Days 15 - 21 & self-harming

Another catch up post today, covering days 15-21 (24th – 30th September). Warning -  goes completely off topic but for good reason, the program has been temporarily shelved………….

Self-Harming 
I had come back from Jakarta in a terrible state. What I hadn’t mentioned before now was that I have allergies and Eczema that at times, would bring Chuck Norris to tears. I also didn’t mention that throughout last week, my eczema had begun to flare. Throughout the years I have been to numerous doctors and to put it bluntly every single one of them has been as much use as a chocolate fucking teapot. The immediate answer is either oral steroids or steroid creams. Both of these can fuck you up if overused and neither of them truly deal with the problem. I don’t profess to have the answers that the doctors cannot give but I know one thing, eczema is not simply a condition of the skin, it is an autoimmune condition whose origins lie within. I am 100% convinced that the main cause of my eczema flares is something in my diet.

Well from here on, I’ve decided to add another ‘goal’ to my journey, to find out what the fuck it is that is making my body fucking attack itself, more or less cure myself of my eczema. I am keeping a food diary so here is my chance……………..

Even worse than Winehouse.

After messing my skin up so bad and completely fucking my program up Saturday night / Sunday, I decided the best way to get things back to normal would be to do an extended fast. By doing this it means I don’t run the risk of eating the suspect food again and fasting also can promote/accelerate various healing processes. So from around 19:15 Sunday night (14th day) I fasted. As far as the blog is concerned, we may as well fast forward a few days as there is not much to tell. Adding to the fact that I wasn’t eating anything, there was also no possibility of me going the gym. Anybody that has suffered with eczema will know that sweating is a big no-no. The plan for the week was to fast, and then eat well restricting it to non-suspect foods. I figured I’d give the ‘Power Chowder’ (from the 'Ripped to Shreds' program) a whirl as it would give me plenty of clean nutrient laden food. I had trouble getting some of the ingredients so I had to improvise with some typical Vietnamese greens. Other than that, the gym was out of the question so early nights were the order of the day (week).

No Avocado and too much beetroot meant my chowder looked absolutely shite-all like this.

But like this!

Day 16
So the fast lasted till around 18:15 Tuesday evening (16th day). It wasn’t too bad to be honest as I felt pretty sick so was off food anyway. Any of the benefits of fasting hadn’t begun to show as I still felt like absolute shit. I had patches of eczema all over and the skin on my face was really inflamed. My hands were painfully dry and had cuts all over them. The state of the skin under my eyes made me look like I was a fucking 82 year old lizard. Only food consumed was the power chowder in soup form with plenty of cooked chicken followed by some home made chocolate truffles (I’ll post the recipe, but coconut oil and cocoa both have healing antioxidant properties). Early night, roll-on day 17………….

Day 17 
Didn’t ‘roll-on’ it fucking rolled over me! Skin was worse again even after a 2 day fast and eating so cleanly. Completely stumped I went to the hospital just so they could do the usual bullshit and prescribe me some steroids to fuck my adrenal glands up further. It was really pissing me off so I spent half of the afternoon on the internet looking for possible causes. I’d had no dairy, wheat, nuts, eggs, seafood, tomatoes, caffeine, alcohol………………..All I’d had was some vegetables (mainly green plus beetroot) plus a load of coconut oil and cocoa sweetened with only xylitol and stevia plus chicken. Racking my brains and trawling the net and then I stumbled upon something I had read before but years earlier that I completely dismissed. If you follow the principles of the Blood Type Diet then it provides each blood type with a list of foods that they must avoid. My blood type is B and top of the ‘avoid’ list is chicken believe it or fucking not! If you look back at my posts from days 8-14 you will see that I was eating plenty of chicken plus my skin is even worse today and I had a load of chicken yesterday, could this be the answer? I’ll be honest it seems like a long shot but worth a try, I’m a little sceptical over the blood type diet, find it hard to believe that a person’s blood type can make them sensitive or intolerant to specific foods but I don’t have another answer at the moment so this is what I’m clinging to. So from day 17, chicken was added to the suspect list, prime fucking suspect.  

Day 18 
Was a big improvement. I mean by most people’s standards my skin was in a shit state, red, itchy, inflamed and drier than a nun’s chuff but to me it felt so much better. The dryness is a good sign and is easily dealt with by moisturising over and over. All suspects completely off the menu.

Day 19 
Better again, skin definitely on the mend and no longer look like a hungover lizard with a skin condition.

Day 20 
Well on the mend, decided to get back to the gym and also to reintroduce a couple of the suspects, wheat and caffeine. Ate plenty of bread and had my supplements pre-workout.

TORTURE TIME
AM
Squats 
122kg x 5 (not perfect or full depth)
102kg x 6 (full, 6 definitely enough)
Deads
132kg x 3
152kg x 5
132kg x 8
Shrugs (w/straps, forgot chalk)
120kg x 7
100kg x 9

This workout was a bit of an experiment to be honest. One of the benefits of eating a diet high in coconut oil (the truffles the last few days) is that it encourages the body to start burning fat for energy and increasing ketosis. After 2 days of fasting followed by 3 days low carb I was definitely in a ketogenic state (and scales were showing it). So I wanted to see what this would do to my heavy workout. Well as you can see by the numbers above, it did nothing positive. I was weaker across the board and ended up cutting my volume right down.

