Contest Prep Changes & Numbers (yes Rach, I'm a copycat)

Met with my posing coach yesterday, it had been 2 weeks since I had seen him because he was out for a week competing at North American Nationals in Ohio. Things were very positive, he could see changes and that I had been working hard and following his directions. He even said I look better now than I did at the last competition. I have been posing everyday either before or after cardio, doing 65 minutes of cardio a day along with lifting 5 days per week. To try and draw as much water out, I am going to up this to 105 mins of cardio/day plus 5 days of lifting this week, and 4 days next week. I have 10 days of hard work in front of me, so that will (hopefully) keep me motivated. Here's how it should look:

9/13 105 mins cardio
9/14 105 mins cardio; Lift Legs
9/15 105 mins cardio; Low carb day - eliminate all carb sources, keep everything else the same
9/16 105 mins cardio; Lift Shoulders
9/17 105 mins cardio; Lift Arms
9/18 105 mins cardio;
9/19 105 mins cardio; Lift Legs
9/20 105 mins cardio; Lift Back
9/21 105 mins cardio; Lift Chest
9/22 105 mins cardio; Lift Arms/Shoulders; Low carb day - eliminate all carb sources, keep
everything else the same
9/23 Off
9/24 Off
9/25 Competition

My night cardio on the 22nd will be the last workout I do before the competition. That should give my body enough time to recouperate so I have energy for the show. Also, on those two days I'll be carbing up (YES!), loading creatine, and dropping water. 1 gallon on the 23rd and 1/2 gallon in the morning on the 24th and only sips after that. I have to do my hair removal and protan the night of the 23rd, another coat of protan the morning of the 24th, and then touch ups before the show (I think that's right, I'll have another post on that next week).

Numbers:
12 - # of days left until the show
7 - # of lifts left
29 - # of cardio sessions left
1,010 - # of minutes of cardio left
15 - # of carbs I'll have on the two Wednesdays before the show (from veggie sources)
4 - hours of sleep I got last night




Just have to get through next Wednesday, I'll give an update much sooner than later.

Bulking Cycle Edit

Going through this new cutting diet, I'm thinking about changes I might want to make to my bulking diet after the show. I want to decrease reliance on shakes (Morning & PWO shake are good, but I want to ditch the day shake and possibly the casein shake at night), and increase whole foods. This will keep me more full during the day (I don't think I'll have a problem with staying full) so I won't go into cheat foods as often, and I think it's just better in general. Also, I'm going to try and keep veggies in 3 of my meals, and have fruit at 3 of my meals. Here's what the new bulking diet will look like:

Morning shake (immediately on waking up):
5oz banana
50g whey
30g maltodextrin
30g waxy maize

1 hr later
6 whole eggs (jumbo)
1.5 cups oats
120g Berries

Mid-morning shake
8oz chicken
450g Sweet Potatoes
160g Broccoli
100g asparagus
30g almonds

Postworkout Shake
50g whey
4oz banana
20g dextrose
20g maltodextrin
30g waxy maize

Lunch
1/2 cup (uncooked) brown rice
1/2 cup beans
8oz ground beef/turkey
1/3 cucumber
100g green beans
1 tomato

Afternoon Snack
32g peanut butter
80g oats
9oz salmon
1/4 cup (uncooked) quinoa
90g apple

Dinner
300g Sweet Potato
85g spinach
8oz steak
160g broccoli
1/2 cup beans
1/2 cup carrots
1 tomato
1 bell pepper
10g chia/flax seeds


Before Bed
50g Casein Shake

Still a work in progress. Up next: Numbers & more contest prep changes for the next 1.5 weeks.

2 Weeks Out

Another long gap in posts...here's what's been happening: a lot of the same. Same diet, same workout schedule, same long hours, same lack of sleep, etc. However, things have been going pretty well all in all. I am down to 181.5 as of this morning, I feel very lean but depleted at the same time. I've been pretty consistent @ ~90g of carbs/day, w/ one day ~110g carbs. My current diet on the 6 days looks like this:

Meal 1:
40g Oats
12 jumbo egg whites

Meal 2:
8-8.5 oz Tilapia
80g broccoli
50g asparagus
16g PB

Meal 3:
135g sweet potato
8-8.5 oz chicken

Meal 4:
8-8.5 oz Tilapia
100g broccoli
50g asparagus
15g almonds

Meal 5:
135g sweet potato
8-8.5 oz chicken

Meal 6:
150g spinach
75g green peppers
6-6.5 oz flounder
5 egg whites
12g PB

Supplement w/ 4g fish oil, 3g CLA, 1 multi, & 1 glucosamine. I take a vit C & a B complex post cardio, and take my normal post lift vitamins with my postworkout shake. On days I lift, I do so before meal 3 and sub 56g whey for chicken. I do my cardio before meals 1 and 5 everyday.

