It’s been a while since I gave my last update on the Warp Speed Fat Loss program so I need to play catch up before I head out of town for the Perform Better seminar in Rhode Island this weekend.

Days 13 and 14 (Saturday and Sunday, May 24 and 25) went fairly well. As you know, we had to take the previous Wednesday (Day 10) as our off day due to a work-related event, so we adjusted the training schedule and meals accordingly.

We performed the weight workout on Saturday and the intervals on Sunday. Both workouts went well, although Stacey was dealing with a lot of knee and hamstring pain during Saturday’s workouts. The circuits were just too much and she had to back off slightly. She also started feeling sick on Saturday and ended up not training Sunday as she was taking various cold medicines and didn’t have the energy to train that day. I managed to continue progressing by completing more reps with the same weight, adding more weight or performing more circuits in the allotted time.

Despite it being Memorial Day weekend, we were able to stay on track almost 100%. We weren’t absolutely perfect as we did attend a barbecue on Monday (Day 15) and ate a small amount of homemade ice cream with fresh blueberries. Other than a small serving of ice cream, we ate all scheduled meals and snacks and even performed our weight workout prior to the barbecue. This was very hard for me as I was extremely hungry and there was so much food that I wanted to eat including baked beans, a larger serving of meat and a few other goodies – but I resisted.

Since we were attending the barbecue in the afternoon, we performed our weight workout much earlier than usual. It was extremely tough for me to train earlier in the day as I always prefer to train in the evening after I’ve eaten at least three or four meals. I also did my best to increase the intensity in Monday’s workout compared to previous workouts.

By the time Days 16 and 17 arrived (Tuesday and today – Wednesday), I was losing my motivation and struggling with everything! I had gone down to the next meal plan, and the small change in calories affected me immediately. I was having many of the same feelings that I had when I started the program including headaches and constantly feeling hungry and irritable. Tuesday’s interval workout felt like one of the worst workouts of all while on the program. We are in the third week, and the intervals are up to five sets followed by the steady-state cardio.

My hamstrings, knees, shins and calves were still sore from previous workouts, so Tuesday’s workout was extremely hard for me. But I managed to get it done and progressed yet again. Tonight’s weight workout went okay. I managed to increase the weight on my incline dumbbell presses and dumbbell rows, but I wasn’t able to increase weight or sets during the first circuit. However, even though I used the same weight as the last session, I could tell I improved because I took less rest and moved much quicker and more efficiently. I did increase the weight during the second 10-minute circuit.

Unfortunately, I have been exhausted for the past five days. Ever since my work-related event last Wednesday, I have not caught up on sleep or have felt rested or recovered. The increased intensity of the workouts and lower calories of the meal plan this week definitely didn’t help things. But I continue to move forward.

I’m beginning to become frustrated as I lost three pounds and then gained back two. Stacey also gained back a few pounds. So now I’m actually only down one pound since the start of the program. My goal is to try to gain muscle while losing fat at the same time, and I feel that I may be doing that to some degree, but I am not seeing the fat loss as quickly as I thought considering the amount of training I’m performing at such a high intensity in addition to the low-calorie, low-carb meal plan. I figured that halfway through the third week, I would see more changes or be closer to single-digit bodyfat than I currently am.

At the moment, I’m just worn out. I can tell that the training and diet is catching up to me, and the lack of motivation will affect my training if I don’t continue to push myself to finish strong. Also, I’m leaving tomorrow for the Perform Better seminar in Rhode Island. This is going to make it hard for me to follow my training and meals exactly as written, but I will be taking my meal plan with me and trying to follow it the best I can while being on the road.

I’m staying with my uncle, as I have family in Rhode Island. So at least I’ll be able to cook some of my meals and make my snacks each day. I’ll also get to spend some time with my family in the evenings and on Sunday afternoon after the seminar.

Although I won’t be able to complete Friday and Saturday’s workouts as scheduled since I’ll be at the seminar from 8am until at least 6pm each day, I will be participating in approximately seven “hands-on” seminars throughout the weekend. This will give me a chance to train even though I won’t be peforming the Warp Speed Fat Loss program as planned. But I may end up performing a lot more work during the seminar than I would even on the program.

