You look way bigger than 170 man. In a good way. Awesome work
I remember reading in Tim’s prep thread how he stopped training legs one week out or only did concentric-type work for them to avoid any ‘blurry-ness’ in definition due to legs generally taking longer to recover. Are you planning to follow suit with this one?
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
If I am remembering right, you were “stuck” at around 174ish for a few weeks, right? And now that you did your refeed you seem to be inching down now. Sounds good to me. You are coming up on the final weeks here, so there isn’t too much to change at this point, but if you are doing things right you should start seeing changes pretty much daily… New veins, less fat here and there, etc…
Keep it up man, can’t wait to see what your refeed does for you.[/quote]
Yeah I was stuck there fluctuating up and down for a while. I can really feel the difference now that the refeed makes now. My appetite that kinda just faded away is back reminding me how much I miss food every minute of the day haha. I am post refeed 2 days now and my morning weight is already down to 173, not to mention the physical changes I am noticing, especially having stacked an extra 30 min of cardio to the mix. I am kinda glad I left things this late because at the rate I am going now, if all goes according to plan of course, I will reach my desired level of conditioning as the show arrives. I fear losing too much too fast at this point would leave me dipping into my LBM. I may even throw another refeed in at the end of this week if I can keep this up. I am able to tune into my body more to forecast where I may land in a few days which is great this close to the show.
[quote]GrindOverMatter wrote:
nice! looks like the refeed worked very well! just little left to come off the lower back/glutes/lower abs[/quote]
Yeah I am starting to get the hang of this, finally haha, and yes still a ways to go in those trouble areas. Hopefully the added cardio will accelerate my conditioning to where I need to be.
[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:
You look way bigger than 170 man. In a good way. Awesome work [/quote]
Thanks! Always great to hear compliments this close to the show, cause man do I feel small in clothes haha.
[quote]lemony2j wrote:
I remember reading in Tim’s prep thread how he stopped training legs one week out or only did concentric-type work for them to avoid any ‘blurry-ness’ in definition due to legs generally taking longer to recover. Are you planning to follow suit with this one?[/quote]
You know, having read your post and being reminded of that part of the prep it doesn’t seem to be a bad idea. There is not going to be much if anything benefiting me from heavy workouts anyways this close to the show. I am not exactly building muscle so I might even pump the breaks on leg training a bit sooner. Having just started more cardio I can feel my legs getting sore in all kinds of new places and as a result of working them, then doing cardio and not allowing them to heal properly I am probably doing more harm then good at this point. So to answer your question yes I will probably back off leading up to the show.
Update:
I finally feel like I am getting a handle on this refeed bit. If you had told me that I would be doing them when i started this prep i would have said you were crazy! Honestly didnt even consider them in my game plan when I started this journey. I am still learning new tricks and how to tune into my body more everyday. I still find some days very overwhelming and I second guess a lot of decisions but I am getting close, not only to the show, but to a level of conditioning that I would have thought out of reach had I not made the decision to compete.
I woke at 171.6 this morning and 3 days post refeed I would say I will be down a bit more tomorrow. Considering I made it down to the 170’s last time around I would say I am responding how I should be, and will most likely continue the trend with a refeed this week. I know it may not be ideal to have a “set refeed day,” but still gauging where my weight bottoms out at is key info so I will utilize the one day a week. Maybe next time around I will have a better grasp on things, but for now it seems to be less risky and I am more comfortable with it.
Just a tip for those of you who plan on doing contest prep… Don’t knock up your wife at the same time haha!! I hinted at news in my last posts that we had to give to the parents and in-laws over the weekend. I am so excited and happy to be sharing such a miracle with the woman whom I love more then anything else in this world. There are no buts here cause I would drop prep and the contest for her in a second if she asked me to (Though she would never). I just want to mention that between both of our mood swings and cravings we have severely contrasting diets and she gets sick off the smells of what I can eat and I have savage cravings for all that she can stomach. Just a little overwhelming between the two some days. mostly on my end haha, I have to say she is quite the trooper. She is and has been my number on supporter in this journey and I am even more motivated to do better in tribute.
Update:
Well it has been a busy week with work. I have been forced to get up extra early to get at least 20 min of circuit training/cardio in before meal 1. I am feeling great considering and my weight has been down to 170 even.
I implemented another refeed day yesterday (sticking with the once a week trend) and it went very well. I consumed approx 450-500 g of carbs. The two days preceding my refeed all I could think about was getting to Friday to be able to consume any form of carb that was not currently part of my standard greens. Also a point to note is that I conducted my refeed in the evening to model my carb up for the show to see where it left me in the am. Given that I get super bloated drinking any amount of fluids during or right after a refeed I was limited on water intake anyways so I was able to really gauge where it may leave me come contest.
