You've made a committment to workout for 22.5 minutes per day. You've also decided to emphasize upper body, so you'll eat more food, especially more carbs, on the days you do upper body workouts. You'll do no exercising the first day. This is a low carb day.

Day 2 is a lower body weight lifting routine in the afternoon/evening and this is a low carb day.

On day 3 you won't do anything and this is a low carb day.

Day 4 is an upper body weight lifting routine and low fat – the extra carbs here will help you become anabolic, such that your body may build muscle (or at the very least, halt catabolism) in the upper body during the post training insuling surge that you get from the carbs.

Day 5 is no exercise and low carb. Day 6 is a lower body weight lifting routine and low carb, Day 7 is no exercise and low carb.

Day 8 is the cheat day and there is a upper body weight lifting routine – the extra calories on the cheat day will help build muscle in the upper body. You never do cardio on a cheat day, but you always lift weights on a cheat day, preferably before your largest meal. After 8 days the cycle repeats. Here is a table showing what the cycle looks like:

 

Day 1	Day 9	Day 17	Day 25
Day 2 lower body	Day 10 lower body	Day 18 lower body	Day 26 lower body
Day 3	Day 11	Day 19	Day 27
Day 4 upper body	Day 12 upper body	Day 20 upper body	Day 28 upper body
Day 5	Day 13	Day 21	Day 29
Day 6 lower body	Day 14 lower body	Day 22 lower body	Day 30 lower body
Day 7	Day 15	Day 23	Day 31
Day 8 lower body	Day 16 lower body	Day 24 lower body	Day 32 lower body

Weight lifting routine

I don't want to hear a bunch of excuses on why you can’t lift weights. You can’t afford not to lift. Don’t worry, if you’re a woman, you just can’t get big off weight lifting, because you don’t have enough testosterone. One of two exceptions would be if a woman was taking supplements to significantly enhance her testosterone levels (such as a lot of tribulus terristus, or illegal steroids), and none of you will be doing that.

The other reason that both men and women can't gain an appreciable amount of muscle while on this program is that they won’t be eating enough. Yes you’ll gain muscle if you lift weights AND you eat more than your body burns such that you have a calorie surplus (weight gain). You aren’t reading this to gain weight, but to lose it.

However, one day out of every 8 days, if you follow the routine as I’ve outlined it, you will actually gain muscle. The day you can potentially gain some muscle is on your cheat day. That is the day you’ll eat between 1/10 BMR – 2/10 BMR more than your body burns.

You now know that you should never eat less than your BMR. But you should also know that on this program, that the most muscle you'll gain, is once every 8 days you'll gain between 1/10 BMR and 2/10 BMR worth of muscle. 

To illustrate how little you'll gain, a 5' 3" woman who weighs 140 pounds, with a body fat percentage of 28.6% (Fat Free Body Mass of 100 pounds)  has a BMR of 1350 and wants to get to 13 percent body fat (113 pounds): she'll gain between 135/3500 - 270/3500 of a pound of muscle (one pound equals 3500 calories), or between .0386 - .0771 of a pound of muscle every 8 days. So just to theoretically gain one pound of muscle on this program for this woman, it would take between (12.96X8) days to (25.91X8)days, or 103.68 – 207.36 days, or between 14.81 - 29.62 weeks.

Since she is only trying to lose 140 – 113 = 27 pounds to begin with, if she chooses the middle of the road program, calling for 45 minutes each day of exercise (10 minutes of warming up, cooling down), she will lose 1.62 pounds per week. So she loses the fat in 16 2/3 weeks. So the most pounds of muscle whe could gain would be 16.66/29.62 - 16.66/14.81 pounds, or between .56 - 1.12 pounds of muscle. So the most she'll gain is slightly more than pound of muscle, while losing 27 pounds of pure fat.

This is while reaching her goal within 4 months, and feeling 50 times better from the 45 minutes of exercising each day, from carrying 27 pounds less fat, from eating more frequently, from eating better foods, from taking supplements, and from higher self esteem because she attracts all kinds attention and envy. Even if she isn’t pretty, everyone will still be looking at her body, and if you don’t have the best looks, a hard body can more than make up for it.

I even have a solution for you if you claim that you can’t afford to go to the gym. You’ll have to buy a bench and some "adjustable" dumbbells, and you can do the dumbbell workout I've devised. The dumbbells will be expensive – around $300, but they can be adjusted from 10-75 pounds.

In order to save time in the gym, you’ll be doing “supersets” and most of them will be “antagonistic supersets”. A “superset” is when you do two exercises back to back, without resting in between the two. “Antagonistic supersets” are when you do two exercises, back to back, of opposing muscles of opposing muscle groups. Back and chest are opposing muscle groups. So are biceps and triceps, and quadraceps – hamstrings.

