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.