I’ve neglected BrainVault the last few months, as I redesigned IbrahimHusain.com and designed, developed, and launched TwentiesLife.com.  But I’m back, and I’m ready to take things to the next level.

With that in mind, I’m on the prowl for a new personal experiment.  I have a couple of things in mind, but I’m also open to ideas.  Here are a couple of things I was thinking of trying.

1. Study a new language for 30 days
2. Master Juggling
3. Study an instrument for 30 days
4. Paleo Diet (30 Day Trial Period)
5. Script, Cast, and Record a commercial for TwentiesLife.com.
6. Build a super-server (with all kinds of super powers)
7. learn a different nationality of cooking each week (1 meal per week)

I know that you have better ideas than me though, so help me out.  Give me a couple of your crazy personal experiment ideas.  It will be interesting to see me put myself through them.

So, what ideas do you have?

While I loved this experiment, and the amount of discipline that it required, I am going to have to press pause for now.  I’m in the middle of a religious fast (it’s Ramadan for Muslims), and my lack of disciplined nutrition and the fact that I don’t eat or drink throughout the daylight, I just don’t have the energy to keep up the intensity of work that I usually put into the gym.  I’m losing almost a pound a day, and I imagine that it is muscle as well as fat, so I’m going to do my best just to try to maintain.  At the end of Ramadan (about 20 more days) I’ll get back on track and the six pack abs experiment will continue.  Until then, I bid you adue.

My meals consist of nothing but great, natural ingredients.

Meals are as follows:

Breakfast:

• 1 cup oatmeal (100% rolled oats, no sugar or any other ingredients), made with fat free milk, honey, and cinnamin
• 2 sunny side up or boiled eggs
• 2-4 strips turkey bacon

Lunch and Dinner:

• Grilled chicken breast or grilled lean burger patty (no bun or anything else)
• steamed veggies or beans
• baked sweet or red potato

Snacks:

• tablespoon of peanut butter
• fruit (peaches, pineapple, strawberries, mango, grapes)
• Whole wheat mac and cheese, made only with fat free milk (no butter)

This is what my life has become.  I have switched my fitness plan from a 5 day split, hitting each muscle group once a week, to a 3 day split, doing 3 full body workouts per week.  In between each work out I take a day of cardio only, and usually play basketball for about 2 hours.  This seems to be working well, and  I feel great.

I’ll keep you posted as things progress.  Still no visible abs, but when I flex the top 2 show.

Nutrition-wise I’ve been ok.  I’ll admit there was a cheeseburger here and there, but no sweets and I’ve maintained a healthy level of calories, with a low amount of fats (I made the burgers myself using 92% lean ground beef on a george foreman grill).  Starting today I plan to resume counting calories and hitting the gym harder.  Hopefully all will go well!

Yesterday was day 7 of my Six Pack Abdominals experiment.  Overall things went well, though as you can see I didn’t eat nearly what I was supposed to.  I’m aiming to eat about 2800 calories, and yesterday I was about 900 calories short… just a little, right?  If I keep up this fitness level, I really need to be reaching my caloric intake goal.

I also decided to start supplementing caffeine.  I am taking 200 mg first thing in the morning and about 15 minutes before my workout.  This will give me a little extra boost of energy, and should slightly increase my metabolic performance throughout the day.  I don’t drink coffee or soda, so I don’t see this being a problem.  I’m also still taking a multi-vitamin, 1000 mg of Vitamin C, and 30 grams of protein powder after each workout.  When I play basketball I also take 400 mg of Ibuprofen, because I get shin splints pretty bad, and the Ibuprofen at least masks it during play.

This morning I weighed 204.8.  Remember my goal is to be at 185 in 53 days.  We’ll see…

I’m going to try and be better at recording everything, so hopefully tomorrow I’ll have all the graphs to show off again.  Wish me luck on day 7!

As you can see, I ate 3,042 calories yesterday, and as the image below shows, I burned 4,779 calories.  Not bad for the first day.  I’m sure that kind of activity wont keep up, since I don’t play basketball for 2+ hours everyday.  I actually played for 3 hours, but considering all of the breaks between games and such, I put 2:15 in the program.  My legs are a bit sore, but overall it was a great first day.  I feel great, and I’m excited about keeping up with it today!

Follow my fitness journal at http://fitday.com/fitness/PublicJournals.html?Owner=IbrahimZCL

For my next Brain Vault experiment my goal will be to achieve visible six pack abdominals.  Anyone who has ever tried to achieve this knows that it is no easy task.  Visible abdominals usually require 9-12% bodyfat at the most, so coming down from 18% or so is not going to be easy.  But I will journal the experience and keep you informed with everything I do, and if I do achieve visible abs you’ll know exactly what it takes.  The time period for this experiment will be 60 days.

My plan is as follows (this will probably change throughout the course of the experiment):  I will keep a strict diet, probably consisting of 2000 calories or less.  I will count every calorie, and I will record them all on Fitday.com, which hopefully I’ll be able to make public for you to see.  I will also record every workout, so that you can see the kind of fitness it takes.  I will record every set, and every rep weight.  I’ll record the amount of sleep I get, and the times.  I will also record all of my vitamins and supplements.  I won’t be doing anything drastic to achieve my goal, so in recreating this experiment you will not have to worry about anything being dangerous.  The only thing you might change is that I will probably supplement caffeine, but that’s only because it has great metabolic effects and I don’t like coffee or soda.

So hopefully by the end I’ll look somewhat like the picture above (yeah right…).  I’ve done quite a few crazy experiments in my day(vegetarian for 6 months, biphasic sleep for 1 month, 3 day juice diet etc.), but I think this one may be the most difficult, so that’s why I’m doing it.  Whether I succeed or fail you’ll get a good idea of the amount of dedication that it takes to acheive a visible six pack, and you’ll know whether or not this is something worth trying to obtain.

Wish me luck, it’s going to be a long 8 weeks.