My first post in this thread that began chronicling my contest prep.
Taken 23 Feb 2013 at 207 lbs.
and another ~~~~
Progress? Certainly. Anywhere near my where I need to be? Not even close.
Which reminds me of my favorite quote:
“We’re not where we want to be. We’re not where we’re going to be. But thank God we’re not as bad as we used to be.” -Kevin Higgins
Progress is progress, so good work and just stick with it!
“When you’re getting lean it’s a little awkward because there are blind spots where you’re losing weight but you look worse. It’s like the chicken growing inside the egg. It looks the same on the outside but there’s a lot of shit going on inside.” - Dave Tate
Fucking love that quote in regards to diet cause it will become more and more apparent to you during your fat loss how true that really is!
Definately seeing a difference! Also i agree with what you said about the phenomena of what you are seeing in the mirror versus what ends up in the picture. I never got this… i wonder if it has to do with the angle of our eyes different than the camera?
Keep it up, you are making progress!
Okay ~ here’s are some contest questions I need some help with:
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When do you order your posing trunks?
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Does anyone have a recommendation as to a posing suit supplier?
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How are you supposed to know what size you wear (seeing as you’re losing weight)?
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How many do you get? I’ve heard that some guys get 3 pair, or more ~~~~
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Based on the recent pictures, does anyone have any idea if I will be a "wide waist or a narrow waist ~ as apparently there are styles that work better with one body shape than another.
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Do you really need to buy the glue stick to hold them in place on your body?
PS: My last meal: 3 boiled eggs, 6 oz of tunafish, cup of raw spinich, salsa. I do not recommend this meal to anyone. It was an awful combination.
[quote]iplan wrote:
Okay ~ here’s are some contest questions I need some help with:
- When do you order your posing trunks?[/quote]
A month or two out is fine, but realize that you may still be losing weight in your glutes, so take that into account when you pick out your size.
[quote]
2. Does anyone have a recommendation as to a posing suit supplier?[/quote]
I’ve gotten from several places, but like Cherry Bombs wear. Fairly inexpensive, nice selection of colors and fabrics, quick delivery, and they’ve done ‘special requests’ for me with limited turnaround time (very accommodating)
[quote]
3. How are you supposed to know what size you wear (seeing as you’re losing weight)? [/quote]
Take your underwear size as a basic idea, but they’ll also usually ask what size waist you are, estimated stage weight etc. Contact the suit designer for relevant info.
[quote]
4. How many do you get? I’ve heard that some guys get 3 pair, or more ~~~~[/quote]
Always have an extra pair with you. Some people will tell you to get a different color for the night show than the prejudging so that you can tell the photos from each, but you’ll be able to do that anyway. With all the oil, tanner and ‘crap’ backstage, you always should pack a spare.
[quote]
5. Based on the recent pictures, does anyone have any idea if I will be a "wide waist or a narrow waist ~ as apparently there are styles that work better with one body shape than another.[/quote]
Tough call before you’re really dieted down. Try to get a sense of how your hip bones compare to your lower ribs. Stand in front of a mirror, and suck your gut in like there’s no tomorrow. How does your waist look now? Be honest! -lol
[quote]
6. Do you really need to buy the glue stick to hold them in place on your body? [/quote]
No, that’s something female competitors do because they’re wearing such skimpy outfits that they tend to slide around more. You’ll be fine.
S
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
[quote]iplan wrote:
Okay ~ here’s are some contest questions I need some help with:
- When do you order your posing trunks?[/quote]
A month or two out is fine, but realize that you may still be losing weight in your glutes, so take that into account when you pick out your size.
[quote]
2. Does anyone have a recommendation as to a posing suit supplier?[/quote]
I’ve gotten from several places, but like Cherry Bombs wear. Fairly inexpensive, nice selection of colors and fabrics, quick delivery, and they’ve done ‘special requests’ for me with limited turnaround time (very accommodating)
[quote]
3. How are you supposed to know what size you wear (seeing as you’re losing weight)? [/quote]
Take your underwear size as a basic idea, but they’ll also usually ask what size waist you are, estimated stage weight etc. Contact the suit designer for relevant info.
[quote]
4. How many do you get? I’ve heard that some guys get 3 pair, or more ~~~~[/quote]
Always have an extra pair with you. Some people will tell you to get a different color for the night show than the prejudging so that you can tell the photos from each, but you’ll be able to do that anyway. With all the oil, tanner and ‘crap’ backstage, you always should pack a spare.