I woke at 172 lbs this morning, looking full and dry. Obviously not the level I want to compete at, but getting closer for sure. I snapped some pics after morning cardio and will be working legs tonight after work. I will not be able to post anything until I get home in the evening so something to check back in for. As I mentioned before I am going to pump the breaks on leg training a bit with all the extra cardio I feel that working them too much will be both counter productive and may effect the quality of the muscle definition come show time, as indicated in Tim’s prep thread.
I have two weeks left and this week will be a reduction of calories and an extra ten min of cardio per session, perhaps more if needed. I have no concern of not making weight and am confident that I will dial it in with conditioning this next week. My last week will be geared for polishing this look for the show.
Mood swings have become more intense, but oddly I am sleeping better then mid prep. I live for getting food in and feel even hungrier as I eat and my nose starts to run a little like I just came in from outside on a cold day. I will take this sign as my metabolism is still up to speed.
As much as living in the moment absolutely sucks sometimes I am still loving it and am still motivated to hit that stage and present what I have been working so hard on for so long. I am not the biggest or most conditioned, but for me I have already accomplished something that I would have otherwise assumed was out of reach. 2 weeks to go!!
Looking solid and more shredded in every pic keep it up, the refeeds are obvs working for you.
And is that a sartorius I see? 
Agreed… Glad you started abd stuck with those refeeds now?
Can’t wait to see the stage pics, gonna be sick
[quote]lemony2j wrote:
Looking solid and more shredded in every pic keep it up, the refeeds are obvs working for you.
And is that a sartorius I see? :)[/quote]
Thanks, all kinds of new things are starting to poke out now haha!
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Agreed… Glad you started abd stuck with those refeeds now?
Can’t wait to see the stage pics, gonna be sick[/quote]
I can not imagine not doing the refeeds now… considering how uncomfortable I was doing them and not having the knowledge base. I am glad I had the help from you kind folks here to get me through. I would have stalled back at 174 and would have still been stuck there short of going to an extreme with training and no doubt burning off significant LBM in the process.
looking good man, and congrats on the pregnancy
[quote]rds63799 wrote:
looking good man, and congrats on the pregnancy[/quote]
Thank you!
Update:
Woke at 170.4 this morning and am finding that it is taking me approx 3-4 days to baseline or go down in weight post refeed. As I mentioned in a previous post things are starting to pop out all over the place.
I am tossing around the idea of doing another refeed tomorrow evening because I have read that frequency of refeeds should be increased the leaner you get. I may be wrong on this so feel free to direct me otherwise if you have any insight on this. I am finding the 7 day stretch is causing me to hit insanity with cravings at about 3 days pre refeed. This may also just be because my body is trying to convince me that it is a good idea when in fact it is not at all. If I go ahead with the two smaller refeeds before the show I will do one tomorrow evening and Sunday. I will then deplete for the week leading to my final carb up before the show, hoping to sky rocket my metabolism to polish off my look for the last week and 1/2 and allowing time to baseline in weight before my carb up. Maybe I should tough it out for the full 7 days and hit one refeed and one carb up, but again my body is screaming that all it wants is carbs so I am not sure where to draw that line. I definitely do not want to jeopardize my conditioning at this point.
All insight and input welcome!! It is mind vs. body at this point and I am split couching each corner. I have the will power to tough it out either way and want to do whats best for conditioning sake, but if I can get away with the two smaller refeeds I will sure as hell knock back the carbs haha.
Great job man, best of luck!
Tough call on adding another refeed. I know about the potential for increasing the freq of the refeeds, but I don’t know too many coaches who actually do it.
In reality, adding in another small refeed will most likely not have a large impact on your physique either way at this point. If it “doesnt work”, You won’t get fat adding in 200g of carbs one day… Nor will you get a whole lot leaner from the potential metabolism boost. It’s probably more of a psychological boost than a metabolism boost
Given how well the once a week method is working I’m inclined to say just stick with it and Save the experimentation for the next diet.
Or… You could mess around with it after the show. I don’t recommend drastically increasing cals after the show, especially if you are going to drop a bunch of cardio. This might be a good time to keep the cals a bit lower but add in a second mini refeed to see what it does.
First of all, congratulations on the pregnancy!
I am a father of two boys, there is no joy like being a dad.
Now on to the less important stuff…
Glad refeeds are working for you and you are learning how your body responds.
You look great and it is awesome that you are so motivated.
[quote]johnman18 wrote:
Great job man, best of luck![/quote]
Thanks!