4-WEEK MINI-CUT: THE BEGINNING

I have decided, ladies and gentlemen, to go on a diet.

Yes, it’s tragic, I know. A travesty. But – fear not – it’s a one-month ‘mini-cut’ in preparation for our holiday at the start of September. To be honest, for at least a year now I haven’t tracked, counted or avoided any kind of foodstuffs; I’ve been eating pretty much what I want when I want. And what I want tends to consist of relatively healthy meals throughout the day – salads, relatively low-calorie prep meals etc – with a bigger meal and some kind of dessert at night. That’s just the way I like to eat; I like to make sure I have enough energy throughout the day but without getting too bloated or over-full, mainly because as soon as I eat too much I fall asleep with a stomach the size of a football. Not a great look in the office. I eat Domino’s, KFC and entire tubs of ice-cream or family-sized packets of puddings; I drink a french amount of alcohol (because that’s a thing) and have 2-3 soya lattes a day.

 

So I’ve decided to push myself for a very short, four-week period. I’m going to be tracking macros, exercising regularly and properly, and documenting my progress.

 

DISCLAIMER: I’m posting this mainly from an accountability perspective. I’ve never really tracked anything to this level before and to be honest I kind of just wanted to experiment with what can be done in a 4-week period, without pushing myself to any extremes. I’m still going to be eating three square meals a day, including all the different food groups in my diet and not doing excessive amounts of cardio. My macros and exercise routine have been created to fit around me, what I’m used to and what my body can handle based on my experience and my normal routines. This is not a ‘guide’ or anything like that – it’s literally just to show you guys what I’m doing 🙂

 

Here’s the DL on what I look like now and how I’m going to : 

CURRENTLY: 

I look like this – get ready, these are unfiltered, completely hideous, unflexed pictures in arguably not ideal lighting and after I’d eaten breakfast and lunch in Paris, hence the little food baby (honestly I’m cracking up at how gross these are):

I weigh 57kg and am 165cm tall (roughly 5’5″)

My measurements are:

  • Bust – 28 inches
  • Waist – 26.5 inches
  • Hips – 34 inches
  • Thighs – 20.5 inches

 

FOOD

My darling Robi (aka Robin Gallant, fitness-girl extraordinaire) very kindly helped me put together my macros based on my weight, my lifestyle and my goals. I’m tracking my macros because I’ve done it before and definitely saw great results. For me it’s a way to make sure I can eat flexibly but still stick to set boundaries, but most of all it helps me to understand what’s in my food and to be able to eat intuitively going forward. If you’re unfamiliar with how tracking macros works then please do take a look at the BodyBuilding.com website, or watch Matt Ogus’ YouTube videos as they are really informative (e.g this one). My macros are:

  • Fats – 40-45g
  • Carbs – 180-185g
  • Proteins – 125g

This all adds up to around 1625 calories per day.

I’ll be tracking using the MyFitnessPal app as it’s super easy to use and already contains information for so many different foods. You can also put together recipes on there, so if you’re eating the same thing a lot (e.g. if you make a recipe for spaghetti bolognese) you can just enter the serving size and it will calculate the rest for you.

I’m also not going to be drinking alcohol (this might go out the window on the very last weekend because it’s my last day in my current department at work) – I usually drink a couple of bottles a week, so I’m hoping I’ll really see a difference in that respect.

Finally, I’m cutting down on my coffee consumption; as mentioned above I usually have 2 or 3 medium soya lattes a day. Whilst soya milk is super healthy, it’s still caffeine and calories that I could do without. To avoid going absolutely barmy I’m replacing the coffees with hot lemon water – I have always found this really refreshing, and it will distract me at the times I usually have my second or third coffees! I’m still having one a day, in the morning, to avoid turning into a rabid axe murderer (it’s for the good of us all).

WORKOUTS

As this is a four-week ‘programme’ I have decided to do four workouts in week 1, five in weeks 2 and 3 and six in week 4. I’m going to be incorporating 15-30 minutes of cardio per session and making sure I do 150 reps of core workouts per session (e.g. 30 reps for 5 sets of different exercises). Two of the weekly sessions will be a leg day, with the other two being mixed upper body sessions. Again this is based on what I’m used to and the workouts I already put in. It’s also a realistic goal for my current lifestyle – I know I would not be able to work out 6 times a week for all four weeks. I’m not putting much more detail than that because I’m completely unqualified to do so but I’ll more than likely be putting details of each workout on my Instagram story following each session!

 

THE GOAL? 

… is to maintain muscle whilst dropping a little bit of fat. I know that I can definitely cut the fat around my hips and waist and reduce bloating, but I don’t want to do so at the expense of losing the muscle I’ve been working on for so long around my lower body. So I’ll be using heavy weights and a progressive workout style – e.g making sure the numbers go up every session. If I wanted to just drop weight, I’d just eat very little and do a lot of cardio. But my weight is not really a factor, especially given the impact of increased muscle mass – it’s just an arbitrary figure that I’ve included for completeness here.

 

So… hopefully I’ll be able to stick to what is a relatively realistic ‘diet’! You can check in to my progress on my socials. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions please do pop them below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!

 

TTFN

C

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