Count Down to First Natural Show

Training Bodybuilding
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BBB - I’m glad a fellow competitor is taking a similar approach. Will you stick with IF all the way up to the contest, or do you plan to switch it up?

Thanks Jake - Appreciate the kind words.

Diet 12 Weeks Out

As previously mentioned I’ve decided to go with the same I.F approach I’ve been using this year for bulking as my contest prep albeit with modified calorie levels. Before starting to contest diet my calories had been as high as 5500-6000 a day while I.F’ing. I have a naturally very large appetite and found it no problems smashing down large amounts of food after fasting all day. While never really previously indulging my sweet tooth, I have to say that having the freedom to eat what I wanted on the Pulse Feast gave me a green light to eat heaps of junk. I was still losing fat from my waist, but I’ve learned that I.F requires a level of strictness to gain results.

So, 12 Weeks out here I am meal planning wise. I’m using a carb cycling approach of high (300g), medium (200g) and low (<100g) days borrowed from Brian Whitacre’s diet plans and other people’s writings. My calories range from about 2500, 2200, 1900 per day respectively. Some of the guys from my gym (who don’t count calories) think I’m going waaay to low with these daily amounts, but it seems consistent with what I’ve been reading. I don’t do cardio at all, so I’m trying to keep things tight diet wise.

I use FitDay to track my calories most days. Although not listed on my examples I eat a bag of spinach with some sugar free pickles on top of what I eat everyday. I spice and salt my meals using thyme, orgegano, garlic, basil, rosemary and mustard for taste.

One thing I need to mention up front is that because I live in Australia, we don’t yet have access to Anaconda and MAG-10. Supplements are very expensive here, and my next post will detail what I use, but Biotest is a hard brand to find here. For my pulses I have to use Peptopro added with some Leucine because its the closest thing I can source.

If you can see anything wrong with what I’m doing here, please let me know as I’m a somewhat naive first timer at this.

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Could you post what 5,000 kcals loojed like for you while IFing? Great work

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Am I correct in thinking that you guys basically eat the same amount of food you “normally” would, but just condense it down into a short period of time?

“Normal eating” = 6 meals across 14-16 hours

“IF eating” = 3-4 meals across 4-8 hours

Really, That could really be as simple as just not eating for a few hours after you get up, and then not eating for 2-3 hours before bed really. Its not as “scary” to think about that way. And if you loaded the meals in around the workout time you would definitely be putting them to good use. Hmmm… Might have to rethink this here Intermittent Fasting stuff.

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Sorry if I’m late to the party (was out of the country for the last week, no internet, no cel phone… the horror, the horror -lol).

Very solid build! That first back shot is particularly impressive. At 12 weeks out, you’re looking to come in with a serious amount of muscle retention, which any competitor knows is the real name of the game. I made the leap from MM2000 to T-mag myself waaaay back, and yeah, I tried the whole Yates/Mentzer thing too, which is probably what led up to a few of my joint issues before I started making adjustments that better suited my physiology. I haven’t seen anyone make use of any sort of fasting in terms of a prep, so I’m certainly curious to see how it pans out for you. Obviously it seems to be working so far just fine, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Looking forward to continued updates. Posing looks to be pretty on point as well.

S

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[quote]hlss09 wrote:
Could you post what 5,000 kcals loojed like for you while IFing? Great work
[/quote]

hlss09 - Here is a sample bulking day. I didn’t eat the same foods everyday but rotated them depending on what I wanted to eat basically. I found mixing up a litre of raw milk a day with some almond/peanut butter and protein powder worked well.

I would always eat 1kg (2.2lbs) of meat per day whether it was beef, chicken, kangaroo, or salmon.

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BBB - Thanks for detailing your nutritional approach. It will be interesting to bounce some ideas off you as we drawn nearer to comp day because contest I.F’ing seems to be relatively unexplored territory. I definitely agree with you on enjoying the first show and seeing what works. I’m loving this whole contest thing so far because it’s given new meaning to my training.

Stu- Thanks for your comments. Like I mentioned, you are one of my biggest inspirations in doing this - similar age, similar height, similar occupations. I know you’re probably flat out busy, but I’d love to ask you some questions from time to time about specific things if that’s ok?

Training - HP Mass Reflections

Things really started falling into place for me training wise with Christian’s HP Mass program. I tried I- Bodybuilder but there was too much exercise variety in that program for any real consistency or progress to be achieved. I found that when I started another cycle of the program and went back to bench press for example, I hadn’t put on any strength. ‘‘Mixing things up often’’ as it was often advocated by the expert’s articles resulted in a merry-go-round lack of progress.

