What happened next?

I was thoroughly impressed with the results of the Six Day Shred, the next question was 'how long does it last'?

Well the simple answer is that within 24 hours I looked the same as I did on day 3. That is slightly leaner that the start, but nowhere near as defined as I was at the peak.
The 'pump' had gone from my muscles by the morning of day 7.

Say goodbye to your gains

So I went through 6 days testing my willpower and almost killing myself with water for less than 24 hours of improved physique.

Was it worth it: totally!

Would I do it again: no way!

As an experiment I've learned a lot and have kept some aspects of the diet in my regular life (reduced sugar intake, staying appropriately hydrated and cutting carbs slightly).

From a vanity point of view it's not worth putting yourself through all that for a day at the beach and pretty pointless for a holiday as it only lasts a day.

However, if you're a competitive bodybuilder, this method may be the difference between first place and tenth place. Alternatively if you're a fitness model, this method could land you that Calvin Klein underwear job. 

It really depends on how important 24 hours of improved physique is to you.

The dangers and difficulty of this method put me off trying it again unless I had a very good reason to.

Carbs, glorious carbs!

Day 5 of the 6 Day Cutting Plan and today is the day I'm finally allowed some carbs! 5-6 meals, each containing 50-75g of carbs - YUMMY!

Here's the plan for today:
"In the first one or two meals, have fruits as your main carbohydrate source. Starting the carb-up with fruit replenishes liver glycogen very fast. We believe that the faster liver glycogen is filled, the more effective the rest of the carb-up will be. 

Continue drinking up to 10 litres of water today, don't gradually stop water intake. When you cut water intake later on, it should be a shock to the system.

For meals three and four, move to starchier, faster-absorbing carbs (potatoes, pasta or rice if it's tolerated well). Meal number 4 should be at around 4:00pm.

Now the "fun" begins. Water intake should be cut completely at 4:00 or 5:00pm. One or two more meals should be consumed after you cut water. Have only one if you're already looking "full." Have two if not. These meals should contains carbs derived from simple sugars: pancakes and syrup, pie filling, waffles, chocolate, etc. (see, it's not all bad!)

Also on Friday, take a herbal diuretic or black coffee (if it's not going to stop you sleeping)"

So, that's the plan. Here's how my day actually went:

We have a big corporate performance tomorrow, it was confirmed yesterday, so I now need to source Victorian costumes for the guys, sort out our driver and make sure everyone knows where to be and when.

I also need to get my new CRB check done to start working in more schools around the area, apparently this NEEDS to be done this morning.

So I had breakfast at 8:30am.

Breakfast was 1 banana, 1 apple and a Super Protein Shake.

I then went to the City Council offices to sort out my police check. At 10:00am I was out of there and ready for meal number 2.

Meal 2 was 2 apples and 250g of chicken breast.

While in the City centre I picked up some essentials and sourced the remaining costumes.

It was now 11:00am and I was due to teach at 1:15pm.

Unfortunately I'd felt like I may have looked silly carrying a gallon of water into the Council offices, so I'd gone 2 hours without any water.

Back on it at 1:00, made up for lost time: glug glug glug....

Home by 11:30 and time to cook lunch.

Lunch was 175g sliced, grilled white potato with garlic and sea salt, 2 sausages and a little gem lettuce.

Water consumption continues.

From 1:15 - 3:30 I was teaching in a primary school, limited water consumption as my gallon bottle prompted so many questions from the 10yr olds.

3:30 I head to the shops on my way home to pick up pancakes and syrup for my first sweet treat! Simple carbs, how I've missed you!

Interesting that I'm now over my sugar cravings and although I was 'allowed' simple carbs, I had no desire to pick up a chocolate bar at the checkout...

At 4:15pm I was eating my 4th meal.

Meal 4 was 100g golden syrup pancakes with butter and maple syrup - yummy!

I can't even tell you what it tasted like as it was devoured in seconds.

As of 4:30pm my I've cut water consumption completely - only 8 litres consumed today, let's hope it was enough!

Carb, glorious carbs!

Now I'm rushing because I'm meeting Becki's parents at a restaurant at 5:30pm and have tickets to the theatre for 7:30pm tonight.

Meal number 5 at 6:00pm. We went for an Italian meal before the theatre.

Meal 5 was a thin base pizza with roughly 100g chicken breast, half a red onion, 75g of bacon and 2 spring onions on top of the pizza sauce and cheese (estimates). Followed by a sticky toffee pudding and ice cream (gotta get those simple carbs!)

I accompanied dinner with 1 small glass of full sugar Coke.

I wasn't sure what to do about fluid consumption this evening. I know my aim is to 'dry' out by body, I had no access to diuretics or vegetable glycerine, so I opted for a filter coffee followed by a 330ml bottle of beer. Hopefully that should be enough to continue flushing my system - I needed to pee twice at the theatre, so all seems good.

