Currently, I'm doing a 14 Day ultra-low calorie diet.

It's day 9... and I'm down 9 pounds so far.

It's actually been pretty darn easy to follow.

The main thing with this diet is that I can't train as intensely as I like to normally train.

 

The reason?

The combo of a super low calorie diet and intense training can crash the metabolism.

Even a low calorie diet alone will slow the metabolism over time...

This is why our ultra low calorie diet only lasts 14-days.

After that, we take a 4-week break where we eat normally to bring the metabolism back up.

Then another 14 days of low calories.

Another 10+ pounds of weight loss, etc.

What type of training am I doing during this diet?

 

I'm just using the high-tension portion of kettlebell program

These are the kettlebell workouts that greatly increase muscle definition, but aren't as intense and demanding on the body as the HIIT style workouts.

So for two weeks, I'm only doing half of our kettlebell program.

The "Grind Workouts" in our course.

Once these 14 days are up and I'm back to normal calories it will be back to the full kettlebell program.

I can't wait.

I love working up a sweat and burning a ton of calories with the aggressive HIIT workouts, called "EMOTM Workouts" in our course.

But during this 14 Day low-calorie period...

I'm only doing the Kettlebell Grind Workouts on Monday and Thursday.

What do I do the other 5 days?

I walk along the edge, for one hour.

I discussed this ninja walking method a few weeks ago.

I walk for a minute and then...

I simply cross the center like I'm doing the first part of a "figure 8".

Then I'll be doing laps in the opposite direction.

I use a Gymboss timer that beeps each minute.

There is a slight problem I was having with this.

I have found over the decades when I'm tying to lose fat with walking... I get the best fat loss results when my heart rate hovers around 140 BPM.

The garage is small so I can't really hit the walking speed necessary to get my heart rate up to that point.

My solution?

Perform an exercise once every 2 minutes for 20-30 seconds.

*It is important that these exercises are well short of failure.*

I do this every other beep on my Gymboss.

Once every 2 minutes.

I find this gets my heart rate up to slightly above 140 after the exercise and then slowly dips below 140 after walking for about a minute and a half.

This works with just about any exercise you want to work on.

Here's my one-hour walking workout from yesterday.

First 20 minutes:

• 5 reps of ab wheel rollouts
• Alternated with walking for about 90 seconds

Next 20 minutes:

• 3 reps of kettlebell windmills (right side, then next time do left)
• Alternated with walking for about 90 seconds

Final 20 minutes:

• 3 reps of curls with kettlebell (right side, then next time do left)
• Alternated with walking for about 90 seconds

The exercises are not meant to exhaust the muscle.

I use slow reps where I try to squeeze and feel maximum tension in the muscle.

This gets the heart rate up just a hair while improving lagging muscle groups a bit.

It works for just about any exercise you can think of.

Want to hit your side delts a bit?

Do 3-5 reps of dumbbell laterals.

Want to increase definition in your pecs?

Do 3-5 slow reps of pushups.

You don't even need a big room or a garage, you could do the same thing down a long hallway.

Back and forth and do an exercise every other minute.

Get creative!

 

P.S.

Here's a common question we have been getting about our 14-day low-calorie diet:

"Doesn't the metabolism slow down if I reduce calories too much?"

My answer:

A recent study from Newcastle University compared a short extremely low-calorie diet to a diet with a mild calorie deficit that lasted 6 weeks.

The metabolism dropped the MOST with the standard 6-week diet.

The short ULTRA-low calorie diet had the SMALLEST drop in metabolism.

Our diet uses short 14 day periods of low calories alternated with 4 weeks of regular eating.

This keeps the metabolism high while dropping body fat quickly.

It seems that long periods of being in any kind of deficit are what mess with fat loss hormones the most.

Our "Lose-Maintain-Lose" style of fat loss might be a better way to go.