The Prep Diaries – Episode 6

Hello good people! More of a check in this week to help keep you updated as I know your all soooo excited to hear how my diet is getting on. Well it’s going to be a short one in terms of an update, but I’m going to talk a little bit about barriers we put in our own way and hopefully help you remove some of the excuses from your life!

First let’s start with that all-important weight update I promised you all. Just after New Year I was weighing in at 231lbs (16 stone 7lbs) and I am please to say I have managed to drop a stone as of my Saturday morning check in, and I am now sat at a much better 217lbs (15 stone 7lbs). I am very happy with this considering I am still putting away around 3500 calories a day, I don’t get all my cals in everyday but this is not far off! My cardio and my training are still the same, and I am still encouraged to have a high carb day once a week, this usually falls on leg day, as I may as well put those calories to good use and helps me have plenty of energy. I do have a confession though, my cheat meal states EAT WHATEVER YOU WANT, which means Leon is very much encouraging me to go slightly mad, so I could have a pizza, or a burger, or whatever I might fancy that day, and in truth I just haven’t been going that crazy. The week before last I added 30g of cheese to my normal tea, and this week I fried 2 slices of bacon and added it to my veg, this means I get told off from time to time as well. Now you’re probably reading this thinking I’m an absolute weirdo thinking “Aaron, how is that a cheat meal”, but I do this for good reason. The first time I did a bodybuilding prep my, whatever I wanted, cheat would be everything off the takeaway menu, 4 weeks in, it was taken off me all together as I got too carried away, the next 18 weeks then became unbearable! This was somewhat of a learning curve for me, and made me realise, just because I can eat whatever I want, doesn’t mean I have to. There’s going to come a point in the near future where the only thing that will keep me sane is a big meaty 12-inch bastard (pizza), and I’d rather hold off and have that when its needed, and not push the boundaries. There’s a lesson for you all here, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. If you’ve got a clear goal set in your sites, why jeopardise that for temporary pleasure? If its going to help keep you on track in the long run, then I’m all for it, but ask yourself, is it necessary?

This leads me on to what I mentioned earlier, and putting barriers in your own way, and what I basically mean by this is how easily we let excuses get in the way of our progress. The most common of which is usually time, people will say they struggle to do things because they’re just sooooo busy! I didn’t have time to prep meals, I didn’t have time to take a picture of my food, I couldn’t fit all my steps in, I didn’t have time for a workout. Who are you kidding? The top CEO’s in the country work 80 hours a week, have a family, and still find time to exercise, Sandra from Hull can manage to get 10,000 steps. Sandra gets such a hard time from me and Sophie doesn’t she? Let’s look at some of the reasons why time is becoming an issue. Procrastinating is so easy to do, I’m terrible for getting sucked into my phone and flicking through Instagram reels, but its such a timewaster, or pressing the snooze on my alarm one to many times. You have to break that cycle, and I promise you it starts with fuelling your body properly. I’m at the stage in my diet now where my energy levels are firing constantly, even if I get to bed late, I’m up at 5.30 ready to start working or just generally being productive, and this is through totally removing sugar and bad foods from my diet. The extra time in a morning allows me to become more organised, squeeze 3 or 4000 steps in, all before the kids wake up! If you allow yourself to be lazy then you will be, but my latest trick is to not allow my brain chance to talk me out of doing something I don’t want to do. I count backwards from 3, and just get up and do it before any excuses even have chance to creep in. it’s a good exercise worth trying.

I’m going to address this a little more in an actual blog, but I want to do a little task with you in which I put together a table for you to use. Fill in each of the sections below with how many minutes or hours you think you spend doing each one a week. There are 168 hours in total in a week. The aim of the task is to see if you are using your time wisely. Some are obvious, when I say things like family time, it means designated family time, not just you’re at home with the kids because you can do other things in that time, like a home workout;

Add the hours up and take it away from 168, do you have time left over? If your answer is no then stop lying to yourself. The CEO’s of multi-billion-pound companies have family’s as well and still find time to exercise, Sandra can as well.

Peace out,

Big Sugar