Today, Tuesday 6th Oct 2015, is day 1 of my “Superhuman Project” (#SHP) – my journey of growing my mind, body, skills and abilities to levels I can call “superhuman” and beyond.
Because it's only day 1 of what could possibly be a lengthy journey forward, I find the quote, “Big achievements come one small advantage at a time, one step at a time, one day at a time.”, very necessary to keep in mind daily.
I've also decided to simply begin taking action with the little knowledge or expertise I have in the area of health, fitness and mental empowerment instead of waiting until I've read or learnt enough from the various resources I have right now for e.g. Tim Ferriss's 4 Hour Body. I know myself enough to know that I have a part I call “Mr Perfection” which wants to get everything perfect and often limits forward moving action.
Here are my takeaways and actions I have taken from reading Tim Ferriss's 4 Hour Body:
- Make it conscious. Take front, side and back photos of yourself, and pin up the least flattering “before” photo as a conscious reminder of how you look. My photos are posted below, on my fridge and in my office!
- Make it a game. One of the ways to do this is to take measurements of the most relevant body locations. “What you don't measure you can't track nor improve”. Tracking and seeing improvements in measurements = motivation. I've posted my starting measurements below.
- Make it competitive. Embrace peer pressure. Embrace the stick (the carrot is overrated). Get an accountability partner to do it with you. I'm posting my entire progress publicly and I'm also posting it our super elite Tony Robbins coaches group Facebook page cause I know that will seriously enhance the accountability effect within me.
- Make it small and temporary. What is the smallest meaningful change I can make? Make it small because small is achievable! The small change I can make is take these 4 actions today. And I will also hit the gym for a workout right after this.
As a reminder to myself and you (if you're going to decide to follow me forward by beginning your own superhuman project), whilst I have a vision and end result in mind, I'm choosing to focus on 3 F's during this process towards a superhuman body, mind and abilities. The 3 F's are:
- Fun
- Flow
- Flexibility
The more fun I can have during this superhuman endeavour, the more likely I am to stick with it and take one step at a time, one day at time.
I'll be doing my best to stick to a standard workout routine in order to easily track and measure progress, but I'll also be doing a whole lot of other stuff like my yoga practice, freediving training and whatever else I feel like having fun doing.
My diet will also be tracked and I'll follow a meal plan I signed up for at the place I did a DEXA scan (to measure lean muscle mass, fat mass and body fat percentage) at in Australia.
So there you go. That's the gist of how this will work. And of course, as I learn more and evolve more towards becoming more superhuman, I will likely change or tweak things and the format as applicable. Like I said, I rather just start than get it perfect before I start.
All that being said, listed below is what I did, consumed, found etc.
Measurements Recorded
Body weight – 78.9 kg (although I know that body weight is not a great measure of progress).
Biceps (Left / Right) – 12 in / 12.2 in
Waist – 35.2 in
Hips – 38.4 in
Thighs (Left / Right) – 20.5 in / 20.5 in
Total Inches – 138.8 inches
*Note: These measurement were done by myself which was kind of tricky is some parts like the biceps, so may not be totally exact.
(This is what 22% body fat looks like!! You can see from above I'm not happy with this at all!)
(I'm not liking those love handles!)
Let the journey begin!
Superhuman Diet
Breakfast:
4 eggs – fried with tinge of butter.
2 slices of toast – white bread.
1 glass of water + apple cider vinegar (1 tbsp) + psyllium husk.
1 glass of water + spirulina powder (1 tsp).
Lunch:
Blackened salmon with avocado corn salsa.
Dinner:
2 Mediterranean chicken packets.
Snacks:
2 half-boiled eggs.
2 slices of toast.
Superhuman Workout
Warm up jog (treadmill) – 9 km/hr or 6:40 min/km pace.
Push-ups – 3 sets x 25 reps, horizontal, body weight, narrow grip.
Lat pull downs – 3 sets x 10 reps, 11 slabs of weight (not sure what each weighs), wide grip.
Leg extensions – 3 sets x 10 reps, 8 slabs of weight.
Dips – 2 sets x 10 reps, bodyweight.
Lunges – 3 sets x 12 reps, bodyweight.
Abdominal leg raises (modified) – 2 sets x 20 reps.
Side (double) leg raises – 1 set each side x 20 reps then hold for 20 secs.
*Note: With the exception of the warm up treadmill jog and the ab leg raises, all other exercises were done circuit style, meaning I was switching from one exercise type to the next, in the order listed above. Timing of 1 minute per set/exercise was used. By completing the required reps well before the minute was up, the remainder of the minute was used as rest. On average, I had about 30 seconds rest before I began the next set/exercise.
Hatha yoga – I did a gentle yoga routine I've been using that focuses mainly on ribcage expansion (to help with my freediving), shoulder and shoulder blade opening and hip opening (my hips need a lot of work and have been stiffer than they've ever been compared before 5 years ago.