I’ll also meet up with Alwyn Cosgrove, as he is one of the presenters during the seminar, and ask him plenty of questions about the program and many other things related to training and the fitness business. I’ll also get a chance to attend presentations by many other strength coaches, nutrition experts and fitness business professionals.

I plan on coming back with more knowledge and motivation to keep going! And maybe I’ll even get a chance to relax at some point during my travels. I will most likely not be posting until I return on Monday, but I’ll give an update on the seminar and the Warp Speed Fat Loss program, as I will be training when I return on Monday (even if I’m still sore from the hands-on seminars).

For me, Tuesday is always one of the hardest days on the Warp Speed Fat Loss program. The lower carbs and small meals make me feel like I’m starving all day long. The meals and snacks don’t seem to hold me over, and many times, they do nothing to curb my appetite as soon as I’ve eaten.

Stacey seems to be doing fine with all the meals and even the lower carb days. The difference is that she didn’t eat consistently prior to the start of the program and the decreased carbs and calories is not too drastic of a reduction for her. For me, I’m consuming about half of what I normally eat each day. So it is a much more drastic cut, and I can tell the difference on some days more than others.

During yesterday’s intervals, Stacey felt great and really pushed herself. She likes to run/sprint, as she was once on the track team in high school. Although her current conditioning is not as good as it was then, she can see and feel herself improving each time we perform the intervals.

For me, the interval days are brutal. I’m much stronger than Stacey in the weight room and much faster than her when we sprint. I also have much more experience training and am at a much more advanced level. That means that I need more recovery time than someone still “new” to training.

Since we began, my hamstrings have been constantly sore, and performing intervals does not give them a chance to recover. During last night’s sessions, I was unable to run my sprints at full speed because my hamstrings felt as though they were going to cramp up or rip right out of my leg. Although the overall session went great, I wasn’t able to push myself as much as I wanted even though we had an extra set of intervals this week. But I did manage to keep my intensity higher during the 20-minute steady-state cardio session.

Normally, today would be another low-carb day (10% of total calories) along with our weight training session. However, I have a huge work-related event this evening preventing me from training. We decided to adjust the workouts by one day and made today our no-carb and no training day (instead of Sunday). That means that we will perform today’s workout on Thursday, Thursday’s workout on Friday, Friday’s workout on Saturday and Saturday’s workout on Sunday.

The only bad thing about this is that we now will be training 10 days straight before getting a day off next Sunday. I just hope that I can recover from the workouts each day and not be held back by my hamstring soreness/cramping.

Luckily, even though it’s a no carb day, I do fine with the menu choices as I find protein and healthy fat foods to be much more satisfying. Today also gives me one extra day to rest before we go for the long stretch.

Time for another update on Warp Speed Fat Loss. Day seven (Sunday) went fairly well considering it was a no carb day. Luckily, we didn’t have to train, so not having any carbs was not as bad as it could have been. I’m glad we didn’t have to train because we were both very sore, tired and dealing with some minor knee pain from all the lifting and sprinting the previous week.

At the end of the first seven days, Stacey is down two pounds after originally gaining a pound. So that means she actually lost three pounds. Although she hasn’t lost much weight in the first week, she can tell the difference in how her clothes fit.

My weight is holding steady which is fine with me since I’m trying to get leaner without losing much weight in the process. I have already noticed more definition in my delts, arms and serratus after the first week. If things go well, I will not have much of a change in my overall weight, but I will be significantly leaner. This means that I will have gained muscle and lost fat at the same time – no easy feat!

Day eight was very similar to last Monday. The meals were filling and satisfying throughout the day and the training session was brutal yet again! Prior to the workout, both of us were still dealing with muscle soreness, but Stacey was also having some knee/hamstring pain in one of her legs. She managed to get through the workout, but she was unable to add weight to many of the movements this week and the pain became more intense. I was also experiencing knee pain after the workout and as I write this. However, I was able to increase weight on several of my exercises during the workout.

I do think we are at a disadvantage with the Warp Speed Fat Loss training sessions compared to others using the program for a couple reasons. First, we train in our garage gym and don’t have access to cardio machines for the interval portion of the workouts to add variety. Second, we are using sprints and intense conditioning exercises such as burpees and barbell complexes for the interval workouts. This causes a lot of wear and tear on the joints and body.

