Can’t believe a week has passed already since I started writing this training journal. I’ve actually managed to make a few updates through the week to which im happy about! Every time i’ve tried in the past I start, get sidetracked and it just sits by the way side. Like a member of the bodybuilding.com forums teenage board going to the gym and just sitting on their phone doing FA. Im currently 8 weeks out, and this post will recap the previous week from the 3rd of March to the 9th of March. You can check out all of my NABBA Training Log Entries Here.
What’s changed?
Well this past week i’ve eliminated extra lean ground beef from my diet, in favour of turkey or fish. I was eating extra lean ground beef daily, the 94/96% fat free one from the supermarket. After explaining this to Eddy he recommended cutting it out, as what the pack says may not be what it actually contains. I’ve gone from eating extra lean ground beef every day to eating steak just twice last week. As a result my fat intake will have been lower, and as such my over calorie intake. I used to eat my red meat on an evening post workout, anywhere between 8-8.30 pm depending upon when i get done in the gym, home and sorted. (By home and sorted, I mean whenever I get my ass to my girlfriends house who has it all waiting freshly cooked for me. Thanks Connie!) Im now having turkey breast mince of turkey breast steak to replace the red meat I was eating.
Im now doing cardio for 40 minutes every day, fasted before breakfast. This is up from every other day which I did for my NABBA 2013 show and Open Mr & Miss British Isle Show. I’ll perform 40 minutes of cardio on the cross trainer before I eat anything, and follow this up with some abs. I then eat breakfast around 9.15. Before cardio however I make sure to consume 5-10 grams of BCAA, glutamine and beta alanine.
This past week i’ve hit abs every day in some fashion. This is something I did in the final few weeks prior to my shows last year, however i’ve started it earlier this year. I’ve been doing abs following cardio, and its a combination of 1 or 2 exercises for 3-4sets of anywhere between 12-20 reps. If performing 2 exercises after cardio, i’ve been super setting them. I’ll then perform abdominal twists on an evening either before weights or after weights.
After reading up on what taurine is, and its benefits, I’ve included taurine and beta alanine as part of my supplement stack after spending about 2 weeks reading upon them. I occasionally use a pre workout, so i have of course felt the effects of these supplements before, but i’ve never purchased or used them in their ‘bulk powder’ form. I’ve never really felt a tingle from beta alanine, however after a few days of use, i have started to notice a slight tingle when taking it about an hour after food. NICE!
In just that past week i’ve noticed myself leaning out dramatically. Im surprised at how much my body composition has changed in such a short period of time, but the combination of lower fats and increased cardio seems to have done the trick. This being said, hunger has set in.
Hunger Games
Fuaaarq have i been eating this week. To give you a recap on my diet, I probably started dieting around the end of December / beginning of January. This was way way longer than I anticipated, but I had to start early because I screwed up last November. I went silly, ate too much crap for too long, and added too much fat. A lesson well learned and I won’t be doing it again. Anyway I was eating around 450 grams of carbs at the start of my competition prep. Since getting into bodybuilding and following the advice of NABBA legend Eddy Ellwood, i’ve adopted a high carb diet even when cutting. Im able to do this due to the intensity of my weight sessions and cardio that I do. I can’t complain as a few years ago when I did a traditional bro bulk and bro cut, i ate too few carbs and dropped too much weight. Not cool bro.
So after eating 450g of carbs a day for the first few weeks of my diet, probably 4-5 weeks, i had noticed a considerable amount of weight loss. Some days I was actually eating fewer than 450. It got to the point where I was eating anywhere between 380-450g of carbs a day, depending upon how hungry I was. My weight stalled, and I upped my carbs to 500, something im still on now. I’ve done this now for the past couple of weeks and im just looking a hell of a lot leaner. I have to contribute this to the upped amount of cardio Im now doing as well however, something which is allowing me to eat high carbs daily.
