Day 7: Startling Changes by Nick Mitchell
Joe’s first days have been tough going.
But no one can feel sorry for him, and he doesn’t expect or look for sympathy from me or even from himself.
Making a massive change requires a period of discomfort whereby your habits and your comfort zones are shattered. That is what working towards your own transformation is all about, regardless of whether you give it a time frame or not.
As an aside, I personally am a fan of a 12 week closed ended period just because of the way it focuses the mind whilst also not really lending itself to crazy short term starvation plans.
How have things changed for Joe this week and how will they change for you when you follow The Ultimate Body Transformation Guide (UTG) program?
- He’s dropped the drink. If you’re reading this and are waiting for my book to come out at Christmas before doing likewise then you’re only fooling yourself. And no, the odd tipple doesn’t make you a bad person, but if it becomes a habit then I’d argue breaking the cycle for a bit is no bad thing.
- He is trying to lean up (some of you will follow the plan and have the opposite goal in mind – UTG is a weighty tome that covers you for the two very different goals and programs needed for muscle building and leaning up) and that has meant no carbs at all apart from green veg. Will we add carbs later? Certainly. How soon? It will all depend upon his response and changes. Will this be in the book? Yes, we have countless examples of how and when to carb cycle via our extensive meal plan guides.
- He is eating MORE food than he has done in several years. Forget the group of people who say it is all about calories (it is not), or that calories don’t count (they do), or that meal timing is useless (it is not). I’ll teach you all about this in the book, but in short Joe has at least doubled his calorie intake versus what he was eating before coming to work with me. The quality of those calories is of course wildly different!
- He is training hard, but he is also so out of shape and unfit that his perception of intensity is at a very low level right now. We will crank that up workout to workout. In the book there is a novice workout section, as distinct from the main 12 week programs, and just to kick things off I’ve cheated a little bit and will start him on the novice work and then bring in the 12 week plan for the second week. All whilst keeping his total training duration to 12 weeks exactly as that is when the photo shoot back in London is booked!
Here’s a look at the changes that he has made based on his skin fold reading. Pretty staggering stuff eh!
And remember that Joe is doing a sustainable program of 4 times a week weight training plus some extra cardio “style” sessions of fast walks, sprints, and modified strongman – all of which is detailed in the book. This program is all about being accessible as opposed to the extremes that we may have gone to in the past with someone like Glenn Parker for example.
A quick word on skin fold readings and body fat percentages. Take it all with a pinch of salt.
Human error, no matter how experienced you are, will come into play, and basing body fat % off skin folds and bodyweight is always going to fluctuate a bit too much. If you eat a big carb meal and hydrate well before the weigh in you’re going to instantly have added “muscle”.
So I use Joe’s readings as a guide to his progress rather than some sort of Holy Gospel. For us the visual changes and transformation is what it is all about (which is consistent with the book and how we have various different plans to plug and play that allow you to sculpt and create your own “look”) and skin fold readings are just one of a number of metrics that we use to help tweak things as we go along.
On that subject of tweaking, don’t forget that I will be running webinars and having twice-weekly social media (twitter / UP Forum) Q&A sessions for those of you who are following the book.
And on that note ensure you’ve signed up via the sign in box on the right of this page so that you don’t miss out on your first chance to pre order (we sold out before pre-order was up last time around!) and I’ll sign off for now.
PS: Don’t forget that you can follow Joe’s ups and downs on twitter @joewarnerUK and yours truly @HeyNickMitchell.
PPS: Mega competition on the horizon – but you’ll need to sign up to be notified of all the details!
4 weight traning and a couple of HIIT sessions in a week are easy.
But taking 4 grams of protein per each kg as you mentioned in 12 Week Body Plan (this means eating meat even in breakfasts) and almost zero carbs (this means no fruits, desserts or etc.) is hard part of the progress.
Is body-transforming possible with same training routine but a bit freedom in diet plan?
Some freedom yes, but it depends how you define “freedom”. Freedom to have ice cream will slow your progress down and mean less ultimate progress – you can still go a LONG way, but if you want maximum results in minimum time then you have to go at it hard. Please also note that the diet plans are so much more varied in the new book that finding one that works for you should be a lot easier than in the 12 Week Body Plan.
Mind blown after day 7….sum of 14 is pretty amazing. Are you able to post a typical day in terms of nutrition? Interested..
We will post something at a later date, but a one day snapshot doesn’t mean much at all really to be honest. It is how one manipulates over weeks / months.
Hi Nick. Appreciate this is a tricky question as there are a number of variables, but do you have a rough average/estimate for calories consumed by Joe on training/non training days, and the calorie expenditure on his training? Whilst tightening up, I try to keep myself on approximately 2000-2200 cals with minimal carbs per day and try and hit 500-650 cals or so in a 30-45 minute session with few resting periods. Thanks.
Honestly it is too general a question to give you an accurate answer. I do know his calories and we manipulate in part based on that, but his calorie burn is something I can only guess at so I prefer to manipulate based on volume of training (rather than an arbitrary calorie amount) and other factors. I can tell you that he has probably increased his calorie intake by about 150% over his regular “one meal a day” diet.
The Biosignature shows an increase in 7 days of 8 pounds of lean mass…am I reading that right?
You are reading it correctly but this is just one of the reasons why we need to be wary of caliper based readings.