Posts Tagged ‘getting fit’

A while back I came up with a challenge to get in shape. I made a couple of updates, but then stopped updating altogether. So what happened?

A couple of things, but the biggest one was illness. This year has been especially cold here where I am at and I think it led to me getting sick. I ended up catching a couple of colds as well as some kind of throat infection that gave me a high temperature. Hard to exercise and take pictures when I can’t get out of bed. I also had to reformat my computer and may have lost the pictures I had taken for the first couple of weeks. I’ll have to check.

The weather has finally warmed up here, but now we are in rainy season. So instead of swimming at the beach, I have been working on my car, a 1999 Miata. My most recent thing was to install a Sparco racing seat for more support. You can check it out here if you are interested.

At this point I will be updating this site much more often. I am also planning to make some videos of the island once this weather clears up.

The point of this challenge was to get a toned body in 30 days. While 30 days will technically be up next Monday, two of the 4 days are rest days and so there will not likely be much of a change. I will continue on exercise for those two days and post a final picture. I will also give a review of the Truth About Abs program I have used to achieve my results. However, since today is the end of the fourth week with only two rest days and two workout days left, the results shouldn’t change much. So before I go into anymore about the last four weeks, here are the pictures.

In the last picture I have definitely put on more muscle mass and lost fat weight, but I am also slightly more tan which may be a little misleading. This wasn’t intentional, but something that happened since we had great weather earlier this week and I went snorkeling. Also, note that the number refers to the number of days exercised, and not the total number of days passed since day one.

Overall this project has been a lot of fun. It was by no means easy (especially in the first week), but the fact that I had declared publicly that I would do it made it easier to complete. So what are the results? Was I able to get toned in 30 days?

The Results

I pictures posted above a a good representation of my progress after 20 days, approximately 15-17 hours of exercise time. I increased the size of my muscles and also lost some body fat. While I wasn’t able to get to the level of the picture I posted on the first day, I did see increased tone in my abs and in my chest. I am also proud of the fact that I as able to make these changes without any expensive equipment.

What the pictures don’t show is the overall increase in my strength and energy. While the point of this challenge was to see if I could increase my body aesthetically, the real benefits were in my health. Building up my core muscles gave me much better balance and took away most of the pain I had from previous injuries. The increased physical exercise also helped me sleep better.

It is possible to greatly improve your physical condition in 30 days without spending too much time exercising or changing your diet. Doing the right exercises, in the right way really helped me get in better shape. If you want to go for that really cut figure, then you you will probably need to do some intensive exercises in addition to the right diet.

Better Results

Since I made no changes to my diet and limited the amount of time I could train, I am happy with my results. However, I think I could have had even better results had I followed the diet, fat burning tips, and some of the additional exercises in The Truth About Abs program. The program is very comprehensive covering the exercises, the amount reps, and the diet. I think I would have seen more improvement had I followed them better.

As I mentioned I didn’t change my diet at all. While it wasn’t unhealthy,  skipping the sweets and  ice cream probably would have helped. It would have also helped to eat foods to support muscle growth. All this information was in the program. I just couldn’t use it because of the guidelines I had set for the challenge.

What Now?

I will still complete the last two days next week and post pictures once the full 30 days is up. Once the thirty days is over, I am planning to follow the program more closely as well as use the diet. Though this won’t be a main focus for the blog anymore, I will still occasionally post my progress.