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..........