My 8 Month Transformation [PICS]

lieing leg raises
once you mastered them - put a dumbell between your feet and do it off a bench throw your feet down, and stop before they get level with bench/where ever you feel best stretch
Bicycle crunches

+ cardio, you really got hammer ur body fat for them to show

 

All right, thanks.

I'm pretty sure my body fat % is low, but I could always keep working on it.

How do you do the dumb bell one -- the description kind of confuses me. Would you be using a normal bench that the guys are doing weights off of or the one where your arms are supported and you kick your legs up/raise your knees (while holding onto a dumbbell with your feet).

Thanks! ^_^

 

My chest's very strong compared to the rest of the body, unfortunately, my gym sucks and has hindered progress by a lot. Our DBs go up to only 25kilos and we have plates that stack up only upto a 100 kilos.

I can easily flat/incline DB bench the 25s for 15 reps, and do 90kilo flat and 80kilo incline bench on the bar.

I lat pulldown 73kgx6. Pullups made me go from 52x6 to 72x6 in a month.

 

Thanks No cardio at all. Just strict diet with over 200g protein,<40g fat and rest i filled out with carbs. I can't function well without carbs and when im carb depleted, i look like ive lost a noticable amount of size. So i stick with moderate carbs.

 

19 seems a bit low, bulk a bit more and focus on the abs later. Once you cut and follow a diet strictly, your lower abs will pop out in a month or two.

 

How do you fit 200g of protein into your diet?

Shakes give me headaches (the caseine or whatever)

 

I don't really want to bulk and get bulging muscles though. =| It doesn't look very flattering on a girl; I was going for more of the toned and athletic look. The abs part is what I'm having trouble with.

What would be a good women's diet for cutting?

 

lol i didn't know you were a girl. 19 isn't bad at all for a girl. But since you want abs, you should be aiming for about ~15. Depending on your genetics and how your fat gets distributed, you'd see abs at around that point. As for the diet, low fat,moderate carb, high protein OR low carb,high fat,high protein. Whichever works for you. But since you aren't a person who has a load of fat already, i'd recommend a moderate carb diet. And yeah, main thing to avoid is SUGAR. Avoid Sugar at all costs. Avoid packaged and processed stuff & drink lots of water too. Stick to that for a month or two and you'll definitely see results.

 

Very nice bench, im currently benching 70kilo for 10 reps, or 30kilo DP Press
[my gyms brilliant, top of range]
my chest doesnt look half as developed as yours! im also doing a lat pull down 80kilo, But still i don't look as big as you!

how many sets/ reps you do for chest? + exercises if you dont mind

 

Thanks. ^_^ Should I be worrying about calorie counting at all? I know that my basal metabolic rate should be around 1300 to maintain/1600 if I'm working out 4-5 days a week at an intense rate. How many calories should I be consuming?

I think I might have been eating too many carbs (granola w/ yogurt) which might have hindered my ab results and also have been adding sugar to my coffees in the morning. Would eating fruits keep you back? I know that sugar content in fruits is usually high.

My normal diet is this:
I usually have 2 eggs w/o the yolk for breakfast, and oatmeal OR granola + yogurt OR cereal + skim milk. Lunch is whatever is served at my research internship/work, usually happens to be a sandwich/sub or something along those lines (probably the most unhealthy of the meal of the day). Dinner is either chicken/fish/some pasta/2 scrambled eggs w/o yolk/veggies (usually broccoli).

 

Your diet seems good. Just dont binge too much when u decide to stray off of it. For some women, even at 15%, abs would not show thanks to their fat distribution genes, so if you dont see abs even then, cut down on your cals a bit more. Also workout on your abs every day or every other day to make sure the abdominal muscles are strong enough to show through whatever fat you have on your stomach. For some people it makes a huge difference when they actually train their abs.

 

It's more about the way your back is positioned while benching. Stick your ribcage out and keep your back straight, this helps focus on your midsection to push the weight rather than your arms. I don't put too much pressure on my palms so that all the weight is handled by my chest rather than my arms. This helps a lot for any1 who's been having a weak chest, since it's more about the imbalance between the chest and back muscles. Judging by your lat pulldown number, you seem to have a way stronger back than your chest leading to your chest looking under-developed or 'flat'. Just stick to what i said above next time while you bench and focus on squeezing your chest at the top to develop a nice aesthetic chest.

