Day 3 of the transformation plan, and it was time for a rest. A prescribed rest day is a joyous thing, but it would be a challenging day nevertheless.

Starting stats:

Day: 3
Date: 14/05/2013
Workout Day: Rest
Weight (lb): 168.8 (3lb loss)
Body Fat %: 16.0 (0.6% loss)
Health: A few aches everywhere, but generally fine.

Rest days are a hugely important part of any training regimen, and Nick’s plan specifies 4 days of training and 3 days of rest each week, therefore that is what I will do. If the plan says it, I do it. If he tells me to jump off a cliff, I walk down to Dover. But in the case of rest days you can tweak these slightly, and due to my Stockholm Syndrome like desire to go back in the gym I did a few minutes of HIIT on the rowing machine. It was a 4 minute block of 20 second sprint, 10 seconds stop, repeated 8 times (making 4 minutes total). This sounds like nothing, but if you do give it everything you’ve got on the sprint phase then you should barely be able to stand by the end. My thinking was that this would help burn a bit more fat, without any adverse impact on the recovery from the “proper” training I am doing. (TIP – find a fast moving song to play that is over 4 minutes in length so it keeps you going all the way through)

Add the HIIT to the steak, eggs and brazil nuts and the day was going well. But then came the big challenge……. an evening at an Italian trattoria restaurant (focus on pizza/pasta) accompanied by 3 birthday cakes. This might not sound like much, but for someone that LOVES pizza, pasta and garlic bread this was not going to be easy. But this plan isn’t meant to be easy. Maybe the only easy part of the plan is knowing that you MUST stick to the plan. with that in mind, and therefore only one option to be “good” I opted for the fillet steak and vegetables, and didn’t touch any cake, pizza, bread or anything bad. For many of you this might sound like a bit of a none event, but within my family/friends/culture, the need to bring food and drink into any social occasion is a given, and the peer pressure to “all have a drink” or “all have some cake” is always there. Add this to the personal sense of loss of attending a very unique family occasion and not having the food and drink you want; and the overwhelming urge is to “just have what you want”. When you face this challenge, just tell yourself this, “It’s only food”, or “It’s only a drink” and you can win any internal argument with that devil standing on your shoulder.

But I won this mini-challenge, and look forward (??) to tomorrow’s upper body training day.