Man of Steel Syndrome and Losing My Weight

Did you read my posting about my last year’s resolution? I posted it on 6th of January last year.

The goal was to lose at least 10 kg  in a year.

The plan was…

1. to reduce consuming carbohydrate, especially at night.
2. exercise at least 30 minutes a day

Last year, on 6th of Jan, my weight was 89 kg, and now I am 82 kg, meaning I lost 7 kg. But in the middle of the year my weight was 92 kg around March, so for the maximum weight in last year, I lost 10 kg.

For the plan, I did reducing carbohydrate consumptions, especially at night. I usually eat rice only during lunch time. Breakfast I usually take mung beans, wheat bread, or other carbs in less amount, and I avoid rice. I eat normal during lunch, take more vegetables, and less amount of rice. At night usually I just eat meat or fruits.

Now let’s see the statistic of my exercise last year:

So basically, in average, I spent around 20 minutes daily for doing exercise. That’s not bad, compared to my plan, 30 minutes a day.

As you can see in the above chart, after posting my resolution, I almost do nothing about it until June 2013. I put a low target and did small amount of exercise. Eat rice at night like crazy.

Suddenly, starting from June, I put a higher target and exercise many more than before June. What happened?

It’s because of Man of Steel. Yap. Henry Cavill.

I knew that Henry Cavill was in a good shape in Immortals (2011), but he was not in a good shape before he starred as Superman in Man of Steel. When Henry Cavill turned up on set, he had just finished shooting Immortals  and came sporting an extremely muscular and ultra-ripped physique. Director Mabrouk El Mechri told him that he had to play an ordinary man and that his current body would be completely wrong for the character. Henry Cavill had to lose all the muscle tone and mass that he gained over the previous six months to get his body to look like that of an average man. He did it by eating and drinking a lot and not working out. And how about his role in Man of Steel? Read the following trivia from IMDB:

Henry Cavill refused to take steroids to muscle up for the role. He also refused any digital touch-ups or enhancement to his body in his shirtless scenes. He said it would have been dishonest of him to use trickery while playing Superman and he wanted to push his body to the limits to develop his physique into one that was worthy of the character.

Henry Cavill said that the most difficult part of making the movie was definitely his two shirtless scenes. He had been training for months prior to filming began but for his shirtless scenes, he specially went on extremely difficult calorie restriction diet and training regime that cut his calorie intake from 5000 to near 1500 for 6 weeks. After 6 weeks he reached a body fat level of just 3% which is the level achieved by professional body-builders during competitions. Henry said this was done because he wanted to make his abs as pronounced and his muscles as defined as humanly possible to create the best possible Superman physique. Cavill returned to a more manageable routine after the scenes were shot but felt his effort was rewarded when audiences and critics alike praised his physique for the true embodiment of what Superman would look like. After he had shot his shirtless scenes, director Zack Snyder gave him a tub of ice cream and pizza to reward him for his Herculean effort for the shirtless scenes.

Henry Cavill embarked on a special four-month training regime by his trainer Mark Twight to get the appropriate physique for his roles as Kal-El. He gained weight by drinking 5 1000-calorie protein shakes a day, then he did cardiovascular workouts to burn away the fat and build muscle, and finally he underwent a grueling two-hour workout to build up his muscles and abdomen. According to Cavill, the real problem he faced was the workout’s intensity: “Mark based his technique on going beyond yourself. Instead of slowing down towards the end of the workout, he asked me to actually work harder and harder for the body to reach its limits. His point was that if his client is able to walk out of the gym, he had not worked hard enough…”

While coming up with the aesthetic of how the Superman physique should look, trainer Mark Twight said the he wanted the classic V shape – broad shoulders and narrow waist, which Henry Cavill naturally had, he just had to pack on more muscle to his frame. Additionally, he said he looked to Steve Reeves‘s physique in the film Hercules (1958) as a model for Superman, as to attain a Greek God ideal. Zack Snyder instructed Henry Cavill that his physique should look so great that in his shirtless scenes, he had to look like a “freak” and be in “absolutely crazy shape”. Zack Snyder was subsequently very impressed with the results of Henry Cavill‘s 11 month hard training and called his physique “a great accomplishment”. Henry Cavill said that even he was surprised by how big he looked in the film.

I thought that if Henry Cavill can do it, why can’t I? So what did I do? I googled Mark Twight, and found his amazing plan for Soldier of Steel.

Click here to download the PDF. I shared the file to my colleagues in the office, and they just said: WOW! We printed the one month schedule, and even I put those exercises in daily alert using Yahoo! Groups. We started to follow those, but we found it too difficult for beginners like us.

Since it was too difficult to follow, I searched different alternatives to start moving our body to be Man of Steel. I found Fitstar, an application in iOS. I started to do the exercise in the office after office hour. For the first or second exercise, everybody just smiled and laughed at me while doing the exercise using my iPad and the app. And one of my colleague started to join me. And after that the four of us started to burn calories daily for max 30 minutes. And after a month, two of us started to join a fitness club to burn more calories. I also installed Noom for Android and iOS, to track my food calories. I learned a lot from the app:

1. Losing weight is more on manage the calorie in and calorie out. Losing 1 kg means burning 7000 calorie. You can achieve this in a week by burning 1000 calories a day (3 hours aerobic low impact or 2 hours aerobic high impact) or burning 500 calories and reduce your needs of daily calories by 500 calories.
2. Carb diet is better than fat diet
3. Eating more vegetables or anything with fiber, can reduce the amount of carbs we eat and more healthier

So I’ve been eating black/brown/red rice for lunch, replacing the notorious white rice 🙂 White rice causing blood sugar spike and can lead to diabetes. More fiber, meaning less portion to eat, since fuller in my stomach.

Three months after joining the fitness club, I challenged my self to climb a mountain (2958 m above sea level). See my pics here. That’s a huge of calories burning.

I avoided taking some diet pills nor special nutrition to lose weight since I need to change my life style. If I get bored with those pills and I don’t change my life style, I will gain my weight again. So to make it permanent I need to change the way I live. My life style.

Now it’s a new year, beginning of 2014. My new resolution is:

– Losing at least another 6  kg in maximum 6 months

The plan is:
– Increase the average of daily exercise, from 20 minutes to 30 minutes
– Increase the frequency of running, from none to at least once in a week, minimum 5 km, and track it using Endomondo
– Start doing abs workout using Runtastic Abs

Wish me luck! It’s really good to be a slimmer version of myself. How about you, dear Reader? Did you achieve your last year resolution? Tell us about your journey!