- Do I have a hernia? My stomach is just burning.
Did I over work my abs? Again?
- [Ariel] You can.
- Arrrrr.
So here are the rules of the challenge.
I've got six weeks to get a six pack.
I can change my diet and my exercise.
But I still have to do eight hours of work in a day.
You know I can't be doing
the Chris Hemsworth superhero thing
where I just take six hours to work out every day
and call it my job.
No! We've got other videos to make.
I'm gonna eat a spicy rogan challenge as part of this.
I'm also making a Ned bakes bread sour dough challenge
throughout this so it's business as usual.
I just also have to find a way to get a six pack
coz that's the point of it, right?
If I don't find balance in my life,
I'll just end the video , take the after photos,
and then go right back to, you know,
being a little pizza blob.
(upbeat music)
To me, I've always seen strength
as an expression of good health.
After several knee surgeries, feeling not strong or weak,
has really just been a bad feeling for me.
I want to feel strong, I want to feel healthy.
What better expression of that
than getting a hot shredded bod.
Right this is me in quarantine trying to get a six pack.
Look at me, we, not not in shape but don't have a six pack.
I will be consulting with my friend, JP,
who's the owner of Ganbatte fitness
the gym I used to go to when gyms were a thing.
I'm ready to commit to a fitness plan, diet plan
cause I got a lot of time on my hands.
- For Ned to get a six pack,
he needs to work on a few things.
He needs to work on his diet, his nutrition.
And also his amount of exercise.
So one of the things that I've advised him to do
is work on his macros. What are macros?
Macros are basically your carbs, protein and fat.
The best way to get good results
is how to manage those three.
What I recommend for Ned is 40 per cent carbs,
40 per cent protein, and 20 per cent fat.
What does that look like?
For his breakfast he can have half an avocado,
egg whites and coffee.
It has to fit within those 40 per cent windows
and 20 per cent windows.
So locking in his food is key.
My next recommendation will be his workouts.
So we're looking at 30-40 minute windows
of high intensity workouts that will look like
five rounds of 10 pushups, 20 sit ups,
and 20 squats and he needs to finish that in 15 minutes.
I also recommended running twice a week
and our goal is to create those habits.
- Well thanks JP.
- [JP] Of course Ned.
- I'm ready to get started. I'll let you know how it goes.
- All right Ned. Be safe.
- Since Wes was born about two years ago,
I have struggled to find balance in my life.
Especially when it comes to personal fitness.
You know it's like there's this triangle of like,
family, work and fitness but you can only choose two.
Right now I'm very much in the work family zone.
If I don't exercise at all during the week
and then I play a grueling 90 minute soccer game
on Sundays, I'm going to get hurt.
But I'm hoping that I'll learn some tips
that can make my habits more sustainable.
It's the first week and so far exercising with Ariel
has been pretty fun.
I've been doing a lot of different Youtubers
you know tried out the fitness Marshall my friend Caleb,
he was awesome.
Tried out Chloe Teen never met her but that one was brutal.
Pop sugar my girl Anna is hilarious.
I'll tell ya, me and Ariel,
we've been doing the five pm happy hour
where we Facetime friends.
I literally was drinking wine just before our phone call.
- Every day, every day so you are drinking
two glasses of wine every day. Like how would you
a glass of wine every other day?
- I will have wine, but maybe I'll just do
one glass of wine tonight
or maybe I'll start everything tomorrow.
The diet has been so hard.
I am not the type of man that can just eat a fist of pasta
and call it a day.
I have no idea how to make salads.
What is this? What is this?
It's just spinach and Ranch. What am I doing?
Also I'm pretty sure Ranch is like not super in the diet
and I like slather my salad with Ranch.
I mean come on! I'm a human.
I'm a human person so I like Ranch, a lot.
I have been making some like chicken, rice, kale,
that I'm feeling good about.
We also made a giant thing of lasagna,
that I feel less good about.
- We got lasagna.
- We got big ol' lasagna and the second baby lasagna.
I'm used to eating whatever I want
so being a little bit more mindful about what I eat
has been actually pretty tough.
Its kinda like, I feel like this like battle
between wanting to do the right thing,
or at least what JP tells me is the right thing,
towards just eating whatever I want.