The HP Mass program focused on getting really good at a few basic exercises and doing them often. Staying away from failure and remaining fresh after the workout was an awesome feeling. Learning and applying Neural Charge workouts eccentric-less training has been invaluable.

In six months of doing this program in back to back cycles my log book shows the following improvements. (All sets are for 3 reps)

Front Squat - December 2010 = 213.5lbs ------> July 2011 = 297lbs

Deadlift - December 2010 = 345.5lbs -------> July 2011 = 434.5lbs

Seated Barbell Press - December 2010 = 160.5lbs --------> July 2011 = 193.5lbs

Incline Bench - December 2010 = 193.5lbs --------> July 2011 = 224.5lbs ***

Dips - December 2010 = BW + 66lbs ---------> July 2011 = BW + 132lbs

Even though these numbers are still very modest compared to what most people can put up, I’ve had some great strength boosts over this time. This is also where I think the program starts to run into some glitches.

  1. I think the amount and frequency of pressing is problematic. I was doing flat bench along with inclines for a while and eventually tore my pec. I had to drop all chest work for 2 months and even today I find bench movements challenging. These days, I have to do neutral grip presses and stick with dips.

  2. The workouts are a huge investment of time for the average working Joe. After finishing work at 5 and training for 2 hours and doing sled work after that, some nights I wouldn’t get my first meal in until 8:30. I found myself finding excuses to duck off out of work earlier and earlier to be able to train/eat at a sane hour.

  3. Once I started to get stronger on my exercises, the workouts naturally became more challenging. It took a large psychological toll having to squat/deadlift and press the same weights every week and work up to huge amounts of volume. I hesitate to say that the program got boring (because who cares if its yielding results), but when I switched it up and gave a higher rep and less volume approach a try, the mental release and physical pump I felt was tremendous. Higher reps on the quads definitely helped boost the size in that area too.

I know for most of these gripes, it’s me and not the program that’s at fault. CT talks about auto-regulation and not ‘‘living life by the program’’, but I realise that auto-regulation is almost interchangeable with the phrase ‘‘learning from your mistakes’’. You can’t auto-regulate without training experience and learning to hit that sweet spot.

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[quote]Random Weights wrote:
Here is a sample bulking day. I didn’t eat the same foods everyday but rotated them depending on what I wanted to eat basically. I found mixing up a litre of raw milk a day with some almond/peanut butter and protein powder worked well.

I would always eat 1kg (2.2lbs) of meat per day whether it was beef, chicken, kangaroo, or salmon.[/quote]Don’t u try to reduce dietary fat on such high cal days ?

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what show are you looking at doing?

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tell us please how does kangaroo meat taste like? how you prepare it (grind, grill, bake)? is it fatty or lean? cheap/expensive. i would love to eat a kangaroo’s thigh from a bonfire and flush it down with whiskey

looking at your stats and pace of gaining strenght one can say you have a lot room for improvement.

preparing for the show are you still doing HPMass with contest dieting or are you trying to do specialization phases for muscle parts?

(have you done a upper/lower performance HP Mass split or a full body performance HP Mass?)
i ask because i did the upper/lower perf. with assistance work for the lifts and now i am using the same principles for a full body perf training and like to know whats your point of view

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[quote]Tomasz Sosnowski wrote:
tell us please how does kangaroo meat taste like? how you prepare it (grind, grill, bake)? is it fatty or lean? cheap/expensive. i would love to eat a kangaroo’s thigh from a bonfire and flush it down with whiskey

[/quote]

kangaroo meat tastes very ‘gamey’, there is no fat in it, it’s pretty much 100% protein. If you cook it right(grilled) it can taste amazing otherwise it’s generally avoided.

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tolisman - When I was bulking I wasn’t too concerned with what levels of macros I was taking in too much. I just ate (and ate and ate). When I was bulking and I switched to doing I.F, I was paranoid that I was going to lose size so my evening feasts became a free for all. The irony is that I had always been a believer in the balanced ratios of dietary programs like The Zone or Duchaine’s Isocaloric Diet, and when I checked my macros from such random eating they seem to have naturally fallen in the 40/30/30 range.

Jwesus - I plan on doing the INBA Natural Western Australia Novice Division. Depending if they have a Masters category of not, I’ll enter that class too.

Tomasz - Kangaroo is my favourite diet meat and I’ll post a little bit more about it later.

Jwesus is right, it has a very gamey taste and texture.

Regarding my training up to the show, I’m going to autoregulate and at the moment I’ve backed off a lot and doing a simple 3 days a week program that is allowing my body to supercompensate big time. I feel like I’m really filling out because it’s the first time I’ve backed off all year. I will switch back to HP Mass in a few weeks, run a 3 week cycle and then concentrate on bringing up things like hammys, arms and calves a bit more. In addition, I’m also doing sled 3 days a week, and I’ve been on the PLP program for a month and a half.

