Setting Goals – Not just for the New Year

As one door closes another door opens

As I come to the end of my current Tapout XT journey I find myself a bit lost in the wilderness in terms of where to turn next. I have 3 weeks left to achieve my goals with Tapout and have realised that my body has achieved a new ‘set point’ of around 175-177lb and 12% body fat. Now I truly believe that I have all my ‘ducks in a row’ for my nutrition, I have a healthy sustainable balance between fitness and everyday life and am happy with where I am right now. So why the lost part you may be thinking.

For me this has always been about seeing what I can achieve and proving -to myself mostly- that my thoughts and theories about health and fitness hold true. I am still moving towards being involved in the health and fitness industry full-time and when I reach that goal I want to have lived it in myself first, ironed out all the bugs and have a good solid foundation to build my ’empire’ on.

Now I can continue on my current path and would continue I am sure to make progress but I feel I have reached the point of diminished gains in terms of my training in particular, so it’s time to shake things up. Also if I want to be a well-rounded trainer then I need to be able to help people gain muscle not just lose fat.

With all this in mind I’ve decided to re-evaluate my current goals, or to be more accurate the focus of these goals. I had played with the idea of doing a mass gain protocol. fortunately I am in an amazing Facebook group called ‘Team Immortal’ which is full of like-minded people with a whole raft of different goals and abilities. Even more fortunate is the fact that a number of the folk in there are planning on starting a 4 week Mass gain protocol called DTP (Dynamic Transformation Principle) so I decided the timing was perfect and I’d jump straight in.

Careful What you wish for

I decided to give one of the sessions a go early and picked legs, it was an amazing workout but destroyed my legs to the point where I couldn’t walk properly for the next 2 days and stairs where a no go.

Whilst limping around the house I grew to realise that whilst I know this is a brilliant program that will definitely work I have a complete lack of weight lifting experience and pending Spartan Beast Race, 25km’s of muddy obstacle racing, it was perhaps a bit to hardcore a plan for me.

I had however caught the lifting bug and have decided to start the BeachBody Body Beast program once I finish Tapout and have completed the Spartan Beast on the 18th of November. Until then I will be doing a combination of the 2 mixed with some of my own sessions to prepare me for the race as this has been my ‘A’ race all year and everything has built to this.

So there we go from the 19th November I will be fully committed to completing the Body Beast  program which should take me to the 17th Feb which will lead nicely into the Silverstone Half Marathon on 3rd March.  With this in mind I intend to complete approximately 3 cardio conditioning sessions per week to maintain my fitness levels, these will be my usual mix of running, sprints, and gym sessions.

80% Nutrition

What to eat/how to eat. People who know me know that I believe in a natural real food approach to nutrition, I favour a Paleo approach but with added starchy veg and dairy. I also use intermittent fasting as a rule, but tend to eat when I’m hungry.

I’ve been doing a bit of research into Carb Backloading but from what I can understand with my limited knowledge it is best suited to training in the evening which just isnt for me, however, I do like the principles and will use a kind of mix of Martin Berkhan’ LeanGains intermittent fasting with the carb backloading(ish)

How does that look? Well I’ll be doing my cardio conditioning sessions first thing in the morning and fasted apart from BCAA’s. I will then remain fasted until I complete my Weight session 12-1pm, immediately following this I’ll chug down a big protein/Carb shake, as I can’t stomach much more for an hour or so post workout, I’ll then start eating with a Carb laden meal (sweet potatoes usually) at around 3pm and will return to low carb for the remainder of the day. I’m aiming for around 2500-3000Kcal’s per day but as usual will not be tracking this too seriously. So long as I stick to these principles I know I will make the kind of gains I want.

That’s it, that’s the plan. It’s in writing.

Carl