I usually do 6 sets for flat DB, flat BB, incline DB and incline machine press (100kilos)

Also doing close grip pushups everyday helps a lot to make sure of your chest development.

For lats, i've genetically good ones. I bought it out through door pullups the most. It's a great exercise to get your serratus and lats to show from the front as it isolates both of them although not too many people know about it.

 

Okay, thanks so much. My BMI is at 19.3 or so, not sure what my % fat is - I'll see if I can get that measured at the rec center. I sometimes can see a line down my abs, but I might have to work on them specifically for them to show.

I haven't been incorporating them into my work outs at all since I just do upper body/lower body depending on the day, and end with planks/some leg raises on the machine thing. So that might be my problem -- the working out on the abs part; I always thought that running would help with building your core muscles enough and also upper body work outs would get at the core too. =|

Thanks for the help. ^_^

 

50g from 2 scoops protein, 30g from 1L milk, rest 120g from chicken and eggs. A lot of it.

 

^^ boys love a girl with a lil bit off meat! its embarressing when a girl pulls out a better six pack that us!

 

This reminds me of Zyzz... he was such a skinny little guy before he started working out, and then with hard work & time, he toned his body into an aesthetic sculpture. Really great progress so far though man, you looked completely jacked haha.

I am very interested in your diet & routine, how you got started in your fitness regime and where you got your information to begin? I used to work out very regularly but am quite badly out of shape after years of substance abuse and drug addiction. I have been getting healthier and healthier over the last year and I am just about ready to start exercising and getting my endurance and strength back. With that of course, I would like to retone my body and gain some of the muscle mass back that I had previously.

Any tips/advice/info would help tremendously!

 

Haha thanks, that's a really good compliment

Main reason i started/got interested in lifting was when i was towards the end of my fourth semester in college. Realized i was getting extremely weak and my heart rate would randomly jump up to 110-120s resting mostly due to lack of physical activity. I used to be the kind of guy who had the endurance to play 3-4 hours of football daily. However at that point of time i had no idea about how to get a good body, how the body added muscle. Heck, i didn't even care about aesthetics etc. I liked being a skinnyphag. Then i started seeing transformations of various skinny guys like Josef Rakich, Aggresive and other random people from BB.com's post your pictures subforum. This got me inspired and also made me aware of how skinny i actually was. My brother used to browse 4chan and used to keep updating me with lifting facts from /fit/, at that point we both were interested, but couldn't start because of forthcoming exams. This went on for a few months. But inbetween, he introduced me to Zyzz and his transformation and view on aesthetics. This completely changed my mindset and i decided that i HAD to start sooner rather than later. I started lifting at the beginning of my 5th semester. However, i had a month of fasting in between (Ramadan) and a month of exams in between where i couldn't train or follow a diet. But with 8 months of lifting i've changed a lot from where i was & i've enough knowledge now on getting to my current goal of 180 pounds, shredded.

My mindset was completely focused on bodybuilding and creating that aesthetic physique. If the gym's closed for some reason, i end up doing 300+ pushups at home, along with 100+ pullups otherwise i just don't feel right.

The main thing you've to focus on while u start off is of course, your diet. Without a solid diet, it isn't possible for you to get anywhere in terms of aesthetics. And the second thing is trial and error. Find out your strongest and weakest spots and learn to train in such a way that your weak spots don't lag behind too much with the rest of the body. For example, some people just train biceps and arms since its their strong spot, but it leads to their physique looking narrow as your lats get overshadowed by the biceps. If you have love handles or fat on your obliques, this'd look completely stupid when you dont have a shirt on.

So remember, heavy intensity full body training (including legs) with sets consisting of 8-6-5 pyramid sets, a proper diet with very little sugar (Sugar's your biggest enemy in terms of fat storage) and mainly your mindset should be on top if you want to see results.

 

Haha it's weird but another girl has also asked me on advice to get a 6 pack. Its some kind of a fad or something now

 

Well, it is beach season. ^_^

I think I'm going to work on a transformation thread, kind of like what you have...but only after I've made some progress...lol. I heard it keeps you motivated (I remember being on other health/bodybuilding sites).

I'm not aiming for a jacked 6 pack, just toned abs rather than a skinny/flat stomach.

 

If more people made good progress threads here it would help kickstart a fitness craze. I say go for it!