3 workouts for weight loss – Body Transformation week 4

Dina has lost a staggering 11 pounds in four weeks with trainer Terry Fairclough

Welcome back to my 12 week transformation with Your Body Programme. Get ready to be impressed – at the end of week three I have now lost a total of 5.2 kilos, that’s over 11 pounds in just three weeks!

To be honest, I wasn’t feeling great this week. I only made it to two out of three cardio sessions, so I was slightly petrified when it was time to get my measurements taken, but I had nothing to fear, having lost another 1.5 pounds.

My transformation mentors and founders of Your Body Programme, Terry Fairclough and Luisa Valenti say that this is because the plan is working in speeding up my metabolism – hallelujah.

My goal is to lose one to two pounds per week, which means I am still on track with my gradual weightloss.

Not to be dramatic (totally is) but this programme has literally. Changed. My. Life.

Before I started this journey I hated exercise, and the only reason I would go to the gym was to lose weight, but I never knew what I was doing. I would just be there, at the gym, hating every single second.

Now, the tables have turned and I am getting used to this whole exercise thing. Actually, I’m not just ‘used’ to it, I enjoy it. And although I am still going to the gym to lose weight, I also go because I feel amazing afterwards.

Take a look at this fat loss workout (which I totally smashed by the way) that I did the other day…

Six different exercises, 45 seconds each exercise with 15 seconds rest between each exercise. This I did four times.

Squat jumps 45, seconds. Rest, 15 seconds,

Push ups, 45 seconds. Rest, 15 seconds,

Kettlebell deadlifts, 45 seconds. Rest, 15 seconds,

Mountain climbers, 45 seconds. Rest, 15 seconds,

Alternating lunges, 45 seconds. Rest, 15 seconds,

Sit ups, 45 seconds. Rest, 2 minutes.

Repeat three more times.

Exercise – what works for fat loss?

Going into week four, I wanted to talk you through why cardio works for weight loss and why resistance training also works for weight loss, and a bit of about exactly what I have been doing at the gym.

Remember, this combination of training is for my body type (an endomorph). If you are an ectomorph or a mesomorph (find out what body type you are from last week’s article), you may not need to do as much cardio, so work out your body type first.

Your Body Programme focuses on individual body types and offers a personalised programme, with different workout and nutrition plans that match your specific body type for the best fat loss results.

Here’s an insight into a couple of the workouts I have been doing so far in this transformation…

THE cardio workout for weight loss

As it has been mentioned many times – I still hate saying it – but generally Endomorphs have a slower metabolism (annoying, much), which makes it harder to lose fat.

Therefore the majority of my exercise plan consists of cardio training, more so than resistance training. I do two to three cardio sessions a week compared to just two resistance sessions.

In week one, Terry and Luisa told me that my cardio sessions would be in the form of high intensity interval training, also known as HIIT training.

They both informed me that this type of training will help to increase the output of my mitochondria – these are the powerhouses in our cells where calories are burned to produce and provide us with the energy we need.

The better the output of your mitochondria from exercise, the more fat you will burn.

High intensity training will also have the effect of increasing my metabolism, which will result in me burning more calories throughout the day and whilst I sleep – this is known as the EPOC (excessive post-exercise oxygen consumption), also known as the afterburn effect.

HIIT training can be done on any piece of cardio equipment such as a treadmill, cross-trainer, bike or rower.

Terry also explained that I need to keep up the frequency of my training sessions, especially the cardio, so that I keep my metabolism up and firing and therefore burning more calories, that means having no more than one consecutive day off.

This seemed impossible when I was first told, but actually two to three cardio sessions a week isn’t as hard or time consuming as I thought it would be.

‘By being more active and keeping up with your cardio sessions your muscles will be working more frequently, and will act as the engine you need to burn more calories and boost your metabolism,’ says Terry.

So I need to make sure I am sticking to my cardio sessions, even now that I am four weeks in, in order to keep my muscles firing on all cylinders and therefore lose weight.

