Review of Week 1 Belly Off

Week 1 ReviewI started the Men’s Health Belly Off programme on 14th April and over the next 8 weeks or so I am planning to produce a weekly review of the progress I am making on the programme and the overall experience. I hope this might prove helpful and beneficial to anyone else who is on the programme or thinking about starting the programme.

The first thing to mention is that I am by no means an expert in fitness or nutrition and I am learning as I go along. So if you are looking for expert advice then I am the wrong guy. But if like me you are a novice and want to see how people like yourself are doing on the programme then this will hopefully prove useful.

As mentioned above I started the programme on the 14th April with a starting weight of 190lbs and my goal over the next 8 weeks is to loose around 15lbs and to significantly reduce my overall body fat. Although I am around 20lbs overweight I do consider myself to be relatively healthy and play a significant amount of sport including Football (Soccer), Squash and Tennis. So I have always done at least 3-4 days of exercise per week. Saying that I have not done any kind of body workout or weights type exercises for a very long time.

Every week I plan to produce a review on the core elements of the Belly Off programme relating to the Eating Plan and the Workouts. I will also throw in any other useful information or tips that I learn on the way that might come in handy for others.

The Eating Plan

First thing to mention is that I am actually doing the Weightwatchers points diet and have already lost around 16lbs since I started the diet around 7 weeks ago. As such, I have opted to continue with the Weightwatchers points diet but at the same time substitute some of my normal meals with the meals suggested from the Belly Off Eating Plan. So in the first week I pretty much followed the Eating Plan for Breakfast, Lunch and Snacks and just varied the meals I had for Dinner.

The great thing about the Weightwatchers plan for me is that its points based and to a certain extent you can eat whatever you want. The key things I have tried to do in the first week were to lower the amount of Carbohydrates I ate and to increase the Fibre and Protein intake. As such, for breakfasts I had either All Bran, Bran Flakes, Weetabix or Scrammbled Eggs with a glass of fresh Orange Juice and an Actimel. For mid morning I then had a banana or apple and a handful of Almonds. For lunch I had either Turkey, Chicken, PB&J, or Tuna sandwich with a packet of Corn Snacks (Snackajacks).

In the afternoon I had a banana or apple. During the week I don’t get home from work until around 7pm and I mainly workout in the evenings so I don’t tend to have a big dinner. As such, I either had another bowl of cereal or a ready made ‘healthy’ microwave meal such as Spaghetti & Meatballs or Spaghetti Bolognaise. On the Weightwatchers diet in total this came to around 26-28 points and I am entitled to 28 points a day so pretty much bang on. On the weekend, I did follow the plan more with Chicken breast or a beef steak with vegetables for dinner.

Overall, the biggest change for me in week 1 was the reduction of bread and potatoes from my diet. I love bread and potatoes and during the first week I had a maximum of two slices of Wholemeal bread a day and it’s the first time I can think of when I had absolutely no white bread in a week! I also had no potatoes until Sunday when I had a handful of roast potatoes with my dinner. So overall a pretty good week on the eating plan and I would say this is one of the easiest eating plans to follow.

Workouts

My first Workout session was on Monday 14th in the evening at my local gym. I started with the warm-up routine and launched into Workout A. I found most of the exercises OK but did struggle on a couple of them. In particular, I struggled on the 1-Leg RDL as I kept loosing balance. This might have something to do with me having really flat feet or it might just be my lack of balance or strength but I did struggle. I also struggled to do the number of reps required for the Inverted rows. I was only able to manage 8 in a row as opposed to the 12 required. So I took a break and finished the other 4.

One of the things that Craig recommends for week one is to only do 1 set or a maximum of 2 sets of each superset. I did actually manage to do the three sets and felt OK, but on reflection I think it is best to do a maximum of 2 on the first Workout so as to not overdo it! I finished off with the Interval training on a running machine which was a great way to finish the workout. The next day I woke up and felt pretty good. However, as the day progressed I did get more and more stiff, particularly in my back and sides. When I woke up on Wednesday I was definitely feeling it and was very stiff. Hence the reason why I would suggest a maximum of two sets of supersets as opposed to the three.

On Wednesday despite the fact I was feeling very stiff I went to the gym in the evening to do Workout B. After doing the warm up I felt OK and launched into the workout. I really enjoyed Workout B and on the whole had no problems with any of the exercises. The only one I did struggle with was the Stability Ball Jacknife with rotation as again I kept losing balance and falling off the ball. I also struggled to do the number of reps required for the spiderman push ups but just took a couple of breaks whilst doing them. I finished off the workout with another Interval session on the running machine. Overall a great workout and it actually helped me feel much better the next morning and really helped to ease the stiffness from Workout A.

On Saturday I went to the gym in the morning to do the Bodyweight 100. After the warm up I launched into it and managed to finish it within 6 mins. So well within the 7mins that Craig specifies so I was very pleased. The only thing I really struggled with was the chin ups. I could only manage 3 to begin with and had to take a break before completing the other 2. After I finished I actually did another 20 min interval session on the bike.So overall I was very happy with the first week. In addition to the workouts above I also played Squash on Friday night and normally I would have played football on Tuesday but the weather was too bad. The only changes I am planning to introduce in the second week is to add a brief 20/30 min cardio workout on the Tuesday and Thursday.

Overall

So what’s the bottom line? In Week 1 I have lost 2lbs (only 13lbs to go) so overall pretty pleased. But better than that I really do feel like its already starting to make a difference to my body and strength. My work trousers felt loose around my waist this morning and I am definitely feeling stronger. So in summary I really enjoyed my first week on the Belly Off programme and am looking forward to week 2.