Evening all! My name’s Sion, I’m a 23 year old male and I was fortunate enough to have been chosen to participate in the Bio-Synergy 12 Week Challenge.

Personally, weight has never been a major concern of mine. I have been lucky enough to find gaining and losing weight pretty easy and for the past couple of years I’ve managed to bat around the 12 and a half stone mark regardless of how much I eat or how much I exercise. What I’ve always struggled with, however, is toning my body. I find this to be the biggest challenge of all and I was thrilled to see that Bio-Synergy were offering to give me some much needed help to reach this goal after many years of failed attempts.

The start to my 12 Week Challenge has been a bit of a rocky one to say the least. I began my training programme before receiving any of my supplements, in order to get my head around the routine that I’d be facing week in, week out, and I began making some efforts to cut out the bad carbs, bad fats, and drink more water. First small steps for man.

The exercise plan is intense, but I was pleasantly surprised after my first few weeks to find that I wasn’t keeling over in bed as I thought I would, but in fact, I wasn’t aching too much at all! First couple of sessions being an exception. That was a bit of a shock to the system (but I survived!!). The routine is great, you can really feel it working all of your muscles and it’s very well spread out. I quickly learnt which of my muscles I had forgotten about as I started to feel that satisfying burn you get after a good work out. Things were looking promising!

The biggest challenge I found was to get my head around the food shop, as it was so different to what I used to eat, i.e. rubbish. I found myself taking more interest in the contents of food, reading all the packages and stretching out a 20 minutes food shop into an hour. But once I was used to the certain meals I could have, when I would have them, what meals I could take with me to work, it all became a lot simpler to forward plan. Now, I find I’m experimenting with new foods and discovering some lovely tasty meals that are so much better for me than the old fatty rubbish I used to have. And I’m really enjoying my morning fruit smoothies to kick start my day.

Hitting the festive period has been another rocky patch, although I have managed to keep up my training programme, Christmas dinner was too tempting and I did misbehave a little. A beer or two may have crept in there somewhere too… But the way I see it, as long as I work even harder in during my exercise regime and make a big effort to get the nutrition plan back on track, I will forgive myself.

There’s still a long way to go yet, and now with Christmas out the way, I can’t wait to really see what the combination of expert help, supplements and hard work can really do! Bring on 2013!!

After eating and drinking to much over the Christmas period, it was back to training ready for the competition season to start again – I had chance to rest some niggling injuries and start 2013 as I mean to go on!

In March I will be competing at The Irish Open, which is the officially the largest fighting tournament in Europe! Last year I missed it due to injury, so this year – I’m ready! I will be competing in points sparring and musical forms. I’ll be keeping you all up-to date and blogging about training and uploading more videos, as I have a fancy new camera now.

Good luck to all those in the 12 week challenge, remember…

‘Eat Clean, Get Lean!’

Hey guys,

My names Robert, I’m 24 years old and from Leeds, West Yorkshire. I was one of the fortunate few who was accepted onto Bio-Synergy’s 12 Week Challenge several weeks ago. Last Monday I started the challenge, and I’m currently one week in. Let me tell you a little bit about my journey so far.

At the ripe old age of 24 my carb-rich diet and insatiable sweet tooth has caused me to gain a fair amount of excess weight. I’ve been floating round 17.5 stone for some time now. I’m about 6ft 1″ and have quite a large frame so I’ve (kind of) been able to carry it off, but I knew that I needed to shift a good 10kg of fat, mainly from around my waist. Friends and family will usually be polite and not talk about your weight, or they may even have got used to you carrying a bit extra, but you know yourself if you need to trim down, and I knew that I needed to.

Like lots of people out there, I’d found it really hard to stick to diets and attend the gym on a consistent basis. I’d start a new diet but really struggle to have the discipline to stick to it. My main problem with eating was that I didn’t know when to stop, particularly when it came to sweet stuff! Losing weight isn’t rocket science, if you eat healthily and workout consistently, you’ll shed those extra pounds. However, for most of us it isn’t that straightforward. I knew that the Bio-Synergy 12 Week Challenge would be just what I needed to get into shape for the rest of my life.

Just tonight I was in the supermarket and realised how difficult it is to eat healthily. Everywhere you look you are being tempted by foods loaded with sugars and bad fats. As Ann (the nutritionist) said to me, it is usually excess carbohydrates that cause people to gain weight. That’s why in week one of my challenge I’ve made a conscious effort to cut my carbs right down. Now I only get my carbohydrates from vegetables and some fruit. The only time I have the more traditional carbohydrates is when I put two tablespoons of oats in my breakfast shake.

The Bio-Synergy supplements are excellent. I highly recommend the Whey Better Protein if you want super-high quality protein with zero sugars and fats. It tastes great and mixes perfectly, and really helps me move towards my weight loss goals. Plus, you don’t need much of it since it’s 87% whey isolate, which is the best type of protein for muscle gains.

Ann the nutritionist has really helped me so far. She analysed my food intake before I started the challenge, and showed me what I needed to change and explained in detail why that change was necessary. Rather than set me a strict diet, she has so far let me make my own from the advice that she gave to me. Cengiz the strength and conditioning coach has set me some pretty tough workouts, but I’m really enjoying them. I train five days a week and have Thursday and Sunday off. Three of the days involve cardio, machines and free weights and the other two days involve some pretty intense bodyweight exercise circuits, such as pressups and burpees.

The first week has been really good, and I feel really motivated to eat well and exercise in order to shift these extra kilos! The amazing news is, I’ve already lost 2kg and I’m down to around 108.5kg. What a result! It just shows you how expert advice, excellent supplements, healthy eating and exercising can really help you to get in shape! The Bio-Synergy Creatine is helping me to get through the tough workouts, and the Thermogen has been raising my energy levels (as well as helping to burn fat). It’s the first time in my life that I’ve gone a week without anything sweet! On Ann’s advice, I’ve cut out tea and coffee and am drinking plenty of water.

It also keeps me on track to think that you guys are reading this blog and are hopefully inspired to start your own weight loss journey or apply for the 12 Week Challenge yourself.

I’ll be back next week with another update on my progress. Thanks again to Bio-Synergy for this excellent opportunity. Hopefully I’ll be down to around 100kg in 11 weeks’ time!