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.