You are actually starting with a good foundation. Good work on putting this together on your own so far.
What type of character are you portraying in your Halloween production?
Keep walking a lot, intermittent fasting is good, but skip the cheat days.
Read as much as you can by Dan John. He is now your “everyday regular guy trainee looking to lose fat and be badass” coach.
Use a wide variety of dynamic exercises. Think of training protocols like a dynamic warm-up might look like: skips, hops, jumps, get down on the ground and back up, short sprints - pretty low intensity stuff, but done as a circuit to get your blood moving and lungs working. Start every session with 5-10 minutes of this, but make sure to keep these portion randomized and not too routine or easy to adapt to. That is your controlling factor here (not intensity or overload or volume).
As far as strength exercise goes, 5/3/1 as already mentioned. But I would use Easy Strength template as an opportunity to practice kettlebell swings, front squats, turkish get ups, and some REALLY basic upper body stuff like push-ups and pull-ups. If you can’t do push-ups and pull-ups with body weight, than IMO, you are leaving easy low-hanging fruit on the tree of progress and bench presses and pulldowns will do next to nothing for you.
I advocate spending several weeks (40 days in the case of EZ Strength) to get really good at kettlebell swings, squats, turkish get ups, push-ups and pull-ups. You need to re-tool aspects of your body, and that should be done with sustainable training. This program will seem easy, but that’s actually a really good thing for two reasons. Number 1, well you need to be good at these basic exercises so that you can use them later on in a more concentrated fashion to expediate fat loss. For example, don’t try doing Litvinovs (a kettlebell swing set followed by a sprint) if you don’t know how to swing. Don’t try to do Tabata front squats if you can’t front squat. Get what I’m saying? And yet in the future, we want to be capable of both of these modalities, because they are unrivaled in their ability to shred people in short time and work.
Number 2, during this period of low-intensity training, it will give you the time and energy to work the kinks out of your diet. If you come out training your ass off right away, you are going to fog your ability to read your bodies hunger signals, IMO. For example, if 20 reps squats are going to be your chosen method of working the body, well you are going to have a very hard time nailing down your diet over the screams of your stomach demanding sustinence.
So, practice your chosen strength lifts and chosen diet. Do it easily, and be really bad at it if you have to. Observe yourself. Then after a period of, lets say again, 40 days, you should be sufficiently prepped to go a little harder if you choose.
Also, I might add, you could add a variety of farmer walks to your dynamic movement exercise for both variety and intensity.
Here are some of my favorite foods:
pork, fish, beef, eggs, sauerkraut, broccoli, carrots, beets, garlic
*I’ll add that I raise my own hog, chickens, and make my own kraut
hazelnuts, walnuts, macadamia nuts, figs, apples
dark chocolate, peanut butter, olive oil, coconut oil
red vinegar (I drink 2 tbsp a day at least, it’s very refreshing in cold water), green tea, coffee
For supplements I take 1 Flameout per day, and a handful of Elite Pro Minerals, I also take 1/2 scoop of Superfood and 1/2 scoop of Power Drive in my green tea post workout. I train around 1-3pm and eat my first meal of the day around 3-4pm. If I choose to have another meal, it should be done before 7pm or so.
I also like to use weed products, so I might have an edible before my first meal; maybe 12.5g edible (I reserve this for super hard training that leaves my heart rate elevated for long periods of time as 12.5g edible with Elite Pro Mineral will guarantee I sleep deep regardless of any other factors) or I’ll toke before I get in the shower before 2nd Dinner; I find I am able to practice breathing exercises in cold shower much more reliably with marijuana. I would highly discourage marijuana use for the first 40 days though, just to stay consistent with your training and nutrition. You want to be as clear as possible to learn your bodies cues and signals during this re-tooling period. Also, for me personally, marijuana makes it hard to STOP eating. Used excessively it can be cause to confusion among neurotransmitter and hormonal receptions.
Seriously limit your grains and beans, but potatoes and squash are okay. If you insist on eating grains, I challenge you to start making your own fermented whole grain bread.
Some favorite books, just for fun:
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, original John Carter series, The Odyssey
Anyways, best of luck. This is all general advice I’m giving here, and you’ve gotten some good advice already. Best thing you can do is educate yourself, and if you find yourself overthinking, get yourself a journal and think on paper.
If I could sum this all up, 40 days of:
Simple Diet: meats, eggs, nuts, vegetables, green tea, vinegar, one or two meals a day, if you have grazing problems, have up to 3 meals a day, if you absolutely need carbs, stick to apples and figs post-workout, or get yourself some taters & carrots with a nice pork or beef roast.
Fat-loss training: dynamic movements progressing towards some sprinting so you can do Litvinov’s later on, regular walking, crawling, cartwheels, stuff like that as well
Easy Strength: practice swings for Litvinovs later on, front squats for Tabata later on, Turkish get-ups will make you mobile, farmer walks will make you strong, push-ups will highlight any strength leaks as this category includes all types of planks and planche as well, pull-ups are better than the scale for weight loss and will give you a crushing grip and ab strength.
The 40-Workout Strength Challenge <— there are actual several editions of this, but the philosophy doesn’t change, so use Google, Youtube, and T-Nation to your advantage
