Wanna get in shape? Options

[Existentialist]

Dear Fellow Fans,
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It's been an interesting one for sure and I'm thankful that this board is still alive and well. Cheers!

This year, starting Thursday, January 6, 2011, I am going to embark on the most challenging physical fitness quest of my life. This is a 4 month program designed to end on May 7, 2011, one week prior to my graduating with an MD. The motivation for this program is partially for my own health benefit and partially as a test for a potential future application in athletic training.

I hope that at least one other person on this site will join me in this 4 month program. In order to participate, you must be willing to do the following. 1: You MUST adhere to a very strict diet that is somewhat restrictive and in all likelihood completely unlike any diet you've tried before. There will be times you find the diet hard to adhere to, it will absolutely limit your ability to eat at restaurants, it may be a bit expensive at times, and it will require you to eat 5-6 times per day. The diet is really the test here, so I really want participants who are willing to follow the diet as closely as possible. 2: You MUST adhere to a strict exercise regimen that requires a time commitment of 2 hours each day for 5 days per week. I will custom design an exercise program for every participant based on what exercise equipment, if any, you have available to you. Preferably, participants will have regular access to free weights, a bench press and a power rack. These are not essential, though, especially for women. Whatever you have will work, but you have to stick to the program I design for you. 3: You MUST be willing to document your progress and share them with me, either privately via the PM service, or preferably, publicly in this thread. If at least one other user agrees to share their progress publicly in this thread, I will do the same. Documentation includes the following: a simple "yes or no" to whether you stuck to the diet and exercise program, if the answer was "no," what exactly you did that was not a part of the program, a weekly weigh-in at the same scale (and I WILL accept substitutions for absolute numbers - such as initial weight is X, at week 2 the weight is X minus 4 pounds), and a weekly photograph in modest clothing (and you obviously may black out your face).

Other than those requirements, anyone and everyone can participate. Although this is a strict program, it is something that everyone can do regardless of prior fitness experience, body shape, weight, etc. Anyone can do this, but you have to be committed.

What is the goal of this program? Remember, this is a test of something I have concocted based on tons of reading scientific literature, so I can't make any promises about results. However, I have a very good, evidence-based idea that this program will, for men, cause you to get dramatically stronger in all your lifts and drastically reduce your body fat, and for women, drastically reduce your body fat and get much better muscle tone and definition. Case in point: I am currently 6'4" and weigh 210 pounds and while I am in good physical shape, I am far from being "shredded" or looking like a really strong guy. By the end of this program, I fully anticipate I will fit both those descriptions.

On January 5th, the day before the program begins, I will post the exact guidelines of the program. Any time between now and then, please reply if you are interested, or if you have any questions before we begin. Trust me, this is gonna be fun and I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to work big time and you will look and feel the best you've ever felt in your life. New Years resolution anyone? Join me!

This post has been edited by Existentialist: Dec 25 2010, 1:49 am

[Existentialist]

I'll give some details now. The goal of the program for me is to simultaneously add about 10-15 pounds of muscle and lose about 10 pounds of fat in a 4 month period. This is an exceptionally lofty goal, could be achieved only by a male and I believe only by a male taking certain supplements. It requires complete dedication with a carefully planned diet, exercise routine and supplementation.

I realize that probably nobody on this board has the same goal as me, and I will not post anything about said supplementation because it's not advisable. However, with the diet and exercise alone, people will see great results, I just want to see exactly how great they are and how they came to be. The diet and exercise plans are modifiable to some degree depending on your goals. If you guys send me what exactly your goals are, even if very general, I can put something together for you that still fits within the main tenets of my program.

The main tenets are as follows. The diet is a slightly modified version of carb cycling, which essentially aims to keep insulin sensitivity at an optimal level at all times. To do the diet properly, you essentially keep repeating a 3 day schedule of high carb day, low carb day, and no carb day. The trick is that at all times, carbs can come only from approved sources, which are foods like brown rice and oats, and that even on "high" carb day, carbs are restricted to an amount less than what an average American probably eats on an average day. The biggest drawbacks are that this diet will essentially force you to prepare all your meals yourself, and if you cheat the diet at all, you will risk undoing all of your work for that week.

The exercise is just as rigorous. If you have free weights, you'll be lifting 4 days a week for a minimum of 45 minutes per day. If you don't have free weights, you'll be spending the same amount of time doing intense body weight resistance exercises like push ups and pull ups. In addition to the strength training, you'll have to do HIIT, or high intensity interval training 4 times per week. This workout changes every single time you do it, but generally involves alternating maximal cardio exertion for 30 seconds with minimal cardio exertion for 30 seconds, for a total of about 20 minutes.

I know this all sounds extreme, and it is, but truly this is what it takes to achieve the goals I've set. If you have lesser goals, I will design a simpler program for you that follows these principles but requires less commitment. However, even with lesser commitment this is going to be hard. Any takers? I promise this'll be fun. Challenging, yeah, but the results will more than pay for it.