[quote]
5. Based on the recent pictures, does anyone have any idea if I will be a "wide waist or a narrow waist ~ as apparently there are styles that work better with one body shape than another.[/quote]
Tough call before you’re really dieted down. Try to get a sense of how your hip bones compare to your lower ribs. Stand in front of a mirror, and suck your gut in like there’s no tomorrow. How does your waist look now? Be honest! -lol
Stu ~~~~
Thanks for giving such a thorough response.
I believe I have hips that are basically the same width as my bottom ribs. Is that “wide” or “normal” or “sleek” or “narrow”?
Regardless, I think I’ll wait until I’m in the 180 weight range ~ and then see what things look like at that time. It’s funny to think that 18 is plausible (because I was so doubtful about hitting that number just a few weeks ago).
As to workouts:
Yesterday was Back day. It’s pretty cool day to lift because I do a lot of chinups, and as I continue dropping weight, I get better and better at my chinups…
Yesterday’s Workout:
Chinups 5 sets: 20/12/7/7/10.
1 Arm DB Rows: 3x12
T-bar Rows: 5x20
Cross Face Hammer Curls: 3x12
Standing EZ Bar Curls: 2x10
I’m now following Swolle’s diet (see page 2 on the thread) to a “T.”
On the scale this morning, I had dropped again, and sit at 195.8 lbs.
I’m a little burnt out on spinach, but raw green beans can not be beat.
Also, oatmeal has begun to appeal to me, in a way that I assume only someone from the north can appreciate ~~~ lol. When I was a kid, I used to think that anyone that lived above the North Carolina state line was a Yankee ~ so it was all grits down here all the time.
But the oatmeal is surprisingly good. Another reason that I’m happy the North won the War Between the States ~~ lol.
I’m essentially eating it plain, which is fine for now, but to create some variety, does any one have any good oatmeal recipe combinations?
I was on youtube looking at Masters Divisions, and came across these two videos for consideration:
This one is NGA Masters Over 40: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eZ4JNi-TW8
Here is another from NPC Masters Over 40: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4F6_Bxxsr8
Of course, it’s impossible to really compare physiques to physiques without standing beside these guys, but I wonder how competitive I will be when the time comes. Thoughts?
Alright ~ so to catch up:
I did Legs on Sunday
Chest, Shoulders & Triceps on Monday
Biceps and Traps on Tuesday.
Today is leg day again. I enjoy back and leg days the most of all.
By the way, the last week has been kind of cool. All within the last week, random people are coming up to me that have known me for years, and are saying things like:
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“Hey, where do you workout?”
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“What does your workout routine look like?”
and then, “Can you help me with my routine?” -
What would you recommend I do to bring up my calves?
A buddy I’ve known for 27 years emails me, and wants me to help him get his diet set up. Actually the diet request was pretty funny to me ~ as if it weren’t for you guys, I’d still be eating a single egg for my 2nd meal of the day. I answered his question by cutting and pasting Swolle’s exact diet (posted on page 2 of this thread) into an email (crediting Swolle, or course). The next day, he sent me a text from the grocery store: “What is Jasmine Rice?” ~~~ Safe to say, I think the guy is serious.
Another time, I was standing in the walk up line waiting for my kids to get out of school, and this lady, who walks up to the school to get her kids also, turns her head to look at me, gives me the up and down, and says, “Wow, you must workout a LOT!” She actually scared me to death, but I did recover quick enough to offer, “I try.” Then she proceeded to tell me how she was at Gold’s Gym earlier in the day, and accidentally set off the panic alarm on her car ~ and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. After a few minutes, she had to get off the treadmill, and take the car to the Honda Dealership to get it fixed. So her car foiled her workout. It was a pretty funny story.
When I went to the first contestant meeting sponsored by the BB show I’m doing, the main speaker wrapped up his session by saying something like, “Since the dawn of history, man has had a body, but only one body, and it is a ‘temple’ ~ he may not accept it, but he intuitively knows it deep down. Most people want to take care of this temple but do not for various superficial reasons. I think you may find that as you improve your temple in preparation for this contest, you can be an inspiration to many people around you.” I thought that was cool way to tie the “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” reference into what we’re doing here (whether we recognize it as a temple or not).
As to scale, I’m a little stuck. After hitting 195, I’ve bounced up a couple of lbs, and the weight has not dropped back down like I thought it should, so I switched the meat in 2 of my meals. Instead of lean ground chuck, I’m eating Talipia. 2 servings a day would be 14 servings per week ~~~ is that too much fish?
