Future Goals, Aims, Supplements…

I have a few things that I would like to accomplish over the next few years. I know that writing them down here is just talking about it and not actually doing it, but I find that if I type something on my blog and keep it private until I’ve thought about it, then I am usually quite interested or intrigued with what is going around in my head. Therefore making it public and then working towards my goals.

What I plan to accomplish and why I want to do it;

  • Compete as a natural bodybuilder – If it’s my own personal goal, then I can compete at whatever package I want to compete with. If I come last, I really don’t care! If I get up on the stage then I have already accomplished more than sitting at home thinking about competing. I hope to do what I already enjoy doing for the next few years and see where it leads me.

 

  • Help others – I’ve realised just how rewarding it is to help others. It’s difficult getting into a position that allows you to help others at my level, but it’s not just about bodybuilding that ‘helping others’ can be beneficial. Creating opportunities that allows me to help others is extremely rewarding, even if it is just typing on here and someone seeing it and finds something helpful that they can take away with them and do something positive with. I also find that going beyond bodybuilding and using this in everyday life is just as rewarding.

 

  • Enjoy the sport – I can list several things that I love about this sport. The ones I can’t list are the things I feel emotionally and passionately within the sport. Bodybuilding is very hard to explain to people that don’t understand it. They jump straight to the negatives which they use as an excuse to not experience the benefits from bodybuilding/fitness. It’s a sport that isn’t just about living healthier, having a positive mental state, discipline, pride, passion, goals, looking better, feeling better, it’s also about enjoying the sport.

 

Clearly I want to build muscle over the next year and that’s what I hope to do. Once I get my diet back on track for bulking, I’ll be happy. I have the problem at the moment where I’m really struggling with my diet. I knew this would happen as it’s very hard to maintain the level of discipline that I had during my cut. On the other hand, I don’t need to keep the level of discipline either. I want to be a dad that can eat an ice cream with my kids and take them out for a meal as a family. I love eating food, junk food! I haven’t got a bad diet at the moment, I just haven’t been able to prepare my meals as much as I would have liked to, due to all the travelling over the last 2 weeks(which is not a bad thing at all). I have a close eye on my body and I will soon have my bulking diet back on track by mid week. (Today would have been a great diet if I didn’t have an ice cream, I can’t kick myself for that though)

Bulking – this is going to be my first year that I can actually put on fat to bulk. All the previous years have been bulking fat on top of fat. I hope to stay bellow 12 stone for the next 3 months and see where it leads me. My metabolism has increased a massive amount since I started to eat more food. I just need to stick to a good diet with bits of junk thrown in. I will not eat junk food to use as a bulking aid.

I have a great supplement stack at the moment which allows me to take advantage of my bodies capabilities on a mental and physical level.

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  • Using NoxPump before a workout gives me a serious motivational buzz and a crazy pump/blood flow.
  • GHBlast gives me such a deep sleep that I wake up feeling like I have been asleep for days.
  • Formass is excellent for post workout due to the simple carbs allowing the body to absorb the protein/carbs more quickly.
  • DYnamino is what I use during my workout. This is a formula that I can drink during the workout which helps reduce fatigue and keeps the muscles strong during the workout. It also helps with my recovery times.
  • Tempro is a high quality protein that contains 7 types of protein with different release times. I like to have this with my breakfast, before training or before bed. If I need one in the day, I will have one.
  • Creagen is a time released creatine that is an excellent addition to my stack. This helps me with recovery and gives me an increase in strength.

(Be careful with these supplements though as they are very potent and you don’t need more than what’s recommended)

I don’t use BlackBombs at the moment as I really want to bulk and that stuff just burns away the fat. This is not what I want at the just now, as I just want to try and put some fat on to help me with energy and build some muscle.

Granted that this looks more like an advertising page for products, but if you look through my blog you will see that I have had these products before, along with many others that I have tried. I have now settled on what works for me and that’s what I’m showing you here. I also like to make note of what I’m using so that I can go back to what I know helps me.

 

My main focus points at the moment are my traps and lat spread. I will work everything else just as hard, but I have now created a better routine to help me build the parts I feel I need to improve on the most at this moment in time. Every month I will monitor my progress and see where I am.

 

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New Goals…

In short –

Personal goal.

  • I want to build muscle all over and I want to build more width to my back and thickness to my traps. (I am in the process of this and have the facilities at the new gym to make it safer) I will go more into detail in another post for this…

Other goal

  • Inspire others and help them reach their goals.

 

In Long –

My goal has always been to build muscle and drop the body fat. I love the gym, I love the satisfying pain, the way the gym opens my mind, the focus I only get in the gym, the loud music and the anger that is released upon those weights.

The problem that I have always had is my excess fat. I was on a losing battle of trying to bulk when I was already carrying a very excessive amount of body fat for how I want to look. (I couldn’t see this at the time) I already have my plans for the next year and I will share them here. I find opening up like this on my blog is a great way to monitor my progress and to show others how I am adapting mentally and physically to reach my goals.

