Yeah if you have only been training a few weeks total, you are still a beginner. So the home program sounds perfect for you!

1. You probably will need a few more calories, because the workouts are high intensity so you will be burning a lot. Probably increase your intake to at least 2000 calories and judge your progress with that.

2. You can still do your own ab work on the UPPER and LOWER body days, and then you don't need to do it on the AB days because you'll be following the workouts from the program.

And the program downloads as an Excel file. It's not on a web page. I just checked it and it downloaded for me fine. Do you have Excel or a similar program?

OK. Sounds a bit like Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). That's normal. Just keep an eye on it and stretch it to help it hopefully heal.

Hey Scott,

So I started the home workout program as suggested.  I had a 2 day break from the gym to allow the DOMS to heal, but continued with 1800 calories both days.  Couple of questions for you:

1.  I started the upper body today and used 5 lbs weight.  It feels too light.  Should I go with 10 lbs instead?  It doesn't look like I have much muscles, but I am able to handle the workout pretty well and not feeling the same intensity as doing bench press/squats in the gym.  Is that normal?

2.  On days that I don't workout, should I reduce the calorie intake to 1300 calories instead of 1800?

Thanks,
-Suresh

1. You can increase the weight, definitely! It will make it more challenging. It might not be super hard if you already have good endurance levels, so that might be why you're doing well with it. Not a bad thing! But if you still find it 'too easy', try adding a few extra rounds, and maybe make the routines 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes.

2. You can reduce your intake on days you don't workout, but only reduce them to about 1500-1600. 1300 calories would be what you need if you did nothing all day. Chances are you will still be a bit higher than that from just everyday things like walking around etc. Plus you still want to be in a surplus. So 1600 would be a good target on off days.

I tried with 10 lbs for the upper body and yes it is challenging.

I did the lower body training yesterday. It was too intense. Lots of these exercises, I couldn't even do with 5 lbs. So, perhaps lower body is my weakness. I usually don't sweat even in the gym - but for this lower body exercise I was sweating with the AC on. While for the upper body exercise, I don't feel the need to drink water in between, for lower body I emptied almost a litre of water and was panting for breath. And the entire lower body is still sore, hurts even when climbing stairs. Which is suprising because I am really good at sprinting, can easily go up to 14mph and also jog for a prolonged period of time. I have also played sport (Cricket) until my late twenties and did a lot of running.

1. Any idea why I am struggling with the lower body circuit? Suggestions on making it easier?

Regarding diet, I follow intermittent fasting (OMAD). My eating window is from 12 to 8 pm. If I try to include high fiber, low GI foods, I feel so full that I am not able to hit 1800 calories. I got the protein bumped up to 120 using whey powder. But total calories stays between 1500 and 1600. I am able to bump this up to 1800 if I eat like 3 slices of pizza for dinner. So, what is your suggestion here?

2. Should I let go off intermittent fasting - my body is so used to it, that I don't even feel hungry until 11 am anyway. But it will give me some additional hours to increase calories.

3. Alternatively, should I continue with pizza or other high calorie low GI foods like chips, dips and stuff that don't fill me up? I also enjoy these kind of foods after a hard days workout. Yet because I am eating in a shortened window, I stay within calorie limits despite this.

1. You are probably just struggling because you aren't used to weighted training with the legs. And perhaps you're not used to the endurance aspect of leg training either. Sprinting would be short distances, and short bursts of energy, whereas with a routine like this, you're going basically non-stop for 20 minutes. So it might take some time to get used to it. Practice makes perfect!

For your diet, can you include more fatty foods like nuts or peanut butter or oily fish or avocado etc.? They are great sources of healthy fats, and having more fats will give you more calories with not as much food.

2. That's up to you. You can eat according to what works best for you. But if you can't get all the food in during your fasting window, maybe make it a little bigger.

3. I would only have things like that occasionally. In moderation. If you start eating them too often, that won't help you on your quest for abs.

Thanks. So, I entered my macros into the meal planner and it provided me a GPA of 2.35. Have you tried this app before? If so, would you mind sharing your GPA from the meal planner?

Since I look at you as a role model and wish to emulate, I will use that as a goal to improve my eating.

What meal planner are you using @sureshmv8? Not the one here on the @mealplan page?

I use the one from our site only. https://mealplan.scotthermanfitness.com/

Btw, this meal planner is giving me lower grades for using coconut oil for cooking and is recommending sunflower oil instead. I had read somewhere that Coconut oil is better and had switched earlier this year.

According to the meal planner, it looks like sunflower oil gives me the Omega 6 missing in my diet. So, with just a few changes (removed pizza, replaced with Yams, Lentils and Spinach), then added flax seed oil and sunflower oil to get the fats up - suddenly my gpa is shown as 3.54. This was my today's meal plan. Checkout below screenshot:

Also, I am not sure how to account for salt added while cooking food. I add a tsp of salt which is almost 100% of daily value for sodium. I am still working on getting those calories up to 1800. I am at around 1600 now and my system is adjusting to the increase in food intake, but getting there.

Second thing, I did the abs exercise from the HOME PROGRAM today. I am not finding it hard even with the 10 lb dumbbells. So, do I mix and match here? Upper body is challenging with 10lbs, lower body is challenging even without weights, and abs is not taking a lot of effort. I have been training my abs with leg raises and crunches since March this year. So, maybe my abs are better trained. Should I move to month 2 for abs and stay with the program for rest of the body?

Coconut oil is OK. It probably wasn't a great grade because your saturated fat might have been high with the pizza in there too. Your GPA is good and I see lots of 'A's there which is awesome!

I wouldn't worry too much about salt. A tsp of salt is only about 500mg, which isn't more than what your daily intake could or should be. So don't sweat it too much.

I would stick with all of the MONTH 1 workouts, but maybe just do EXTRA work for the abs. So run through the routine with a few extra rounds to make it harder! But if you add another round or two rounds and it's still 'easy.. then yes it would be OK to switch to ABS 2 to take the intensity up a notch.