I am going to take advantage of this blog site and document each step of the way. Melvin said that he can get us in tip-top shape within 6 months, 24 weeks. To be honest with you, I was a bit skeptical. It sounded like those infomercials you see on TV..."Buy my video and you can get the body of your dreams in only 7 days"....hehehe. Well i bought into it, and boy am I glad I did. No lie, after 1 month, 4 weeks, I have seen dramatic changes. We are currently working on our 3 month, working our way up to 12 weeks, and I am very pleased with what I see. The results alone have motivated me more to work even harder.
We started this "journey"...hehehe on the week of august 25th. We started off by weighing ourselves in, which made me cry inside..hehehe. For a very very very long time, I struggled to maintain 140lbs. I was able to eat everything and anything in site and didn't gain a pound or get fat. But somewhere in my lifetime, my body decided to stop while i continued to eat everything that wasn't healthy for you. I started to gain weight and look fat. My stomach was not a six pack, which mind you I never had before. It was a "keg". I also had "love handles"/"spare tire". I weighed in at a disappointing 185 lbs. That is 45 more pounds that i have packed on since the good old days. FAT that until now I have not been able to get rid of.
Than we took before pictures of ourselves. Yes, you read that right. We took before pictures of ourselves...gay huh...hehehe. That right there really motivated me to push hard and give this workout routine of Melvin's a chance. I thought to myself, I couldn't get any worse than I looked and felt on Day 1. (don't worry I will eventually post the pictures probably after week 12 of workingout..so stay tunned ...hehehe) One thing we did not do was measure ourselves, which would have been nice.
Day 1 pictures (all before workout routine started...brace yourselves it's not pretty!!!)
WEEK 1/1st MONTH: Hell Week (Focus: Diet...Diet...Diet...Burn Fat)/1 Month
Talk about PAIN. One piece of advice...if you are already working out...do not stop and for those who have stopped and are starting up again...watch out...you will hurt like you have never hurt before. One thing I have learned this go around...To get results one must combine Diet and strict working out to get healthy results.
Surprisingly enough, the diet was and is the hardest part of this entire routine. For those who don't know me, I love to eat. You name it, I will pretty much eat it. Especailly rice. C'mon now I am filipino. I went from, and I kid you not, eating the equivalency of 3 cups of uncooked rice in 1 to 2 sittings to eating 1 cup of cooked rice in a 24 hour period. Focusing on staying away from lots of carbs, bad sugars, and focusing on eating good protein like chicken breast, fish, protein shakes. We are allowed one cheat day out of the 7 day week, and boy do I look foward to that day...hehehe.
So back to the workout. In the first 2 months, 8 weeks, Melvin's routine in the gym was foucused on burning the fat, constantly keeping our heart rate up. Boy did we ever. We flew through our workouts. Normally I would have 2-5 minutes of rest in between exercises, not this time. We had at best 30 seconds of rest. Not only were we strength training we were incorporating cardio workout at the same time.
Melvin warned me. The first week will be hell. He said that every muscle in my body will be hurting. It did. Almost to a point where I could barely move. I fought through that first week. That was the first big hump we had to get over. After that the muscle memory started kicking in. The pain that I initially felt started to turn in to normal soarness after working out. Strength started to come back, and I started to get in the groove of things. As corney as it may sound, I started to feel more alive. I wasn't as tired all the time. I had more energy and I was alot easier to be around.
We stuck with the routine for the first 4 weeks.
Each muscle group consisted of 4-5 different exercises. Each consisting of 3 sets and each set conssited of 10 reps.
1st day: Chest and Biceps and Abs
2nd day: Back Triceps and Abs
3rd day: Legs and Abs
4th day: Shoulders and Biceps and Abs
At the start of the 3rd week Melvin incorparated more cardio. sprinting, high knees, twisting, crab walking. We did this two days out of the week. Mainly during Leg and shoulder workout days.
Fourth week finally came and surprisingly enough I was feeling more energetic/alive. More importantly, just within one month, 4 weeks of strict diet and intense workouts, the results were showing. It is a far cry from where we want to be in 6 months, but definitely better than Day 1.
4 week/1 month pictures
2nd MONTH
Beginning of the 2nd month. Working off the high of the 1st month. I had the mindset that I can do this thing, that Melvin's program is truely legit. For those who have worked out before, having a workout partner, especailly one who used to be a trainer makes things so much easier. I found myself more motivated, pushing harder and doint thins in the gym I thought my body could not ever do before. My satmina and strength have reached levels that I have not ever reached before.
Well things seemed to be moving along well...NOT. The very first bump in the road. I believe it was the beginning of the 6th week. We were working on our legs. It was after the leg press maching, we at that time got up to a total of five 45-plates on that maching. I swear after pushing that up I seriously broke blood vessels in my head. It felt like I had some sort of bleed up there...hehehe. I was "broke" for the rest of the day. Top it all off we were working that night and boy was I dead. I ended up getting sick with chills and a fever. I thought I was gonna pass out that night at work. I was able to make it through the night but I called it quits for working out the rest of the week.
Just a day or two of not working out makes a big difference. Not to mention an entire week. Melvin ended up geting sick the following week. So he was out of comission, trying ot get better. That was two weekes we didn't work out. I was not looking foward to getting back to the gym after that long layoff, but we did. We got over our illnesses, aches, and pains, and started all over again. We pushed it that week and it seemed like we got back on track. We completed week 6 of the program. We both pushed ahead. Hyping each other up. Finally 8th week was done/2nd month. Picture time again...oh boy lets see what kinda damage we did with those little set backs. Did we improve or digressesed. You guys make that decision.
2nd month./8th week pictures.
3rd month Heavy time!!!
Melvin switched things up for the 3rd month. He wanted to go heavy and work on our strength. We did pyramids, increasing the weight each set and decreasing repitions each time we increase the weight. Normally you would rest at least one minute to 2minu tes in between rest when going heavy. Not for us. WE still ket the fast cardio pace we did during the 1st two months. It actually seems like wer are resting even less this time around. It seriously seems like 30 seconds at most for rest. Our rest period consists of one person finishing his set getting out for the next person to do his set. All that movement and transition takes all of 30 seconds tops...wow. What are we thinking!!! Strength and still trying to burn that fat. Awsome.
The plan is to go heavy for 4 weeks. All of the entire 3rd month. Well we had a minor set back. Let me rephrase that. I had a minor set back. I'm not as strong as Melvin is. I'm surprised that I am keeping up with the weigth his putting up. There are certain excersise where i have to go down on weight jus because I know i won't be able to put it up.
It was our first day of going heavy. I was excieted because it was chest and bicep day. I was able to handle the chest workout...barely. I was seriously done after all the chest exercises. But we still had biceps to do. In the past biceps have been my more stronger muscle groups, and have shown the most results. So I figured i would be able to handle going heavy with biceps. We were putting up rediculous weight on the curl bar and the long 45bar used for bench press.
I seriously had to cheat to get that weight up. I think that is were the problems for me came about. After that day of wokring out I started to have headaches. It seemed like tension headaches. My neck and my back started to hurt as well. I thought to myself, oh no here we go again. I thought I was gonna be sick once again. Luckily it didn't end up that way. It was just the headaches I had to deal with. So instead of pushing it and taking the chane of being out of the gym any longer than needed, I took another week off. I hate the breaks in the workout. I finally grew balls...hehehe...and got over the headach and got back on track. November 14th, 2008, thursday morning was the end of the 2nd week of going heavy. That brings me up to date on this "Rude awakening workout program".
To be continued....
i like the day 1 pics the best!
ReplyDelete