On the feasting side, today was a refeed day and I wanted to check out my theory that chicken was to blame. I wasn’t brave enough to add the chicken back in yet but I wanted to reintroduce the other suspects in order to rule them out. So as I mentioned before, I added wheat and caffeine back in. I never do things by halves and was pretty confident that wheat was not the cause (I had eaten no wheat for the whole week in Jakarta) so I had plenty of wheat just to be sure.  

Day 21
Family day today, no gym and out for lunch, just attempted to keep the cals down. Back to the program tomorrow. Was a bit pissed off as my skin had started to get a bit angry again. It’s nothing like it was but patches are appearing again. I am still holding onto the chicken theory but have come to the conclusion that there are a few things and wheat is probably one of the others. Will cut the wheat out for the foreseeable future, shouldn’t be too hard if low-carbing anyways. In reality I probably got a bit impatient and experimented with the wheat a little earlier than I should have (impatient tit). I was on the mend but not 100%. So the plan for now is to be low-carb, wheat & chicken free, see how I get on……

Days 11-14

Catch up post today, covering days 11-14 (20th – 23rd September).  

SUPPS (all days provided working out)
Pre-workout 
Amino drink (containing BCAAs, caffeine, Taurine and a bunch of useless shit)
Glutamine ± 5g
Creatine ± 5g
BCAA ± 5g
HMB (new one for me as just got from the UK) ± 2g
Arginine EE ± 2g
Post workout
Muscle-Pharm Combat Powder Scoop

Throughout day
Fish Oil x 20g (±1g for every % bodyfat)
Multivit
Antioxidants
± 5g vitamin C

Day 11
TORTURE TIME  
AM

The effect of running in Jakarta
for 10 mins a day

Early morning interval sprints have been canned for a few days, state of my eyes has put me off running outside and I hate running on the treadmill (especially intervals). Shit excuses I know but they’re all I’ve got. 

PM
Tabata workout – Same protocol just different moves, went well.

This is where my morning runs would take place in Vung Tau, Vietnam.
Place was boring as shit but at least the air was clean!

FEASTING (WITHOUT THE ‘E’)
Lunch - Japanese resto I go to was closed (election day in Jakarta) so I had to go the Chinese restaurant instead. Wasn’t as clean and harder to estimate but I had a go. If I’d have known in advance I’d have just got espresso’d up to the eyeballs and fasted till the evening.
Dinner – Chicken salad and seared salmon NYOM.
Snacks – some ham and some crispy salmon skin (like a bag of crisps but zilch carbos booyakasha!)

Day 12
TORTURE TIME  
Rest day

FEASTING (WITHOUT THE ‘E’)
Lunch – Back to the Japanese, banging.
Dinner – Indian takeaway, protein only.
Snacks – The salmon skin & some cheeeeeeze

Day 13 (Disasters Eve) 
TORTURE TIME  
Wasn’t sure how this morning’s gym session would pan out. Today is a refeed day so I’m doing a heavy workout, the kind I love. But I’ve been low carb for 5 days prior to the workout so definitely carb depleted and in a ketogenic state. I had a choice of just going the gym early, fasted or trying to get a few carbs in my system beforehand. I chose the latter, getting some fruit and a protein shake inside me about 90 mins before working out. The workout went like this:
Squats 
130kg x 6 (not perfect or full depth)
110kg x 6 (full, 6 definitely enough)
Deads
140kg x 7
120kg x 10
80kg x 13
Shrugs (w/straps, forgot chalk)  
120kg x 6
100kg x 9
Seated Calf Raise (on plate loaded hammer strength leg press)  
Warm-up 
200kg x 12
300kg x 6
Drop-sets
400kg x 6
350kg x 5
300kg x 6
250kg x 6
150kg x 11
100kg x 16
50kg x 22

As you can see, was weaker in this workout than the few previous. I put it down to the low-carb this week. Not bothered by it as these workouts are just to ‘keep my hand-in’. My hope is to get one of these heavy workouts in around once a week.  

FEASTING (WITHOUT THE ‘E’)
Lunch, postworkout - Chicken fried rice, home cooked
After that I stopped counting, it was my Dad’s birthday plus it was a refeed day. We went out for a meal, couple of beers, nothing too drastic. The problem is it didn’t stop there. My team were playing and my Dad fancied going out to watch it. So we went to the local boozer and I proceeded to do around 2/3 of a bottle of vodka in. Had a great time doing it but my word did it fuck me up, in more ways than one.

Day 14 (Disaster Day)  
Today was mainly spent travelling back from Jakarta to Saigon. Had planned  to fast as long as possible, not easy when hungover. Anyways, was on the 1st flight, went the toilet and when I came back they had served breakfast. The dutiful Wife decided she didn’t want anything but was undecided as to what to choose for me (I had planned nothing) so she got one of each. The ‘hangover from hell’ told me to eat both of them and he would fuck off, so I did but he didn't. When we got to KL airport I had a bowl of noodles and then had a big meal delivered when we got back home. We still had some birthday cake left from the Wife’s birthday and I had a big slice of that too. I made the fucking thing and I know the macros were not pretty. Estimated cals for the day ~5,000!  