- If you have no choice right, I would apportion control
like lets just say you're doing pasta,
I would do half a fist.
- That doesn't seem like that much pasta.
I usually do like two or three fists worth of pasta.
- Just everything in moderation. That's all.
- Okay.
I'm starting to see some results, I can already tell.
I'm looking a little more cut in the mirror you know.
As the sun comes out, the guns come out.
I feel like any time I flex,
I just look like I'm straining to take a poop.
(straining noises)
My gym has started doing
these Zoom conference call live streams.
Do some squats, yeah.
I feel like our gym has a really good community
and doing it remotely in a conference call
is a way to stay connected to that community.
Also I think I work harder and sweat more.
So through those Zoom workouts I've done some high intensity
interval training which is supposed
to get your heart rate and your metabolism up like all day.
So it helps you, you know, burn the fat
that's covering your sexy abs.
But, honesty the biggest thing
is I've felt an improvement in my mood you know.
I'm kinda more, I just go about my days
with more confidence.
I feel like I'm standing up straighter.
I've been feeling so confident
that I had a little photo shoot in my underwear.
It's not even like my body looks that different.
It's just like exercising gave me confidence
and I felt like I looked good.
Working out with Ariel every morning
is something I look forward to every day.
And looking forward to drinking isn't healthy
so I'm going to look forward to exercising.
I also still look forward to drinking,
I'm not quite there yet with the diet.
I'm still eating pizza so it's really not a diet at all.
Ahh we just had a really hard workout
and I was not doing well.
Like I was taking so long and I couldn't do any weights.
I just felt tired and unmotivated.
And I didn't feel that same confidence and energy
that exercise has been giving me before.
I just felt like, over it and the diet is so hard.
It's an impossible amount to eat
more than a little bit of pasta like what is this?
This is nothing.
Half a fist? It's like
two knuckles worth of pasta.
I'm not a two knuckle pasta boy. I'm a big bowl pasta boy.
So I saw this initial spurt of changes
and increased confidence from just exercising.
But since I'm not doing the diet,
then I'm not seeing any additional changes.
I don't know what do, I mean, I feel like that right now.
- The 20 minute workout it's just like
it just screws with your head space
right now with everything going on.
And I feel like the 20 minutes you have control of
- Just thinking of it like,
not only will I help myself physically at the end of this
but I'll also mentally be better.
Yeah okay
- And with a six pack.
- Well that's true.
I mean if I come out the end of this with a six pack,
that will put me in a better mood.
I need to double down.
I wanna do this.
So I need to be that much more dedicated to what I'm doing.
I need to just refocus.
Maybe I cut out alcohol entirely. It's hard.
It's really hard.
Guys I am hyped. I just made myself a grilled chicken salad,
and it actually looks pretty good.
I'm not the greatest salad maker in the world.
Jerk seasoning on the chicken
so it get a little bit of spice to it.
Got some edamame and carrots, tomatoes
and a little bit of Ranch.
Now that's a good six pack meal, maybe not the Ranch.
But even though, I like Ranch so we're putting on Ranch.
Ha good good good.
Feel like I'm getting there.
It's like sort of, it's starting to show.
Still more of a four pack right now.
Never, never seen that.
Also, I am so pale.
Guys this is a very exciting day.
We finally got egg whites and Ariel made me
guess what, an egg white omelet
with a small slice of avocado.
Wow this is so six pack approved. I'm on board.
Hurry up. It's ready.
Cool. Yeah.
Greens, greens, potatoes, tomatoes, hams, yams
well cauliflower and carrots.
So, I love cheese and I like eating a lot of cheese
but one thing I realized was one slice of cheese
has 10 per cent of your daily value of fat.
That's crazy to me. It must be why it's so delicious.
How about this sauce? Five calories, pretty good.
Wait, what? Two tablespoons of Ranch is a quarter of the fat
I'm supposed to have in a day? Noooo. No Ranch.
Sweet, sweet Ranch.
Here's my progress week five. Gosh. I look very strong.
This is crazy. Wow, wow.
Is this is what they call 'being yoked' like an ox?
Am I yoked? Am I yoked right now?
Guys, guys I'm pretty sure I'm yoked now.
It's week five. I just finished a workout.
It was half an hour of cardio
and ten minutes of one of those YouTube ab workouts.