One change for this week: Wednesday I will drop all carb sources so I can prepare for dropping carbs really low the following week Tuesday-Thursday. Other than that, everything will be pretty much the same. The week after, my cardio intensity and duration should decrease, and my lifts will change to full body rather than splits, but I'll worry about that next weekend. For now, I'm going to try and push through this week and make sure I'm in position to dry out well.

4.5 Weeks Out

The last couple weeks have been hard and frustrating. Taking on a new diet and new outlook on precontest training has been hard to adapt to. It's a new way of thinking, and changing is hard after years of doing the same thing. I think yesterday was the first day in about two or three years I didn't have some sort of protein shake right out of bed (now that I am doing cardio on an empty stomach in the AM). But I am finally starting to sink into the swing of things. The hardest changes have been AM cardio and figuring out an optimal postworkout shake/not having a postworkout meal an hour after lifting.

Precontest I have always focused on the scale as the number one resource to view my progress. It has never been a problem trying to cut weight per se (it feels and seems like I'm getting looking better and getting a little more definition), but the number on the scale isn't changing. I've been 186lbs for the last 2 weeks, going up to 189 during one of the first days on the diet. After doing 3 sessions of cardio yesterday, I swore I was going to at least see some change in weight this morning...but nothing. I feel good...lean but still fairly full, I figure I just need to keep tweaking things until I see some change on the scale. I would be happy...check that, ecstatic, with a half pound drop. Here are the changes I've made so far this week (keep in mind, this is the second day of these changes):

-AM/PM cardio 30-40 minutes each, no more. One day, add 3rd session of cardio mid day.
-No mixing chicken and fish - concept being the body is already in a calorie deficit, and it is hard for the body to sort and absorb different aminos and minerals at the same time.
-Lift 5 days/week doing arms twice or hams/quad split
-Fat @ meals 2,4,6. Carbs at meals 1,3,5.
-Have the same meals on a daily basis (i.e. meal 1 is the same every day, meal 2 is the same every day, etc.).
-One day/week (preferably off day), carbs only from veggie sources (about 10g/meal). One day/week (friday) increase carbs at carb meals by ~25%

I felt ungodly flat and weak on Friday and Saturday from undercarbing all week (only 2 carb meals), but I carbed up saturday and felt great Sunday, even had a strong lift Sunday as well. Just goes to show how things can change in a very short amount of time. Now that I am doing 3 carb meals/day, and 3 'fat' meals/day I should be able to stay full through the week a little better.

The last thing I'll say about this new 'regime change' is getting up and to the gym every morning around the time they turn on the lights is rough. Once I get into my groove on the stepmill it's not bad, and after I get through the first 5 minutes stepping and squeezing my ass every step I can pretty much zone out. And since I have my last meal at about 8 or 8:30, and I have to get all my food/powders ready the night before, I don't get to bed as early as I'd like (at least early enough to get ample sleep to wake up at 4:30-4:45am). Then add 3 workouts/day 6 days a week to that. So if you see me walking around with my head down looking half asleep...that's why. But alas, 4.5 more weeks...3.5 weeks at this intensity. We'll see where I'm at then.

Paradigm Shift

So I was talking to one of the other trainers, who is an NPC bodybuilder, about my training and problems and he threw my whole way of thinking about training & dieting upside down. Here are the changes he said I need to make in order to improve my contest prep:

-Remove all sugars: This includes bananas & other fruits, dextrose, maltodextrin, and waxy maize (even though malto & waxy maize aren't technically sugars, they take a long time to burn off).

-Increase protein: Before I was eating about 5oz of meat when I'd have my food meals, and he recommends 8-10 oz. I plan on staying closer to the 8oz mark when I have 6 meals a day, and 10oz when I can only get in 5 meals.

-Reduce reliance on protein shakes as meal replacements: Shakes are going to have too much sugar, and are not absorbed as well as real food.