I think because of this increased amount of cardio, my metabolism is burning faster and working harder, which as a result is making me hungrier. Im now eating more regularly, typically every 2 hours as opposed to every 3. To allow for these extra meals, my carbs at breakfast are a little bit lower, and my carbs in my last meal of the day have been lowered. A typical day of eating now looks like this:
Meal 1
Baby Rice & Eggs
Meal 2
Turkey & Rice
Meal 3
Fish & Rice
Meal 4
Protein Shake & Bananas
Meal 5
Chicken & Rice
Meal 6
Post Workout Carb Shake
25 Minutes later Hydrolysed Whey Protein Shake
Meal 7
Sweet Potato & Turkey
Meal 8
Casein Shake
Now meal 6 sometimes will not contain the protein 25 minutes later. I’ll sometimes just wait and have my sweet potato and turkey. If this is the case, then I will have more protein with meal 8. If i do have hydrolysed protein as part of meal 6, depending how much i’ll have, i skip meal 8, or reduce the protein content. Im also having green vegetables with my rice/potato meals.
Supplements
As I mentioned, i’ve now added taurine and beta alanine to my supplement stack. I used a myprotein discount code and ordered my taurine from myprotein, and got the taurine from Amazon. I’ve read up a fair bit on these, and thought i’d give them a try for the price. I’ve written an article looking at taurine, and I will be making a video and article looking at beta alanine soon. I’ve been taking beta alanine and taurine as part of my pre workout drink. I also have been using beta alanine before cardio. I’ll add a second dose of taurine to my casein shake and have that before bed.
On regular days I’ll take a pre workout, intra workout, and post workout drink. My intra workout contains glutamine and bcaa. However on Mondays and thursdays, as I train weights twice, this means I drink 2 pre workout drinks and 2 post workout drinks. By pre workout I don’t mean a store bought pre workout stimulant. My typical pre workout drink consists of bcaa, creatine, beta alanine, taurine and glutamine. Because Im drinking 4 of these drinks I don’t bother with adding glutamine or bcaa as an intra workout drink on these days. I know some camps say intra workouts are a waste of time. Some camps say they’re useful. I like to try a blend of both, which is why I operate this way.
I also picked up a new bag of Zing, and some Glucosamine to aid with my ‘clicky joints’ These are supplements I take daily year round, I had ran out and had to re-order! Both are very cheap and I ordered mine at myprotein.
Workouts
Workouts were the same old same old this week. I covered my workout split in the training log intro post, so go check that out for more information. The only thing that has changed is the amount of cardio im doing. Saturday I trained in the morning, so I did cardio immediately after weights. Sunday I woke up way early , at 6.30 so just had some bcaa and scrambled eggs while waiting for the gym to open at 9 to do some cardio and twists.
#Phaggot?
I’ve not been using twitter for very long, but I had a good laugh on Friday night from it. Muscle Foods had a competition running in which you had to tweet your meat, a picture of your biceps. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I actually picked up quite a few new followers from it, but then this one guy posted…..
To be honest I have no idea why he felt the need to post, but needless to say it turned into a whole lot of fun. You can check out the entire rant, over on my twitter account – @shreddybrekgym. It was lolz. Speaking of which my twitter followers are growing quite nicely, so if you want to follow me please do so !
Wrapping Up
That’s this week of my NABBA North Britain 2014 Training Journal wrapped up guys. Im pleased with how things are going so far, and seeing the improvements now taking shape is motivating me to want to stay lean year round this year, as opposed to getting fat as fuarq after the show. I was feeling really fatigued Sunday afternoon, and couldn’t be bothered to do anything. I fell asleep on the afternoon for about an hour or so and this sorted me right out. Remember to get those ZZZ’s in guys.
Outside of training I went and saw the new 300 film, which was pretty good, although my spartan highlight of the week was my interview with Gabe Tuft. Former WWE Superstar Tyler Reks. I was able to interview Tyler Reks about life in wwe, life after WWE and his new Body Spartan fitness website. As a massive wrestling mark, this was a great experience for me. I also posted a great interview with The Diet Kitchen and an interview with the dynamic duo.
I recently subscribed to Ben Pakulski’s Youtube Channel, which has been getting me through my morning cardio sessions. Great insights from a top level pro bodybuilder. I highly recommend you check his channel out and subscribe. I also posted a My Protein Creatine Monohydrate Review, and explained the bullshit that goes into marketing bulk powders. Don’t get caught up in it! I’ve also been reading a ton of threads over at UK Muscle about people who have set their own gyms up. Definitely motivating, as that’s what I want to do eventually.
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