Fazal Rana, Nutritionist and fitness enthusiast has been able to transform the physiques of countless individuals by incorporating guidance to change long term habits and advanced nutritional science. This however was a test of his ability. The aim? To help Elliott Reid shed nearly 2 stone in 7 weeks… I’ll leave you to Fazal
Working with someone to lose 8kg in any time frame is never an easy matter but when it’s an individual already at a low bodyfat of 14/15% who wants to do it in around 7 weeks whilst maintaining a high level of strength, that difficulty can be multiplied by 10.
Elliott was sitting steady at around 94kg and wanted to lose a minimum of 10kg for a weightlifting competition so he had to maintain his strength (and try to gain some if possible). Personally I thought he was crazy for wanting to do it but I promised to help him nonetheless!
Before I outline the methods we used, I should mention that losing bodyfat becomes a lot harder when you have a lot of muscle to retain (for reasons we’ll outline in another post). This means that more complicated dieting methods are needed.
That being said let’s take a look at what we’ve done so far:
First 3 Weeks:
Elliott’s a busy individual who tends to spend most of the day on his feet and also gets through at least 3-4 hard training sessions every week. This means he needs to consume A LOT of wholesome food to see progress, usually around 3500 calories (enough daily food to make most people feel sick!)
To fast track the weight loss we cut his daily calorie intake by 1000 down to 2500. Other things that were done included:
- Keeping protein intake very high at around 240g spread fairly evenly during the day
- Setting carbohydrates to around 220g during training days with most of them consumed around the workout
- Setting fat to about 70g on training days
- Reducing carbohydrate intake even further on non-training days but increasing fats to make up for it
- Cardio was kept to a minimum and weight training sessions continued as usual
The result: 4.5kg lost in the first 3 weeks whilst maintaining strength, a great start!
Next 2 Weeks:
After the first 3 weeks Elliott began to feel a little run down so we had him take a few days off from dieting then go again, this helped both psychologically and physically.
The diet stayed mostly but some small changes were made to make sure progress continued:
- A further reduction of about 200 calories coming mostly from carbohydrates
- An increase in steady low intensity cardio
The result: A further 2.5kg lost and signs of a 5kg improvement in his deadlift!!
So far Elliott had lost 8kg, was down to 86kg, improved his strength (1RM increased by 15kg thanks to the help of Shane Harrison) and looked in incredible shape but there was still some work to be done.
Incredibly lean!
Final 8 Days:
8 days before his weigh in we decided it would now be a good idea to begin ‘water loading.’ Although it might sound like a torture method it’s actually the process of manipulating your body to partially dehydrate itself to lose more weight through water.
WARNING: This is not for the faint hearted and can drastically effect training performance! It’s also only a temporary measure and should be used for extended periods of time.
This topic requires a post of its own so I’ll just outline the basics:
- Increase water intake and sodium (salt) to 2-3 times your normal amount for the first couple days
- Drop it back down to normal, reduce carbohydrate intake massively and reduce sodium intake
The result so far: A further loss of 2kg in the first 4 days of water loading.
Next Steps:
Elliott will continue the water loading strategy for another few days until the weigh in. He’ll then begin a special rehydration strategy for 24 hours so that he can perform to his best the next day.
In the next post we’ll cover:
- His final weight, complete with progress pictures
- The rehydration strategy used
- Performance on the day
- The supplement and training regime used during the time of his diet
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