-Increase veggie intake: On non-carb meals, eat 2 green veggies. Take out sugary vegetables (tomatoes, red peppers, carrots, etc.) completely.

-Change cardio: The 30-40 mins of moderate-high intensity steady state cardio probably burns too much muscle even though I supplement w/ anti-catabolic aids. New cardio: walking at an 8-10% incline at 3.5 speed and/or stepmill @ ~50 steps/minute for a combined 45-60 minutes. This should be done when possible in the morning on an empty stomach to optimize fat burning.

-Eliminate postworkout "meal": Before, I was having a postworkout shake w/ whey, dextrose, maltodex, & waxy maize, then an hour later having a meal w/ carbs & protein. I now take that meal out, and rely solely on the postworkout shake that just has whey. I am going to try adding some oats and he also suggested throwing in almonds as well, then wait about 3 hours for my next meal.

The basis of his changes are under the concept of the difference between offseason and precontest. They are two very distinct and different times, and I somehow have been going through a kind of hybrid of the two.

So here is my schedule for the week:

Sun: 60mins AM cardio/60 mins PM cardio
Mon: 50mins AM cardio/Back & Tris mid day/Hams & Calves PM
Tues:50mins AM Cardio/60 mins PM Cardio
Wed:30mins AM Cardio/Shoulders & Traps mid day/60mins PM Cardio
Thurs: 50 mins AM Cardio/Quads mid day/45 mins PM Cardio
Fri: Off Day
Sat:60 mins AM Cardio/Chest & Tris

That puts me on my regular lifting schedule, and gives me ~525 minutes of cardio for the week which should be pretty solid.

My weight has fluctuated a lot this week: between 185.5 and 189. I assume it's because I've added a bunch of sodium (tuna) to my diet, and since I don't have a postworkout meal I'm eating later at night (last meal at 9-9:30). Also, with the added food protein I haven't been as...regular...as before, even though I am having 8-12 servings of veggies along with 50-90g of oats. I googled it, and it seems like that is a common pitfall of the high protein diet.

On the plus side, I was 186 this morning and have a solid workout schedule for this week. If I can get down to 185 by next week that would put me on a good track 5 weeks out.

< 6.5 Weeks Left: Leg Day

I split legs in to two days this week, and had a pretty successful Hams/Calves day on Monday. I was surprised how much energy I had (lifted at 6pm, after lifting back/bis earlier that morning). Got through everything in about an hour, hit 14 sets of hams including my first sets of rack pulls w/ no knee/back/hip pain. Was pretty stoked about that. It looked like this:

Rack Pulls: 4x6x405
RDL: 10x295 (2)
Glute-Ham Raise: 8
Superset w/ 45 degree hyperextension: 10
Leg Curl: 8x170
Std Calf: 15x140
Standing Calf: 8x210

I was good and sore up through today, though it wasn't nearly as bad today as it was Tuesday or Wednesday. I got my Stick (www.thestick.com) yesterday, so I was able to roll out my legs/back/hips before hitting quads today. I didn't feel the 'good deep pain' I hear about when people talk about foam rolling...that could mean I'm not doing it right/hard enough or it means I just don't have a lot of

So on to today's workout. To sum it up...less than mediocre. I hit 2 sets of back squats before me knee started acting up. No chance of finishing my back squats or moving on to front squats. Unlike 2 weeks ago, I was able to move on hack squats and leg press without too much knee pain. Had to go light on leg extensions to save my hip, which started acting up at the end of leg presses. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to get x rays on my hip to make sure it's healing ok, so I'm going to get my knee checked out...though I'm not expecting too much as the docs have never been able to do anything helpful for any of my past issues (knee or otherwise). I expect I'll hear the typical "rest and ice" response. Awesome, thanks doc! That was a good use of a co-pay and an hour wait.

