Hansie Louw

Author, Coach, Entrepreneur

Ten days and five percent

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Is it possible to get my body to move five percent in a ten day period? Of course I must stay healthy during these ten days as well. So could I eat and exercise for ten days and get a great result? This is what I want to do. Ten days is not too long. It is possible to see myself doing it! The most important thing for me is body fat,  then waistline and then weight. 

 

ten days is all that is required
I can do ten days

The plan is  simple (but not easy):

Exercise plan

I will exercise every morning at 5:30 am for ten days for 30 to 45 minutes. Some days I will add other exercise to this routine. This, however, is the minimum.

Nutrition plan

I will eat clean for ten days.

I will eat enough protein for my requirements and will eat balanced carbohydrates.

In short this is what my eating plan will look like:

  1. Water and aloe (first thing in the morning)
  2. Meal replacement shake with fibre and extra protein
  3. Energy Tea

This will be for all breakfasts and lunches and for six dinners

4. Snacks – I will have these at least twice a day.

5. Four Dinners will consist of a “normal” meal. A normal meal is a meal with at least three portions of protein and maximum one portion of white starch, preferably none.

6. Aloe and water drink at night again – all ten evenings.

NB: There will be no fruit in the plan, no sodas and no alcohol and no fruit juice either.

The plan is the same, but I will change the recipe of the shake throughout to keep it interesting.

I am going to use a Vanilla shake from Herbalife with 30 servings (I will eat at least 26 meals) and a apple tasting fibre mix with the shake. I will experiment a bit with the shake to add weird and wonderful stuff to it (like hot chocolate or peanut butter). For snacks I will use boiled eggs or Herbalife protein bars (10 gram of protein) or Roasted Soy Beans. Of course the eggs will be cheaper, but the calories will be higher. The Aloe is the Mango flavour from Herbalife with enough servings for me. I will add Herbalife protein mix to the shake so that my first shake of the day would be about 24 gram of protein. The energy tea is a Herbalife instant beverage with tea extracts.

Is it safe? I am going to eat about 1400 calories per day, but it will be well balanced with all the vitamins and minerals that I need. When there is extra energy required (long run or so), I will supplement with good carbohydrates and protein. I will use 1000 mg of vitamin C when required.

Of course if you want to do the same and you are more budget conscious you could replace some of the items that I am going to use with alternatives.

 

I will chart the journey.

 

Hansie Louw

 

 

 

 

Chocolate and Coke for a snack – change this like I did

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Coke and Chocolate

chocolate

I remember those days. It was easy – for a bit of energy, first a slab of chocolate and then some 2 liters of Coke just to rinse it down. Well, truth be told, sometimes the Coke took a little bit longer. I was younger then and quite active and the 1200 or so calories of this combined “snack” did not increase my weight drastically. My massive weight gain only occurred in my late twenties and then throughout my thirties.

I managed to keep the weight from ballooning by still playing league tennis, but later on I started to get too slow and fat for the singles matches. The tennis court was too big. So the weight kept on going up. My claim to fame was eat a few chocolates to balance the beers I drank after two sets of doubles tennis games during the week. The chocolates was to balance the alcohol in the beer as this was often taken before supper with a long time since lunch.

Business Lunches

Lunch, well that is another story. Often business lunches went on too long with too many calories and a few extras for desert. Then I had to eat my main meal of the day at home as I forgot to tell my spouse that I did have a business lunch (or will go for a business lunch that day). Two full meals and some extras and your weight will go up. Mine went up and up to a total of 115 kg before I realised that I should make a plan.

Well, to be honest, I did realise it. I just could not get started. My sister (she was the youngest of five) told me at regular intervals  how she lost weight. She lost about 19 kg and she looked amazing. Every week or so I heard about her progress. At that stage I have tried many diets before and some were quite successful, but very hard work. The challenge was that I just picked up the weight again. This time it was twin kidney stones that did the trick.

I was on holiday at the Bahamas when the kidney stones struck me. The pain was just excruciating. I tried to survive until the end of the holiday trip, but we came back earlier. While I was crawling on the bathroom floor trying to find some comfort on the cold floor, I promised myself that I would get healthy, that I would lose the weight. I did not really know how or if it would work, but I said I would lose the weight.

