Sadly it has become part of the Trini doctrine that December is for eating and January is for trying to quickly get in shape for Carnival. You are probably now regretting that you procrastinated so much with your Carnival fitness programme. You are also conjuring up images of your friends with tight, toned abs and defined arms, while you visualise yourself looking like flab personified. As a matter of fact, you have become so desperate, that you are now trying to encourage some of your overweight friends to play in your section, so that you won't look so bad. You have also decided to run the Queen's Park Savannah everyday and crash diet as well.
However, I have some bad news and good news for you. The bad news is that if you put the above training strategy into action, you may either end up looking emaciated, or you may be watching the parade of the bands on TV from your bed, since your self-inflicted, weakened immune system could not stop the onslaught of the influenza virus. The good news is that if you follow my plan of action, you may just end up looking fairly decent come Carnival time.
Plan of action
Don't be one of the many foolish late-starters you see running five miles every afternoon in a desperate effort to shed weight. While I am a very strong advocate of cardio and its many health benefits, at this stage, if you weren't doing cardio months ago, running everyday now is not going to change your body shape in any significant manner. You need to concentrate on performing High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) twice per week, weight train five days per week, eat clean, and you will look much better for Carnival.
When performing HIIT, sprint only for ten seconds, and then walk briskly in the recovery phase instead of jogging, since your cardio background may not be that strong to sustain a jog. You can e-mail me for further details. Performing excess "steady state" cardio at this stage will only serve to open your appetite for an abundance of carbs. Right now, you need to cut back and be very selective in your carb intake.
This will shrink your waistline very fast! Use only carbs that carry a low Glycemic Index (GI) rating.
This means staying away from bread, pasta and all other products containing white flour. Remember, white flour and refined sugar both have scary ratings of 100 on the GI scale, which means that you should avoid products that contain refined sugar as well.
Weight training exercises
When you hit the weight room, concentrate on performing as much compound exercises as possible. Stick to movements like free squats, clean and press, deadlifts, barbell rows and walking lunges.
These exercises recruit many muscle groups simultaneously. For example, the clean and press will make you use your legs, butt, shoulders and triceps. In the final stage of the lift, your core muscles will also have to contract, in order to stabilise your body for the press. Using multiple muscle groups, means greater overall muscle tone and also makes limited gym time more efficient. Remember also to perform a variety of waist sculpting exercises and you may just be mistaken for either Halle Berry or Vin Diesel.
Keep training.