I'll start off by stating my most immediate goal: place in a natural bodybuilding competition on April 24th. Yep, that's right, I'm going in that direction right now. Small and weak. Just kidding! But I am doing alot of cardio and conditioning in preparation for the show. However, I still lift hard and heavy 4 days per week. For my main lifts I use the 5-3-1 protocol that I've touted basically since the day I started. Just because I'm cutting weight doesn't mean I want to get weaker, so hitting the main lifts heavy every week preserves that strength and muscle even while dieting.
Which brings me to the diet that I use. Currently I'm using the carb cycling approach and with great results. I've used it in the past(also with good results), and so far it's proving to be very effective. This approach utilizes high, medium, and low carb days to manipulate insulin in order to shed fat and preserve as much lean muscle as possible. I would not necessarily suggest that everyone use it all of the time. Certain persons in certain situations will benefit greatly from it, but it takes alot of commitment and time to pull it off. There's other much easier ways that casual dieters or lifters could use to put on muscle and/or shed fat. Carb cycling is working great for now, and hopefully it will continue to do so for the next 8.5 weeks until the competition.
As far as cardio and conditioning go, I use both high-intensity and low-intensity exercise. For the high-intensity work, I'll hit the Prowler, barbell complexes, KB complexes, circuits, and jump rope (hmm sounds familiar, like maybe a previous post...). For the slow, longer duration work, I walk on the stepmill on an empty stomach in the mornings.
This machine actually kicks some ass; much harder than just incline walking on a treadmill, and recumbent bikes are very uncomfortable for me. As of right now, I'm doing 45 minutes on the stepmill 6 days per week, but as the show nears, that will increase. The high intensity work I hit 3 or 4 days per week.
Once this show is over, my plan basically involves alot of heavy shit and alot of whole milk. ALOT. There's no doubt my strength has decreased a little bit since I've already cut around 20 lbs. But, lost muscle is much easier to get back than putting on new muscle. Come April 25th, I'll be going for both the old and lots of new muscle. I'll also make sure to post pictures from the competition.
I've posted this to give you, the readers, some insight into my current training and diet. I would not advise anyone to copy this and try to do exactly what I am doing because dieting is a very individualized process. Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments section. If you'd like me to set up an individualized diet and/or training program for you, contact me at any of the options listed in yesterday's post. Go lift some real heavy shit and make sure to drink enough milk for the both of us!
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