Needless to say I didn’t do my weigh-in, what a silly fat bastard who has gone and fucked things up. 

Days 9 & 10

Days 9 & 10, not too much to tell, back on the program…………..

SUPPS
Pre-workout
Amino drink (containing BCAAs, caffeine, Taurine and a bunch of useless shit)
Glutamine ± 5g
Creatine ± 5g
BCAA ± 5g
HMB (new one for me as just got from the UK) ± 2g
Arginine EE ± 2g
Post workout
Muscle-Pharm Combat Powder Scoop

Throughout day
Fish Oil x 20g (±1g for every % bodyfat)
Multivit
Antioxidants
± 5/10g vitamin C

TORTURE TIME
AM
Early morning interval sprints. Office hours are 7am-4pm in Jakarta (to try and beat the main rush) so have to get up at 6am if want to run. Decided to take the opportunity to run outside while here. It’s not possible in Saigon as they all get up before 6am, I live nowhere near a park and the roads are death traps to sprinting chubby white people. In Jakarta the apartment is in an area that is a little secluded from the traffic so running outside works well. The only downside is that the area isn’t secluded from the fucking pollution. After two days sprinting outside (just 10 mins at a time) I’ve got eyes like the late George Best on a Sunday morning……...in the 1970s, nice.

PM
Tabata workout – Same protocol just different moves due to it being a different gym (with a barbell)

Day 9
Barbell Upright Row
Barbell Back Squat
Deadlift
Lat. Pulldown (Cable Machine)
Bent Over Row
Barbell Bicep Curls
Reverse Barbell Curls (as an additional finisher)

Day 10
Dumbbell Bench Press
Dumbbell Pullover
Dumbbell Chest Fly
Tricep Extension
Crunches (decline bench)
Leg Extension (Machine)

Workouts felt pretty decent tbh, admittedly the choice of moves has been a bit haphazard and random. Need to improve this to make sure I’m not overtraining anything on consecutive days. Will be easier when back in Nam and I can perfect the workouts to improve the split.

Update (realised on Day 11): I was taking another look at the Ripped to Shreds book and realise that I have fucked up a bit. The Evening Tabata workouts are meant to be performed for 8 sets per move when I have been performing only 6. What a dickhead, 8 sets of each move tonight it is.

FEASTING (WITHOUT THE ‘E’)
Day's food pretty similar on both days, salmon salad and sashimi in the Japanese restaurant near the office both days for lunch. Evening meal was baby spinach salad, day 9 was with the leftover Indian meat (Tandoori), day 10 was some Salmon Fillet. Lovely, both days. Had overdone it on the fat on day 10 and was still well below my protein so I had to have a shake later to bump it up. This bumped my cals up also but 3,685 cals with decent macros from good sources over 2 days is fine by me. Did a test to see whether I was in ketosis or not the evening of Day 10, trace amounts of Ketones present, again Happy Days!

Weigh-in update
My thoughts regarding the dodgy weigh-in on Sunday were well founded. Been weighed a few times since getting to Jakarta and seem to be hovering above the 92kg mark. I’ll take a +2kg loss while seeming to gain strength as well.

Day 8

Today had disaster written all over it. We (me, Wife & Duck) were on an 8:35am flight to Jakarta for a business trip. Journey was two flights in all, arriving around 3:40pm. Plan was to get settled and perform the Tabata workout in the Evening. On the food side, plan was to fast until around 12-1pm and then break it with what I had prepared, some low fat sausages and some cooked meats, all well and good so far. Well as the age-old saying goes “the best laid plans of mice and men inevitably end up getting fucked up”. The first flight was cancelled due to a technical fault. Thankfully as we had Duck with us we were given priority for getting on the next flight which was at 1:25pm. Anyway we obviously missed our connection, rebooked on another flight and instead of landing at 3:40pm (pre-rush hour) we landed at 8:00pm. FYI rush hour in Jakarta can last till 10pm. Whoever designed the road system and were responsible for the infrastructure needs hanging up by their fucking ears and their pubes set alight, worst traffic in the world. Anyway by the time we got to the apartment it was gone 9pm. 

Needless to say, after a monster journey and having to unpack and get the baby to bed, the Tabata workout was swerved. On the food side, the packed lunch was demolished around 1pm and I spent half of the remainder of the day looking for low-carb/hig protein foods from in and around the airport. A bag of sunflower seeds and a bag of soy nuts was all I could muster. As hard as I tried there was no way I was staying as low-carb as I’d have liked. 

The day finished off on a high, ordered an abundance of tandoor items from a local Indian restaurant. This bumped the protein up without doing too much damage to the carbs for the day.  Under the circumstances, I’m pretty pleased with how my stats looked.

Anyway, water on the bridge, tomorrow I carry on with the program

Mission for this week – to find a decent source of testosterone boosting Tongkat Ali while I’m here. This here country is where the stuff is made , known as Pasak Bumi, watch this space........

Day 7

Oh the stress of it!

