From flab to fab

• Name: Jason Browning
• Age: 21
• Height: 5’7
• Occupation: Gym Instructor/ Personal Trainer, Trainee Retained Fire fighter

After getting my holiday photos from August 2009. I looked overweight and out of shape due to not being able to play football, because of an ever occurring knee injury. Football had always been my life but at this point it was time for a change and a challenge.

I have never had one structured goal for long enough to achieve targets. For a few weeks my goal would be to ‘bulk up’, then a few weeks later I would change my mind and decide to ‘trim down’ which never gave me a proper chance at either target and therefore was just putting on body fat due to bad nutrition.

My starting point was 14 stone 8 pounds, with a very high body fat (as you can see through my holiday picture). My overall goal has always been to lose body fat but with a combined routine of weights and cardio I’ve kept some muscle while losing fat too.

Firstly, the most important thing I have learned is to cut out ‘fatty foods’ and have a balanced diet of all nutrients. Secondly, doing regular cardiovascular sessions in the morning to boost my metabolism. I do 3 sessions a week of interval training on the treadmill of 30 minutes. I have cut out fatty foods but believe that one ‘cheat’ meal a week will never hinder your progress. So far it has not hindered mine.

I very much enjoyed drinking alcohol and having a takeaway after my nights out, and that was the most challenging for me. But overtime I changed my diet and now I am used to eating healthy and my body no longer craves any of the vices I had. I still go out but not as often and I don’t drink much. I am 100% focussed and have found improving my body to be enjoyable and do not want to undo all my hard work by drinking and eating too much every weekend.

It didn’t take me too long to start seeing results because my metabolism was so slow and my body fat was quite high come this point. After doing my regular cardio sessions combined with doing weights I quickly started to lose body fat and sped up my metabolism. From august 2009 to the end of December I got down from 14 stone 8 pounds to 12 stone 7 pounds.

7 months it has taken to reach where I am at now and hopefully I can push on over the next couple of months with the help of LA Muscles supplements. I currently weigh 11st.10lbs.

I am not too dependent on just protein. I keep my diet balanced, although I do have a higher intake of protein I haven’t cut out fat or carbohydrates. I use LA Muscle products at the moment to push myself to the next level. The main thing to me is that I stick to my diet which I have consistently kept the same and also train regularly.

LA Whey 2.2 kg – For protein upon waking and straight after my weights sessions. It is vital to get protein in my body in the morning to kick start my fat burning and boost my metabolism.

Fat Stripper – I used this as I hit a wall where I stopped losing as much weight so quick, once I began to take Fat Stripper my fat loss levels were boosted.

Explosive Creatine – This product has helped me achieved my muscular lean look while I am decreasing my body fat with Fat Stripper. This product has given me an edge to my training while I am doing weights.

Vasculator– Only recently I have started using this product. I have steadily decreased my body fat over the last 7 months. This helps me to have a ‘Pump’ during my weights sessions and make me look slightly bigger.

I am a keen reader of health and fitness magazines and seeing the people in these magazines has made me hungry and highly motivated to achieve just the same overall look, if not better myself. Also I have set myself new goals to compete and enter magazine competitions to keep my motivation high and to have an overall target as well as goals I have leading to this. I have an overall target of what I want to look like and I set myself goals that challenge me and are pushing me closer and closer to that target.

I make sure I get at least 8 hours of sleep because that is when we recover ready for more workouts. I always keep a bottle of water with me so my body is never dehydrated.

• Morning upon waking 8am – Protein shake 30g
• Cardiovascular workout 9am – 30 Minutes Interval training on treadmill
• Breakfast 9.30am – Porridge 50g
• 12.30pm – Brown pasta (2 handfuls) light choices sauce
• 4.30pm – salad or vegetables (Always about 2 handfulls) with chicken(Breast) or fish(Fillet)
• Evening workout 5.30pm- Weights
• Pre Workout 5pm- Explosive Creatine and Vasculator
• Post Workout- Protein Shake, Ham salad sandwiches
• Last meal 10pm- Protein shake 30g mixed using milk 200ml and tea spoon of peanut butter

My training routine is always changing. I change the type of exercise every few weeks to keep things fresh and also change the type of grip or intensity. Sometimes I’ll do random exercises to mix things up. With my typical exercise I’ll start off with reps of 12 and try to keep it at that, for random workouts I’d do drop sets of 10 or 8, after a set of a typical exercise. I do 15-18 sets per muscle group i.e. Chest, Back, Legs, Shoulder. I usually try to achieve approximately 6 sets of Biceps or Triceps per workout as these usually get trained when I do my back.

Chest and Triceps

• Warm up -Chest Press machine light 12-15 reps approx just 30kg technique being crucial
• 3 Sets Flat bench bar 8-12 reps at 80kg
• 3 Sets Flat bench Dumbbell press 8-12 reps 32.5kg
• 3 Sets Incline bench press Bar 8-12 reps at 40kg
• 3 Sets Incline Bench Press Dumbbells 8-12 reps at 40kg
• 3 Sets Decline Bench press bar 8–12 reps at 40kg
• 3 Sets Decline Bench Dumbbells 8-12 reps at 25kg
• 3 Sets flies Dumbbell Flat Bench 8-12 reps at 12.5kg
• 3 Sets flies Dumbbell Incline 8-12 reps at 12.5kg
• 3 Sets flies Decline 8-12 reps at 12.5kg

**Incline and Decline I only train on different workouts alternating each week.

Triceps 6 Sets

• Tricep pull down 8-12 reps at 20kg
• Bodyweight Dips 8-12 reps

Back and Biceps

• Dead lifts 3 sets 8–12 reps at 80kg

Lats 4 Sets

• Lat pulldown Wide grip 8-12 reps at 60kg
• Lat pulldown close grip 8-12 reps at 75kg

Mid Upper back 4 Sets

• Bent over row bar 8-12 reps at 50-60kg
• Single arm bent over row Dumbbell 8-12 reps at 25kg

Traps 4 Sets

• Barbell shrugs 8-12 reps 50kg
• Dumbbell shrugs 8-12 reps 25kg

Biceps 5 Sets

• Barbell curls 8-12 reps 25kg
• Dumbbell curls 8-12 reps 15kg

Shoulders

• Warm up – Shoulder Press machine light 12-15 reps approx just 30kg technique being crucial
• Front Deltoids 4 Sets
• Front Raises dumbbell 8-12 reps 15kg
• Front Raises Bar 8-12 reps 20kg
• Side Deltoids 4 Sets
• Upright Row 8-12 reps 35-40kg
• Side Deltoid cable row 8-12 Reps 20kg
• Rear Deltoids 4 Sets
• Rear Lateral raises 8-12 reps at 15kg
• Rear Deltoid row 8-12 reps at 12.5kg
• Shoulder Press 4 Sets
• 2 Sets Arnold Press 8-12 reps at 17.5kg
• 2 Sets Shoulder Press bar 8-12 reps 60kg

Legs and Abs

• 4 Sets Squats 8-12 Reps at 100kg
• 4 Sets Lunges 8-12 Reps with just my own bodyweight
• 3 Sets Leg Extension 8-12 Reps 60kg
• 3 Sets Hamstring Curl 8-12 Reps 60kg
• 4 Sets Calves 8-12 Reps 40kg

Abs

• 3 Sets of the plank for 1 minute hold

• 3 Sets 15-20 reps of Crunches on gym ball

• 3 Sets 15 reps of hanging leg raises