How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge – Day 12
It’s Friday day 12 on my How to Get Ripped Abs challenge. I am once again looking forward to the weekend and getting some rest. Although because of the holiday on Monday I had to make an adjustment and instead of doing my final weight training workout today and cardio tomorrow I will be hitting the elliptical machine today and enjoying a nice grueling Saturday morning workout in the gym.
I actually had a chance to talk on the phone today with the guy that developed this system. John Alvino is the author and developer of this system and he has a place down in New Jersey where he trains athletes exclusively. He made this to be a complete system. It’s not just another eBook out there on the web. How to Get Ripped Abs is a system that includes an individualized meal plan, recipe book, protein shakes book, exercise manual, exercise plan, and an eBook that goes along with the system. For him to put this system together for someone he would end up charging around $500 and I agreed that this system was worth well more than the $77 that he charges for it. It’s like getting a personal trainer and coach right out of the box. The exercises are explained in depth so if you can read and understand a picture you don’t need a trainer showing you how to do these because he did such a good job creating the exercise manual.
How to Get Ripped Abs isn’t for everyone. So far I see this as an unbelievable system for someone that not only wants to lose fat but also wants to get into single digit body fat and into exceptional condition at the same time. Many of the programs out there are developed to help you lose weight. There is a big difference between just losing weight and dropping body fat to rip up into photo shoot condition. I would also recommend this to someone that is preparing for wrestling season, mixed martial arts, or any sport that requires intense conditioning and low body fat levels. If you want to look like one of the UFC fighters you see on television this system will get you into that kind of condition. It has the ability to help you build some muscle while losing every ounce of fat.
Today I hit the elliptical machine for my interval training cardio and pushed it hard. The main workout is 18 minutes with 4 minutes of warm up so I’m in and out of the gym in 22 minutes. Then I spend the rest of the evening with a high metabolism burning fat. How to Get Ripped Abs is keeping me within a structure that I need to make my end goal. If you don’t have a road map to follow you might take a lot of wrong turns and it can take you awhile to get where you are going. Follow the How to Get Ripped Abs roadmap for 12 weeks and you will end up in tip top shape. I’m not there yet but I’m on my way.
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How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge – Day 11
It’s Thursday Day 11 on my How to Get Ripped Abs Challenge and it’s business as usual. I am now finally waking up in the morning and not feeling sore all over my body. It’s nice to not have to limp around the house like a broken old man. I was getting a little worried that maybe I was biting off more than I could chew and at the age of 38 my body just wasn’t going to recover like it did back 20 years ago. Well needless to say it will never recover again like it did 20 years ago but I am happy to finally getting through that initial soreness.
How to Get Ripped Abs challenges you every single workout. One thing I love is that I can print out my workout logs, throw it on a clipboard and easily follow along and just log my weight and reps. Every single workout I make sure that I am either increasing the weight or doing more total reps. I really haven’t had to increase the weight on any of the exercises though because I just keep pushing myself to hit more reps each workout. When you walk out of the gym you have worked every muscle in your entire body within 40 minutes. This is what causes such a huge metabolic afterburn effect throwing your metabolism up into the stratosphere for the rest of the day.
This was my third time to perform workout A. There are a couple exercises like the single leg ball curl that are very difficult for me and last week when I did the workout the first time I was only able to do 3 sets of 5 or a total of 15 reps. On my third attempt at this workout I was able to hit a set of 9,8,6 for a total of 23 reps. I’m improving quickly and just need to keep pushing myself. How to Get Ripped Abs will have you doing exercises you have probably never done before. The exercise manual does an excellent job showing a picture and description of each exercise. I bring this with me on my clipboard for a reference during my workouts. If you are used to the traditional raw iron like I am these will challenge your body to new levels.
Once again I felt like Jello after my workout and practically had to crawl out of the gym. If I keep pushing this hard I’m going to need someone to take me out in a wheelchair pretty soon. Overall a great day again and stayed right on plan with the nutritional program.