Bit of a dilemma today as had organised (months ago) to go to some weird-ass theme park with my old driver and his family. I know it seems a bit early in the program to be making excuses but this wasn’t your run of the mill outing with friends, Vietnam is different. Through a mixture of respect and being polite, there was no possibility of me preparing something ahead of time for myself. It was going to be a bit of improvisation, hope for the best, try not to go overboard but make sure I don’t offend anybody. One thing was for sure; the low-carb program was out of the question. This wasn’t ideal on the 1st week of the program but it couldn’t be helped, it was a promise we made a few months back when we relocated back to Saigon and with the language barrier (his English isn’t great but it’s miles better than my Vietnamese) and the difference in culture there was no explaining my ‘program’ to him. Anyways, it didn’t go too bad; they had prepared a load of lovely fresh fruit for us to eat in the park, then we had a bit of ice cream and then they took us to a roasted meat & rice restaurant before dropping us back. Nice day and damage wasn’t too bad.

They ended up dropping us back home earlier than planned so I had a think about the week ahead. Decided to take advantage of the extra calories and the refilled glycogen stores and do a heavy workout tonight (25 minute Tabata wasn’t going to cut the mustard). Then the plan was to go back on the R2S (Ripped to Shreds) low carb program plus intermittent fasting. On the exercise side, back to the early morning interval sprints and evening Tabata workouts, back to the fat burning.

Get tae' fuck belly

SUPPS
Pre-workout 
Amino drink (containing BCAAs, caffeine, Taurine and a bunch of useless shit)
MusclePharm Assault (had a scoop left so thought I’d swallee it)
Glutamine ± 5g
Creatine ± 5g
BCAA ± 5g
HMB (new one for me as just got from the UK) ± 2g
Arginine EE ± 2g
Post workout
MusclePharm Combat Powder - Scoop
Glutamine ± 5g
Creatine ± 5g

Fish Oil x 20g (±1g for every % bodyfat)
Multivit
Antioxidants
± 5/10g vitamin C

TORTURE TIME
Back Squat
132kg x 5 – Personal Best
112kg x 7 – Nice and low
92kg x 9 –  Ass to grass

Barbell Deadlift
130kg x 4 – warm-up
162kg x 5 – Another PB WTF??
140kg x 7 – Nice finisher

Barbell Shrugs 
102kg x 6 - no straps, grip failed
72kg x 12

Seated Calf Raise (plate loaded)
90kg x 8 – warm up followed by semi-dropsets (rest between sets = the time it took to drop a plate off)
90kg x 12
75kg x 14
60kg x 16
45kg x 18
30kg x 50

Well what a fucking surprise this workout was. Felt strong as an ox. I put it down to the refeed day on Friday after a heavy workout, followed by a day of clean nutritious food and then plenty of calories today.

Nailed it!

FEASTING (without the E)
Mentioned my food earlier up until the workout. Planned to just get plenty of carbs and keep my calories sub 3000. Main event was chicken fried rice (my own) details below:

TALE OF THE TAPE
As flying early tomorrow, decided to have the weigh in today, which ended up being a bit of a bad move in some respects:

Weight – 95.1kg (up 0.1kg)
Waist – 102.0cm (down 2.5cm)

I haven’t got disheartened over the weight tbh as it was one weigh in and the results were definitely skewed. You see I weigh myself most days, whenever the opportunity presents itself under the right conditions (preferably fasted, well hydrated with little water retention). I had been hovering between 92-93kg since around Thursday. Since then I’d done two things, replenished my glycogen stores and more significantly, ate a shitload of salt yesterday (cooked meats and roasted veg in particular). So in hindsight, the conditions were poor and I’m confident that in a day or so I’ll be back around the 92-92.5kg range.

Day 6

Rest day today so nothing much to tell!

SUPPS

Fish Oil x 20g (±1g for every % bodyfat)

Multivit

Antioxidants

± 5/10g vitamin C

NO TORTURE TIME

FEASTING (without the E)

Strategy today relatively relaxed but with a few rules, firstly to get a decent amount of protein (say 1g for every lb bw). Secondly, keep the cals sub 2000. Thirdly get as much good clean veg into my body (sort of like a ‘nutrient’ refeed). Was working in the morning then out around Saigon with the Wife and Duck. Stopped at a deli that have a quality salad bar so tried to put them out of business, failed but still piled the plate high twice. This was my breaking the fast meal around 2:30pm. Evening meal was some LF sausages and a load of roasted veg with some ciabatta. Snack was some dried beef. Eating window was about 6 hours, happy days.

