Ooooooook let’s blow the dust off of the cover of this thing and get things up and poppin! I’ve been SOOOOOOO busy as of late, however I prefer being busy and I’m busy doing stuff I love so it’s never a complaint, just a simple observation. Got my new blog site up and running, regularly uploading videos to my YouTube channel, clients are doing amazingly well, one of my girls is about to step on stage ON THE SAME DAY AS ME and she looks STUNNING (she’s doing a different show). My other girls are just killin it on all levels, and it makes me proud!
As for me, prep has been pretty good. There was a moment where I was a little anxious. It came at around that 8-5 or 4 weeks out. I’ve been dieting since January, so at that point, I’d already been about 7-10 weeks into my diet. Personally I prefer to diet long and slow. When I say I’m all natural, I mean 100%. So there’s no fat burners, no stimulants, no anything to accelerate what my body will naturally do to lose fat/weight whatever and keep muscle. I mean the most I’m taking supplementary is protein powder, fish oil, multi-v, creatine, and on occasion BCAA and Glutamine (both only while I’m cutting). There are times that I take SuperPump Max, but I do it for the cocaine fly feeling I get shortly after and can murder the gym. So that’s it. So to be sure that I don’t lose too much muscle in this whole process, I EAT into shows and I take my time with the dieting process. In fact it’s funny up to today, my total weight loss from day 1 of my diet is 5 LBS! Yesterday I could have only claimed 4 lbs, but the increase in my water intake has helped me to flush away some excess water. So the long slow approach has worked best for me, and what I continue to choose to do for the time being.
So midway in, when the scale doesn’t budge, but the visual changes are there, you’ve got to really stay focused on what your task is at hand and not get hung up on things. So I was kinda dealing with that, but kept my eyes on the overall picture. I had lapses here and there. Fell off the wagon for a day, got back on. I’ve drank at least 3-4 whole bottles of wine by myself over the last 13 weeks. NOT in a day or anything, over the course of 13 weeks. Some planned, some were total f-ck it moments. I’m not perfect, and I go through the fire just like everyone else. Either way, I stayed on course and have still arrived exactly where I need to be by this day. Today.
Today I stand at 139.8 lbs. I’m smack dead in the middle of my Time Of Month, but what I love about when I’m around showtime, my periods don’t cause any kind of bloating or crazy ish. The cramping isn’t even as bad as it normally is. My boobs do get bigger though! #winning! (Sorry for any guys reading this, kinda girl talk here, the ladies understand.) I digress. So by the time it ends I’ll probably be down another lb or so. Here are a few shots of me taken yesterday (Sunday April 1st, at 13 days out). I take all of my photos in the brightest light as possible WITH full flash. Because if I can SEE separation in that light, I know on stage I will look the way I need to.
13 Days Out – Sunday
So these photos were taken about 2 days post refeed, and one day after my planned Saturday DIET BREAK DAY! So basically Saturday I ate off plan but not overboard. Had a nice Five Guys burger and fries, had some tuna tar tar and a glass of shiraz, and then finished off the night with air popped popcorn. The rest of the day was clean and loosely on plan. I did that to just kind of reset my mental state before swinging into the rigors of the final 14 days.
Peaking – My Way
So here’s my approach, now this is what I do, you ain’t got to do it, nor agree with it, either way this is simply the way I roll. LOL. It’s what I’ve found works for me and most of the clients I’ve dealt with. So let’s dig in shall we.
The final two weeks of prep for me are all about the stage. It’s always my goal to actually be show ready WEEKS in advance. Maybe with minor tweaks here and there, but before the final 2 weeks, in my opinion, you should be just about stage ready. Takes a lot of stress out of the equation, and allows me to simply focus on presentation in the final weeks. So I like to actually slightly run my peaking strategy starting at two weeks out. The beautiful thing is that it follows in exact suit to how I’ve been dieting up to this point. So my body is actually primed to take on what I’m throwing at it, and does so with ease and in a very predicatable fashion. I like to have very few variables to mess with leading to the stage. So I leave sodium alone, I still season the hell out of my foods – hey I’m black we season E’RRRR THANG. I keep water HIGH. I normally drink a gallon a day. This prep yeah I’m not gonna lie, I barely got it all in and started wanting to down it all with Crystal Light. So I did just to get it in. I’m still here no diseases or death, so whatever. But the final two weeks all that crap is out. This week, the goal is to up water to 1.5 gallons through Thursday, then I drop to a gallon on Friday, then drink whenever the hell I’m thirsty by Sat. Actual peak week, same thing only it’s 2 gallons through Thursday, about 1-1.5 Gallons Friday, then drink whenever I so please Sat. You’d be surprised how THIRSTY you get when you drink that much water. By the way, move into the bathroom, you’ll be on the toilet most of the day. #winning!
Training is dramatically different though. Scott Abel has a great video where he talks about the difference between cosmetic peaking and metabolic peaking. Here for me is where that begins to ring so true. All prep, my focus is on optimizing my metabolism to elicit the changes I want to see physically. Of course that change is to maintain lean mass, lose as much fat as I can for the look I want, and still keep a good level of performance going in the gym. Of course at some point performance suffers a bit, but with the way that I diet it’s not so bad. I mean last week I was still able to hit deads for reps at 250 lbs. This week, yeah probably NOT SO MUCH! So my training switches focus from my normally crazy off the wall RoxStar Can O’ Whoop Ass programming, and becomes more of your traditional vanilla strength training… So the first few days, where I’m focusing on priming my body for my refeed later in the week, it’s all straight sets, light/moderate weight, up to 25 reps, minimal rest, burns like a mutha type of stuff. Then later in the week, it’s one heavy workout (on refeed day) and then I’m done. Cardio at this point, again not worried about fat loss, simply depleting. So I’ll sneak in like 20 mins this week post workout for 2 days. Then 1 day on an active rest for like 30-40 mins right before the refeed day. That’s all. But next week for my actual peak, I’ll likely be doing away with all of that (cardio) and letting the diet and weights do the rest of the work.
See… LESS WORK = LESS STRESS = CALM ON STAGE READY TO HAVE FUN!
Suit is DONE! ROUTINE IS DONE! I simply love my routine, and can’t wait to hit it on stage. I’ll have my friend shoot it so you guys can see it. Anytime Roxie gets to ham it up, you KNOW she’s gonna act a damn fool! LOVE IT!
Anyways, this is getting long and my attention span is really short when I’m on low resources. Here’s today’s rundown.
Meal 1:
Oats
3 Egg Whites + 2 Eggs
3 Fish Oil Caps
Coffee + Half and Half (sorry that DOES NOT go – it’s only a little bit of HH)
Meal 2:
Chicken and Brown Rice
Meal 3:
1 Egg + Russet Potato
Meal 4:
Tilapia
2 Cups Veggies or Salad
Olive Oil
Meal 5:
Chicken Breast
2 Cups Veggies or Salad
3 Fish Oil
Training –
Total Body (no legs except calves), Straight Sets, 20-25 Reps, 4-2 sets (4 at the beginning for big compound moves, but most sets are 3 to 2 at the most). Cardio today – 20 mins PWO.
Too bad I’m not taking a picture today, lol, I’m MUCH tighter today than Saturday. Oh well I’m scheduled for this week to take another photo by Wednesday. Right now, time to eat and hit the gym!