20 DAY CHALLENGE

INTRO

Here it is, as promised, a review of my 20-day challenge that I’ve just completed around a week ago…

In this blog I’m going to be discussing what’s, why’s & how’s of the 20-day challenge as well as reviewing the pro’s & cons.

WHAT IS THE 20 DAY CHALLENGE?

The 20-day challenge was simply a fat-loss challenge that I came up with to show that it is still possible to get fast results on a busy work schedule.

However, even though I wanted to show it was possible to do this, I also wanted to educate people on what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and most importantly – how it’s affecting me positively & negatively.

See the problem with challenges like this (which are performed over a short period of time), is that they are extremely appealing to the general public… but in reality, if you don’t understand the whole why’s, how’s, and what happens as a result of doing it, you never tend to reap the rewards long term.

WHY I DECIDED TO DO IT?

For the past few years I’ve been working my ass off…

On average I’ll coach a minimum of 40 hours per week, and that’s just the coaching!

I then tally up almost another 30-40 hours work from the following weekly tasks – creating programs, reviewing nutrition logs, dealing with consultations, managing social media, managing clients, managing coaches, running multiple projects (new spinning fields gym, mentorship course, private residential coaching etc…), developing new content and much more…

Not to mention all my personal, relationship & family responsibilities each week.

So, you can see that I’m a pretty busy guy and why it’s pretty hard to stay in peak physical condition when I’m working so much every week!

However, that’s what pushed me to do this challenge, I wanted to prove that even on an 80-hour work week – you can still get in great shape, and relatively quick too.

I deal with so many clients that use time, lack of motivation, or tiredness/fatigue from work as an excuse, when they work around a 40-hour work week…

I’m not saying that it’s easy performing a 40-hour work week, but in my opinion it’s just not a good enough excuse if you really want to get in shape!

Hence why I wanted to prove that it’s possible to get in shape even on double the average working hours.

HOW DID I DO IT?

As usual I’m guessing everyone’s expecting some secret training method, or supplement or eating routine that gets you in shape in 20 days, right?

Well guess what? You’re right! This time there actually is a secret…

It’s this crazy new dieting method where you eat calories than you expend on a daily basis… insane right?

All you have to do is eat less to lose weight… MIND = BLOWN!

Sorry haha, I couldn’t help myself, I just love to make it out like it’s something crazy, when in reality all I done was the following:

• Follow a higher percentage calorie deficit
• Consume plenty of protein
• Train frequently
• Stayed active
• Stayed hydrated

Losing fat, believe it or not, is surprisingly quite easy when you understand all you have to do is put less energy in than energy going out.

By doing this your body has to use stored energy as fuel (stored fat is converted into energy) in order for you to function and perform on daily basis.

Therefore, over time, if you stay consistent, you will lose fat and become leaner meaning your muscle will become more visible as there is less fat covering it.

MY LOGS

I figured it would be cool for you ladies & gents to actually see what I tracked during this 20-day process so you can get an idea of what you need to analyse in order to get results.

I kept track of the following:

• Calories
• Macros
• Weight
• Waist
• Hips
• Weights – Training Program

NUTRITION:

Here’s my nutrition log results:

As you can see from monitoring my macros (protein, carbs and fats), I managed to roughly stick to 2000 calories a day, which for me is quite a large deficit considering my maintenance targets are around 3000 – 3500 calories per day (depending on my daily activity levels).

Before starting the 20-day challenge, I would consume around 4000 calories a day, hence why I wasn’t in great shape before-hand, so you should also be able to understand why 2000 calories a day allowed me to drop fat relatively quickly.

MEASUREMENTS

Here’s my weekly measurement log:

INITIAL MEASUREMENTS:

• WEIGHT – 76.2KG
• WAIST – 34.9”
• HIPS – 38”

FINAL MEASUREMENTS:

• WEIGHT – 73.9KG
• WAIST – 33”
• HIPS – 37.5”

TOTAL LOSS:

• WEIGHT – 2.3KG LOSS
• WAIST – 1.9” LOSS
• HIPS – 0.5” LOSS

Nothing too crazy, but pretty good considering the busy work schedule, right?

On average I dropped around 1kg per week and almost 1 inch off my waist per week, which is relative fast weight/fat-loss. However, the sustainability of it is a completely different topic but ill discuss that later on in the blog.

TRAINING

Here’s my training log:

All I did here was keep track of what I was lifting each session.

My weekly programmed sessions were around 20 minutes long, however, I did perform the odd session elsewhere to keep my calorie expenditure high.

I simply performed 3 different training sessions that included the following structure, a push, a pull, a lunge, a hinge or bridge/thrust.

