17 Weeks Out

Whats up everybody, one week down many more to go. No complaints since its only been a week lol, I am still eating a good amount of food and cardio is only at 30 minutes on the stairmaster.  My weight as of this morning was 229.8 but I am leaner than when I started last week, my stomach has less fat and my quads are showing some separation.  This week I will go over my diet as well as tell you guys a little about my job.

As of now I am taking in 4680 calories with the macro breakdown being 452 protein 450 carbs and 101 fat, on non training days my carbs for meal 5 are reduced.

              Meal 1: 10 Egg whites, 1 yolk, oatmeal, olive oil, and chicken breast

              Meal 2: Chicken breast, sweet potato, and olive oil

              Meal 3: Tilapia, olive oil, and cream wheat

              Meal 4: Chicken breast, white rice, and olive oil

              Meal 5: 96% lean ground beef, cream of wheat, and fish oil pills

              Meal 6: 13 Egg whites, 1 scoop of casein, and olive oil

I am really enjoying the diet because it is different than my offseason diet was which is refreshing.  I am happy to not be eating so much food for a change, I am sure at some point that will change once I am starving lol.  I am taking in 1.5-2 gallons of water a day, one gallon being crystal light the other regular water.  Overall everything is going smooth and week 1 went perfect.

I work for Reynolds Protection Agency which is a company that has armed and unarmed security guards, as well as bodyguards.  I work 12 hour shifts 3 days a week ( Thursday- Saturday) and some weeks I may work 48-60 hours, two weeks ago I worked 73 hours (talk about exhausted).  A typical work day for me goes like this, I wake up at 12:30 eat and then go train.  Some days I have to go to the grocery store after I train, then I get home about 4:30 to shower  while my food cooks.   I usually eat as I prepare my 4 meals for the rest of the night.  I get to work by 7p.m. and don't get off until 7 a.m.

At work I just walk around every hour or so and make sure the building is secure, it is a old hospital that has been shut down for a long time.   I am free to eat whenever I need to and I just relax and watch tv and dvds which is great!!  The only downside is that once I start cardio twice a day I will have to go straight to the gym from work and then go back after I sleep 3.5-4 hours.  I am hoping I won't have to end up doing that though. Last prep it made it soooo hard because I would have to do 75 minutes of stairmaster sleep about 3.5 hours and go train and do 75 more minutes.  This year I switched my training schedule to 4 days on 3 days off, so the 4 days I don't have to work are my training days.  So far it is working out on schedule so that by the time Thursday comes my body is screaming for a break from training and I am ready to roll come Sunday.

Well thats it for this week, make sure to tune in next week as I am sure some changes to the diet will take place.  Once again I would like to thank my sponsors Joe Lobell with www.mostmuscular.com John Hicks with www.theironmulisha.com and Ron with www.genisispeptides.net.  I would like to give a special shoutout to my nutritionist Jason Theobald for doing a great job and I highly recommend him to anyone looking to build muscle, get in contest shape, lose weight for health reasons, or anyone who would like help constructing a healthy diet.  He can be reached at www.nattynutrition.com

18 weeks out

Well I had a great offseason, stayed lean and made some good improvements.  My weight got up to 232lbs and I was happy with my conditioning.  Originally after last years competitions I had decided that I would take off from competing in 2011 in order to move up to the heavyweights, however I spoke with national level competitor Lorenzo Jones who made a great point.  He suggested that I shouldn't worry about moving up a weight class until I have placed well in the lightheavies due to the fact tat size wasn't my issue, conditioniong was the problem.

He has been around the sport for a long time so I took his advice into consideration very strongly.  I had already been getting an itch to compete so I talked it over with my nutritionist Jason Theobald (www.nattynutrition.com) and we decided that the pros outweighed the cons.  So with that said, once again its on!!!  My diet this offseason was very different than in the past, I felt it was way more structured thanks to my awesome nutritionist.

My macros were 665 protein 401 carbs and 229 fats, I only had one shake which was in the middle of the night so needless to say that was a TON of food and it was definitely a job getting in every bit of it.
              Meal 1: chicken, cottage cheese, olive oil, honey nut cheerios
              Meal 2: chicken, olive oil, almond butter
              Meal 3: tilapia, olive oil, almond butter
              Meal 4: Pre Workout : chicken, oive oil, sweet potatoe, almond butter
              Meal 5: Post Workout: 96% lean ground beef, olive oil, trix cereal (non-training days white rice)
              Meal 6: chicken, almond butter, string cheese
              Night shake: casein

That is a total of 6300 calories, after my 2010 shows we slowly worked up to this volume of food each time my weight would stall.  I did cardio 7 days a week, it started at 30 minutes and we ended up decreasing it to 20 minutes walking on the treadmill.  I train 4 days a week and on off days I do what I like to call touch up work.  The touch up work involves training triceps, calves, and forearms.  I train my triceps 4 days a week and my calves and forearms twice a week.  My training style is very instinctive, low volume, and progressive.

Over the next 18 weeks I will be taking the necessary steps to be the best that I can be on June 18th at the 2011 Jr. Nationals.  I hope to win the lightheavies  and I believe 100% that if I show up shredded, hard, full, and dry this is within my reach.  I will be keeping you guys updated with a weekly blog that I will post Sunday nights or early Monday.  Please follow along and enjoy the journey with me, if you guys have any questions you can email me at southernmuscle_214@yahoo.com and I will answer your training or nutrition questions here in my blog.

I would like to thank my sponsors Joe Lobell with www.mostmuscular.com, John Hicks with www.theironmulisha.com, and Ron at www.genisipeptides.net.  See everyone next week