Day 71

Week 11 – and only 4 weeks left to go on this part of the exercise plan! And I have to state that 3.5 weeks till Grand Canyon! YAY

Today was back, and it went really well. Was able to stabilize my routine – push harder and further. All in all feels great… really can feel it now. And yes – SuperPump really does help (sadly).

I’m also wondering whether I should get up a bit earlier in the morning on Weds and throw an abs workout into the plan. It’s the only part of the body I’m not really working right now, and since that’s a chill day anyway, it kinda makes sense. I’m thinking I should… will look on bb.com today to see what options they suggest. Nothing crazy, but at least something to start developing the muscles that I’ll likely never see

Days 69-70

This weekend was up in Montreal. On the surface, nutrition over the weekend was good… I brought all my supplements, so Fri night and Sat was really good. In fact Saturday was excellent for nutrition – loads of eggs in the morning, salmon for lunch and then a filet mignon for dinner! No wine and a little bit of dessert (OK – 1/3 of a chocolate pie – but when your friend brings it, you can’t turn it down. It’s SO good).

Sunday was a little worse… sleep on both Fri and Sat nights were really bad. Tossing, turning and sleeping in rather uncomfortable beds. So by the time Sun came around, I was kinda grumpy and tired. So food was a bit more ‘comfortable.’ But dinner was chicken and ribs – so I definitely got my fair share of protein, albeit with a tonne of fat.

Exercise wise, the weekend involved a lot of walking – 5 hours on Sat and an hour or two on Sunday. So wore off a lot of stuff. All good tho.

Week 10 Resuts

So – here we are! Week 1 of Phase 3 is now complete… and it’s the tenth week of training overall.

Since the last set of feedback, I slightly changed my goals – I wanted to burn a bit more fat… and it seems as though I’ve been able to do that. The addition of BCAAs, EFAs, and the cardio seems to be working in my favor. I’ll say – straight up – that this week hasn’t been a good nutrition week. I feel that I’ve fallen off the bandwagon a little bit. But I’ll associate that with work – I’ve been working on this hefty project that only Weds evening did I send out. Yesterday I felt such HUGE relief in my system, that I slept like 3 times during the days. I just didn’t have an energy. I think was the body getting rid of the cortisol that was ripping through the body.

As such – with such elevated levels of cortisol (and the associated skin breakouts), I don’t think it was my most productive week – with regards to gaining muscle (the cortisol I believe reduces muscle development???), as well as wanting more ‘comfort food.’ Still – I’ll give myself credit. When I talk comfort food, I mean 20 fries… not a whole portion. I’ve been bad within reason. But look to this weekend and certainly next week to improve that drastically.

Anyways – enough talking… what about the results:

• Weight: 198.5 (down from 199.2 = -0.7lbs)
• Bodyfat: 50.7lbs (down 0.3lbs)
• Bodyfat %: 25.5% (down 0.2%)

So – what these results would suggest is that I’ve lost more muscle than fat. I’m tending not to even regard the body fat specs anymore, because they’re totally out of whack with what I’d expect, and have even been experiencing. The fact that over the past month, not putting on an ounce of muscle – but growing 1″ on the arms, chest, shoulders, etc… is completely irrational. It’s not making any sense at all. So – as time goes on, I’m believing the bodyfat less and less.

Anyways – the other important measurement that I said I’d be including is hip measurement (or love handle measurement). I just took it, and:

• Love Handles: 39.5″ (down 0.5″)

Now I have to admit, that’s not bad at all. In fact I’m really impressed. It’s not a drastic downsize, but giving my lack of good eating, that’s a very good result. I’m hoping to keep that working the next few weeks (I wanna fit good in my SeaWorld swim thing ).

Anyways – that’s it for results this week. Bodyfat is still fucking me up (although I’m not disagreeing with the percentage. Weight is still good around the 199lbs mark – I’m looking still to push that up to 200lbs, but we’ll see. And next week, really improve the quality of that leg workout.

Day 68

So good news and bad news for today… started my new leg workout, and felt good. But I think throwing in the stiff-legged deadlift kinda killed me. By the time I got to the leg extensions, I had real problems maintaining form. By the time it got to the lunges (my least favorite exercise of all), right at the end of the workout, my legs just couldn’t do it. It’s not necessarily that they were exhausted (they were tired, but by no means would’ve given out)… but there were some aches and twitches that I wasn’t comfortable with. Meaning that my form might’ve slipped :s So I’m watching that.

To ensure this doesn’t happen again… two things I’m gonna do:

• Start with stretches as of next week. There’s a great list of stretches in my Built To Show book… that I’m gonna start doing as of next week.
• Move lunges earlier in the workout. Ending on my least favorite exercise is not a good idea! So gonna move it earlier in the routine.

