10 Weeks to Jacked How I Lost 21.2lbs in 10 Weeks Jason Maxwell, CPT
10 Weeks to Jacked Copyright ©2012 by Jason Maxwell All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher (Jason Kenneth Maxwell). There are unique embedding codes in this pdf file that track any illegal downloads or distribution. Any illegal distribution results in fines starting at $250,000. ISBN‐13 (paperback): XXXXXXXXXXXXX ISBN‐10 (paperback): XXXXXXXXXX ISBN‐13 (electronic): XXXXXXXXXXXXX ISBN‐10 (electronic): XXXXXXXXXX Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark.
My stomach was about to explode. I sat there with sweat dripping into my eyes and running down the side of my cheek; my heart beating deep inside my head (it must have moved there to make room for the food). I couldn’t even move. It was so hot out that my mouth was as dry as sandpaper. I couldn’t drink though. No. More. Room. This – my friends – was my first cheat day. (Sorry to Tarantino it.) After eating nothing but meat, veggies, and coconut oil for two weeks, you will go crazy on a cheat day. For me? Way too freakin’ crazy. The cool thing: I was already down 11 lbs.
You know P90X? Ya, the program that “supposedly” gets you jacked in 90 days. Well, what I did only took 70 days, and I got way better results. So take that Tony Horton.
Before (Monday, May 2)
Weight: 199.8 lbs Body fat Percentage: 20% Lean Mass: 159.8 lbs What a crappy starting point. From January to this day, my goal was to put on more mass. My problem? A nagging knee injury and a ridiculous shoulder injury. Or maybe it was the fact that I was drinking a litre of milk every day…Probably a combination of the two. Judging by my body fat percentage, what I was doing wasn’t working. I was too fat (for my liking). At around 20%, your body starts to get symptoms of Fatty Liver Disease. This is not good and – for the most part – can be entirely prevented. Also, 20% body fat doesn’t look as good as getting to under 15%. I wanted abs. Obviously, I picked a good time to start getting cut.
I knew that I needed a diet that would get me lean for the summer. My first decision? Cut out all carbs (including fruit). This means that I ate no potatoes, no pasta, no bread, no fruit, no grains, no squash, no starch etc. At first, this sucked. It really freakin’ sucked. You see, at this point, I loved carbs. Here’s the cool thing: by eating a lot of carbs, you can train the body to become dependent on them. This means that as soon as you eat them, the body will use them as energy, and then store the rest as fat. This is the crappy part. If you take carbs out of the equation, the body can make all its energy from protein and fats. In order to do this, the body has to break these nutrients down first, which causes the body to essentially burn calories (during fat loss, we want the body to burn as many calories as possible). Also, carbohydrates will spike a hormone called insulin. By now, you’ve probably heard about insulin. It’s kind of a celebrity these days. It’s a storage hormone, and tells the body to store energy as fat, muscle, or glycogen in the liver. If we can keep insulin low, then we can stop fat storage.
During this diet, I started intermittent fasting (IF). This made it super easy to eat less food per day. Every day, I would not eat anything until 1pm. The whole morning, I would sip on water with Greens+. Obviously, the first 2 weeks sucked. They were terrible. Yet, once my body adjusted to the fasting, it made the diet extremely easy (compared to before).
I only ate 3 meals per day: one at 1pm, one at 5pm, and one at 9pm. Each meal consisted of the following:
1‐2 palms of protein (about 50g of protein on average)
2 Cups of veggies
2‐4 Thumbs of fat
In the end, this added up to the following per day:
150g of protein
100‐130g of fat (this number includes fish oil)
<10g of carbs (from veggies)
Obviously, I ate a ton of fat and a low amount of protein (I started out weighing 200lbs and was only eating 150g of protein per day, and sometimes even less than that). The thing is, my final weigh‐in says that I lost no lean mass (very cool if you ask me).