7.5 weeks out: Leg Day

So right now I'm doing what I normally do when I'm writing my blogs, laid up icing and resting. Just lifted my injury-riddled legs. I had planned on splitting legs into two days, but with my knee and quad it wouldn't have made much sense. I wore my brace for a little extra support, but I still couldn't go any lower than about halfway in a conventional squat so I had to make some changes to my workout. Today it looked like this:

Trap bar DL (high handles) 8x395
BB Step ups 8x65
Stiff DL 10x295(2)
superset w/ trap bar DL (low handles) 6x255
Sumo Stance Hack Squats (full) 8x150
Leg ext (slow) 12x200
Std Leg Curl 10x190
Std Calf (slow) 15x140
Standing Calf (slow) 10x190

My quad/hip flexor felt a lot better, the skin has all of its feeling back all up and down my leg and the things that bothered it before (leg extensions, squats, std calf raises) were fine as long as the weight was lower than normal and I super slowed down my rep speed. As I got deeper into the workout, it felt like everything loosened up a little bit too. Hopefully by next week I'll be able to get back to my planned routine because this workout was absolute dog crap compared to what I normally do...it was an adequate workout at best, but nothing that will improve the condition of my legs. Until then, I guess it's ice and rest...

Looking forward: Bulking cycle

Under 8 weeks left (7.5 to be exact), and all this not eating has me looking forward to the next phase. I am planning on starting a bulking cycle immediately after the September competition. What does this entail? Lifting heavy & often ( 5 times/week instead of 4) and eating a ton (4,000-5,000 calories/day instead of 1,700-2,500).

Lifting:

Day 1: Chest & Tris
Day 2 AM: Back & bis
Day 2 PM: Hamstrings & Calves
Day 3: Shoulders & Traps
Day 4: Cardio or off
Day 5: Quads/Calves
Day 6: Shoulders/Traps
Day 7: Cardio or off

This should address my weak legs by splitting them into two days, and what I've been told are underdeveloped front and mid delts by lifting them 2x per week. Most likely I'll use this as my main split, but once a month or so I'll do a split that hits bis & tris 2x per week, and then another one that hits lats 2x per week. In each of those splits I'll only do shoulders once, but still split quads and hams into two workouts.

Eating:

Planned macros (updated each time I go up 10 lbs, using the next 10lb marker as my 'bodyweight'):
.5g/lb Fat
3g/lb Carbs
1.5g/lb Protein

That puts me at ~4500 calories to start (using 200lbs as my first marker). It would start out something like this:

Morning shake (immediately on waking up):
5oz banana
50g whey
30g maltodextrin
30g waxy maize

1 hr later
9 egg whites & 1 whole egg (jumbo)
1.5 cups oats
1 serving chia seeds

Mid-morning shake
50g protein blend
3/4 cup oats
50g maltodextrin
1 serving fruit blend (20g carbs)
1 serving almonds

Postworkout Shake
50g whey
4oz banana
20g dextrose
20g maltodextrin
30g waxy maize

Lunch
1.5 serving whole wheat pasta
3oz salmon
3oz chicken
2 HB egg whites
Pasta Sauce
1 serving fruit blend (20g carbs)


Afternoon Snack
2 tbsp peanut butter
4 oz ground turkey/ground beef
3 oz chicken
4 slices whole wheat bread



Dinner
400g Sweet Potato
3 cups spinach
4oz steak
3oz chicken
1/2 cucumber
1 cup broccoli
1/2 cup carrots
1 tomato
1 bell pepper
2 servings chia seeds


Before Bed
50g Casein Shake

Rules:
Must have morning shake, breakfast, and afternoon salad. No exceptions. Mid-day meals are adjustable, but I'm going to try and stick to it as religiously as possible. Pizza, ice cream, burgers, chinese, etc. is all on the table so long as I make sure I'm getting enough calories in and it's within reason as far as how often I have it. Of course, all this is predicated on me getting and staying healthy.

My last bulk I was full all the time, to the point where it was time for my next meal but I wasn't particularly hungry. The results were good though, and at this point in my cut it feels like there's no such thing as being full as I haven't really been full in about 2 months now. All this food is making me hungry (no my salad did not fill me up & I still have another 45 mins until my night time shake), so I'd better stop talking about food. 7 more weeks!

It's Always Something...

So the quad has still been hurting, but definitely improving. I can jog with no problem, lifting my leg up/down/side to side doesn't hurt, and I can rep out on leg lifts (abs). I still feel a little stretch when I hit my squats, but nothing too bad. On leg day, I was fine squatting 240 (10 reps) for 4 sets. I was planning on going into front squats after, but right before my first set I dip below the bar and I feel this pain & burning in my left knee. I try a practice squat w/ no weight, and a pain like I've never felt before. The pain persisted after I came up into a standing position, and anything I tried bending my knee would hurt. No squats, hack squats, leg presses, leg extensions, etc. I hit stiff deads, adductors, abductors, and lying leg curls and got out.