Cheesecake Recipe

If you do it right it will make you cry (happy tears)

I’d been requested to post the step-by-step details for my cheesecake so here goes:

Ingredients:
670g Philadelphia fat-free cream cheese
115g Whey Protein (I used MyProtein True Whey Toffee-Fudge
120ml Fresh milk (water would work or another type of milk) 
2 no. Whole egg
Tbsp Vanilla Extract 
40g Xylitol
¼ tsp Salt

1. Cream cheese into a mixing bowl and mix up (best using an electric whisk/mixer) until creamy
2. Add ½ of the milk and slowly add the whey while continuing to mix, adding the rest of the milk as you add the whey. Scrape down the sides of the bowl
3. Add the vanilla, salt and xylitol and mix again
4. Taste the mix. It should taste like sex on a spoon. If it doesn’t then you’ve fucked up or possibly just don’t like sex. If it needs a little more sweetness then add a touch more xylitol (go easy as too much of that stuff can make you shit yourself). 
5. Pour mix into a cake tin, I use a 9” springform and put it in a water bath* in a preheated oven at around 165°C (330°F) for 30 minutes then turn down to around 100°C(210°F) and leave in for about an hour. If you’ve got a thermometer then I believe an internal temp of 70°C(155°F) means it’s cooked. I don’t have one but just keep checking about 15 minutes before the time is up.

• A water bath is just what it sounds like, place the cake tin inside a pan/pyrex with water in up to ½-1” from the top. This helps it to cook evenly. I learnt the hard way one time, forgot the water bath. The inside was lovely and gooey but the outside was as dry as a nuns chuff.

Macros again for the whole cake:

You can be as creative as you like, top with fruit, protein fluff, nutella. Digestive biscuits can form a decent base as well..........  

Day 5

Refeed day whoop de whoop de fucking WHOOP!!

SUPPS
Pre-workout
Amino drink (containing BCAAs, caffeine, Taurine and a bunch of useless shit)
MusclePharm Assault (had a scoop left so thought I’d swallee it)
Glutamine ± 5g
Creatine ± 5g
BCAA ± 5g
HMB (new one for me as just got from the UK) ± 2g
Arginine EE ± 2g
Post workout
MusclePharm Combat Powder - Scoop
Glutamine ± 5g
Creatine ± 5g

Throughout day (randomly when I remember but usually around meals)
Fish Oil x 20g (±1g for every % bodyfat)
Multivit
Antioxidants
± 5/10g vitamin C

TORTURE TIME
AM
As planned, today was a heavy workout to take advantage of the refeed day. I had originally planned on going in the night but with being busy in work and trying to train each night, time with the fambo has been just marginally more than fuck all. So tonight I’m having a night in with the missus. Anyways, got up at 5:45am, walked into the bathroom door (seriously, it’s made of fucking glass! This is the 3rd time I’ve done it but the 1st time sober). I gets myself ready and taxis to the gym (yes ‘taxis’, just like an airplane as after downing all the supps mentioned above, I will be ‘taking off’). Walks in and half a dozen dudes are in there, everybody turns and looks at the white dude (par for the course here). Anyway, nobody is using MY rack so I am good to go. I’m looking forward to the workout but unsurprisingly I don’t feel as fresh or as strong as Monday (when I hadn’t trained for a week and had eaten like a beast the day before). So the workout went a little something like this:

Back Squat
130kg x 5 – I’d like to call this a PB but unless the form is perfect I won’t claim it. In reality a few of the reps were a few inches shy of full depth. Will try again next week, if don’t get next week I’ll put it down to the calorie deficit and bring it back to 125kg and just maintain till I am ass-to-grass squatting at that weight
110kg x 7 – better
90kg x 9 – felt good, ass to grass

Barbell Deadlift
130kg x 4 – warm-up
166kg x 2 – ignored the noise in my head (that tells me I have F.A chance of making this after being on a low-carb 1000-1250 calorie deficit for 4 days) and still attempted it but it was a dreadful effort.
160kg x 4 – dropped the baby plates from either end but in hindsight it was still too much, head is going back to old ways and beginning to head up my rectum again. Need to pull it back, wipe off the shit and concentrate on ‘maintaining’ not necessarily gaining.
130kg x 7 – more like it

Barbell Shrugs 
100kg x 4
130kg x 6 - with straps
100kg x12 - with straps

Workout felt pretty tough as mentioned earlier plus it didn’t help that I was in a local gym with bathroom facilities somewhat less salubrious than I’m accustomed to (don’t get me wrong I’m no snob but these are nasty). I had things ‘going on’ which weren’t helping my focus at all. Last night I had broken the low-carb regime and anybody that has done a low-carb, high protein diet will know that things don’t always happen like they should………..capiche? (let’s just say the opportunity to drop the kids off at the pool doesn’t come round as often). Anyway, re-introducing carbs and ingesting enough caffeine to make a hippopotamus do the samba can be a recipe for disaster unless near a decent toilet. Anyway, false alarm as I survived and things calmed down.

BTW anybody that tries to tell me I shouldn’t be using straps can go and fuck off onto a busy road. Without the straps I’d maybe manage 100kg unless I had a mixed grip which would not be a good thing to do unless I want traps less symmetrical than Esmerelda’s fucking boyfriend. So the straps go on. Anyway, grip is normally a bit fried after deads.