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How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge – Day 10
Wednesday Day 10 and moving right along. The overall soreness in my body is finally starting to subside as I’m getting used to the workouts. My body isn’t used to the high repetitions that the How to Get Ripped Abs program uses. I’ve been training for strength for so many years and this requires a whole different level of conditioning. It’s quite a change from what I am used to.
I mixed it up a bit on my diet today. I usually have oatmeal with protein powder for breakfast or eggs with potatoes. I didn’t have any potatoes cooked up so I had 2 pieces of Ezekiel Bread. This bread is made without flour instead coming from sprouts and tastes great. A lot of fitness pro’s and bodybuilders use this as their bread as it has more protein and fiber and a little lower on carbs. It doesn’t sell as fast so you usually find it in the freezer section in most grocery stores. I don’t substitute bread very often on the How to Get Ripped Abs nutritional plan but I do make slight changes that are allowable and outlined in the program.
Dinner was also a nice change of pace. I’ve been eating chicken breasts everyday but tonight had a nice steak salad with some crumbled blue cheese sprinkled on top. This was a restaurant quality salad. The How to Get Ripped Abs program doesn’t allow you to starve yourself and I have to admit I’m eating better than ever now that I have forced myself back into something more structured when it comes to eating.
For cardio I did the elliptical workout again. I need to do that at least once or twice a week as it doesn’t put any stress on my joints. I’m still pretty heavy so doing jump roping or full body cardio exercises can put a lot of wear and tear on my joints. The elliptical gives my knees a break but I push it really hard so those 18 minutes are extremely tough and go by fast. How to Get Ripped Abs keeps you workout out hard all week which forces your metabolism sky high. Every few days that I look in the mirror I’m able to see more changes. For me my shoulders and arms start to lean out first and veins start showing. Then it starts coming off of my chest and eventually the lower belly fat. 10 days down, 74 more to go!
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How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge – Day 9
It’s Tuesday Day 9 of my How to Get Ripped Abs challenge. I ate most of the usual same things today for carbohydrates and fats but I ran out of chicken and wouldn’t have that until later in the day so I substituted a lean protein with protein powder. It’s not quite the same having a plate of rice and black beans with a side of veggies and your chocolate protein drink. I need to get my grill going and stock my fridge back up with lean chicken breast. My wife will be getting back from Whole Foods soon with all the foods I need. It’s important to not let this happen because then there is the temptation to go off plan and start eating whatever is in the house. In this case the fridge is stocked with chocolate chip cookies but I was able to stay away and leave those for the kids.
If you have carb craving problems like I do you’ll find that the best cure is switching over to a diet of clean whole foods. Once you detox your body and start giving it the right foods your hunger pains start to disappear and you won’t have those constant carb cravings anymore. Eating a lot of processed and sugary foods makes you body want them more and then it becomes a vicious cycle. The How to Get Ripped Abs program has brought some much needed structure back into my life with its healthy eating plan. I just needed a nudge to get myself eating right again so I knew that following the plan and being held accountable by logging my journey will help keep me on track.
Once again I pushed my workout harder than the last. I made sure to hit more reps on all my exercises than I did before. How to Get Ripped Abs has the workout charts that you can print out and they are perfect for keeping a workout journal. I swear by keeping track of every set and rep so that I can push myself harder each time. If you constantly put your body under the same stress it won’t have any need to adapt by making your muscles stronger or bigger. Pushing each exercise to the max also creates a surge in lactic acid and workouts like this can help stimulate growth hormone release in the body which in turn is a very potent fat burner.
I pushed myself to total exhaustion on this workout and was practically crawling out of the gym. Not only am I losing fat fast, I’m also getting myself into great physical condition. It’s about time I get rid of the bulky bodybuilder look and lean out so I can see what’s underneath the fat. The How to Get Ripped Abs will do everything from condition, strengthen, build muscle, and increase fat loss. So far I see this program hitting every angle. Now I just need to stay on track and finish the race.