The knee still hurts, more than the quad now. I am bracing it 24/7 so I have some compression on it, and have been icing on and off. Not much else I can do about it.

On the plus side I weighed in at 187.0 this morning. If I can just get healthy in the next couple/few weeks I'll have enough time to make a few adjustments before the competition. Only 8 weeks left!

8.5 Weeks Out

The last week and a half have been a whirlwind. 16 hours of driving this past weekend, 5 the weekend before. A lot of time spent making and prepping food @ home to take out of town with us. I weighed in this morning the lowest yet, 188, but I did cardio last night so I may have just been depleted of water weight. Either way, I was 190 Monday so the pounds are coming off slowly but surely.

The quad is still not 100%, but I got a half decent lift in on Thursday...Squats, sumo deads, & stiff deads. However, I think I overcompensated for my quad with my back...and it's been killing since. I rested my legs yesterday (should have done deads & iso work) so that I could get a solid lift in on Thursday. Whether that will happen or not is up in the air. As of now anything that stretches my upper quad into my hip flexor is out (lunges, leg extensions, seated calves, possibly step ups), but I should be able to knock out back & front squats along with trap bar deads and maybe leg press.

The cardio plan for this week is 3 30 minute sessions (already did 2 yesterday & today, third one is planned for Saturday evening). Surprisingly, I was able to go full speed on the elliptical and didn't feel any pain whatsoever. A good sign at least, hopefully the improvement will crossover into lifting.

10 Weeks out...OUCH

So let's start with leg day this past week. Everything went really well. Squatted 8@265, form wasn't perfect toward the end...but still pretty solid. Friday was my off day, and my first day at the lowest carb level I'll hit for the rest of the 10 weeks. It wasn't too bad, .5g carbs/lb bodyweight which is 95g for the day. Had a good lift in Charlottesville on Saturday, Chest & Bis. Hit 225 for 11 on bench, pretty good for a 190 lb guy who has struggled on bench for my whole life.

So that leads up to today, I hit my cardio (session 1 of 2 planned for the week), 30 mins plus abs. I left the lock off my ipod, so when I went to use it, it had already died. It was a little rough getting through a half hour on the elliptical without any good music (pop was on the gym station, Lady Gaga...ugh...), but I got through it just fine. Then in the afternoon I had football. First drive, moving down the field I take off on a QB run towards the sideline and I hear a loud *POP* come from the front of my leg and I immediately drop to the ground. The pain wasn't as bad as when I tore my hamstring a couple years ago, but something is definitely not right. I can't lift my leg or walk properly without feeling some strain in my quad, which is going to seriously put a damper on my leg days, & possibly on my cardio.

On the drive home i contemplated dropping by KFC for a double stack, or Mickey D's for a McFlurry...but I was good and I am resolved to stay on the competition diet until I know for sure I won't be able to compete. I should be ok, will probably need to take this week of legs and kick it into high gear next week. Ice & rest, hopefully things will make a turn for the better this week...

12 Weeks Out

12 weeks to competition (NPA Natural USA Championships Sept 25, 2010). I have been carb cycling and eating 100% clean for the last week and a half, so I've lost the initial water/undigested food weight already. My starting weight is 192, a good 8 pounds ahead of what I started at for the last competition, and 12 pounds away from where I want to be at competition day.

Being a lot closer to my competition weight, I don't need to press as far as cutting down my carbs quite yet. My carb cycle looks like this:

Low Carb - 150g
Moderate Carb - 200g
High Carb - 300-350g

My low carb days are on my off & cardio days, moderate on lifting days, and high carb on leg day & one day during the week. Closer to competition I'll cut down to 1 high carb day a week on leg day, but so far I've been getting good results with this so I'll stick to it for now.

This week I'm going to do 2 very light ab & cardio days (already did one on Saturday).

My last 2 lifts have absolutely sucked. About halfway through I've gotten really tired and nauseous and dragged through the remainder of the workout. Today I couldn't even finish biceps & quads because I thought I was going to puke on the gym floor. I switched my normal preworkout shake the last two days, so I assume there's something in the new stuff that doesn't agree with me. I'll go back to normal on Wednesday and hopefully be fine.