Without doing any calculations or anything scientific, I predict from my own experience that adding 100g of brown rice boiled or 100g of sweet potato steamed to each meal I have, I will get around 130g of carbs extra per day. I will also add an extra 20-50g of oats in the morning and this will put my total up to 150g of carbs extra per day without doing anything crazy. After measuring my food for a couple of months, I can now look at food and give a rough estimate of how big the portion is and what nutrients come from it.

When I first started to weigh my meal portions a short while ago, I discovered how much extra food I was eating and simply didn’t realise. When I cut my oats down to 100g, I realised that I was dropping my oats by more than half. I used to think I was having adequate portions, but I was actually underestimating just how much I was really eating. (Maybe you should try it as you may be able to cut your calories down by half or even raise your calories from just weighing your foods, depending on your goals)

Basically my diet is going to be on a maintenance level now until the 1st of June and then I am going to slowly increase my food intake and monitor myself every fortnight to check and see how my body is changing. I really want to take this seriously, but I also want to educate myself along the way so I can pass the information on to others and help others. I  need to understand what I am doing as well as actually doing it.

It is very easy to look at words and listen to information, but understanding it and using it is different. For 2 years I though I was doing everything right, until I stood outside my body and actually watched myself. I did this by simply recording myself and playing it back. I have learnt so much from doing this and I will continue to do it randomly forever. Nutrition is the most important factor for this sport and general health (In my opinion) It has took me years to adapt to what I have now, little things over time have finally allowed me to have a diet that I didn’t even knew existed a few years ago. Knowledge is the key!

Dropping my carbs quite low through this cut has been extremely difficult energy wise. My theory is that if I can up my carbs by 100g-200g per day to start and monitor myself, I really do think that I can raise my metabolism, raise my motivation and therefore burn off more calories, leading to more fat loss, bringing me equal to where my diet has been during this cut.

I started this cut to see if I could give it 100% focus and nothing less. I would not use the above theory as I wanted to put my body through the hardest times I possibly could, just so I know what would happen during these times. Would I snack? Would I lose focus? How was I mentally? and so on. I passed every single test that I wanted to put myself through. I know it sounds silly, but I want to know what I could sacrifice if I really needed to… And we did sacrifice a hell of a lot of things…

Here’s my own calculations that I will be using for the near future and a basic diet plan of how I will be doing it… (Everything here is a very simple baseline for my bodyweight and goals. I will alter it accordingly) 

Weight 158.2lb x 15 = 2370 BMR
158 x 1.2 = 190g protein
190g x 4 = 758 calories
Fat = 2370 / 20% = 474calories
474 / 9 = 52g fat
Carbs = 758 + 474 = 1232
1232 / 4 = 308 carbs per day

Protein

  • 190g

Fat

  • 52g

Carbs

  • 308g

Across 7 meals

  • 23g protein per meal
  • 7g fat per meal
  • 44g carbs per meal

How I worked it out…


 

My basic meal plan for today… (Don’t read into this as it’s just a foundation)

food daiary
This is extremely relaxed for what I have been doing. I can easily stick to something like this 365 days of the year. 4 months ago this would have been classed as a very strict diet, as I sit here today, this feels like party food and I don’t think I can eat all this today.

My daily macros are just about right in this meal plan for what I have set out to do. I will keep it relaxed like this for 2 weeks and then I will assess my findings and alter accordingly.

 

I WILL NOT SIT THERE EATING JUNK FOOD THINKING I’M ALLOWED TO… I HAVE GOALS AND DREAMS TO ACCOMPLISH. I DO NOT DESERVE A TREAT… I AM THE ONE THAT WANTS ‘IT’!

 

The Bit Around The Belly

I’m sure I’m not the only one that has the issue with a mound of stuborn fat around the belly area, but I don’t like it and want it gone.

I have gone from around the 40″ Jean size to a comfy 34″ Jean. The only issue I now have is this big tyre of fat that is very noticeable when I sit down. When I stand it is clearly visible but much less pronounced as it is stretched and not squashed up.

Research and practice shows me that I can only lose body fat from the whole of my body and I cannot spot reduce fat from specific areas. The obvious thing to do is cut back on the calories and do more cardio. This will then create the problem of over training or under eating, leading to muscle/strength loss if I ain’t careful. (I did a crash diet, high cardio a few month ago and it made me ill)

The option I am left with is quite obvious. I will continue my already good diet whilst carrying out light cardio exercise such as walking and every day work. I will continue to build muscle which will higher my metabolism slightly and help remove a bit more fat. I will keep this up till at least spring 2014 and I will have a good toned abdominal area.

Carrying out exercises for the midsection when chubby will be great when you lose the fat,as your muscles will be bursting ready. Don’t feel that you can’t do abdominal exercises until you have lost the fat, think ahead and be ready to show those abs.

Set achievable goals…