For upper body, you’ll do combinations of chest-back, biceps-triceps, and shoulders-forearms. Some people are going to say forget the forearms in a dieting routine because it hardly burns any fat, and that a person should stick with compound exercises (those that involve more than one muscle group) to burn more fat rather than wimpy forearms exercises. This is true, but if you saw how my forearms look and feel after doing forearms exercises, you'd be advocating doing them too. Don't worry, you'll be burning plenty of fat, even after eliminating a compound exercise involving a large muscle group in favor of a forearms exercise.

For lower body, you’ll do quads-hamstrings, and calves-quads exercises. You’ll do three sets of one exercise with 4 reps per body part, then three sets of another exercise with 8 reps per body part, then 3 sets of another with 12 reps per body part, then 3 sets of another with 16 reps per body part. You have to keep on pace or you won't get done in the 46 minutes it will take to get done.

Note that “reps” is the number of repetitions, so if you “push the bar up” ten times and can't do any more, you've done 10 “reps.” “Rest” is the amount of time you take in between supersets.

“Tempo” is the number of seconds the weights are in any one position in the exercise. The first number is the number of seconds it takes to push or pull the weights or bar in the concentric portion of the rep, (i.e. the time it takes to push the bar up in a bench press exercise). The second number is the number of seconds the weight remains in the paused position at the end of the concentic portion of the rep. For example, in the bench press, the paused position is with the bar all the way up, with just a slight bend in the elbows (don't “lock out” your elbows on chest exercises). Remember to squeeze (flex) the muscle you're working when in the paused position. For instance, on a bench press, when the bar is paused at the top, squeeze your chest muscles hard for the specified 1 second tempo. The third number is the number of seconds the weight or bar is in the “negative portion” of the rep, or when you a resisting the weight.

Also take note that the tempo changes, as well as the rest period. The lower reps at the beginning tells your body to keep its power and strength. Low reps like this are typically what power lifters lift to gain strength and power, although a 2 ½ minute rest period is slightly fast for low reps. The 8 rep range is the lower range of 8-12 reps range, which is the range for “getting big” or actually gaining muscle in the fastest time (most the Mr. Olympia competitors use an 8-10 rep range for gaining mass). 12 reps is on the upper fringe of the building mass range and is starting to get into the muscle endurance range. The 16 rep sets are endurance sets and these ones actually give you the most serious “pump” afterwards.

So this workout has a little bit of everything to it. At the beginning, you're lifting like a power lifter taking long rest periods and using low reps, but then the speed of the workout gets progressively faster. At the end of the workout, you're an endurance machine, taking very short rest periods, in what power lifters would call a cardio workout.

Day 2 Lower Body/Abs	reps	rest	sets	tempo
squat immediately followed by	4		3*	1+1+3
romanian deadlift	4		3*	1+1+3
		3 min - do stretching
leg press immediately followed by	8		3	1+1+3
leg press calf raises	8		3	1+1+3
		2 min - do stretching
lying down leg curl immediately followed by	12		3	1+1+4
seated calf raise	12		3	1+1+4
		1 min - - do stretching
leg raises immediately followed by	16		3	2+1+4
crunch	16		3	2+1+4
Day 4 - Upper Body
incline bench press immediately followed by	4		3*	1+1+3
regular grip barbell rows	4		3*	1+1+3
		3 min - do stretching
flat bench press immediately followed by	8		3	1+1+3
reverse grip barbell rows	8		3	1+1+3
		2 min - do stretching
biceps curl immediately followed by	12		3	1+1+4
standing french presses triceps	12		3	1+1+4
		1 min - - do stretching
standing military press immediately followed by	16		3	2+1+4
reverse grip biceps curl	16		3	2+1+4
Day 6 Lower Body/Abs
hack squat immediately followed by	4		3*	1+1+3
romanian deadlift	4		3*	1+1+3
		3 min - do stretching
front squat immediately followed by	8		3	1+1+3
barbell calf raises	8		3	1+1+3
		2 min - do stretching
seated leg curl immediately followed by	12		3	1+1+4
seated calf raise	12		3	1+1+4
		1 min - - do stretching
swiss ball leg raises immediately followed by	16		3	2+1+4
swiss ball crunch	16		3	2+1+4
Day 8 - Upper Body
incline bench press immediately followed by	4		3*	1+1+3
dumbell rows	4		3*	1+1+3
		3 min - do stretching
bench press machine immediately followed by	8		3	1+1+3
pulldown machine	8		3	1+1+3
		2 min - do stretching
hammer curl immediately followed by	12		3	1+1+4
skull crushers triceps	12		3	1+1+4
		1 min - - do stretching
upright row immediately followed by	16		3	2+1+4
wrist curl*	16		3	2+1+4

Law #16