I only took a few supplements. They were:
5‐10g of creatine monohydrate per day (usually taken in the morning with tons of water)
5g of BCAAs with each meal (15g total per day; not including workouts)
1 tablespoon of liquid fish oil per day
2000IU of Vitamin D per day (I was outside in the sun every day, or else I would have taken more)
5 cups of green tea per day
1 Fast Joint Care+ tablet per day (I was still rehabbing my knee and shoulder injuries)
I have a feeling that all of these supplements helped me retain my muscle mass and burn more fat. Now, obviously Green Tea isn’t a supplement. Yet, here’s the thing: I drank it like it was a supplement. Either way, studies show that Green Tea helps you burn more fat, and that was my desired outcome.
During this phase, I only worked out 3 days per week. This was my daily schedule: Warm up (5‐10 minutes)
Foam rolling, dynamic movements, knee and shoulder rehab work
Core (10‐15 minutes)
Some sort of planks, carries, chops etc.
Strength Superset 1 (3‐4 sets of 12 reps) (10‐15 minutes)
1A: A single leg knee dominant exercise like a split squat 1B: An upper body pull exercise like chin‐ups or rows
Strength Superset 2 (3‐4 sets of 12 reps) (10‐15 minutes)
2A: A single leg hip dominant exercise like a single leg Romanian deadlift 2B: An upper body push exercise like weighted pushups, bench press, or shoulder press
Finisher (<10 minutes)
The finisher would be something like a tabata or barbell complex or bodyweight countdown.
As you can see, my workouts didn’t last longer than an hour (on average). I would also drink 5g of BCAAs during my workout and 5g of BCAAs after my workout.
Weight: 184.3 lbs (‐15.5 lbs) Body fat Percentage: 14% (‐6%) Lean Mass: 158.5 lbs (‐1.3 lbs) Not too shabby, eh? In 5 weeks, I dropped 6% body fat, 15.5 total pounds, and only lost 1.3lbs of lean mass. Here’s the thing: the lean mass lost was probably only glycogen (stored energy) in the muscles. Glycogen can be replenished easily by eating carbs after lifting weights.
When ating very low calories per da , your bo y starts t become ery effici nt with us ng food f r energy. This mea s that yo r metabollism slows down to dying h lt. This is not good. Enter: T e Cheat ay. I would have a cheat day every 2 weeks (every ther Satu rday). Back then, m only rule for cheat days we e: fast in the morni g, worko t (lift wei hts) befo e your first meal, then eat yo r heart o t. Since t en, my philosophies have cha ged a bit. See here: http:// ww.jmaxfitness.co /2012/0 /07/how‐to‐rock‐a‐cheat‐day‐without‐ feeling‐bad‐or‐ge ting‐fat/ Either
ay, you s ill get to eat your heart out.
For example, on
y second cheat day, I ate the following:
full pepp roni pizza
box of doughnuts
full chee ecake
few bro nies
Bacon and egg sand iches
And th t was pre ty much i . Obviou ly, I felt absolutely freaki ’ awful af erwards. Yet, these cheat days were he only thing that k pt me going mentally. During he strict ieting da s, I would write do n any cra ing I had. By the ti e I had a cheat day, I would ave a wh le list of stuff I’d lo e to eat and crush. Oh baby, id I ever rush it…
Figure 1 ‐
y pizza on my cheat day
For 3 days per week, I did the following workouts: Warm up (5‐10 minutes)
Foam rolling, dynamic movements, knee and shoulder rehab work
Core (10‐15 minutes)
Some sort of planks, carries, chops etc.
Strength Superset 1 (3‐4 sets of 10 reps) (10‐15 minutes)
1A: A single leg knee dominant exercise like a split squat 1B: An upper body pull exercise like chin‐ups or rows
Strength Superset 2 (3‐4 sets of 10 reps) (10‐15 minutes)
2A: A single leg hip dominant exercise like a single leg Romanian deadlift 2B: An upper body push exercise like weighted pushups, bench press, or shoulder press
Finisher (<10 minutes)
The finisher would be something like a tabata or barbell complex or bodyweight countdown.
