Sometimes life gets busy.
About 8 years go, I was in a situation where I working 55-60+ hour weeks running a suit store.
The commute was about 45 minutes each way to get to my job, so a lot of time was dedicated to working.
When my blog took off, I was spending about 3-4 hours per day on average writing posts and answering questions.
Between my blog, work, and my commute...I was putting in about 80 hours per week.
During the Christmas season is was even more brutal.So how do you workout when 85-90 hours are dedicated to work?
Answer: You don't <---or you scale WAY back.
Throughout the year I could get in the gym 3-4 times per week back then.
...but couldn't hit the gym at all the 6 weeks before Christmas.
Here's a video of a body weight circuit I used during that time.
...but what if you don't even have time for that?
Although this isn't ideal, it is possible to drop fat without exercising.
If I was in that position today, here's what I would do.
Create a strong calorie deficit by following a protein sparing modified fast.
I'll outline a brain-dead simple approach.
The Protein Sparing Chicken Soup Diet
An aggressive low calorie, muscle sparing diet to follow for 6-8 weeks...when you absolutely cannot train.
What you will need.
1) A large pot to hold 3 days worth of soup. 2) 3 days worth of boneless skinless chicken breasts.
For most people this will be 8-9 chicken breasts. I like to broil these first with a bit of soy sauce and salt and pepper. I'll also experiment with other spices to add flavor to the soup.3) 3-4 containers of chicken broth.4) A large variety of green vegetables.
You will need to avoid corn, peas, and carrots since they are starchy carbs. What you are looking for are things like celery, kale. onions, peppers, brussel sprouts, etc. I also like to put in a large batch of cilantro...because cilantro makes it extra tasty!5) 3 medium sized containers to divide the soup into 3 equal size batches.
This is a pretty easy diet to follow.
Each container is a day's worth of food.
It makes is psychologically easy to follow when you know exactly how much food you have left for the day.
You can ration your day's worth of food however you want. It could be that you like to have a small bowl of soup every few hours...or possibly you do better with 2 big bowls of soup throughout the day.
You can add salsa to the soup, make it spicy with a bunch of jalapeno pepper's, etc.
You can dramatically change the flavor depending upon what spices you put on the chicken before broiling.
I'd recommend making two 3 day batches per week...and giving yourself one day of higher calories and carbs.
...eat normal for one day without purposely trying to cheat as much as possible.
This is a solid diet to follow for 6-8 weeks, when life simply gets too busy to hit the gym.
Cheers,
-Rusty
Fitness Black Book & Visual Impact fitness courses
PS: I've used this chicken soup diet in the past to create a large deficit while training as well.
One approach that has worked well for me is to eat nothing but the soup Mon, Tuesday, Wednesday...then eat at maintenance with more carbs the rest of the week.
Another approach I've used over and over again is simply eating 2 shakes and chicken salad each day.
...but the chicken soup probably creates a larger deficit, and it is what I'd recommend if you absolutely cannot train and want to lose body fat rapidly.
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