How To Get Ripped Abs Challenge – Day 22 & 23
Day 22
It’s Monday day 22 and the official start of week 4 for the How To Get Ripped Abs 84 Day Challenge. Things start to change up a bit in the program now. I move into training phase 2 How to Get Ripped Abs The workout took a little longer than usual since I had to read the descriptions on some and learn them as some are not traditional exercises I would normally do. It was very challenging and I found myself crawling out of the gym again.
Just as I was starting to get used to How to Get Ripped Abs phase 1 of workouts things switch up and it feels like it’s day 1 again. These are some of the toughest workouts I’ve ever done. I have to admit I love the misery of pushing myself to my outer limits physically. It’s not something I have done since my days in the marine corps and wrestling practices back in high school. These full body workouts use so many muscles at once that you really work up a sweat. My body generates so much heat from burning so many calories that my shirt is soaked at the end of the 45 minutes. It’s not often that you see someone in the gym lifting and sweat is dripping off of their face onto the floor. That’s how I look when I’m doing these workouts.
I switched over to phase 2 in the diet also. The How To Get Ripped Abs phase 2 diet goes 3 days low carb with 1 day moderate carb and higher calories. This keeps a strong balance of burning fat with a higher carb day to restore glycogen levels. I’m still getting around 120 grams of carbs but 2/3 of them are from the 1st two meals of the day. So the majority of carbs are happening early. It seemed pretty easy to follow and I don’t even feel like I’m on a low carb plan. Low carb for me would normally be 40 to 50 grams of carbs so 120 grams seems like a lot. The rest is lean protein and fibrous carbs later in the day which keeps me full and never hungry.
Day 23
It’s Tuesday day 23 and I woke up feeling sore again. The new workout phase is definitely going to make me push to the next level. During the first 3 weeks I was sore for about 10 days and then got used to it. Now I feel sore all over the place from the new workout. I need to push myself as hard as possible to get in shape for phase 3 and 4. They progressively get harder so if I’m struggling in phase 2 I can only imagine how tough it gets in phase 4. This is putting me on track to get into my best condition ever. I’ve hit the heavy weights for so long I don’t even remember what it’s like to be in really good condition.
For cardio I did the jump rope. This was the first time I was able to do the jump rope workout as it’s supposed to be without taking too much rest in between sets and actually making it a full minute of jumping each time. With my weight down over 10 pounds and already being in better condition this is an enormous improvement from where I was 3 weeks ago when I tried to jump rope. It was embarrassing the first time. Now I feel like I am getting somewhere. Still I’m pretty heavy so 1 minute of jumping rope and my calves are on fire and can’t take anymore. Then there is 30 seconds of rest and back to the next jumping cycle. The entire cardio workout only took 12 minutes but was very tough and left me exhausted.
I started making some of the recipes from the recipe book included in the How to Get Ripped Abs system. There is an outstanding lemon oregano chicken recipe that I made and grilled up. Even my wife loved it. It was a great meal and I put the chicken in a nice salad. I also made a tuna salad recipe that is in the book and it turned out great. I had 3 scoops of tuna each wrapped up in a big piece of romaine lettuce. I really liked how that turned out and will probably have that as a mid afternoon meal everyday now. Still I’m eating plenty of food and it doesn’t seem like a diet at all. It’s just a great nutritional plan designed to keep your metabolism burning fast. Then the workouts do the rest. This is as easy as following the program 1 2 3. The nutritional plan is something I think anyone could follow. I’ll have to start trying out more of his recipes. There are a lot of good ones to choose from in the book.