By 11:00pm I was gasping for a drink and needed to pee. I certainly feel 'dry'.

By midnight my pee had some colour to it and smelled like urine - it's been clear and odourless for a few days now.
Let's see what happens overnight. This is where the magic should happen!

Small victories

What a roller coaster today has been!

Day 3 of the 6 day cutting plan was off to an ok start.
I had to get up to pee twice in the night and once again at 7:00am. But I had steak for breakfast, so it's not all bad.

The most positive thing I've felt today is that the sugar / chocolate cravings are subsiding. Cravings haven't gone yet, but it's much more bearable.

Breakfast at 9:00am was 150g steak, 2 mushrooms and a Super Protein Shake.
Water consumption started just before 9:00am - I want to get the full amount in me without filling my bladder at 11:00pm again.

I'm teaching today so before going out I'll do a workout at home:
- 3 sets of 10 pull ups
- 3 sets of 10 push ups
- 3 sets of 6, bicep curl @ 17kg per arm
- 3 sets of 10 bent over row @ 17kg per arm

Lunch was 3 egg omelette with 75g ham and 5 lettuce leaves.

At 1:30 I went out to teach, around this time I started to develop a pounding headache (which made teaching 14yr olds a lot of fun!). At 3:30pm I headed home from teaching, the headache was still there and I had now developed mild heartburn.
I felt pretty rough at this point so decided to take some additional salts on board (I must be fairly diluted at this point).
At 4:00pm I took 5g of sodium hydrogen carbonate (Andrews salts) and 5g of Magnesium Hydroxide (Milk of Magnesia).

Mid-Afternoon snack at 4:30 Super Protein Shake & an avocado.
I'm still not quite up to 10litres at this point. Need to drink more quickly!

I went on to feel incredibly tired and the headache remained. Worried at this point about potential damage I could be doing to myself.

Dinner at 5:30pm was 2 haddock fillets, 75g boiled beetroot & 4 lettuce leaves.

After dinner I took another 5g of sodium hydrogen carbonate and ground some sea salt into the water bottle I was drinking from.

At 7:00pm I had a PT client at mi-gym but fortunately was starting to feel better.
At the gym I bought a bottle of Vita-Coco and drank it straight away (more potassium).

By the start of my 8:30pm class I didn't just feel back to normal I felt full of energy.
Clearly I'd diluted myself to the point where my body was in dire need of salts and electrolytes - lesson learned!

Salts and electrolytes are a MUST!

I've stocked up on Andrews and Dioralyte (rehydration sachets) to get through tomorrow.

Finally, here's the progress so far.
It seems as though cutting the carbs and water loading has had an effect on retained water, let's see what happens after 'drying out'

Slight increase in definition in just 3 days!

Once Thursday is out of the way I can start eating carbs again. BRING IT ON!

Stay close to the toilet

I'm now 2 days into my cutting process and I'm not ashamed to say that it's proving to be really REALLY difficult!
I'm also glad that I've been reasonably close to a toilet at every stage of the day. All this water is going straight through me!

Today was a relatively quiet day from a work perspective, so I was able to plan meals more effectively and train hard.

Started the day with a nice early breakfast of a banana and a Super Protein shake.

I met up with Sam at 9:00am at mi-gym.com to train. Today was mainly legs with some work on the guns for good measure (holiday next week!)
- 3 sets of 5 back squat @ 110kg
- 3 sets of 5 deadlift @ 120kg
- 3 sets of 5 Zercher Good Morning @ 60kg
- 3 sets of 5 neutral grip pull ups
- 3 sets of 10 bent over row @ 16kg per arm
- Superset 3 sets of 8 barbell curl @ 40kg with 10 press ups

 Straight after training I had another Super Protein.

I then spent an hour filming Will Wayland training some of his pro athletes for a piece we'll be putting out later this month.

After filming the athletes I went to a meeting at a coffee shop about a forthcoming Halloween event we're running the performance side of: http://www.thecursed.co.uk/
Meeting in a coffee shop was a mistake! So much cake, so many biscuits, so many sweet beverages!
I looked at the nutrition information on a pack of 2 biscuits; 30g carbs per biscuit. I put the biscuit down and ordered a black coffee.

After the meeting it was back to mi-gym to eat my lunch before filming an eccentric tutorial with Will.

Lunch was 150g steak with cracked black pepper, 100g chicken breast, lettuce, an avocado and 2 large mushrooms. Very tasty, very satisfying.

During filming I had to demonstrate a 6 second eccentric squat, so my legs took a further pounding.
Further depleting the glycogen can only be good.

Home at 3:30pm for another 100g of steak with cracked black pepper, garlic and red chilli, a red bell pepper and more lettuce.

By 5:00pm I had only consumed 7 litres of water, it's going to be along night!

Over the course of the day I have had to pee roughly every 30mins with no more than an hour between toilet stops. At least I know my body is in flushing mode now!