Oh, and I was running an upper/lower split with assistance work similar to what you’re doing.

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Kangaroo - The Perfect Protein for Dieting?

One source of protein which has been making dieting life easier is one of Australiaâ??s favourite native animals â?? the kangaroo. These days its being sold as a high end game meat (albeit at a price cheaper than beef or chicken), but I can remember that 5 years ago, the only way to buy kangaroo meat in the stores was in the dog-food section.

Kangaroo per 100gm is low in fat (<0.1g), low in carbs (<0.1g) and high in protein (22.9g). Its high in iron, contains Omega 3s and because its not part of the now widespread toxic factory farming process, its free of hormones and all the other shit that gets fed to our beef and chicken. It fits in great on both my high, medium or low carb days and is a lot more satiating than eating chicken or fish when dieting. The pic below shows one of my high carb days with 800 grams of kangaroo, 800g grams of cooked brown rice and a spinach salad. The other one is a low carb day of Kangaroo burgers covered with cheese, onions, bacon, olives, seeded-mustard cooked in coconut oil.

Iâ??m not sure if kangaroo is easily available elsewhere, but here in Australia we can find it sold as steaks, mince, burgers and sausages. Here are some pics of some of my kanga-carb friendly meals.

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[quote]Random Weights wrote:

Jwesus - I plan on doing the INBA Natural Western Australia Novice Division. Depending if they have a Masters category of not, I’ll enter that class too.
[/quote]

funny, someone i used to train with a few years ago is thinking of doing that show and is currently prepping for it.

west coast or fremantle supporter?

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Jwesus - Don’t really follow the football sorry. Who’s your friend? Some of my mates are also getting ready for the same show, so chances are we know the same person. (Perth’s such a small town - are you in Perth too?)

Blood Work

In light of the recent John Meadows’ article about bloodwork done, I decided to have my own various levels tested, particularly because my own libido has taken a downward nose dive the past 5-6 weeks.

The doc pronounced me to be in excellent health despite my protestations that I haven’t even thought of sex nor experienced an erection in over 5 weeks and within two minutes I was dutifully whisked out the office. (S.O.P in Australia it seems)

Highlights and areas of concern/question are.

Vitamin D = 75 nmol/L (Normal Range = (.74) (I know it is slightly above the normal range, but should I be aiming to bump this up a bit higher?)

Androgens

Testosterone = 19.4 nmol/L (Normal Range = 10.0 - 35.0)
SHBG = 79 (Normal Range = 10 - 50)
Free Testosterone = 217 (Normal Range = 225 - 275 pmol/L)
Free Androgen Index = 24.6 (Normal Range = 20 - 160.0)

LH = 4U/L (Normal Range = <8)

While my test falls within normal levels, my SHBG is very high, Free Test is below normal range, and FAI is also towards the low end of the scale. When I initially asked him to test my Estradiol, he said that they don’t/won’t test those levels in men because it’s irrelevant. (???WTF)

Urea levels were above normal range.

White cells - neutropenia levels were low = 1.6 - (Normal Range = 1.8 - 7.5)

I had a feeling that the T-Levels were down so I ordered some D-Aspartic Acid and some Alpha Male and will be get my bloods retaken in 4 weeks time to see if there’s any changes.

Can someone help me interpret these results a little better and answer my questions regarding my Test and Vitamin D levels please.

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I can’t comment on the blood work, but if you have been contest dieting for some time now I will sympathize with you on the lack of libido. It simply was not there for me towards the end, which I read is pretty normal as you get leaner and leaner. I would expect it to return to normal once your contest prep is done and your eating goes up.

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[quote]Random Weights wrote:
Jwesus - Don’t really follow the football sorry. Who’s your friend? Some of my mates are also getting ready for the same show, so chances are we know the same person. (Perth’s such a small town - are you in Perth too?)
[/quote]

I’m not a hundred percent sure if he’d want me putting his whole name out there but richie c, It’s his first contest I’m not sure if he is going to be doing novice or a weight class. I think he’s looking at coming in around 65kg.

nah I’m from melbourne but have a lot of family in western australia/perth. Nothing beats beers at scarborough.

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From what I’ve read about SHGB it is an antagonist to testosterone and binds to testosterone molecules and renders them inactive which means they cannot interact with androgen receptors. So what this means is that a high SHGB level would mean a low free test level because there is so much of it present it is binding to a great deal of your testosterone and rendering it inactive.

As far as fixing that though I have no idea sorry.

My vitamin D levels were also within the normal range and my doc said they needed to be higher so has me taking 10000 IU’s of Vit D3 daily.