Friday 29 June 2012

1 week of fluid manipulation complete

So after six days of trying out the fluid manipulation technique my holiday is finally here.

I'm just about to board my plane so I'll make it short and sweet, overall I feel a little weaker but have never looked better! As you know I really struggled on my second no carb day but loves my two high carb days that followed having gone through 36 whole grain rice cakes.

I've attached a picture of my breakfast this morning-200g of fillet steak and 50g of broccoli. I've also attached a a picture of how I looked last night after 7 meals, 1.5 litres of water and 300ml of red wine (all consumed before 7.00pm).

Thursday 28 June 2012

Fluid Manipulation Update

Since my previous post on Tuesday I've gone through 2 no carb days and 17 litres of water!

The first day (Tuesday) was fine, I had a good day in work then went to the gym for a hyper trophy shoulders session and my energy levels were fine. However the second day of no carbs (Wednesday) wasn't the best, from my research I found a lot of people were quite moody by the second day but for me personally I just felt really drained, I couldn't focus and my muscles felt quite flat.

However today is the start of my carb loading phase and 2.5 litres of water and I LOVE IT!!! For my breakfast I had 2 scoops of protein mixed with oats and my vitamins.

My second meal:



6 whole grain rice cakes, 2 tablespoons of natural honey, a tablespoon of nutella, a tablespoon of whole earth peanut butter (no added sugar or sweeteners) and another 2 scoops of protein mixed with water. 

I'm feeling so much better and my energy levels are right back up, I've got 4 more meals to go today and I think I'll head to the gym after work for my final session of the week-hyper trophy chest and light abs.

And finally I just want to say thank you to Physique of the Week who sent me over some Optimum Nutrition Amino Chewables for winning their twitter competition. Have a look at their web site as they're the biggest and best online weekly fitness competition, I think I'll be entering when I get back from Ibiza so I'll need your votes!

Tuesday 26 June 2012

Fluid Manipulation Experiment

So my plan was to maintain my current cutting diet for 2 more weeks in the run up to my holiday to Ibiza on 29th June, however I’ve decided to give the fluid manipulation technique a try this final week.
If you’re not familiar with this technique let me explain, the goal is to manipulate your fluid intake throughout the week to achieve a leaner and ‘dryer’ look, be it for a bodybuilding competition, photo shoot or to simply look your best on the beach. This is very common amongst bodybuilders and fitness models where they manipulate their water and carb intake, to get rid of "water weight".
This technique isn’t just used within the fitness industry, actors often use this technique before a topless scene or photo shoot in order to look their leanest. Obviously I don’t know for sure but I can imagine Brad Pitt did something like this for his role in Fight Club.



The three main principles I’m going to be manipulating to cause my body to dump water fast are:
·         Water Intake: A common mistake I found when researching this is people thinking you can get the ‘dry’ look by not drinking any water/fluids, wrong! Firstly I’m going to put my body into flushing mode by consuming 8 litres of water on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Then suddenly drop my water intake down to 2/2.5 litres on Thursday and drop down again to 1.5 litres on Friday.

·         Carbohydrates: Low carb and high protein diets are another way to help put your body into flushing mode, so I’ll be dropping my carbs to around 120g on Sunday and Monday followed by 2 no carb days (Tuesday and Wednesday), followed by 2 high carb days (Thursday and Friday). Some people have one high carb day, others have two, I'm going to give two a try and see how I get on.

·         Training: I’m not going to any muscle in 6 days, my goal instead this week is high reps on all muscle groups (10-12 reps) in order to get myself glycogen depleted. If all goes to plan by the end of the week my muscles should soak up the carbs (Thursday and Friday) and inflate the muscles dramatically.

Again from my research in to this I’ve found a number of different example programs and more importantly that it takes most people a few attempts to perfect the fluid manipulation technique solely depending on how their bodies react, which is the main reason I thought I’d give it a try and see what works best for me.
Ideally I wanted to have this article up on Monday but with work and the gym I was too busy so wrote it all up today and here is a photo of my diet for the day (zero carbs).


If all goes to plan I’ll post a few progress pics up on Friday along with my current stats.
To keep track of how I’m finding it and my workouts follow me on Twitter: lee_malone

Monday 25 June 2012

Monday morning motivation

I see too much negativity these days, with people being mentally defeated before they even begin. It's time to stop this way of thinking.

Tuesday 19 June 2012

Pancakes on a low carb day!?

Here's today's breakfast, vanilla protein pancakes with blueberries and a little spread of nutella!

Fits perfectly into my diet and is a great way to start a low carb day.

Sunday 17 June 2012

Monday Morning Motivation

Creamy Coriander and Minted Chicken

As promised here is the recipe for the Creamy Coriander and Minted Chicken that I had for tea last night.