One last noteworthy thing, today I did regular deadlifts for the first time in about a month. 3 sets of 5x345. Form was good, though I must have held my breath because after each set I felt progressively more light headed and faint-ish. Definitely not positive, but the back held up and felt ok which is much more important right now.

Planning for Shoulders on Wednesday and Legs on Thursday. I'll try and get another post in before the week's up.

Lift numbers so far this week:

Chest/Tris

BB Bench 6x245
Inc DB Bench 9x90s
Dec BB Bench 7x225
DB Flyes - 9x60s(2)
Cable Pushdowns - 10x 95
Bench Dips - 9x90
OH Cable Extensions - 8x87.5

Back/Bis
Deadlifts - 5x345 (3)
Neutral Grip Pullups - 5x100(2)
T-Bar Rows - 7x160
Cable Rows - 7x240
Wide Pulldowns - 10x200
Leg Curls - 12x175
EZ Bi Curls - 10x90

Update

It's been a little while since I've posted last so here's an update in a nutshell of the last month or so. My back/hip got bad enough that I had to take a break from lifting legs. In addition, the tendonitis in my elbow/tricep wasn't going away so I decided to stay out of the gym completely for a week and call it quits on basketball. The break seemed to be pretty good. I saw the doc about my back, had it x-rayed and nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. Got some good muscle relaxers out of it too.

After a week of icing and popping pills, I went back to working out just lifting upper body. My bench went down 5 pounds and lost a rep on my pullups and my shoulder presses. Pretty shitty for only being gone a week, but that was two weeks ago and since then I've gotten my bench back to where it was, still down on pullups and military but hopefully staying healthy and in the gym will get them back up. I had my first full leg workout in 3 weeks on Wednesday, which went well. No pain or tightness anywhere. For now, I'm not going to go below parallel on squats, and do trap bar deadlifts instead of regular deadlifts, and move regular deadlifts to back day every other week. I kept everything light, it looked like this

Squats 12x225, 10x235
Sumo Deadlift 9x275
Deep Trap Bar Deadlift 8x255
Leg Press 6x360 (slow negatives, lift from a dead stop)
Glute-Ham Machine 6
Leg Extension 10x250
Leg Press 10x190

This week I'm going to add in lunges and pin squats. Since legs are my weakest point, every other week I'm going to lift legs twice by adding some light legs on back day. We'll see how that goes. Staying healthy is going to be my main focus going forward to the next competition.

Injuries

So as I am sitting here right now I'm icing my hip and knee, so I think this is a very prudent subject for a post. I've had a history of knee problems, so I have to ice it at least a couple times a week & take glucosamine as kind of a preventative measure so it stays relatively pain free. I have at least 6 or 7 ace bandages at strategic locations around the house so I can comfortably ice where/when I need to. However, not having a fully functioning ice maker makes it a lot more difficult to take care of it appropriately (it makes like 20 cubes a day. Ridiculous. How do you fix an ice maker? ).

The hip is new...not really sure where/when it came from. Makes leg days (like today) pretty hit or miss. It doesn't really affect flexibility, but it makes me feel so much weaker on squats & deads and makes me a lot more tentative on heavier lifts. I probably could have hit another rep on both today but I didn't want to aggravate anything. Plus, not having anyone there to spot me or tell me if my form is deteriorating doesn't help.

Anyways, I guess this is the price one pays for training so hard. Everything has been feeling better in the last couple weeks so I can only hope the nagging injury bug just goes away without having to take any major time away from the gym.

Oy Vey...

So it has been a couple weeks since my last post, and it has not been a good stretch to say the least. Foxfield weekend (April 28th) I had a bout of...well I'm not too sure what exactly it was. That saturday night I got really sick...uncontrollable chills & nausea. It was so bad I had to take a scalding hot bath to get my body back to regular temperature. I ended up eating (a lot) off my diet as that's the only thing that made me feel better. In retrospect, I wasn't eating a whole lot and that combined with the strain on my body from the competition could have made me sick. Or some of the food I made for foxfield day (2 salads) could have gotten contaminated during prep or gone bad in the cooler during the long day. Either way, with the amount of food I ate Saturday night and the strain I felt on my body I decided to scrap plans for the May competition.