Didn’t touch my calves as I’ve been interval sprinting for the last 3 days

PM
Lifting the remote control just high enough to get a line of sight with the sensor (no supps)


FEASTING!
Refeed today which I enjoyed rather a fucking lot! Hopefully leptin levels have been reset nicely after today. No fasting today as I had 3200 cals to get through and was breaking my ‘fast’ after the gym around 7:15pm. Below is my food for the day but in summary
Breakfast (PWO) 
Scoop whey
1.5 tubes fruit pastilles (nyom)
Breakfast the Sequel 
Big Wholewheat Bread Bloomer filled chocker block with ham
Lunch
Chicken Fried Rice
Dinner
Chicken salad (just leaves with  zero everything dressing)
½ whole cheesecake with ice cream wawaweewah.
Snacks
Protein Bar
Jackfruit

Yes, you read that right half a whole cheesecake with banging macros! My own creation which I’ve started to perfect, Fanny Craddock has sweet F.A on me.

NYOM!!!!!

Macros to die for

Day 4

Not much to tell today…………….
Today was my 4th day low carb. The book only recommended 3 consecutive days but my first day was a bit of a halfway house (tube of fruit pastilles after the gym at 7am). So today was a bit of improvisation. Tomorrow is my refeed day so I am doing a heavy workout. I took the decision to leave the Tabata workout in the evening to give me a little more recovery for the heavy one tomorrow. I also didn’t think it’d be a good idea doing a heavy workout both fasted and fully carb depleted. So I broke the low carb around 8pm to get some glycogen back in the system.

SUPPS
No workout supps today

Throughout day (randomly when I remember but usually around meals)
Fish Oil x 20g (±1g for every % bodyfat)
Multivit
Antioxidants
± 5/10g vitamin C

TORTURE TIME
AM
Intervals on the treadmill, same deal
PM
Sitting on my arse.

FEASTING!
Doing this blog is starting to take a bit of time so I’m trying to streamline, so including my printout from MyNetDiary. As I mentioned earlier I broke the low-carb protocol around 8pm with some chicken fried rice (home-made), some fruit and a lil’ mini  cheesecake with the mix from the cheesecake I made (will post pic tomorrow). Below is my food for the day but in summary………
Lunch
Omelette filled with cottage cheese
Dinner
Salmon & salad
Supper
Chicken fried rice
Fruit
Mini High protein low fat cheesecake (main ingredients mentioned below, close enough)

Day 3

Day 3, maintaining the program today…….

SUPPS

Pre-workout

Amino drink (containing BCAAs, caffeine, Taurine and a bunch of useless shit)

Glutamine ± 5g

Creatine ± 5g

BCAA ± 5g

HMB (new one for me as just got from the UK) ± 2g

Arginine EE ± 2g

Post workout

Nothing but my final meal

Throughout day (randomly when I remember but usually around meals)

Fish Oil x 20g (±1g for every % bodyfat)

Multivit

Antioxidants

± 5/10g vitamin C

TORTURE TIME

AM

Got up late so had to scratch the intervals until lunchtime. Was a bit pissed off with myself but since coming back from the UK things have been a bit up the wall. Anyways, got them done, 10 mins same deal as yesterday, then broke the fast

PM

Tabata workout – Same protocol as yesterday, just different moves:

- Machine Lat Pulldown, wide pronated grip

- Machine Lat Pulldown, close supinated grip

- Dumbbell Pullover (cross bench)

- Machine Leg Curls

- Dumbbell Bicep Curls (felt weird, haven’t directly trained my biceps for over a year!

- Bent-over Dumbbell Rows

Workout felt a little more sluggish than yesterday but I’d eaten quite a high fat meal about 90 mins before. BY the time it came to the rows, biceps and back felt fried and I definitely struggled a bit.

Downloaded Skrillex’s back catalogue, that helped me through the workout, weird looking dude him though!  

FEASTING (WITHOUT THE ‘E’)

Keep it brief as I need my bed:

Lunch – Protein fluff with ON Vanilla Casein

Snack – Bag salted sunflower seeds (this was an emergency pack in my bag in case I was struggling in work, think my 3^rd day sub 1650 cals while exercising is taking it’s toll BUT tomorrow should be a refeed day, haven’t decided whether I will make it a refeed or carry on with the low-carb for 1 more day as Monday was a halfway house)

Dinner – Plate of belly pork, roasted in the oven

Belly Pork Nyom!

Supper – Red snapper fillet fried in a dash of coconut oil, served with big salad of green with a low-carb balsamic dressing

Cals – 1559

Protein – 161g

Carbs – 16g

Fat – 91g

One thing that has me puzzled is still not seeming to really be in a ketogenic state. I remember when I was doing The Atkins Diet, it would typically take 2 days to get into Ketosis but the pissstrips (Ketostix) are showing barely a trace?? Whappening there??

Day 2

Second day and I’m back on the (book prescribed) track, following the workout principles when practical and the nutrition principles more or less to the letter:

SUPPS

Pre-workout

Amino drink (containing BCAAs, caffeine, Taurine and a bunch of useless shit)

Glutamine ± 5g

Creatine ± 5g

BCAA ± 5g

HMB (new one for me as just got from the UK) ± 2g

Arginine EE ± 2g

Post workout

MusclePharm Combat Powder Scoop

Creatine ± 5g

Glutamine ±5g

(thinking the above is a bit overkill for a 25 minute Tabata workout but I stocked up when back home so will continue with for now

Throughout day (randomly when I remember but usually around meals)

Fish Oil x 20g (±1g for every % bodyfat)

Multivit

Antioxidants

± 5/10g vitamin C

TORTURE TIME

AM

Intervals - Didn’t feel like but I dragged myself out of bed 15minutes early to go and get my intervals in. Was pretty easy to be honest. Don’t get me wrong I was going at full pelt (for me anyway, 20-21km/hour) but it was only 10 minutes, around 8 x 30s intervals with 30s rest. I extended the last few rest periods to 60s for better recovery.