This is the cardio workout I do 2 to 3 times per week:

The cardio workout is split into three sections: Intervals, lactic acid removal phase, followed by a repeat of the intervals. Here’s more detail:

1. A five minute warm up

2. 10 intervals of 15 second sprinting at 100 per cent intensity (that’s pushing as hard as you possibly can for 15 seconds), followed then by 45 seconds of resting. This can be done on any of the cardio equipment such as a treadmill, cross-trainer, bike, rower and more.

3.10 minute ‘lactic acid removal phase’ – a workout on the same or different cardio machine at a consistent pace but to the maximum intensity you can possibly manage. This means you should not be able to hold a conversation, you should be sweaty and out of breath, yet able to sustain the exercise for the required length of time (ten minutes).

4. 10 minutes of the first intervals again – ten x 15 seconds again, same as the first round. You can also combine equipment rather than performing the entire workout on just one machine – mix things up a bit.

Cardio Concept:

Sweaty me after my cardio workout

Why resistance training works for weight loss

Want to lose weight at the gym and change your body shape? Then compound exercises are your secret weight loss weapon.

Terry and Luisa informed me at the start of the transformation, that the type of resistance movement I would be performing on this fat loss programme would consist of compound exercises.

These are big movements that use lots of muscles, such as glutes, hamstrings, quads and core (all at once, hello timesaver).

So basically, compound movements work several muscles or muscle groups at one time. For example, a squat uses a number of muscles in the core, lower back and lower body including the quadriceps, hamstrings, calves and glutes – see, many different muscles being worked in one exercise.

Weighted lunges and even push ups are compound movements for the same reason, they use a number of muscles. This is compared to a bicep curl which is an ‘isolated movement’ that would burn fewer calories.

Some other benefits of compound movements include: they usually burn more calories, speed up your metabolism, they simulate real-world exercises and activities and are therefore functional movements that allow you to get a full body workout, they keep your heart rate up, providing cardiovascular benefits too.

Resistance workout, chest press

Resistance workout, lateral lunge

Resistance workout, plank hold

Terry and Luisa have also told me that as an endomorph, I will be working at a higher rep range than any other body-types would need too, I will also have less rest periods.

This is because firstly (and most obviously) the higher the rep range, the more aerobic the workout becomes, giving the workout a higher cardio element, which is important for endomorphs, as they need to perform more cardio in order to lose weight and burn more calories, due to their slower metabolism.

‘Endomorphs don’t have to worry as much when it comes to building muscle as the other two body types (ectomorph and mesomorph) do. This is because endomorphs tend to hold on to and build muscle easily,’ Terry explains.

‘However if an ectomprph was to perform compound exercises with a high rep range, and shorter rest periods, they would find that they would burn so many calories that they would start to break down protein and muscle as they haven’t actually got that much fat to burn off. Whereas an endomorph isn’t going to have that problem, due to their higher fat reserve.

So basically, higher reps with little rest causes my resistance workouts to become more high intensity which is what need to do in order to burn more calories and fat.

One of the two resistance workouts I did this week:

Super Set Three (that’s the name of the resistance workout by the way) consists of three blocks of three exercises – hence the name…

Remember to keep the weights heavy and challenging to elicit a metabolic response.

• Perform 15 reps of the first three exercises back to back, this constitutes a set.
• Complete three sets in total (with a one minute rest in between each set), this completes a block.
• Rest for three minutes in between each block, there are three blocks in total.

This will take you around 40 minutes. Don’t forget to warm up for five minutes, and cool down and stretch for five minutes after your workout.

Rest for three minutes

Terry demonstrating lateral flexion

Rest for three minutes

Come back every week to read Dina’s week by week diary of her weight loss transformation with Terry and Luisa from Your Body Programme, with tips and advice from the experts. 

Your Body Programme was founded by Terry Fairclough and Luisa Valenti.

The idea came about after Terry and Luisa saw other personal trainers regularly offering the same generic plan to every client, regardless of gender, goal or body type.

Terry and Luisa are passionate about the need to train everyone as an individual to achieve maximum results, and therefore don’t use a one-size-fits-all approach.

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