On off days, I would do “The Get Cut Circuit”, or the following TRX workout: TRX Circuit Workout
TRX Reverse Lunges (as many as possible on each leg)
TRX Horizontal Pull‐ups
TRX Squat Jumps
TRX Pushups
TRX Leg Curls
TRX Reverse Lunge Jumps
Rest 1min and repeat 3‐5 more times
The cool thing about this workout was that I did it in the park next to my apartment building. Afterwards, I would lay in the sun sipping on BCAAs in water. It was legendary.
Weight: 181.2 lbs (‐3.1lbs, ‐18.6 lbs total) Body fat Percentage: 11.8% (‐2.2%, ‐8.2% total) Lean Mass: 159.8 lbs (+1.3 lbs, +/‐0 lbs total) As you can see, my lean mass increased back to its starting number. This means that I lost no lean mass at all. Also, in a period of a week, I lost 3.1 more lbs and 2.2% body fat. This is a crazy amount of progress. Obviously what I was doing worked – and it worked damn well.
For 3 days per week, I did the following workouts: Warm up (5‐10 minutes)
Foam rolling, dynamic movements, knee and shoulder rehab work
Core (5‐10 minutes)
Some sort of planks, carries, chops etc.
Olympic Lifts (2‐3 sets of 5 reps) (5‐10 minutes)
Usually hang cleans.
Strength Superset 1 (3‐4 sets of 8 reps) (10‐15 minutes)
1A: A single leg knee dominant exercise like a split squat 1B: An upper body pull exercise like chin‐ups or rows
Strength Superset 2 (3‐4 sets of 8 reps) (10‐15 minutes)
2A: A single leg hip dominant exercise like a single leg Romanian deadlift 2B: An upper body push exercise like weighted pushups, bench press, or shoulder press
Finisher (<10 minutes)
The finisher would be something like a tabata or barbell complex or bodyweight countdown.
On off days, I would do “The Get Cut Circuit”, or the TRX workout from above, or the following sprint workout outside at the park:
Sprint 20 seconds
Rest 10 seconds
Repeat for a total of 3 minutes
Rest 3 minutes
Sprint 20 seconds
Rest 10 seconds
Repeat for a total of 3 minutes
Rest 3 minutes
Sprint 20 seconds
Rest 10 seconds
Repeat for a total of 3 minutes
Finished – tan and drink BCAAs in water
This sprint workout was frigging hard. You have no idea how many times I felt like puking my guts out.
Weight: 178.6 lbs (‐2.6lbs, ‐ 1.2 lbs total) Body fat Percentage: 10.5% (‐1.3%, ‐9.5% total) Lean Mass: 159.8 lbs (+/‐ 0 lbs, +/‐0 lbs total)
Figure 2 ‐
y 10 Week Tra sformation
Pretty ool, eh? I’m pretty roud of yself for this one. I would ne er have been able to do it with ut intermittent fasting and cheat days. These tools made lif e much
easier.
Even though I thought I was big and muscular before this diet, I was actually fat (in comparison). There’s no point in being big and muscular if you can’t see your muscles underneath your fat. From now on, I promise to not let myself get above 15% body fat.
Dieting is easy if you know how to cook. For the first 2 weeks, I only ate salad. It sucked. I decided to start cooking more meals (because salads suck). I would cook steak with fried tomatoes, peppers, onions, basil etc. I would eat this meal 5 times a week. I loved it (and I still do).
I learned the art of Intermittent Fasting (IF). My caloric intake was so low that I was hungry every hour of the day. No matter how many vegetables I ate (to try to feel full), I would still be hungry. Thus, I started IF’ing. This was the best idea of my life. I would have an 8 hour eating window each day, and I would place it at the end of the day. This way, I would go to bed feeling full. As my ghrelin levels started to adapt, I wouldn’t even feel hungry during the fast.
I learned what over‐training feels like. On week 10 of the diet, I had progressed up to some very hard Olympic lifting on my lifting days. This drained me and I became over‐trained. Don’t let yourself become over‐ trained. You will never reach your goals (unless your goal is to be over‐ trained).
I don’t enjoy the taste of food that is bad for me (with the exception of desserts). For some reason, after finishing this diet, all I want to eat is healthy food. Weird.