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How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge – Day 8
Today is day #8 on my How to Get Ripped Abs challenge. It is Monday and time to weigh in. I weighed in at 244.4 pounds so I lost 5.6 pounds and was very pleased with those results for week 1. I also lost an inch off of my waistline. Every inch you lose off of your waist makes a huge difference visually. It makes your upper body look that much bigger when the ratio of chest to waist starts favoring the chest measurement more. People in the gym are already making comments about my fat loss and I haven’t even got started yet on this great program of How To Get Ripped Abs.
Today was the Labor Day holiday so the gym was closed. I was supposed to do my workout A but since I didn’t have access to my gym I am making a slight adjustment this week. I will start the week off with cardio and then do my weight workouts on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I’ll still have a full day off before my Monday workout when I get back on the Mon, Wed, Fri schedule for my workouts. Making a slight change like this won’t affect results and it’s always necessary to make some dynamic changes when small obstacles present themselves. Rather than missing a day of my program I made a simple change and will still get all my workouts in this week. I am not going to let anything keep me from following the How to Get Ripped Abs training routines consistently. I want to be able to give an honest review of before and after results and I know major results will come if I just keep sticking to the plan.
For cardio I did the jump roping workout again. I pushed much harder this time and noticed that being 5 pounds lighter makes a big difference as I didn’t fatigue quite as quickly. Once I got a few cycles into it though my calves start burning out after 30 seconds and I have to stop and take a 30 second rest. I worked up a good sweat and burnt off some major calories. The high intensity interval training cardio sessions are very intense but I’ll choose them any day over mind numbing boring cardio for 45 minutes at a time. The cardio workouts on the How to Get Ripped Abs program last anywhere from 12 to 18 minutes total and they will kick your butt.
My diet went well but I need to make a trip to the grocery store to stock up on more chicken breasts. I’m going to pick up the ingredients to make my turkey chili also. I’m eating plenty of food and am never hungry. The How to Get Ripped Abs program comes with a very precise eating manual and recipe book. If you follow this program there is no guess work involved. Just stick to the plan and you won’t believe how much you get to eat. It’s all clean whole foods which makes your metabolism run faster and allows your body to start detoxifying from any unhealthy eating patterns you may have had prior to starting.
Again, I am very happy with Week 1 results of my How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge – weight loss = 5.6 pounds, waist reduction = 1 inch.
How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge – Day 7
It’s finally Sunday and a much needed day of rest from training. How to Get Ripped Abs has been a very challenging first week. My hamstrings are still sore and now my calves are quite sore from yesterday’s jump rope workout. I planned on doing the stretching routine today but I never got a chance. There is a dedicated stretching routine in How To Get Ripped Abs that can help you work out all the kinks to loosen up. So far I feel good and am actually looking forward to pushing my workouts even harder next week. Now that I know the exercises and have my weights set for each exercise I should be able to do them quicker and can really strive to push out more reps. I’m making sure to keep an accurate log. The workout program includes logs that you can print out. This makes it really easy to bring my workout plan to the gym and just fill in the weights and reps.
I did some of my prep cooking tonight. I created another big batch of brown rice and beans. This time I used black beans and pinto beans. These are so high in fiber that this dish fills me up for hours. I added chopped a chopped red pepper, chopped jalapeño, and half of a chopped onion to the mix. This made me 4 servings of a side dish that I will have with my chicken the first four days of the week. I eat this everyday with one of my meals to get my starchy carbohydrates with fiber. It supplies good clean sustained energy for hours. The How to Get Ripped Abs nutritional program has you eating a lot of fibrous carbohydrates in order to keep your blood sugar levels low and without any spikes. This creates an environment for fat burning throughout the entire day.
Tomorrow I’ll be weighing in and checking my waist measurement. I’m certain I have already got some good results but tomorrow will be the first time I’ve stepped on a scale since day 1 of my How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge. I almost feel like this week was just a primer and now that I’ve got myself started I can really take off. 1 Week down, 11 more to go!
