Fat Loss Prop Bet

[Snafu'd]

I thought about posting this a few days ago to get advice on how to do this thing, but we've already established the rules so I'm going to throw them out there and see what you guys think.

RULES:
Me and 6 other guys are each putting up a little cash on a fat loss prop bet. The bet runs for twelve weeks. We show up at the gym on Monday morning and get our body fat % measured and then get it measured again in October. The winner is the person who loses the most fat, expressed as a percentage of total fat lost (calcualtion = Ending Fat % divided by Beginning Fat % minus one). Only rules are no personal trainers and no diet/fat loss type supplements. Meal replacement shakes and the like are fine. All of us are in the 25 to 30 age range and none of us have taken any kind of fitness very seriously for any length of time since high school. Most of us, myself included, did play sports in high school so it's not like we're completely new to the gym - the diet, on the other hand, is going to be the tricky part.

CONTESTANTS:
A 5'8" 170 (Me)
B 5'7" 175
C 5'7" 170
D 5'8" 180
E 5'9" 190
F 5'8" 205
G 6'0" 185

Contestants A (me) through D are very similar in body styles. We all used to play a certain sport very seriously, but now we all mostly play golf and are carrying too much weight around the midsection.
Contestants E and F are carrying more weight proportionally to their height, but E is definitely carrying more muscle weight. He was one of the best athletes, if not the best we had in high school and gets results very quickly from working out. F is carrying far too much body fat and could stand to lose more than the rest of us. He's also much lazier than the rest of the contestants.
Contestant G is already fairly slender compared to the rest of us so I really don't give him much of a chance.
EVERYONE in this group likes to drink and have a good time. I'm the only one that isn't married with kids so I'd have to say that I spend even more time at the bars than the others.

MY PLAN:
I've done a body for life challenge in the past but it's been at least 8 years ago. I did really well with both the diet and the workout routine and saw some really nice results. I only lasted about 10 weeks on the the routine though. I haven't spent a whole lot of time in the gym since then, but I was thinking of taking a similar approach.

SAMPLE DIET
Breakfast - scrambled egg whites, whole wheat toast
Mid morning - protein shake
Lunch - turkey sandwich on wheat, raw fruit and or veggies
Mid afternoon - shake
Dinner - chicken breast, sweet potato, veggies

SAMPLE WORKOUT DAYS 1,3,5
This is performed as a circuit with 2 minute rest b/w circuits. Circuit is completed 3 times.
Pushups x 20
Dumbell Rows X 8
Body Squats X 25
Leg Extensions X 10
Pike Press X 8

DAY 2,4
20 min (at least) cardio
Core exercises (3 to 4 sets of 20)

DAY 6,7
Very little, it's the weekend.

Thoughts on the plan? I'm going to change my workouts up and may incorporate more dumbell training as I build strength, but for the most part, this is a fair representation of what I plan on doing. Most of my workouts will be done at home b/c I have a dumbell set and bench. I'm looking into getting a jump rope and medicine balls as well. I really think I can beat these guys with diet and higher intensity exercise than what I believe they will do. Only time will tell I guess. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Also, If you were laying odds on the contestants, what would they be?

Edit to add: I'm eating as poorly as I can to pack on a little extra fat before Monday. Good idea or bad?

[secretprankster]

Holy midget alert.

[mattnxtc]

weight as a whole matters very little..you should have checked body fat levels before agreeing to this.

Add HIIT workouts in there at least twice a day...

If you really want to drop the weight...go on www.t-nation.com and do the velocity diet as you will drop a ton of weight real fast

[Jay.]

switch your cardio for HIIT.

find out if you can 'cheat' the body fat % device.

[Snafu'd]

[ QUOTE ]
switch your cardio for HIIT.

find out if you can 'cheat' the body fat % device.

[/ QUOTE ]
Explain?

[dethgrind]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
switch your cardio for HIIT.

find out if you can 'cheat' the body fat % device.

[/ QUOTE ]
Explain?

[/ QUOTE ]
Easy if it's one of the scales you stand on and it shoots an electric pulse through your leg. Not sure how you could cheat the other methods though.

[Snafu'd]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
switch your cardio for HIIT.

find out if you can 'cheat' the body fat % device.

[/ QUOTE ]
Explain?

[/ QUOTE ]
Easy if it's one of the scales you stand on and it shoots an electric pulse through your leg. Not sure how you could cheat the other methods though.

[/ QUOTE ]
Still not with you. How can I cheat something that sends an electronic pulse through my body? I'm pretty sure that is what we are using.

[thirddan]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
switch your cardio for HIIT.

find out if you can 'cheat' the body fat % device.

[/ QUOTE ]
Explain?

[/ QUOTE ]
Easy if it's one of the scales you stand on and it shoots an electric pulse through your leg. Not sure how you could cheat the other methods though.

[/ QUOTE ]
Still not with you. How can I cheat something that sends an electronic pulse through my body? I'm pretty sure that is what we are using.

[/ QUOTE ]

i have a tanita that does this...when i am really hydrated i have a lower bf% read out...do some tests...

get a bf readout, drink a glass of water, wait two minutes, get a new readout...etc...look for changes...

[Snafu'd]

[ QUOTE ]
weight as a whole matters very little..you should have checked body fat levels before agreeing to this.

Add HIIT workouts in there at least twice a day...

If you really want to drop the weight...go on www.t-nation.com and do the velocity diet as you will drop a ton of weight real fast

[/ QUOTE ]

The velocity diet seems insane. I may consider it during the last four weeks of the competition though. Also, regarding HIIT, t-nation seemed to only advocate it once or twice a week.
"Because of the increased EPOC (Excessive Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) after training, HIIT is far superior to steady state cardio as far as fat loss is concerned. However, many people fail to realize that it's very demanding on the central nervous system, so I recommend that most only perform one or two sessions per week. You certainly don't want to get into the "more is better" mentality here."

[thirddan]

snafu,

doing HIIT twice a day is super retarded...consider including it on off days or at a separate time from lifting weights...but if you are severely restricting cals during this you don't want to do hiit, cuz you wont need it or be able to recover properly from it...