Blasting Away The Debris

The road to Stereo is most definitely on track. In keeping with the sculpting metaphor I am burning the fat, or the debris away at a good rate which will allow for a more workable surface to start working on the specific details. So far my plan of the first month focusing on adding muscle mass seems to be paying dividends. I am stripping away 1-2 kilograms a week. This is the generally accepted "safe" weight-loss level and in line with my focus it means that the majority of weight loss is in actual fat and not muscle mass. My idea behind adding muscle first is that I am replacing a non-metabolically active tissue (adipose or fat) with a metabolically active tissue (muscle). This will aid in the next stages of the Sculpting process as I will have a high functioning metabolism and will not have to rely on extra cardio to continue to drop body fat. Funnily enough I am dropping fat at a higher rate doing the heavy workouts than I was doing large sessions of cardio with weights tossed in as an after thought. This could be due to a number of factors - perhaps the calorie consumption of excessive cardio led to increased food intake negating the calorie deficiet. Or maybe the change in activity has sparked my metabolism and fat-burning molecules. Both are possible or maybe simply because my diet and exercise attrition is much more improved now then when I was doing heavy cardio. Probably more likely.

I am tearing the gym up, making large gains on numerous exercises each session. Based on past experience and some guesstimation I think I will start to plateau at roughly the same time I travel to New Zealand, the week I planned to analyse how I am going and make any changes to beat said plateau. This is great news and will play into my hands excellently. Full tilt towards Stereo!

Lets Get Sculptin'

Welcome all to my blog about my journey from a fit but flabby person to a shredded sculpture of human persistence for a summer music festival. I have given myself 14 weeks to prep for the festival and while the timing will be tight I believe it is doable and it will at least get me close to sculpture proportions.

This journey is the final chapter in a longer journey on my main blog, Awkward 2 Alpha charting my pathway from a shy, fat guy to a super-confident, shredded monstAr. It has been a long, hard road filled with trials, tribulations but mostly self-improvement and garnering of mental fortitude and self belief.

Behind and deeper to my motivation to get ripped for this festival is a desire to create a career in the fitness industry and getting such a body simply opens up all kinds of doors to create a group of followers, friends, money. Just look at the inspiration for this whole process, Zyzz. A skinny kid turned God (he claimed to be son of Zeus, haha) he developed a campaign via social media that inspired others and created a stream of income for himself and his mates. Possesing such a body simply puts things in motion for a succesfull and fulfilling life. Lets start pushing that snowball.

Now for the more specifics. I still have a high body fat percentage (~25%) and my aim is to get that down to double digits to really make all my muscles pop. To do this the first 5-6 weeks I am going to focus on laying down some large slabs of fat-burning muscle to really attack the metabolisim and make sure I have some muscle to show off. The middle period of 4-5 weeks I will probably drop the weights back to 3/week, whole body routines while increasing my cardio to start dropping fat fast. I will eventually return to the sport of triathlon so this gives me a great excuse to start smashing out the cardio. The final 3-4 weeks I will focus on cutting and getting everything in proportion so this means I will analysis where I am at and then make up a plan of attack to ensure maximum shreddedness.

Throughout this whole journey diet is still at the end of the day the key. As such it will be my predominant focus for the entire 14 weeks as this is where the most of my gains in muscle and losses in fat will come from. As with the exercise plan I will constantly be analysing it and tinkering with it when I deem it necessary. Here is my current meal plan:

Breakfast: instant oats, skim milk, piece fruit

Mid Morning Snack: piece fruit, protein shake

Lunch: 8 vita wheat crackers, can tuna, serve salad

Mid Afternoon Snack: piece fruit, protein shake

Dinner: Small serve of Grandma's cooking focusing on low serve carbs.

Pre-Workout: Jack3d (excellent supplement, increases your focus and energy while not being overstimulating)

Post-Workout: Protein Shake

Along with this I also will drink green tea (to fire up my metabolism), black coffee (caffeine hit essential for Uni student), "Zero" softdrinks (for a sweetness hit without damaging sugar overload. All up this is about between 1500-2000 calories a pretty good range for my target considering my exercise load. Like I said I will be seeing how this goes and if anything needs to change I will put it up on the blog.

For all this hard work, improve my motivation and also to look killer the final week before the festival will be somewhat of a Transformation week. This means treating my self to tanning, waxing, getting a killer hair cut, grabbing some fresh new clothes (ones that actually fit) and if I am really successful I will get my first tattoo done. However to get the tattoo done I need to be at 10% or less body fat as this was a goal set long ago. Looking forward to that week!

Ok so there it is, my plan, inspiration and my rewards. Now to get down to business. To see my progress day to day check out my Awkward 2 Alpha blog. I will post up as much as I can to this page also obviously to keep everyone in the loop. Now Lets Get Sculptin'