There was a scary moment on my way to teach this evening, I hit traffic in what is usually a 20 minute drive. I was preparing myself for the possibility of having to refill one of the water bottles.
Fortunately the traffic cleared quickly and I got to the centre before disaster struck.

All day!

Teaching my circuits class at 7:00pm kept me moving (and made me very aware of my legs). More water consumed there too.

Dinner was 300g of lamb chops with beetroot, lettuce and mushrooms, followed by another Super Protein shake.

Sadly the mint sauce I had in the cupboard contains more sugar than I dared to look at, so I made do with a drop of white wine vinegar to taste.

Bring on day 3, the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight!

Getting shredded in 6 days

Everyone wants to be shredded sometimes!

At the beginning of October I'll be going on a (long overdue) week long holiday, we're going on a cruise around the Eastern Mediterranean.
It's pretty hot over there, even at this time of year, so I may end up taking my shirt off or spending some time sunbathing by the on board pool.

With this in mind, I decided to try out a cutting technique known as 'drying out'. This is pretty common practice for competing sports models and physique competitors.
I'm looking at a 6 day process of loading myself with water while taking on a high protein low carbohydrate diet to make my body 'flush', then tactically carbing up at the end of the week as I completely drop my fluid intake. I'll also be training pretty hard in an attempt to become glycogen depleted.

I'm fully aware that the definition produced by this process will last 2 days at most, but it's a good excuse to experiment on myself.

Just for the record: These techniques will not make you look "ripped" if you are in fat! While most people can drop a significant amount of fat along with the water in these six days, this is not primarily a "diet." It's designed to help already lean people get super lean. It's also worth mentioning that this technique IS NOT a sustainable weight management program, it's purely a short sharp fix for an athlete / model to get in shape for a competition / photoshoot.

It's also worth mentioning that energy levels will be down by the end of this process and that a 'dry' or dehydrated body will not be performing at maximum efficiency.

Ryan Reynolds looking 'ripped'

These techniques are often used by actors to quickly get into shape for a topless scene. It's entirely possible that Ryan Reynolds used this type of fluid manipulation to increase his definition for this infamous scene in Blade: Trinity

(not necessary for this article, I just quite like Ryan Reynolds)

<EDIT> - If you intend to try this yourself, please be aware of the dangers of too much water. Please read about the effects I experienced and how I rectified them before even considering something like this - Day 3 pitfalls of too much water

Here's the programme I'll be sticking to this week:

(This schedule assumes a Saturday bodybuilding competition, photo shoot, or day at the beach)

Monday: 10 to 15 Litres of water, 50g or less total carbs

Tip: Buy three 5 litre bottles of water with a handle. This will let you see exactly how much water you have left to go. And the handle makes it easy to carry around with you everywhere — which you'll pretty much have to do to get in three gallons! 

Pro Tip: Don't ever be too far from a toilet / ditch / bush.

Tuesday: Same as above

Wednesday: Same as above

Thursday: Same as above

Friday: Begin a gradual carb-up. Today eat five or six meals, each containing 50-75g of carbs.

In the first one or two meals, have fruits as your main carbohydrate source. Starting the carb-up with fruit replenishes liver glycogen very fast. We believe that the faster liver glycogen is filled, the more effective the rest of the carb-up will be.

For meals three and four, move to starchier, faster-absorbing carbs (potatoes, pasta or rice if it's tolerated well). Meal number 4 should be at around 4:00pm.

Now the "fun" begins. Water intake should be cut completely at 4:00 or 5:00pm. One or two more meals should be consumed after you cut water. Have only one if you're already looking "full." Have two if not. These meals should contains carbs derived from simple sugars: pancakes and syrup, pie filling, waffles, chocolate, etc. (see, it's not all bad!)

Along with this simple sugar meal, have two tablespoons of vegetable glycerine (found in most health food stores). Also on Friday, take a herbal diuretic or black coffee (if it's not going to stop you sleeping). Although the proper thing to do is go by the label directions with these type of products, best results are usually achieved by taking three servings on Friday: one about an hour or two before you cut water intake, one when you cut intake, and one before bed.

Another trick is to take an Epsom salt bath (400g of Epsom salt in very hot water) for 20-30 minutes before bed. This is what bodybuilders did to help shed water before diuretics became popular. (The salt and mega hot bath drastically increase perspiration.)

Saturday (photo or beach day): Breakfast depends on how you look.

• Looking flat? Have another simple sugar meal.

• Looking good? Small portion of fruit and protein.

• Holding water? Protein only (shake with very little water).

Forty-five minutes before pumping up for your shoot, take in two tablespoons of glycerol in one can of full-sugar soda. 

Voila; hardly any subcutaneous water and muscles full of water.

I'll keep you posted on my progress, may also put up some before and after images.

Full article on this method from T-Nation can be found here: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_diet_mass/shredded_in_6_days