Outside of that feedback, I took my SuperPump 250 again today, and really, it’s well worth it. For people that believe an NO product is shit, I will fiercely stand up and say that it’s not. For mental alertness alone, it’s more than worthwhile. I got such a boost from today… it was awesome. And thoroughly enjoyed the workout – it was easier and quicker than other workouts this week, so I’m definitely going to keep taking it.

Check it Out…

Was browsing bodybuilding.com, and happened across these AMAZING pics. Not sure who they’re of… I almost think they’re stock photos, but I don’t care – they’re amazing.

Long, long, long way off from anything I could achieve, but it’s always nice to share eye-candy me thinks.

It’s funny – I almost think he looks like a GQ model, but one who has lots of muscle – he’s got that GQy face… but then a fucking buff body.

Day 67

Arms today. Hard work.

Today I realized that I want to continue taking the SuperPump 250. While I can definitely feel the Xtend working, I think I need that extra pump before the gym – I think it also helps me to push more. And apparently mixing Xtend with an NO product will help its update in the system.

Also – on a separate note… these past few days I haven’t been as ‘ideal’ about my nutrition. The past weekend, I was out a lot, so couldn’t maintain it. This week, I’ve been out a lot too – so that hasn’t helped. Yesterday had a Swiss Chalet – not bad, but with fries and rolls. So not quite as astute in my ‘eat good’ philosophy right now. I need to refocus that… put more attention on it. On the upside though – I’m still nowhere near as bad as I used to be. I’d just say this week that I’m 60% of the potential of where I wanna be. Hopefully I can turn that around!

Day 66

Today was interesting! First day that I’ve done cardio since I started. I kept it nice and simple – 12 mins on the rower and bike each and then a 5 min warm up. Every 2-3 mins, go all out for 30-60 secs. It wasn’t bad. Although in the heat that’s downstairs, it was even more painful!

I’m gonna vent here tho – someone destroyed the rowing machine! They cut the cord between the rower and the display… so you row, but nothing shows up! I had to time myself by watching the TV clock! Argh! That’s infuriating. In some ways, I’m looking forward to getting into the new gym – having equipment that works. Although I’m probably hoping for too much if I ask for good etiquette!

Day 65

That was the longest workout I’ve ever done. I think it came it at around 75-80 mins. Wow. And no SuperPump 250 this time to artificially pump me up before and during (I got my Xtend, so sticking with that for now).

Workout was really good… felt really good by the end of it, although there were feelings of endurance running throughout it – it’s like – I’m only 2/7’s of the way through this workout! Argh… but tis all good. The pump I got at the end is totally worth it!

Other than that… not much else to report! Only 3 of us in the gym this morning, and I outstayed the lot of them Muhahahaha

Day 64

The start of Phase 3. Today was back, and it went OK. It’s weird – I’m doing a number of similar exercises to what I did on Friday – but they’re in a totally different order. So my head’s thinking – this’ll be fine, then I do this, then it’s all good. But it was totally fucked up today! I’m like pulling weights I did at the start of my workout on Friday, and today just couldn’t do it because it was at the end of the workout!

Definitely worked harder today. Don’t feel I put in 100%, as I was learning. That’s what this week’s about. But still put 80-90% in.

On a sidenote – still noticing my love handles, and realized that there could be two things influencing them:

• My love handles started growing ever since I started taking my creatine – and the creatine comes with a 60g dollup of dextrose. That’s 60g of pure sugar that provides the system with an insulin spike (that stops the burning of fat, but gets the creatine into the muscles when it needs it most). I’m thinking that perhaps that dextrose is preventing me from maintaining that goal of lower love handles. To resolve, as of Weds, I will have run out of Myoplex Dlx, and will be changing to IsoMax Weight Gainer… which has a tonne of creatine in it already. And only 5g of sugar. So that will take the place of the 60g of sugar + IsoMax + Myoplex.
• On a positive note, maybe my abs have grown and started pushing out the fat that fits on top of them??? That’s a dream scenario, so not gonna push it, but it’d be nice to think that that’s happened

Days 62-63

This weekend’s been a funny one. Friday night was out at Carens, and had a magnificient 3 course meal. Saturday was recovering. The night was out late with a friend. Today was a bit of a mess. Ate lots less than I should’ve.

But – this weekend also let me clear up a little bit of emotional turmoil. There’s greater clarity up in that head now. I’m heading into my third phase of training… and it’s going to be incredible. The results I’ve had so far are AMAZING. So thank you to whoever’s making it happen

I’m committed, still motivation, and while this weekend has been a bit of a writeoff, I can finally sense that health is fully instilled into my life now. I’m not giving up.