Well, I’m now the sole survivor of a stomach bug that has wrecked our family. 4 of 5 have gone down for the count. We’re talking serious projectile vomiting…
My stomach feels a little ‘tense’ ~~~~ if not ‘glassy’ ~~~~
I’m supposed to work triceps and shoulders tonight, but part of me does not want to do anything to upset the apple cart… hmmmm
Stay tuned to see if I will I be spared the wrath of Darth Yak ~ lol
Good progress so far, right on track! Keep grinding
To answer your earlier question I add a frozen berry mix to my oats and it tastes fantastic
Did you escape the deathbug?
[quote]lemony2j wrote:
To answer your earlier question I add a frozen berry mix to my oats and it tastes fantastic
Did you escape the deathbug?[/quote]
I will try the frozen berry mix!
As to the death virus ~~~~ so far I have managed to remain unscathed.
Here is an observation: After the first kid throws up, and everyone else in the family knows it will inevitably be their turn soon, a game begins to be played.
The game is a contest to see ~~
- Who can vomit the most number of times
- Who can vomit the farthest
- Who can vomit the loudest (Not to brag, but I have won this contest every year since the game began).
My two boys embrace the ‘game’ the most. Anyway, when death virus finally got around to my oldest boy (soon to be 12), he got up and shouted, “Here it comes!” and ran to the toilet (shutting the door) and proceeded to wretch like a man possessed. He came out and he said, “Dad! Did you hear how loud that was?!”
It was loud too. I told him it sounded like “someone emptied a 5 gallon bucket full of gravel into the tub.” He is the sure winner of the loudest vomit so far. My youngest has a hold on the most vomits, and my wife has the distinction of being the only one we had to take to the hospital to get IV fluids… ahhh the joys of family.
As to shape: The scale is broken. It is not moving like it should. I hope to have some movement in that department. That said, I do seem to be getting a bit more vascular. My kids think veins are muscles for some reason, and they are the ones that pointed my improved vascularity out to me (especially in the legs). I’ll take that as an improvement.
Today is back and biceps day. I’m stoked.
Chinups 5 x max
1 Arm DB Rows 3x12
T- Bar Rows 5x10
Cross Face Hammer Curls: 3x12
Standing EZ Bar Curls: 2 x max
Last week, I did 20 chinups in the first set. The second set was 12 reps. The 3,4,& 5th sets all had less than 10 reps (somewhere between 7 - 10).
I wonder if I should add some resistance to this movement via strapping a 10 or 25 lb plate to my waist.
Monday was Chest Shoulders & Triceps.
Today is biceps and traps. I never really focused on traps when I was deadlifting, but now that I don’t deadlift that much anymore, I needed some direct work. Traps are funny. They sort of remind me of calves. It seems like you almost can not over train them, and there aren’t all that many ways to train them (shrugs).
The scale is still hovering in the 199 -198 range, but my pants are getting looser and looser. I also got another, “You’ve lost a lot of weight” (which was immediately followed by “not that you had much to lose in the first place”) comment today. Life’s little pleasures ~ lol
The contest is 7 weeks out from this Saturday. I was looking at some of the other contest prep logs. Some of them are at 12 weeks out (and even further) and they are leaner than I am currently (with only 7 weeks to go). I really wish I could get a realistic handle on whether or not I’m going to be ready when the time comes.
Alright, well enough contemplating ~~~~ my biceps and traps won’t get any less small if I sit here and type all night.
[quote]iplan wrote:
The scale is still hovering in the 199 -198 range, but my pants are getting looser and looser. I also got another, “You’ve lost a lot of weight” (which was immediately followed by “not that you had much to lose in the first place”) comment today. Life’s little pleasures ~ lol
The contest is 7 weeks out from this Saturday. I was looking at some of the other contest prep logs. Some of them are at 12 weeks out (and even further) and they are leaner than I am currently (with only 7 weeks to go). I really wish I could get a realistic handle on whether or not I’m going to be ready when the time comes.
[/quote]
Yeah, normally 7 weeks out, people are already showing some serious muscle separation. The problem, is that you’re going simply on your scale reading asto whether you’ll be ready or not. When you look at some of the other prep threads, you have to be realistic with yourself and the fact that you didn’t really start off carrying the same amount muscle as some other folks. So while you may indeed be losing fat (even though your weight can stagnate despite progress being made), you may not have enough LBM to really make as dramatic an impact as you might have anticipated.