And for the first time I was holding some of them,
including a plank for 30 whole seconds.
I haven been able to do it straight through.
I always have to take breaks like multiple breaks.
And a movement like leg lifts could be 30 seconds long
I have to break like three, maybe four times.
And this time today I made some of them with no breaks
just held it all the way through
and some with only one break. Or two breaks.
You know, I'm not a god over here,
but I look crazy, I'm so sweaty just drenched in sweat.
We did get a shipment of ice cream.
Sweet sweet quarterly ice cream subscription.
So that was that was tough.
I only had like a taste of Ariel's
because this is the home stretch.
I'm sure JP would say just everything in moderation
but I kinda feel like the need to
to just really go hard these last two weeks.
No booze, no snacks, and I love snacks.
No pizza. It's two weeks of focus.
So for my last two weeks of the ab challenge
I have increased my determination.
I've stopped drinking entirely because one glass of wine
every other night is not worth it.
I've been eating super clean in the mornings.
I've only had half a slice of bread and egg whites. Yes!
Yeah, I'm generally feeling pretty good.
I mean I am battling a deep extistential dread
about the state of the world but
exercise has been a way of coping with that.
Soooo,
it's all good baby.
It's definitely not all good but
we'll get through it. The only way is forward.
Today's workout is thrusters, sit ups, sumo dead lifts
and tuck jumps.
- [JP] 20 minutes long.
- You jump up and tuck up your knees.
- [JP] go tuck jumps.
- Okay it's the last week of my ab challenge.
Ariel and I are getting super serious.
We're meal prepping, we're gonna do it right, eat clean.
Make this the last week go out on top.
Then back to pizza.
Let me talk you though some of my least favorite foods here.
Red lentils, farro, rice is fine I guess.
But those types of grains I usually shy away from
in favor of pasta.
But let's compare it to pasta.
Linguine has only three grams of fiber
but lentils have 15 grams of fiber. What?
The other thing that we're doing is sous viding
a whole bunch of chicken breasts.
What you think, Wes?
Are we gonna exercise later?
Huh!
- [Wes] Huh!
(motivational music)
- It's six weeks. That's the end of my six week,
six pack challenge.
Doing this for six weeks really made me build
healthy habits.
Like the challenge ended
and then the next day I still exercised.
It became like a really fun part of my morning.
So now I'm going to react to the final photos
and also look at the photos of me six weeks ago.
This is me six weeks ago, generally athletic,
looking pretty good.
And then this is me, whoah!
Holy moly. I am strong.
God I look, I look ripped.
I look like an Abercrombie model or something.
Just having fun. Hanging out.
I don't actually look that different
but I'm just more defined and more muscular.
Even after six weeks of hard work
I don't look like a magazine cover or anything.
And I feel like the more athletic I am,
the more I can prevent going back to that dark place
in the hospital where you're injured and you're helpless.
- [ Multiple Voices] Go us, go, go take your shirt off go us
- Oh my God All right. This is my before right.
I'm generally athletic.
And this is me after six weeks getting a six pack.
- [Multiple Voices] Oh. Nice. Holy guacamole. Wow. Awesome
there he is , before and after, look at that, holy shit wow
- What's that?
- You look bigger in the arms too. You look like
- Yeah I mean it was definitely a full body transformation.
I lost fat, I gained muscle.
It's really just alcohol in moderation
but moderation meant one glass of wine every other night.
So I just basically
I lived like normal for three weeks
and then the last three weeks I cut out drinking entirely.
But as a result I gained a new appreciation for salads.
I learnt a lot about food this six weeks
and I know that I will be able to have a balanced diet
with everything in moderation.
Still enjoy the foods that I like
and also I've discovered some new foods that
are super healthy that I didn't even know that I liked.
I think going forward I'm going to try
and have a more balanced lifestyle
where I can till be an amazing father
and also take time to exercise and work on my fitness.
Now the only thing left is for me
to like get cast in an action movie
where I can still be hilarious.
Then I'm a movie star, saving dinosaurs.
Yeah we did it, hell yeah.
(upbeat music)
Ariel's giving me the faintest of spray tans
because I'm a pale ass mother (beep) er.
- He's gonna look so good.
- And that t-shirt tan's never really gone away.
But that's okay.