Ingredients: (this makes enough for 2 people)


low calorie spray
1 onion, chopped
3/4 mushrooms
3/4 baby corn cobs
Handful of mangetout 
2 cloves
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 cardamon pods
1 cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
1 tsp root ginger
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder
3/4 skinless and boneless chicken breast, cut in 2cm pieces
salt and pepper
150ml chicken stock
fresh coriander, chopped
fresh mint, chopped
100g fat free natural yoghurt or from age frais


Preparation time: 15 minutes



Spray a non stick wok with low calorie spray and stir fry the onion, mushrooms, cloves, garlic and cardamon pods for 2-3 minutes. 


Add the ginger, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, baby corn, mangetout, ground coriander, cumin, turmeric and chilli powder and cook for 2-3 minute.


 Add the chicken pieces and season to taste, stir fry for a further 8-10 minutes.



Add the 150ml chicken stock and simmer for a further 5-7 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

Remove from the heat and add to plate. Top with fat free yoghurt/fromage frais then add coriander and mint on top.


As you can see I made sweet potato chips with our but obviously you could use brown basmati rice too.


Bon Appetit!

Any suggestions to other recipes you'd like to see, please comment below and I'll put them up to.







Saturday 16 June 2012

Weekly Shop

Seen as I've picked up a few emails/messages about food shopping and the price of eating healthy, I thought I'd share a picture of my weekly shop seen as I do it every Saturday morning.






I spent between £48-£52 a week on food, for 7 days a week and 6 meals a day so that works out at...............£7.38 a day and £1.23 a meal! Not included in this picture is my chicken breasts, porridge oats and rice cakes because I have enough left over from last week.



Now on to my second meal of my high carb day while I chill out and read the newest copy of Muscle & Fitness magazine.


Meal 2
250ml of Almond milk
1 tbs of coffee
2 scoops of chocolate cookie whey protein
2 whole meal rice cakes (caramel flavour) with some Nutella on top


I'll also be posting up my first recipe on here this weekend, as tonight my Meal 5 will be Creamy Coriander and Minted Chicken, its 100% made from scratch and I want to show that you can still be creative and enjoy food while maintaining a strict diet.

Have a good weekend.

Thursday 14 June 2012

Pre Workout

Here is my pre workout meals for my big chest session tonight.



Meal 1 (1 hour 30 mins before workout)
50g of brown basmati rice with Nandos sauce
180g of seasoned chicken breast
Handful of spinach
Cup of green tea


Meal 2 (20 mins before workout)
Muscle Pharm Assualt Pre workout (rasberry lemonade flavour)
Cookie & Cream pop tart!


Now off to tear up my chest 5x5 style!

Tuesday 12 June 2012

Goodies in the post

Got home today after work to find a few parcels waiting for me....


Apple and Pear flavour BCAAs and Turbotest from MaxiRaw and I finally got my hands on a smart shaker V2

This is going to save me so much time and space with its three compartments for my pre workout (Muscle Pharm Assault), intra workout (MaxiRaw BCAAs) and my post workout (Bodybuilding warehouse premium whey protein).

Any question about my supplements just comment below.


Monday 11 June 2012

Monday Motivation

Seen as today is legs day, there's nothing else to do but.....

Sunday 10 June 2012

Last meal of the day

So here is my last meal of the day, I manipulated a few macros in order to fit this in as my last meal, yet still remain within my diet.

Protein sludge with strawberries and a whole grain caramel rice cake.

Macros- Carbs: 38g/Protein: 42g/Fat: 3g

Simply mix 1 and a half scoops of protein powder with 200ml of skimmed milk in a bowl and leave in the fridge for 40-60 minutes. Wash and slice up the strawberries and your good to go!

Enjoy

Where it all started....


Hi and welcome to the Aesthetic Lifestyle blog, Your Personal Source for Training and Nutrition. I've decided to create this blog seen as I'm receiving more and more questions on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and via email and thought rather than replying to a question that could help one person, I can post them on here and hopefully help more people achieve their goals and true potential.




Before (2008)   -   After (2012)

Here is my before and after photo, after coming back from my holiday to the Caribbean in 2008 I came across two pictures in particular from that holiday that made me stop and say to myself "Things need to change". I had no shoulders, skinny arms, skinny legs and hated the fact that my collar and hip bones stuck out so much, so I joined my local and 'thought' I knew what I was doing. 

To cut a long story short, I basically came across a Maximuscle catalogue which detailed the different types of supplements and their benefits, along with meal plans for different goals and full body workouts. Since following the nutrition plan along with their own weight gainer (Progain) I started to see the results I wanted and this gave me the hunger to research further into supplements, nutrition and training.

And here we are today, my after picture was taken 3 weeks ago (19/052012) at the Bodypower Exhibition in Birmingham. Here I was 6 weeks into a cutting program put together by Wbff Pro Luke Haslett and felt in the best shape of my life, It's good to see after all these years the hard work is starting to pay off.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you have regarding any aspects of training, supplements and nutrition or even any suggestions of what you would like to see on the Aesthetic Lifestyle blog.

Thanks 
Lee.