Even though you may truly be having recompositional changes, the fact that your weight isn’t moving at all would concern me. There’s no way that you’re going to look decent onstage at 190 or more, I’m fairly certain that someone else said that early on in the thread. As such, I’d take a serious look at your diet and cardio plans, because while I admit to not popping in on this thread for a bit so I can’t address specifics, I’m sure that your variables aren’t what they could/should be.
S
Stu:
Like you said: I think a few of the earlier posts alluded to the fact that I was going to be un-massive when I did arrive in form, so I’m cool with that.
In fact, a few of my buddies asked me, “Why not wait until you are bigger before you start competing?” ~ but I’m 45 (will be 46 in September). I’m pretty sure it will be difficult for me to get much bigger. While my t-count is still +600, time is eventually going to begin to catch up with me regrettably.
So ~ I think I may need to rearrange my goals, because I do not want to be “that guy” ~~~~~ the guy on the stage that really has no business being there.
My plan is to continue to prep as if I was going to compete in the show June 15 (as originally discussed) ~ (who knows a miracle may happen?), but then establish a longer term horizon for an actual competition later this summer (maybe August). Which should give me a lot more time to get to where I need to be.
I also plan to attend a show (in my town) the first week in June ~ just to see one in person. I’ve never been to one.
Finally, as I review my thread, it’s clear to me that I was very naive about my diet early on, and where I would need to be from a weight loss standpoint to be shredded. That underestimation set me back tremendously, and I still do not claim to have an actual understanding past the basic concepts.
Tonight’s workout was legs:
Stiff Leg Deadlifts 5x20 ~~~~ The less weight I do here, the better it seems to get. I’m not sure this makes any sense, but the minute I put what I’d consider to be a respectable number on the bar, I can no longer feel the stretch in my hamstrings, and it doesn’t seem to translate to growth…
Calf Raises ~~~~ 3 sets max
Hack Squats: 5 sets of 15 (My left quad was really tight again, so I just played around with a light weight ~ going through the motions ~ as I didn’t want to risk re-injury.
I also did the C.Raises before the Hack Squats to switch up just a bit.
Finished with 20 minutes of cardio on the elliptical while I watched the Women’s Crossfit Olympic Finals (replay from last year on ESPN2.
45 and first contest, that’s brilliant mate! I hope you go well, I’ll be lurking.
[quote]iplan wrote:
Stu:
Like you said: I think a few of the earlier posts alluded to the fact that I was going to be un-massive when I did arrive in form, so I’m cool with that.
In fact, a few of my buddies asked me, “Why not wait until you are bigger before you start competing?” ~ but I’m 45 (will be 46 in September). I’m pretty sure it will be difficult for me to get much bigger. While my t-count is still +600, time is eventually going to begin to catch up with me regrettably.
So ~ I think I may need to rearrange my goals, because I do not want to be “that guy” ~~~~~ the guy on the stage that really has no business being there.
My plan is to continue to prep as if I was going to compete in the show June 15 (as originally discussed) ~ (who knows a miracle may happen?), but then establish a longer term horizon for an actual competition later this summer (maybe August). Which should give me a lot more time to get to where I need to be.
I also plan to attend a show (in my town) the first week in June ~ just to see one in person. I’ve never been to one.
Finally, as I review my thread, it’s clear to me that I was very naive about my diet early on, and where I would need to be from a weight loss standpoint to be shredded. That underestimation set me back tremendously, and I still do not claim to have an actual understanding past the basic concepts.
Tonight’s workout was legs:
Stiff Leg Deadlifts 5x20 ~~~~ The less weight I do here, the better it seems to get. I’m not sure this makes any sense, but the minute I put what I’d consider to be a respectable number on the bar, I can no longer feel the stretch in my hamstrings, and it doesn’t seem to translate to growth…
Calf Raises ~~~~ 3 sets max
Hack Squats: 5 sets of 15 (My left quad was really tight again, so I just played around with a light weight ~ going through the motions ~ as I didn’t want to risk re-injury.
I also did the C.Raises before the Hack Squats to switch up just a bit.
Finished with 20 minutes of cardio on the elliptical while I watched the Women’s Crossfit Olympic Finals (replay from last year on ESPN2.
[/quote]
I really admire your outlook and it’s great that you are continuing the diet!