How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge – Day 6
It’s Saturday and day 6 on the How to Get Ripped Abs challenge and also a long 3 day holiday weekend so I’m looking forward to getting some time with the family. Sometimes it’s tougher to stick to a diet plan when I don’t have the distraction of work all day to keep me busy. I haven’t had that problem today. I’ve been feeling so great and energetic that I don’t even want to fall back into any of my old eating patterns. Once you start associating the good feelings that you have with how you are working out and eating you develop a neural link in your brain. When this starts happening it gets easier and easier to follow a program because it becomes more of a habit rather than a chore. Ultimately you want to develop your healthy eating lifestyle into a habit that comes without thinking. Any thoughts of straying from your healthy lifestyle start to bring up the painful memories of how you felt when you were tired and overweight.
The How to Get Ripped Abs program will keep you on a nice steady line of fat loss with boundaries that you can easily stay within without a problem? When I set off to do this program I intended to do an honest review as well as throw in some cheat meals. I believe that you can steadily lose body fat while still enjoying your favorite meals. In this case I am limiting my cheat meal to once per week until I have got down to my goal weight. Fat loss will happen faster if you stick to the plan 100% but I wanted to show people that great results still occur when you maintain your sanity and enjoy your favorite meal. My Saturday night ritual will typically be a small pizza with a glass of wine. I’m guessing this will have me downing close to 1,000 calories in one sitting. This is what made me fat in the first place but by doing it several times per week. Late night eating that consists of high amounts of fats and carbohydrates will fatten up just about anyone and especially when you do it consistently. Fat loss can still happen if you keep this meal to only once per week.
I ate a small pizza with pepperoni, onions, and mushrooms and had an 8 ounce glass of wine. I had 1 chocolate chip cookie for dessert. It was very important that I limited myself to only 1 cookie though. That’s all I needed to get the psychological good feeling from that food. If I had eaten 3 or 4 it wouldn’t have had any additional positive effect on my mind but it would have been enough extra calories in sugar to take me backwards a bit in my fat loss. Give yourself a treat but make sure you limit yourself. This is an excellent habit to get yourself into for the rest of your life. I used to be a late night binge eater and the foods I would eat were high in sugar and fat. This is a formula for rapid fat gain and should be avoided at all costs. The How to Get Ripped Abs program will burn fat off your body faster than anything else but you want to stick to the eating plan 95% of the time and you should still see all the results you are looking for. In 7 days I will eat around 35 meals so that 1 cheat meal only accounts for 3% of my eating for the week. It’s important that you just don’t overdo it to much on that one meal and when the meal is over stop eating.
I would also suggest that you don’t weigh yourself the day after your cheat meal. This can be very deceiving because when you eat clean whole foods all week your body has flushed out all the excess water and you will be your lightest. When you take in a cheat meal full of sodium and extra carbohydrates your body can hold onto a couple extra pounds of water. This is not fat gain, it’s just your body holding onto water which will make you a little puffier or bloated. One or two good days back to normal eating and drinking lots of water will flush it all back out. My Sunday will be sticking to my eating plan very strict and drinking at least 10 glasses of water. I’ll end up making several trips to the bathroom flushing that extra water out but by Monday my weight should be back to normal. You want consistency in your weigh ins so if you eat your cheat meal every Saturday and weigh in on Monday you’ll be able to measure accurately. If you change it up and eat your cheat meal on Sunday and then weigh in on Monday you could inadvertently disappoint yourself because you might not show any weight loss. It would be better to wait another full day until your weigh in to keep it consistent. Don’t let your body fool you.
The How to Get Ripped Abs program has you doing 3 cardio workouts per week so today I have my third workout. I chose the jump roping cardio workout and it was very challenging. Jumping rope at 250 pounds is quite burdensome and I found myself not able to complete a full minute for the working round so I doubled the work sets and did 30 seconds straight with 30-45 second rests. By the end of 30 seconds my calves were burning pretty bad and I was breathing heavy. This will be so much easier when I’ve dropped 20-30 pounds. This workout definitely juiced my metabolism up so that my cheat meal of pizza wouldn’t do any damage. I still might actually lose fat today!
