6 months to go

So it's been a while since I've posted something on here. With good reason. Basically yesterday was 6 months to the day until I get back on stage. Frankly I don't think it's very interesting to update this even weekly when a lot of my goals right now are to just maintain my current weight and slowly lose some body fat. Contest diets are interesting like that, you really don't have to go all out until maybe 12 to 16 weeks before the competition. So right now, I'm counting calories, working out hard and doing a little cardio. I'm still enjoying a drink or two, eating bread and the occasional cheat food.

The good news is that I'm currently at 181 lbs and my body fat is starting to get low. The clothes are looser, the veins in my arms and lower abs are starting to become more pronounced and my face is getting thinner. I'm starting to cycle my carbs just a little bit on a two week high one week low type of schedule. Nothing too difficult yet, but time is ticking.

Meaurment Day 9/12

Well I gained back 3 of the 4 lbs. The good thing is that all of my upper body measurements increased significantly. The good thing is that when I was 182 my arms, chest, and shoulders were all smaller with the same waist. Now I'm 181, waist is still 30.75 but the upper body has increased .25 inches or more. The short of it is that I'm trending in the right direction.

Calories are lower this week at 2,500 and a nice curveball has been thrown in ala traveling for work. I'll be heading to Baltimore and eating what's given to me. Luckily my company was started by the owner of the Baltimore Ravens, meaning that it's made up of athletic folks and usually lunches are some type of leaner meat and there's always fruit, yogurt and I'll bring some protein. The hotel gym sucks so I'll just be trying to maintain strength by doing the same amount of exercises, just using the machine they have...we shall see.

Meaurment Day

Holy Shit I lost 4 pounds!!! I think this is the result of two weeks ago having two days of zero carbs and almost zero fat. What's great is that my strength is either the same or up still and I'm not feeling the effects of being a hair smaller. I did also undereat a couple of days because life on the road has been hectic. I'm definitely going to do a better job of keeping food with me at all times. Unfortunately when eating out for lunch no less than twice and sometimes up to 5 times a week my options are limited. The good news is that you can generally find some slab of meat and sides at any restaurant. The bad news is that my protein requirement is high and usually the cheap starchy sides override the more expensive cut of meat. Also, if I order a salad usually the average meat portion is 3 to 4 oz. NOT ENOUGH!!! So I will be carrying around protein powder from now on. As my competition draws closer I'm sure I'll be carting around pre cooked rice and sweet potatoes as well in a cooler. It's been a while since I've done that, but I have a plan. Basically I will order a salad with chicken during lunch, explain to the client that I eat light because I don't want to crash mid day and then after lunch is over hit my cooler in the car and chow on whatever extra food I'll need to hit my nutritional intake. Hey at least half my meal will be free!

Anyway, my waist is now down to 30.5 inches which is an all time low outside of competition. I'm probably only 10 lbs from contest shape and I feel great! It's nice seeing abs again! We finally unpacked our camera too so pictures to come.

The week is almost over

Waking up is getting tough...I have this nice new house with a nice huge bedroom...great right? WRONG!!! I'm so damn comfortable and it's so dark in the morning that waking up to go and work out is just plain hard! Of course the idiot that lived here before me decided that all she needed in her master bedroom addition was a french door. I guess windows are overrated! Well because of this it gets pitch black in my room at night making it even harder than normal to wake at 4:45 for my workout...AARRGGHH.

So I felt a bit tired today for my back workout. I managed to muscle my way through it of course. I've been using a preworkout supplement for energy that last few months and I'm not a huge proponent of supps, but this stuff is decent. Needless to say I'm out and won't get another can until Saturday, maybe it's mental maybe not...either way I'm tired. We'll see what the Saturday measurements bring. Still pushing for 2750 calories and 250 grams of protein.

Being less fat is good!

Bad news is that my waist stayed the same along with my weight...good news is that I lost some fat elseware and my upper body is really tightening up! My upper abs are really starting to get a nice deep separation and lowers are getting better and better each week.

I'm going to cut out bread this week just to see how I react to it. I haven't done that since my last contest and even though I have over 230 days til comp. time, I more want to experiment to see if it makes a difference. I'll still eat plenty of carbs, just from rice, potatoes, veggies, oats and beans. I'm just trying to eat only things that come from the ground OR are less processed. One thing I've learned from dieting is that most carbs are processed and/or refined. You can't really escape it... I still have to unpack my camera so no pictures yet. The unfortunate part of pictures is that they don't lie...I think I look good, but a photo really is able to find all the minor things that people overlook, this causes second place finishes. Unacceptable!

What a morning

There is nothing more motivating than feeling nice hot coffee drip down your leg....the reason of course is because I didn't close the stupid lid enough and guess what, when the lid is not closed properly the coffee leaks out when you have the cup in your pocket while taking out the trash. Fantastic.

It's been a good week though, my zero days were fine and I definitely feel like I lost some bodyfat. Of course usually when I feel like I've had a good week...POOF I gain fat. Not this week though, my diet was spot on and my calorie intake was accurate. All my lifts went well and today's chest/shoulder/triceps was a good one. Of course the hardest part is actually exiting my bed at 4:45 AM. I don't care who you are, there's no getting used to waking up that early. The nice fresh sea air helps a lot though!

I'll post my measurements tomorrow and see if I can get my wife to finally take some pictures.

Zero is done

MMMMMMMM carbs. Just pounded about 1,000 calories for breakfast including two wonderful delicious hard rolls with jelly. The coffee intake will be great today because usually the extra carbs make me sleepy. Well worth it!

Once again it was destroy back wednesday and I can still feel the remnants of the work out from an hour ago. I definitely feel like the two "zero" days dropped some bodyfat, but so far my strength at the gym has been great. I even increased on some of my reps today! Go figure I have a decent beach body at the end of the summer. Hopefully I can get at least one or two more weekends with some beach weather. Ah well, off to the jobby job.