoon or two of olive or coconut oil to my meals, but I wasn’t a big fan of that idea. So other than the fats (which make for a lot of calories) I was pretty accurate with the rest of my macros.

During phase one, the amount of carbs gave me plenty of energy, not only to do the exercises in between each set, but also to lift very heavy. During phase one and two I was able to achieve new personal goals, lifting up to 315 lbs on my deadlifts, and over 800 lbs on legs press, but the motivation and happiness didn’t last long. Phase three requires to eat one third of the initial amount of carbs eaten during phase one. This, for anyone familiar of how important carbs are for energy purposes, was a major hit on my performance. My energy levels dropped dramatically affecting my workouts from the amount of weight lifted to the amount of reps, and in some cases sets. Forcing myself to reach the amount of weights I was used to lift during phase one and two became a painful experience realizing my body wasn’t capable of performing the same way without enough carbs.

One major problem with this program, and personally my biggest concern is, that while my body fat percentage dropped, I lost muscle mass during the time I did this program. This, is the one thing those of us who worked really hard for will want to avoid at all cost. I personally blame it on the constant low carbs during the third phase of the program. I think if at least there would have been some kind of cycling, it would have been the best option, not only to keep the energy and strength, but also to retain muscle mass.

Conclusion
If you are looking to drop weight, mainly from fat, but also sacrifice some muscle along the process, this program will probably be a great option. You’ll have to be mentally strong to fight the lack of desire to do cardio in between sets, especially during phase three. One thing is for sure, I wouldn’t try to do this program again, even if I was in a hurry to lose body fat in a short period of time, not unless phase three had me eating more carbohydrates.

Progress

During week three my body embraced the strength phase incredibly. During the first three days of the week, the reps goal was to stay between 2 and 5 reps per set, which allowed me to Military Shoulder Press 170 lbs, Squat 270 lbs and Deadlift 315 lbs. All of these I did without feeling out of energy after each set, but on the contrary, I was feeling super pumped to continue to the following set. My Cardio Acceleration sets didn’t affect my performance at all. In my opinion Week 3 was a major success.

Week 4, on the other hand, was kind of a disaster. The reason why is because of the drop on carbohydrates. Going from 1 gram of carbs per body weight pound to 0.5 gram makes a huge difference. The first two days were literally horrible. Deadlifting 275 lb and squatting 180 lbs felt almost impossible to do. My energy levels were super low during the whole day and my workouts weren’t as good as I wish they had been. In many occasions I had to skip the Cardio Acceleration sets because I just didn’t have the energy. By the end of the week my body was already adapting to this lack of carbs, and while I still don’t feel I have the energy I had during Week 3, at least I was able to do better than at the beginning of the week.

I’m positive I have lost certain amount of muscle mass, but for sure I have lost a lot of body fat, as you will see on the pictures below. Tomorrow, is the first day of Week 5, and the macronutrients adjustment wasn’t too big.

This is how my macros look, including how they were during Week 3

These are my current results

The following is a video of me deadlifting the 315 lbs and at the end of this post you can see my progress pictures, showing much better abdominal definition by the end of Week 4.