Tomorrow is a much needed day of rest from How To Get Ripped Abs training. I’m still sore all over so I’ll do some stretching to work out the kinks and get ready for week 2.
How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge – Day 5
The first thing I noticed getting out of bed today was that my hamstrings were incredibly sore. The How to Get Ripped Abs program makes sure you are getting plenty of hamstring and glute work. These workouts are hitting me in ways I’m not used to and that’s a good thing. I really need to make sure I’m doing the stretching exercises post workout for recovery. The stretching is really important overall promoting overall health and recovery post workout. It was a fairly typical day of eating and fairly easy since everything was already pre cooked and ready to eat. I mixed things up a bit with the chicken, brown rice, and beans though. I cut the chicken into cubes and added it into a ziplock bag along with the brown rice and beans. I then added about 3 tablespoons of Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo sauce and shook them up in the bag. I love buffalo chicken and this ended up making a nice buffalo chicken rice and black bean casserole. I ate it with a side of baby carrots. Some crumbled blue cheese would have been nice on top but I didn’t have any (and maybe that’s a good thing because I would have used it instead of my 4 fish oil caps that I took instead). There are so many ways to prepare chicken, rice, and beans. I think I’ll write a recipe for this and include options for a whole wheat low carb wrap so that you can make it into a burrito. Simple to make but very nutritious packed with protein. The brown rice and black beans compliment each other nicely by creating a complete protein.
It was time to workout again and I was doing workout A. It was going to be quicker this time since I was familiar with the exercises and had picked weights from Monday when I did this routine the first time. This time through I could just focus on improving the amount of reps I did with each weight and really push myself. This How to Get Ripped Abs workout once again proved it could kick my butt. The exercises on the ball to work abs are something I’ve never done before and I can still only do around 6-7 reps. The goal is to get up to 12-15. They take so much stability that nearly every muscle in your body is holding you up on the ball. The ball pike for abs is the toughest for me right now. You get yourself in push up position and put your feet up on top of a ball. You slide the ball towards your body starting with your feet which creates a crunch in the lower abs. You do this until your body is in an A frame. So while doing this you are trying to keep your legs straight because they want to roll left and right off of the ball and you are stabilizing your upper body in the air in push up position. While doing this I literally have sweet dripping onto the floor. At the end of the workout my shirt was completely soaked through like someone sprayed me with a hose. I never sweet nearly this much in a workout but these are so taxing that the body goes into overdrive. The workout program is called Meltdown and the body is just trying to cool itself off.
It’s Friday night so I treated myself with a different spin on my dinner. I made a huge buffalo chicken salad and used low fat blue cheese. I used a bit extra blue cheese but am not worried about that because I burned so many calories during the workout that I deserve a little something I haven’t had all week. I also had a small glass of red wine. The fatigue from the first 5 days is starting to catch up with me though so tonight will be the earliest I go to bed all week. Tomorrow is a cardio day and then Sunday I’ll finally get a much needed day of rest from training.
How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge – Day4
Today took me out of my usual routine on the How to Get Ripped Abs program as I had to be on the road for most of the day and wouldn’t have easy access to my kitchen for all of my meals. I didn’t prepare anything so I had my usual breakfast and then grabbed 2 protein drinks and 2 bananas with some fish oil capsules. Those were going to be my 2 meals for the day while I was traveling. Sometimes you can’t follow the plan exact and you just have to make sensible adjustments. I would have rather had a couple prepared meals that I brought with me but there isn’t always time to get everything perfect. Usually when I’m out I’m so busy that I forget to eat so at least this way I would be forcing a couple of meals down to keep my metabolism charged and primed for fat burning.