10 minutes seems almost not worth the effort (the book recommends just 6 minutes!) as it can’t be much of a calorie burner (say 100-150cals) so I would imagine the intent is simply to speed up the transition into ketosis or some sort of hormonal response that makes the workout of greater benefit than it appears at first glance.

PM

Tabata workout – This consists of six rounds each of six exercises. A round is just 20s long but at full throttle, maximal effort then taking 10s rest between the rounds, and then you take 60s rest while you move to the next. The book recommends specific exercises but you can only play with the cards that you are dealt and in my case, as nice as the gym is in my apartment block, its a little limited. Anyway the good thing is, the book says it’s fine to use dumbbells, barbells or machine for the Tabata Protocol, obviously as the emphasis is on the fat-burning effects rather than the effect on muscle gain, form, cadence (speed for geeks) etc. (NOTE: I still believe machines are the fucking devil but I will give them a go for this protocol only, my gym doesn’t even have a barbell and only has dumbbells up to 20kg).

It was the first workout so was a bit of a trial regarding the correct weight, bench heights etc. The book recommends the workouts be split like the following:

Day 1 - Chest & Back

Day 2 – Legs & shoulders

Day 3 – Arms & Abs

But for various reasons (I missed Day 1 due to doing the heavy workout instead plus the gym was busy) my workout was a bit of an improvised mashup and looked like this:

Machine Shoulder Press

Machine Chest Fly

Dumbbell Squat Press (these felt wawaweewah)

Machine Chest Press

Machine Leg Extensions

Dumbbell Front Raises (started out as side lateral raise until my traps bitch-slapped me for even asking them to perform the day after a PB on the deadlift and some shrugs)

Workout didn’t feel too bad for the first day attempt and apart from the side raises, felt like good choices the day after a heavy workout.

FEASTING (WITHOUT THE ‘E’)

Followed the fasting principles, opened the window around 12:50pm and closed it around 8:15pm shortly after the gym. Lunch was a bit hectic with a few things to do so just grabbed some smoked ham, roughly 230g and half a low fat sausage that the missus had leftover. I then had nothing until my scoop of Muscle-Pharm whey around 7:00pm. Waited around 30 minutes then I had a beast of a chunk of meat that I’d bought a few days earlier. It was a lovely piece of wild boar from a farm just outside Saigon (ha ha I realise that doesn’t technically qualify as being wild but they’ve recently started farming boar here so happy days). I had it marinating in some balsamic and spices and then the Wife cooked it on a low heat for about 5 hours. It was a piece of PORKY EPICNESS of mammoth proportions. It was a bit like a big chunk of rustic pork with a layer of crispy fat all over it (imagine belly pork that has come from a ‘wild’ truffle hunting muscley fucking super-pig with tusks like an elephant). I’d stripped the rind and roasted that in a separate dish with some paprika and salt. Oh by the way, today was a ‘high fat’ day. Nothing like a bit of fat to boost the old John Thomas fuel (testosterone). Anyways, that was it for the food; totals for the day came to:

Cals – 1579

Protein – 153g

Carbs – 9g

Fat – 105g

Going good, after such a low carb day I sort of expected to see a bit of ketosis using the piss-strips but no sign as of yet. Bring on tomorrow..........

Lift Big Eat Big (from December 3rd)

Day 1

First day and I have fallen by the wayside! No not really, not so much fallen by the wayside, more that I’ve just deviated from the track but there was nothing wrong with the route I took (in my eyes). Yesterday was a bit of a blowout (of which I performed excellently) and I know that I will have filled my glycogen levels to the top, literally to the brim. I knew I had plenty in the tank and an early morning 10 minute* interval session on the treadmill just wasn’t going to cut it. So I vowed to get myself up early and head to an outside gym to do a heavy workout and that is exactly what I did. Got up at 5:30 and drank one of my pre-made mega-mixes of all the shit that you are told to drink by your broscientist buddies. It goes a little something like this:

SUPPS

Pre-workout

Amino drink (containing BCAAs, caffeine, Taurine and a bunch of useless shit)

Glutamine ± 5g

Creatine ± 5g

BCAA ± 5g

HMB (new one for me as just got from the UK) ± 2g

Arginine EE ± 2g

Throughout day (randomly when I remember but usually around meals)

Fish Oil x 20g (±1g for every % bodyfat)

Multivit

Antioxidants

± 5/10g vitamin C

TORTURE TIME

So I jumps in a taxi and 5 minutes later arrive at The Dungeon. This place is far superior to the one in my Apartment building simply because it’s a real gym sawdust on the floor, barefoot type of gaff but at least I can squat and deadlift (I’ll post pics of the two of them when I get a chance, like chalk and cheese.) It’s about 5:50am and the place is dead quiet, good start. So I take possession of the rack (you're my rack now Dave) and start. I won’t bother mentioning my warm-up sets but I typically do 4-5 sets, upping the weight by 10-20kg each time depending on the weight. Rest periods typically 2-3 minutes depending on how I feel. Mainly RPT (Reverse Pyramid Training) style which involves warm-up, work set at top weight then normally two subsequent sets with the weight reduced by 10-20% but the reps upped by ± 2no. Anyways, my workout:

Back Squat

126kg x 5 – Personal best, not surprising as I hadn’t trained for around a week

106kg x 7

86kg x 9

Barbell Deadlift

130kg x 4 - (felt easy so used as a warm-up & upped it to 150kg, then my balls took control and I added another 10kg)

160kg x 5 – Personal Best woo hoo.

