Project Ripped

This section needs updating as still original 2008 goals

Goals

• To regain my health – avoid disease and illness and maximise life expectancy
• To become fit enough to tackle most non-endurance activities
• To feel good foremost and look good secondary
• To obtain and then maintain a body fat % of 8%.
• To increase lean muscle mass and build great strength in muscles and tendons

Ailments

These are the ailments that I currently suffer from prior to starting the project (June 2008):

• Constant tiredness and fatigue
• Cloudy thinking and poor short-term memory
• Depression (‘episodes’ throughout the years but constant since October 2007)
• Obesity (BMI=32)
• Sore joints and difficulty with fine motor grip
• Phlegm in the back of the throat (for the last few months – but no cold)
• Swelling of the abdomen frequently, especially after eating
• Inability to crouch down to work on things low because of discomfort in the abdomen
• Lethargic and low motivation
• Soft and inconsistent stools for a couple of months
• Severely limited flexibility – partly due to swollen abdomen and partly due to shortened tendons in backs of legs, neck and back and inner thighs
• Occasional blisters/spots on my scalp
• Psoriasis on my inner thighs (since 2000, although did clear for a while)
• Frequent mouth ulcers
• Difficulty waking up in the morning
• I have had 3 bad colds/flu in the last 10 months – too high a frequency!

Approach

I am combining bits from different sources to try and make my diet and exercise fit in around my lifestyle. I am taking ideas from:

• Burn the fat feed the muscle
• The ph diet
• Juice Master
• Metalbolic surge
• Metabloic burn
• Raw food eating

As my primary motivator is health then this comes first. I do not intend to be a bodybuilder but do want to have a strong and muscular physique so I shall take on board the principles of bodybuilders but may not be as rigorous at this early stage.

Phase 1

‘Phase 1′ describes my first steps from being unhealthy to becoming healthy again. It is a 12 week phase which will see me change my habits of diet and exercise in order to help my mind and body to become healthy.

I aim to lose as much bodyfat as I can while not losing any lean muscle mass and improving my health at the same time. Phase 1 is really to get myself in to a reasonbly fit state to tackle Phase 2.

Phase 2

‘Phase 2′ is where I really try to get lean and lower the body fat. I will need to be a bit more clever about strategies for fat loss. It is another 12 week programme where the target will be single digit body fat %.