How fit can you get in 4 weeks?

I feel like bragging. And maybe encouraging someone. But mostly bragging.

I’ve improved my 500m sprint time on a Concept 2 rowing machine by about 14 seconds. Didn’t think it was possible to improve that much, even early on.

I’ve gone from needing assistance from a trainer while doing pullings from a jumping start… to successfully completing my first hanging pull-up by myself today.

I’ve dropped 12lbs. And they’re not the easy pounds either, those 10lbs came in the 3 weeks of doing cardio at the gym before I decided to hire a trainer. That’s 240lbs to 218lbs in 7 weeks.

My calories burned in 30 minutes on a stationary bike have increased from 250 to 430.

I have learned how to do squats, jerks, deadlifts, various kinds of rows and presses, high pulls, and a bunch of weird exercises on stability balls, bosu balls, suspension straps, stability boards, and core boards – properly. Some of these, like squats, I’ve done wrong in the past and almost injured myself. Others, like deadlifts, jerks, and presses, I’d probably be afraid to try if I didn’t have someone show me how.

I can jog/run to my local grocery store. I couldn’t make it even a third of the way before, and yes, I tried. Note: try and remember you have eggs in your bags before you decide to jog back.

I moved this ridiculously heavy and unwieldy desk out of the basement without breaking a sweat. It wasn’t easy, but seeing as when I moved it down I was like a pig stuck on a roast 18 months ago, I’m feeling pretty accomplished.

In the past 28 days, I’ve spent roughly 15-20 hours doing any kind of boring cardio work like elliptical machines or bikes. Not a second on the treadmill. Even the boring cardio work can be made fun with interval training… relatively fun. I’ve gone from seeing the gym as a chore to actively enjoying it, even going out of my way to go there.

My eating has improved tremendously. I refuse to sabotage my progress by eating poorly. Here’s the grand total list of “bad things” I’ve had in 4 weeks: 2 donuts, 1 milkshake, a handful of chips. The milkshake was today as part of a friendly celebration. The donuts, I admit, I could not resist at the grocery store while shopping in the morning recently. The smell of fresh donuts is intoxicating. The handful of chips was a last goodbye to fatty snacks as I was throwing them out of the pantry.

Mostly, I cannot believe how differently I feel. There’s a whole whack of stuff I never thought I could do, like pull-ups and deadlifts, that I’m now doing routinely.

Questions, flames, comments?

I lost 6 lb in 2 weeks, just by eating normally, and working out an hour a day on a cyling machine. (bring a psp, it really helps.)

I went from 180lb - 174lb.

fatty

I know, it was fucking horrible when I was in florida, I was like at 200lb… OMG!

drop like 20lb onces I get back to SoCal right away, my goal is 160 or so, a couple more months.

NOT ENOUGH TO SURVIVE THE APOCALYPSE

For my height, that’s actually normal. But if he’s a circus midget…

5’7 almost 5’8… I’m short…

Its good to be fit for 4 weeks, its better to be fit for life.
Its why i hate the “biggest loser” show, they try to make goals on a weekly basis, which just seems incredibly short-sighted, and possibly dangerous.

Is that weight distributed like in Adree the Voiceless’ picture above, or more like Penn Jillette, though?

How so? I’d figure attainable but challenging weekly goals create a string of successes that make people want to continue? I haven’t really watched the show though, so I may be confusing what you say.

And nowhere was I suggesting people only work out for 4 weeks. I just wanted to share my amazement at how much of a difference it has made.

The picture is of Cleve Blakemore, internet superhuman.

Good for you, Jakub!

I gotta say though, I started working out heavily about two years ago and while that first month and a half was the hardest, I saw the biggest improvements there. Then I just seemed to plateau. I still see improvements, but nothing like that first month.

12 pounds in 7 weeks is okay. With an 1200-calorie diet, and burning around 500 calories with cardio, you can run a -800 calorie lifestyle and lose that in about 2 and a half.

Yep, it’s quite impressive how much you can do by dedicating yourself to fitness and well-being. It’s getting people to make that commitment that’s difficult. I dropped about 30 pounds in about 4 weeks a few years ago just by working out for half an hour every morning and not eating like shit all the time. From a sedentary lifestyle, you can see huge gains with any sort of increase in activity.

I lost about 16 pounds in four weeks when I took a serious stab at weight loss a few years ago, just by cutting back to a 1200-1400 cal diet and doing a 2-mile walk around the neighbourhood in the evenings. It’s arguable just how much ‘fitter’ I really was though, since it was relative to a bad starting point and I wasn’t specifically working on building strength…

And you will be losing muscle mass to lose weight that fast. That’s not a healthy way to lose. And Jakub lost 22 pounds in seven weeks, not 12.

Anyway, congrats, Jakub. You are doing it the right way, exercising and eating healthy.

You’d probably lose muscle mass (and gain some in calves, for instance) but a 1200-calorie diet is perfectly sustainable.

1200 is not sustainable, 1200 is for cutting. Even people doing the ‘starve to live longer’ thing eat around 1900 (for males).

I’ve got about 1800-2200 calorie intake per day atm, with about 500-1000 calories worth of exercise on top of my BMR, which is estimated at about 2000.

Well done doing the big three - deadlifts, sqwaaats and presses. I actually feel like bragging as well. I put on almost 10kg in the last 4 weeks.