130kg x 7

Seated Calf Raise (plate loaded)

105kg x 10

120kg x 6 – then 30s rest

90kg x 8 – then 30s rest

75kg x 12

Barbell Shrugs (with straps) as a finisher

100kg x 6

Well it was a good start to the week for me, felt strong and getting a PB in my squat and following it with a PB for my deads.....enough said, happy as a pig in shit. Not sure if it was the big rest or the new supps but I’m happy with it. All in all it took around 60 minutes, taxi home, babble with the babba, kiss to the wife, shower and work. 

Goodbye LIFT BIG EAT BIG (for now)

It was a good start to the week and the program and now this is my benchmark. Time to now stop stressing over the strength side and focus on getting lean. Realistically, with the calorie deficit and low-carbing, I should not be expecting to gain any strength at all. So my secondary aim on this program is to simply finish it without losing strength. If I don’t gain strength then I don’t give a shit, I’ve plenty of time to do that when I’m a lean motherhubbard. Dean Connor told me this should be my aim months back, to concentrate on getting lean and simply look to maintain what little strength I have. I didn’t really listen to him back then because I am a tit. It was simply because my love for heavy workouts preventing me from listening to his words of wisdom.

FEASTING (WITHOUT THE ‘E’)

I tried to keep the food side brief as I have rambled a bit too much on the workout side (anybody that comes back to read future posts, I promise to keep them shorter and not bore the fuck out of you......again) but epically failed like a right boring bastard. I walked out the gym and within about 30 seconds swallowed a tube of fruit pastilles. If anybody had read my first post (The Story) then they will see that that was not the program. Today was meant to be low-carb. I’m not a retard and know full well that fruit pastilles are not even remotely fucking low-carb but like the workout, this was a fully intended pre-planned deviation from the program. I just don’t think it’s a great idea to do a heavy workout and not take in some carbs afterwards. Once the last fruit pastille had gone down the hatch the program had started, for real this time (apart from the fasting part ha ha). About 10 minutes later I downed a scoop of MusclePharm Cookies and Cream Combat Powder (the business this stuff). I put myself another scoop in my workbag in case I got hungry but to be honest I was fine so didn’t bother. Lunchtime I had about 220g of Chicken breast quickly fried in a dash of coconut oil and then steamed with a bit of soy sauce and xylitol to sweeten it up. Was tasty which was surprising since I left the room just before the liquid had disappeared, promptly burning the fuck out of the bottom of the chicken, the remains of the soy and the pan. Returned to the sound of a ridiculously loud smoke alarm and a pan with smoke billowing out of it. By the time half the population of Saigon had left the apartment, I was left in peace to consume the most carcinogenic breast of chicken ever created. By the way, all this time the Wife was sat on the sofa not 12ft away from the pan. Take note, Facebook trances are incredibly dangerous things under certain circumstances.

For dinner I Cooked around 450g of Tuna Fillet, coated in spices and fried in a good slug of coconut oil and served with just some tartare sauce.

I had a snack after dinner, a bowl with 50g of ON Vanilla casein whipped into a fluff with 25g of BSN Lean Dessert Coconut Candy Bar flavour, whipped into an epic fail of nothing more than sludge (’twas an experiment). Was decent and filled me up enough to go to bed happy.

Protein Yin & Yang

I didn’t follow the Anabolic Fasting principles today but that was due to the early morning workout. My eating window was around 11 hours.

Totals for the day around:

Cals – 1617

Protein – 228g

Carbs – 63g (happy with this seeing as 44g in the fruit pazzys alone)

Fat – 51g

Surprising thing was how I never really felt hungry. This amount of calories is probably around a 1000-1300 deficit for the day. If I can keep it at this sort of a level consistently for just 3 days then have a refeed day (yesssss!!) at a touch over maintenance to reset my leptin levels, then I can really see how this could work. Looking forward to getting into a ketogenic state. I've got a tube full of piss-strips and I ain't afraid to use them (ketostix).  

* the book recommends this to be just six minutes but I can’t bring myself to walk out the gym 6.5 minutes after walking in. I’d have the Vietnamese instructors saying behind my back “no wonder he’s fucking fat!”. Like the extra 4 minutes makes a difference ha ha. By the way ‘intervals’ haven’t made it to Vietnam yet.

Note to self, stop rambling and boring the bejesus out of people. Need to condense these posts otherwise they’ll take far too much time of which I have next to shite all as it is.