The reason why I haven’t included the exercises for you to see in the log is so you don’t copy the work out thinking it will work wonders!

Training should always be specific to you!

My goal with the training log was simple, to beat or match the weights lifted from the week before.

I find that when on a fat-loss program, if you are an experienced trainee, you must be very careful with weight progressions as like I mentioned before – the goal is fat loss, your muscle isn’t going to disappear overnight, so it’s safer to stay consistent rather than progress your training too much as you will considerably increase your chances of injury, fatigue and much more.

On the other hand, if you are a beginner, crank those weights up, as long as they are achievable, you’ll be fine, beginners & intermediate trainees can experience strength gains on a fat-loss program because they are so new to the movement patterns and motor skills of performing certain exercises.

RESULTS

SIDE NOTE: As you can see from the above images, it’s clear to see that I trimmed up within the 20 days, however I did face a slight issue with taking the progress pictures…

Ideally, I wanted to show you a depleted picture of myself on the 20^thday, then a repleted picture of myself on the 22^nd, by doing this I would have also been able to educate everyone on how easy it is to change your physique within a matter of days by showing you all a “flat” physique & “full” physique.

But life got in the way and I wasn’t able to, so I would class these images as in-between a flat and full look, be that as it may, at least you can still see a change from the above comparisons.

PRO’S OF THE 20 DAY CHALLENGE

• I lost fat – making me look in better shape
• It gave me something to prioritise other than work which was quite nice for a change
• It gave me a bit of a spark back for dieting & tracking my nutrition
• It generated more business for me as I was more active on social media
• It proved to my clients that it’s possible to lose fat even if you do have plenty of barriers in your way

CONS OF THE 20 DAY CHALLENGE

• It was an added stress to my daily tasks and responsibilities
• It was very tiring and stressful halving my daily energy intake on a busy schedule
• I had multiple days of fatigue, sickness and light headedness most likely due to low blood sugar levels from long days and low-calorie intake
• I was almost always hungry
• It was hard to perform mentally on day to day tasks, especially with computer work
• My training was poop, I couldn’t lift that heavy because I just didn’t have the energy

OVERALL REVIEW/SUMMARY OF THE 20 DAY CHALLENGE

Overall it was a good experience, the whole dieting process and tracking process was quite enjoyable for me.

I haven’t properly dieted in almost 3 years, so it was a nice reminder of how much I actually enjoy hitting nutrition & training targets.

I also loved seeing weekly progress in my physique. All my clothes fit much nicer and I was noticing the odd muscle pop out in areas where there hasn’t been any on show for a long time.

The whole educational side of it for myself was great too, I got to successfully go through what most people tend to want to do (lose weight quick), but not face too many repercussions because I simply know what I’m doing and know not to go over the top when finishing a dieting phase.

However, even though I enjoyed the process, there was plenty of times where I was asking myself “is this even worth it” …

What amazed me was that in my opinion my deficit wasn’t even that extreme, however I was still suffering from plenty of negative symptoms…

The majority of the time I was tired, slow, sluggish, hungry and weak, which as a result had a negative impact on my work schedule & productivity.

I’m behind on numerous nutrition programs, emails & late on certain projects, which isn’t great at all, I even had to cancel a couple of coaching sessions because I was feeling awful! But luckily, I know I’ll put the time and effort to catch up on things and my clients are all awesome and very understanding of what I was doing.

So, all in all it was great, but I’m in two minds whether I would do something like this again.

I still think taking your time and following a steady calorie deficit is a much better option and you can still get in amazing shape in 3 months!

I think if I would have carried the 20-day challenge on any longer it would have kicked my ass! But I also know I would have been shredded within 40 days.

If you head over to the following link, you can check out a quick summary of the 20-day challenge via a highlight reel on my Insta-stories – https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18030553924027376/

WOULD I RECOMMEND THE CHALLENGE?

As always, the answer is… IT DEPENDS!

It completely depends on the individual, their goals, past history, lifestyle, ability, habits & much more.

The only way I would ever advise anyone to do something like this is if I looked at the number of factors listed above so I could come to a conclusion of whether a 20-day diet would be suitable for the individual & their goals.

CONTACT

I understand that a number of people already want to contact me about finding out more about the 20 day challenge as well as wanting to enquire about my services, so if you’re interested in finding out more or want to enquire about anything else, you can contact via the following:

EMAIL – INFO@RIKFITDC.COM

RIKFIT INSTA – WWW.INSTAGRAM.COM/RIKFITDC

RICKY INSTA – WWW.INSTAGRAM.COM/RICKY_RIKFITDC

RIKFIT FACEBOOK – WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/RIKFITDC

RICKY FACEBOOK – WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/RICKYRIKFITDC

MOBILE – 07736323053