24/08/2026
AND THAT'S THE DEFICIT DONE!
Not a bad 12 odd weeks, lost about 12kg and certainly put too much fat on over last Xmas 😆, but, with so much life going on around me, I'm happy with the results.
PERFORMANCE WISE.
I've had a quite a few days of maintenance throughout and thats helped me keep sane whilst continuing to workout hard throughout. This last week or so has been tough as I've ramped my running up, which is great for calorie burning but was a bit stressful on the body and I did start getting run down a tad last week, but, feeling ace whilst pushing through each workout all the same.
Standing at around 74kg and I did hit 72.5kg at one point, the kinda fluctuation I'd expect from dabbling up and down with calories for the last two weeks.
Not sure what my body fat percentage as it's not really what I was aiming for, but if I had to guess I'm around 12-14% ish, which is a healthy place to be. My lower gut does tend to bloat easy too just by looking at carbs lol so these pics are a bit bloated.
WORKOUTS.
I've completed a 12 week cycle of HYROX, dabbled in little kickboxing, done a CrossFit comp and started ramping up long runs from 10k to half marathon within this deficit. It's all been fun and helped me with the main goal of athleticism and performance overall.
With the end of the year coming up, I have pairs in HYROX, Cardiff half marathon and I may compete in points kickboxing in November, all of which I'm trying to have fun with rather than chasing any form of pbs etc.
This week I start a NEW weights programme ( Westside Barbell Conjugate Style) which I'm looking forward to and is pretty much what I need to continue with building performance and some muscle gain for general health and fitness. I do however need to keep up the cardio for general health and the half marathon 😅. Hyrox being a great in between style will help with this too 😊.
NUTRITION.
I'll be maintaining calories now for a good few weeks to let the body settle/ recover, and then slowly start putting the calories back in for a heavy lifting and long cardio. I'll be playing with this over the coming months but with the mindset of pushing for consistency with good foods, high proteins and only high carbs around the times needed, this should keep the fat increases at a minimum this time around.
TOP TIPS.
Few tips I can give you from this experience.
1) high protein is a winner, it's helps you build, recover and feel full.
2) Eating carbs around the most busiest times really works for fat loss / keeping fat down. For me for the first 8 weeks, I ate very little carbs until before and after I worked out. Those with all day physical jobs should add a bit however.
3) Water. I preach to clients and members about hydration all the time but personally I'm not great lol. Im a tea and coffee drinker normally with a dash of full fat milk in, and so not only do the calories add up but I drop into dehydration easily enough, especially in the heat we've had. In the plan though I nailed no milk and had much more water, and it's always a winner.
4) Money spending on protein isn't too bad. I haven't been eating 100s of grams of protein, probably about 150 to 200. This isn't hard when you aim for high protein foods all day and that's without shakes.
5) Supplements wise, I take creatine and have tried taking 10g daily as of late. Other supps for health - zinc, Omegas and magnesium etc nothing crazy.
6) Treat meals, more so once, but some times twice on the weekend, sticking to not going overboard.
7) For the first time ever, I've had no calorie cans of pop, which have helped here or there.
8) Lastly, off the top of my head. Stick to low calorie sauces and cooking methods. It all adds up 👌
Let's see what happens over the next 12 weeks 😊.
As always, if you have any questions and need any help, I'm here for it and Paragon has everything you need if you want to take things further 😁💪.
Coach Tom.
