Project Evolution: Update

First, thanks for all the support, encouragement and advice many of you have given to Nick and his Project Evolution challenge!

Update: Nick’s been at it for almost two weeks now. He’s up five pounds so far and doing great!

We’ve toyed with the original schedule a little and have settled on training Monday/Tuesday, Wednesday Off, Thursday/Friday, Weekend Off. We’ll see how this goes. He’s still using a slightly modified Chad Waterbury program.

The squats are killing him! (He was a leg press-only guy before this.) But he’s loving the deadlifts, as most people do once they start performing them.

GPP days are a mixed bag. I actually use those days to teach him new stuff. If he’s never tried a certain type of training or exercise, and it jibes okay with the GPP format, we’ll do it. One of our GPP days this week was all medicine ball work; the other was all weird Davies and Waterbury exercises. GPP sessions are 20 minutes tops.

He’s doing very good with his “big and clean” diet. Walks around with a backpack containing his diet log, training log, printed out T-mag articles, food, water etc. Doesn’t go anywhere without it! He fell short on calories and protein the first couple of days, just like anyone new to logging their diets does, but he’s adapted well to it now. It’s tough for him to pack in the calories but he gets it done.

Nick’s best attribute is admitting he needs guidance and his willingness to follow that guidance, even if it goes against his previous ideas about training and diet. This is a powerful lesson for all of us. I know way too many people who are stuck in a rut but won’t take anyone’s advice about how to get out of it. They’d rather argue that they’re right and you’re wrong than grow. Nick just shuts up and gets it done!

Anyway, T-mag will run a full article on Nick’s progress at the six week mark. I’d ask you again to wish him luck, but as we all know, luck has nothing to do with it.

And the evolution continues…

I would think that pre-planning your meals and snacks to fit into your macro parameters would eliminate the falling short problem.

I recommend Netzer’s book of food counts to my friends. Since most foods we need to be eating don’t come with nutrient labels.

Glad Nick is doing well.

Have fun with him Chris.

Thanks, IM. I’ll let him know about that book.

I agree that pre-planning is the way to go, and this is pretty much what Nick does now. But I also like throwing people into the fire so to speak when it comes to food logs. I tell them to eat what they think is right, but log everything.

Most are shocked at what they’re actually consuming protein and calorie-wise. I love talking to them after that first day of food logging, especially if they were the type that swore they were getting “tons of protein” and proper cals to match their goals. Those numbers on the food log just shock them into nutrition reality. Takes 2-3 days to adjust on average but is valuable for life.