Sculpt & Fat Burn w/ Born Fitness

For the last 12 weeks I’ve been working with Adam Bornstein at the Born Fitness team to help improve, strengthen and shape my current physique. After I had followed #PPCG (my Curve Guide) a few times in a row, I decided I needed something new to allow my body to keep growing, get stronger and to stay excited. With weightlifting you’ll usually hit a plateau when it comes to how heavy you can go. Beginners usually surprise themselves with how much they can lift, if you’ve never lifted before your body will adapt quickly and you’ll usually make a lot of progress initially. However, (depending on your body type) and muscle mass it is likely that you will get to a point where your body isn’t making as much progress as it did at the start. I made the decision in my mind that I was ready to do what I could in order to increase my body strength. Bring on my re-shape.

The Born Fitness fam kicked me off on a set of macros which was higher than my usual intake, bodybuilders usually will describe this as ‘bulking’ but I prefer to not use that word. I think it can basically trick your mind into thinking you’re free to be as unhealthy as you want, as long as you’re getting those cals in. WRONG. You shouldn’t be making excuses to be unhealthy (this is something I struggled with). Getting in all my carbs was particularly hard for me as I wasn’t used to it, and upping my protein was daunting at first too. But there are tricks to it which help you keep up, I upped my amount of whey isolate from Protein World and added it to oats and shakes so I didn’t have to eat mountains of chicken breast 24/7.

So for the sake of looking at ‘bulking’ in a healthier/ refreshed and more wholesome light I prefer to call this stage ‘re-shape’, because that’s what it is, it’s giving my body a chance to grow, shape up and sculpt itself.

The first four weeks focussed on gaining lean muscle mass through targeting all muscle groups. I was required to workout 4 days a week for just up to (or under) an hour in each session, whilst this wasn’t something I was used to (more used to longer workouts), it allowed me to maximise my gains through focussing on a few concentrated exercises. I absolutely love this way of training, I’m able to invest all my energy into what I’m doing, and am still energised throughout the day because I haven’t absolutely killed myself at the gym.

The second four weeks are for metabolic reset, and that’s exactly what they do. As I was eating in a calorie surplus the Born Fitness team wanted to make sure my metabolism was still up through high intensity exercises. I loved this as it reminded me how much a good sweat can make you feel, as much as I adore weightlifting I do sometimes miss more cardio-focussed exercises. They allowed me to use my muscles whilst still keeping my heart rate up.

The third 4 weeks were the ultimate reshape weeks. This was when I focussed back on strength training through drop sets, pushing to failure and muscle exhaustion. It. was. awesome. Whilst by this time I was very much getting ready to hit the fat loss stage, my workouts were split into: lower body, upper body, back and lower body and finally ‘conditioning’ (a short workout roughly 40 mins) of whipping your whole body into shape. These last 4 weeks made me feel incredibly strong and made me even more excited and motivated to start losing my excess fat to show my muscles underneath.

And that’s where I’m at now, the fat loss period. To be honest, this might be the stage I am most most (second most necessary) excited for. Over the last 12 weeks I’ve been working hard on shaping my muscles and gaining mass, but I’m ready to show some real commitment and reveal the muscle underneath. I’ve been using Protein World BCAA’s to make sure I’m burning my fat not muscle, (which is easy to do) when I engage in the Born Fitness high intensity workouts. I’ve literally started today, and as ever I know I’m gonna love the last four weeks. Todays workout was short, sweaty, intense and exciting. I’m only meant to be doing high intensity workouts 3 or 4 times a week (my choice) followed by very brief HIIT sprints.

So here’s to the next four weeks, I’ll make sure to keep you updated on how it goes through Snapchat and Instagram particularly. Happy New Year everybody!

Love, Molly xx