I believe this may lead to some overuse injuries by the time we are finished with the 28-day program, but we are determined to continue with the workouts despite some of these issues. We’ll continue to ice any sore areas, use cold and hot showers and use NSAIDs such as Aleve to help with pain and inflammation.

After following the program for the first week, I would not recommend it to beginners or those with less than a year’s worth of serious training. You have to be fairly fit to follow the workouts as they are written while also using heavy weights for the strength exercises and the circuits.

Also, I am under a huge amount of stress. It would have been better to follow this program a month earlier or even a month later, as I have been swamped with work, planning a huge event, making plans to attend the Perform Better Seminar next week, other commitments, normal household chores, a relationship, not getting enough sleep, etc.

All of these issues don’t help with my recovery and make it very tough to stay on track each day. But I am determined to follow the meal plans and training as written despite not having ideal conditions. Besides, life is rarely ideal, so if the Warp Speed Fat Loss program can work for someone in my situation, then there should be no excuse for anyone else.

Stacey is also very busy, as she’s been juggling three part-time jobs along with commitments at church, helping with the meals, household chores, etc. Her schedule changes on a daily basis, so it takes even more for her to stay on track, as she has no set routine like me. She has done an excellent job so far and has learned quite a bit about portion control and more while following the program.

More updates to come soon! This week is a bit hectic since I have my event on Wednesday night and will need to shuffle around the training days and meal plans this week.

I apologize for taking so long to post feedback on the Warp Speed Fat Loss program. I have been extremely busy this week. I have also been stressed with so much happening lately including work, planning a huge event, training, cooking, meal planning, chores around the house, etc.

So far, the first week has been brutal. The first day (Mon) went well because it was a higher carb day (20% of total calories) even though the workout was new compared to what I’ve done in the past. However, Tuesday through Thursday were “normal” carb days (only 10% of total calories) and the training was harder as we progressed each day.

On Monday, Stacey and I felt fine. We actually found it difficult to eat all our meals that day as they seemed quite filling and very satisfying. But since then, we’ve felt like we’re starving all the time. We’ve been extremely irritable, have had headaches (even though we’re drinking more than a gallon of water per day), our patience has been almost nonexistent (especially with each other), we’ve had problems focusing on tasks at work, we’re sore every day from the workouts, and overall we have felt like crap.

Earlier this week, I was going through the whole “I feel skinny and fat” at the same time mentality. Stacey has not seen any noticeable changes and has actually gained a pound so far even though she has stuck to the plan consistently and has worked hard during the training sessions. But from what I’ve heard, it’s the first week that is the hardest, and it takes a week for the body to adjust.

However, I feel a lot better today than I have most of the first week. Friday was a higher carb day (20% of total calories instead of 10% like most days), and the training went much, much better. I had an intense headache most of the afternoon, so I took some Excedrin during my warm-up sets. Within 15 minutes, my headache was gone and the caffeine made a HUGE impact on the training. I was like a machine and was able to bust through the heavy deadlifts, weight circuits and the intervals like they were nothing.

I think I may need to start using a little caffeine before my weight workouts (Mon, Wed, Fri) to give me a little boost to get through the workout and be able to increase weight each week. I normally don’t take any products with caffeine, and I don’t drink soda or coffee, so I am very sensitive to its effects.

As far as the meals go, we’re eating six meals per day with fruits, veggies, protein and healthy fats (and the meals are actually really good and give you wiggle room to season the lunch/dinners as you wish), and we’re taking at least one scoop of Surge after every workout (six days per week). I usually take two scoops after the weight days (Mon, Wed, Fri) and one scoop after the interval/steady-state cardio days (Tues, Thurs, Sat). It hasn’t helped with soreness, but I haven’t lost any strength or mass so that’s a good sign.

Stacey and I are following the program pretty much to the “T” as far as meals and training go. We’ve had to make a few substitutions with the interval portions of some of the workouts because I have a home gym and can’t perform those exercises on a treadmill, bike, stairmaster, elliptical, etc. So we sprint and jog/walk for the interval/steady-state cardio days and then use bodyweight exercises (burpees, mountain climbers, squat jumps) for the intervals on Mon, Fri and barbell complexes for the intervals on Wed.

So far, that seems to be working okay and gives us a break from sprinting. Hopefully, the second week will go much better and Stacey will begin seeing a difference in the mirror and on the scale.