8 Things that I learned on an 8 week shred
So I just completed an 8 week shred programme and I celebrated with my first photoshoot and I wanted to share with you all what I learned.
Tracking can be a great tool, however it’s not for everyone. For me, it really highlighted at the start how little protein that I was eating, and now I know what I should be aiming for going forward. This will help me make better choices for my meals going forward, but if it becomes something that you can’t take a day off from, maybe its not for you.
You need a lot of time in the day — towards the end of this shred I had weights 5 days a week and 2 hrs of cardio 6 days a week, which is a lot of time to spend exercising. Not everyone has that time and training like this can start to take away from other parts of your life which isn’t sustainable.
Don’t shred in winter! — there is a reason that they say winter is for bulking, when you reduce your calories you are cold ALL OF THE TIME and coupled with the winter temps its just not worth it, plus you’re covered up the whole time so no one will even see your results, If I do this again, I will make sure that I do it in the summer!
I like having abs but I like food more! Towards the end I was tired and cranky because of the low cals and honestly, it was nice to try but I wouldn’t want to live like this.
I couldn’t have done this several years ago — I wouldn’t have been in the right headspace then, I would have become obessessed with it and suffered guilt during, now tho if I wasn’t perfect I didn’t mind and I am mentally prepared to put weight back on when I go back to eating normally. Unless you can say this, I wouldn’t advice doing it.
You don’t have to be perfect to get results, I went away during week 5 and while away I decided to enjoy my time and ate and drink what I wanted, I reset at the end of that week and I’m happy to say I stll got great results. I factored treats into my final weeks. This made the experience way more managable.
Training is easier than diet — keeping a training schedule is so easy but planning prepping and cooking meals was much harder. As somone who doesn’t like cooking it was a real learning curve for me but now I have more recipes I can use going forward!
Having a goal really does make a difference — I have no issue with training regualary but it had become a bit stagnent, by buying this programme and setting a goal of doing a photoshoot, it really helped me get my head in the game and work harder than I have been for a long time. If you feel like this maybe you need to set yourself a goal too.
This is just some of the things that I learned in the 8 weeks and I can say I learned so much more too. I’m so glad I did this and didnt let my ego of “I’m a trainer, I don’t need a programme from someone else” get in the way of it.
I also recorded a podcast speaking of my experience and you can find the episode here:
If you’ve been struggling with having a direction with training or reaching your goal, maybe you don’t even have a goal, drop me a message and I will chat to you about how I can help YOU!