Since then, I have gone through spurts of straight awful eating. I intend to stay in relatively good shape since I am planning on still competing in July & September...but with nothing pressing until then it's hard to stay completely on my competition foods list. For most of the day I'm perfect...typical oats & eggs in the morning, shake mid morning, postworkout shake if I lift, sweet potatoes & chicken early afternoon, big salad late afternoon. This is where I struggle. Example: yesterday I had an ice cream sandwich (Klondike Oreo cookie) after my late afternoon salad. Yum, that's good. So good, I had another. And another. Good thing there were only 4 in the pack. Then I hit up the other box of ice cream sandwiches for 2 more. And then before my nighttime shake I had 2 more, for a total of...wait for it...8 ice cream sandwiches in the course of about 2 hours, not to mention a few packs of sour patch kids, a few tostitos & salsa, etc. That's a total of about 1600 calories (mostly sugar) just from the crap I ate after dinner. Ugh, just reading that makes me feel a little ill (though that ice cream tasted freakin' good). This type of thing has only happened a few times since the competition (keep in mind it's only been 2 1/2 weeks since the comp, so that's a relatively high percentage of days), but it's been hard trying to readjust to a 'normal' lifestyle. Just one of many things to keep working on...

Trek to the Next Competition

4/21

So the next competition I am looking at is May 22nd here in Arlington. I want to do this show for a couple reasons: it's close to home so more friends & family can come more easily, and also I don't have to worry about traveling/finding a place to stay. I mean, it's literally 5 minutes from my house!

The only potential problem is to stay at the same weight class I have to drop to 176 or under. I weighed in at 181.4 on Saturday, and that's the lowest I've been in years. The problem right now is I have no idea where I am as far as my real weight goes. After the competition I had a nice Sunday off, had a bunch of food (all pretty healthy: whole wheat pancakes w/ a bunch of strawberries, blackberries, apples & raspberries, puffins w/ milk & more berries, apples w/ natural peanut butter, whole wheat pasta w/ black beans, chick peas, & chicken) and a ton of water. I stepped on the scale monday morning and saw 195.5. 195.5! Almost 15 pounds in the course of 2 days! I know most of that weight is water, excess food, and glycogen in addition to bodyfat gained from my semi-gluttonous Sunday. I'm already down to 186 as of this morning, but with all the fluctuation I don't really know where I am right now. I would need to get down to 184 by Saturday to have a shot at getting down to 176 (2 lbs per week is probably the best I can average w/ a perfect diet & working out 7-10 times per week, including doubles). Going to re-evaluate on Saturday, on which I am going to foxfield and probably won't be able to drink =( Dagger.

I'm baaaaack

So it's been a long time since I've even thought to update. My second bodybuilding competition was this past weekend, a smaller show than I had anticipated...there were only 2 other guys in my weight class. So, I'm thinking...hey, sweet at least I'll take first pretty easy. WRONG. Too bad 2 of the biggest freaks (freaks in a good way, I'll explain) were at this show. One, a 15 year old kid who has been doing shows since he was 13, and the other a 50+ year old guy who was at the last show I was in (won his weight class in the masters 40+ age division). These two guys were beasts: the kid was jacked for his age, actually won the teenage division at the same show last year; the older guy was in my weight class (185 lb and under open division). In the picture, he is the man on the left.
Apparently this guy is very well known in bodybuilding circles, (not to mention already has pro status in the masters division in another organization), so he ended up taking first and I got second. A little disappointing considering he is literally twice my age, but I figure he's got time and experience on his side. Judges said I need to work on my legs, both size and definition which is something I already knew and am currently working on. They were definitely better than they were in November, but I guess it's something that will just take time. I felt better about everything this time out...it's just hard being a tall guy in a short man's game (judge's words). Anyways, here is the probable layout of how the summer will go competition-wise:

May 22 - INBF NATURAL NORTH AMERICA PRO-QUALIFIER (Arlington, VA)

July 24 - NGA 18TH ANNUAL POTOMAC CUP NATURAL BODYBUILDING AND FITNESS FIGURE CHAMPIONSHIPS (Woodbridge, VA)

September 25 - NPA Natural USA (Richmond, VA)

My goals are to finish in the top third of each class I enter, and to win my class at least once before the year is over. If I can do that, I can go into the offseason feeling a little more accomplished for 2011. Anyways, that's it for now. Here are more pics from the show over the weekend, along with the video of my evening routine:

























































































































































Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaV_qaoSvtk for my evening routine