I have the power and knowledge to make my body look the way that I want it to.
Besides having a lot more attention from my girlfriend, the best part about being lean is that now it is easy for me to stay lean. Before, I would always have cravings for different carbohydrates. Now, if anything, I will crave healthy foods like almond butter, cashew butter, and coconut flakes (and the occasional piece of dark chocolate). This is much different from my old cravings of bread and pasta. The reason for this is that my body now uses fat and protein for energy instead of carbohydrates. These days, I will only eat carbohydrates post workout to replenish muscle glycogen. That’s it. Even if I wanted to gain a bunch of muscle, I would still only eat carbohydrates post workout (this is a great way to gain muscle without the fat).
Obviously you wanted to read this to learn how you can get jacked in just 10 weeks. P90X just isn’t going to cut it if you want the results that I got in only 70 days. Here is your plan of attack: Workouts
Do the workouts that I did. Do them exactly as written. Diet
Start doing daily intermittent fasting and eat three meals per day (1pm, 5pm, and 9pm). Assemble your meals as follows:
1 (sometimes 2 in last meal of day) of protein (eggs, meat, poultry or fish; wild or grass fed from Farmer’s Market– not store bought!)
2 handfuls of non‐starchy organic veggies from farmer’s market (spinach, green beans, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes etc.)
2‐4 thumbs of organic fats (nuts, nut butter, coconut oil, olive oil, avocado, fish oil etc.)
Supplements
Take the supplements I recommend on page 10. Cheat Days
Have a cheat day once every 14 days. Sleep
I didn’t mention this above, but get lots of sleep or you will burn out. Get at least 8 hours per night. Putting It All Together
Do everything I mentioned above. If you plateau, get more sleep. If you are still plateauing, then take out 1 thumb of fat from every meal. Calories
Ideally, you want to be having your bodyweight (in lbs) multiplied by 10‐12 (I did 10) for total daily calories.
For example, a 180lb man would be eating 180 x 10 = 1800 calories per day. On cheat days, have a maximum of bodyweight (in lbs) multiplied by 30‐35. For example, 180lb man would be eating 5400 ‐ 6300 calories on a cheat day.
My name is Jason Ma well and I am a Cer ified Pers nal T ainer (CP ) under th e National Strength and C nditionin Association (NSCA and am a certified F nctional
ovement Screen p actitioner. Fitness
h alth, nutrition, and helping p ople to lose fat and gain muscle are
y passio s. It’s just way too
uch fun
h lping people to loo better n ked. My Story
• Grew up in a s all town • Was
ith less than 3500 people.
huge Tor nto Maple Leafs fa as a kid
Actually, I still am…
• Was f at until I hit puberty then I kind of grew out of my tubbiness. • Was skinny‐fat ll through high sch ol (even though I pl yed ever sport). • I started lifting
eights in my senior year of high school in order t get stronger
for football. • After starting t lift weights, I was s eing som results, ut I was s ill skinnyf at. • Went to Ryerson Universi y in Toro to (for Aerospace Engineering) and got my nutrition and lifti g dialled in. • Gained 20lbs of muscle m first semester and got leane in the pr cess. I wasn’t skinny‐ at anymore. • I became obses ed with e erything o do with fitness and nutritio . • I started personal training, online c aching, a d writing. To date, I ve helped 100s of people tr nsform their bodies. • This book was the result of me consistently screwing up with my own fitnes and nu rition until I finally got it right.
Everyone always asks me, “Why don’t you be an astronaut instead of a fitness professional?”. Here’s what I’ve realized: throughout my degree, I’ve found myself studying and reading fitness, health, and nutrition literature at times when I should have been studying for aerodynamics, aircraft performance etc. Some people in my program go home and read about airplanes. I read about health. That is where my passion lies. The path of health and fitness that I’ve chosen will inevitably help people improve the quality of their life. Sure, aerospace engineering can inevitably help people, but not on the same degree and magnitude as health and fitness. There’s no way it can help someone live a longer, happier life. For more info on health, fitness, and nutrition, subscribe to my website: http://www.JMaxFitness.com/