When I got back home late in the afternoon I got dressed so that I could get to the gym and do my cardio session. I decided not to do the bodyweight cardio session again just yet because I wanted to give my joints a break from the impact. I used the elliptical machine for a 5 minute warm up and then went right into the high intensity interval training for 18 minutes. Typically when I do HIIT on the elliptical I do short sprints but the How to Get Ripped Abs program has the workout sets very specific and the high intensity portion is longer than I am accustomed to. This workout required a fairly intense 1 minute work session followed by 2 minutes at a medium intensity. This was very challenging for me and I did the complete 6 cycles. Luckily my gym has television screens attached to each cardio machine so I can just plug in my headphones and the time goes by really quickly. I was glad when that workout was over. Compared to my usual HIIT workout on an elliptical this one was much more taxing and I really had to push myself. It’s nice to be in and out of the gym so quickly though.
For dinner I filled up on grilled chicken and a mix of brown rice and black beans with lots of spices. This meal has become a staple and I really enjoy it. The high fiber of the black beans really fills you up for a long time. For a healthy fat I added 4 fish oil capsules that I drank down with my water. So far I must admit the diet has been effortless and I don’t even crave sugars anymore. Sometimes you just need to be on a good structured plan that creates boundaries for you and goals. That’s exactly why I wanted to try the How to Get Ripped Abs program though. I needed to force myself into some structure that someone else had set up for me. Sometimes it’s too easy for me to cheat on my own programs because I don’t follow my own structure. This way when I see the kids eating their ice cream and I don’t make myself an ice cream cone and join them. I just enjoy watching them have fun and so far I don’t miss the deserts because I already see improvements happening and my waistline dropping. I try to visualize what I will look like at the end of the 12 weeks and that is motivation in itself. It’s been several years since I’ve seen a really six pack so I’m looking forward to seeing how I look again. If you have never got yourself down really lean it’s something you should try to do because the feeling is hard to describe. It just feels great having your skin tight to your body without any squishy fat around the waist. As I said though I can’t remember how it feels so that’s my vision for now. I cooked up plenty of chicken on the grill tonight and bagged it up for the next couple of days. I’ll start making some other dishes with it now so that I don’t get burnt out eating the same things.
How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge – Day 3
It’s Thursday morning and I’m now feeling myself extremely sore from the How to Get Ripped Abs workout that I had on Wednesday. On my third day I got a chance to do my second workout in the gym. The plan is divided into 4 separate 3 week training cycles with each one getting more advanced than the next. Each cycle has a workout A and a workout B which includes full body exercises and abdominal work. This was my first attempt at workout B so I had to figure out my correct weights on all the exercises and get used to some of the movements that I wasn’t accustomed to. This particular day on the How to Get Ripped Abs workout I pushed myself harder than I did on day 1 and tried to challenge myself more. I was in a full sweat by the end of the workout and my muscles were hurting everywhere. These workouts are very taxing and if you are a beginner or intermediate you will find that these workouts will not only make you lose fat fast but you will build muscle fast.
My diet went well on Day 3 and I felt great. The nutrition program in the How to Get Ripped Abs program is fantastic for providing your body with all the nutrients you need so that you can simultaneously lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. This is truly a transformation program that may help you build muscle fast if you are looking to add some size to your body. As you lose fat quickly your muscles will start to become more visible which creates the illusion that they are actually much bigger. I finally got to my calorie goal of 2,700 today by forcing myself to eat a little more. I have so much energy from eating 5 solid meals a day that I feel great while I’m doing this. If you’ve ever been on a calorie restrictive diet you know how you can start to feel run down and irritable. The How to Get Ripped Abs program is not a calorie restrictive diet. It’s more of a method of eating a lot of healthy foods to keep your metabolism revving fast while doing workouts that increase fat burning hormones and speed up your metabolism for the rest of the day. There is no need to restrict calories because your body will be functioning at optimal levels and will be drawing from your fat stores to keep up. This is a much better method than restricting your calories and forcing your body to draw from fat because ultimately the body adjusts by lowering thyroid levels, leptin, and increasing cortisol which will then eat up muscle making you have a much slower metabolism. The human body wants to survive so it will adjust to a diet and that is why people plateau and gain fat back so quickly when they are done dieting. The How to Get Ripped Abs nutrition system and workout will keep your body losing fat faster than you ever thought you could while getting into great shape and allowing you to gain muscle fast as well. So far so good. I only have 81 more days to go!