Meal replacement shakes

Back in South Africa my doctor removed two kidney stones and I started  with my weight loss plan immediately after that. One shake in the morning and restrained intake during the day. No cool-drinks or alcohol or fruit. I lost five kg the first three months which included a December holiday time. I was excited – it was the first December in years that I did not gain weight.

Meal Replacment

After that holiday I started with two meal replacement shakes (some were chocolate shakes) per day and continued with my disciplined eating. I continued to lose another 21 kg over a six month period. My total loss over that time was 26 kg which was not too fast, but also not too slow. It was 3,5 kg per month for the last six months.

Some nights I was dreaming that it was only a dream and that I did not lose the weight. I would rush to the mirror just to make sure that it was the truth. It was difficult for my mind to accept the fact that the weight was gone. At times my wife would touch   me during the night and feel scared thinking that there is a stranger in bed with her – the body shape was not right.

Our youngest son said to me one day, “Dad, you are not a dad anymore!” I could not understand what he was referring to. He then continued to explain that all the fathers of his friends had big stomachs. Mine has disappeared, so naturally, I was not a dad anymore in terms of that qualification for what a dad should look like. I was definitely not a Coke and chocolate dad anymore. The strangest thing is that my urge or craving for the sweet things disappeared completely. This is remarkable! It is like a dream come true.

Comrades Marathon

One of the biggest things that happened to me was the fulfilling of a life long dream to run the Comrades Marathon (a distance of almost 90 km) which I did for the first time about two years after I lost the weight.

The magic now is that I am able to control my weight. I still take meal replacement shakes for the balanced nutrition that it gives me, the speed that I can make it and the sheer taste of it – it tastes like heaven, the way that I make it. I would still eat a chocolate, but it would be a thin layer of chocolate with a protein content of roughly 10 grams. From time to time a small chocolate here or there (the more unhealthy ones) will not make much difference to my weight now.

I know that you could lose the weight that you want to lose,  I know that there is a lean person inside you that want to get out and to show the world what you look like inside and what you are able to achieve.

You can be successful!

Let me know if you need assistance.

Bellville, South Africa

19 July 2017

Comrades
Comrades

 

 

 

 

Soft Suicide

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You are most likely busy with suicide

This is a shocking statement that you may discard at first, thinking, this is not what I am busy with, but think again. If you do not live a healthy active lifestyle, then you are busy with suicide. That means that you exercise at least five times a week, that you eat well balanced meals, that you sleep well and that you are at peace with yourself (and others around you).

Let me start with an easy test

Measure your waist just to make sure where you are at the moment. My waist is 104 cm at the day I am writing this. My waist is normally around 92 cm, but the past year I just let it slip (too much). My height (length) is 186 cm. According to the experts my waist should be a maximum of 50% of my height, so that is 93 cm. I am busy reducing it as we speak.

waistline
You will lose years of your life if you do not attend to your waist

 

If your waist is over the 50% mark like mine (56% at the moment), then you need to address this immediately. You are shortening your life span by doing this. Do you want to be around for longer? Then start to do something about it now!

Four things that you could do immediately to change your waistline!

Exercise: if your body is very heavy you should be cautious on how you approach this. I am not saying that you should not do it, but you may need to walk in stead of running or cycling in stead of walking. Swimming or walking in a pool is a softer option, but you need to start with some exercise routine. Get some walking buddies together and walk at a crazy time like 4 am or 9 pm. Just make a plan to start with exercise to stop the slow suicide.

Nutrition: cut the crazy carbohydrates immediately (by that I mean the white carbohydrates) and cut the fruit as well unless you eat that with protein. A protein snack is better than a fruit snack! Fruit juice is out. Change your alcohol drink if you want to drink to something that you don’t like.

Sleep: make sure you sleep enough over the course of 10 days. If you have to work harder sometime and sleep less you have to make up for it with power naps or longer stretches of sleep.

Measure: measure your waist now, make a record of that and commit to get the percentage down (unless your ratio is lower than 38% – then it must go up)!

Say goodbye to soft suicide and say hello to a new you! Contact us for more free information on +27827765462.

get rid of this

 

healthy body
this is where we are going