Slow Around Corners

Continuing with my car racing theme I am taking it slower today after a massive day yesterday or in driving terms, slowing into the corners. Yesterday was nonstop from 7am to 11pm when I got home. Beginning well with a solid 6 hrs sleep after a long weekend of work I jumped onto the bike and cycled into the gym. Another excellent training session on legs. However I did not get the pump, an indicator of training intensity in my case, I was looking for. I think I might work in some supersets or body weight exercises in between exercises to increase the intensity of legs. Some train and bus rides took up the afternoon, however in-between was a very productive meeting in brainstorming out the personal training business I am embarking upon with a good mate. Note the date, this is the beginning of something BIG!

Procrastination plagued my afternoon coupled with the effects of keto coming on strong. Whilst not entirely unproductive in the motivational and training stakes (mainly watching body builder Kai Greene in his lead up doco to the 2009 Olympia) but the intended study definitely suffered.

To cap off the big day jumped on the bike to Oztag. I was still suffering quite badly from the lack of carbs and whilst physically I was fine, my mind was crying out for energy. A strong first half from the team was run down by persistent attack by the other team to end in a 4-4 draw. I seemed to have sharpened up mentally upon the bike trip home as it was not the slugfest I had expected.

I decided last night that it was in my best interest to have a sleep in this morning to ensure I was sharp for the rest of the assignments due. 10 hours later I awoke, refreshed but still low on study motivation. So my morning was filled up with a long breakfast reading the paper and then extensive planning to make up for the late start to the assignments. Now planning is done it's time to put into action the study, training and dieting plans and accelerate out of the corner!, Let's Get It, Alpha and Out!

The Final Pit Stop

Inspired by the Gold Coast Car racing weekend I have decided to frame the past week as the final pit stop before racing towards the podium. This week has involved no training, 2 days of free for all dieting and general inactivity. Struck down initially by a cold and then kept in bed because of the daunting Uni study and assignment load. For four days I was practically bed-ridden only getting up on the Monday for Oztag and then just for food and showering. With the bed came the TV. With the TV came the snacking. With the snacking came the free-for-all feeding.

Sounds bad huh? No, realistically it was what needed to happen. I had been training and dieting hard for months and then the added pressure of massive assignment deadlines resulting in less than 5 hours of sleep a night. Something had to give. Just like the car in the final stages of a race I was running on empty and needed a pit stop to refuel, rethink and re-invigorize.

The thinking time of the soft cage of my bed allowed me to rethink my approach towards the final 6 weeks before my goal date for Stereosonic music festival. I had been enjoying success using the cyclic keto diet however with time ever against me I will for the next two weeks go straight keto except for one hour on each Saturday. After those 2 weeks I will reassess what I need to focus on for the final lap. Training wise I am going to increase both my intensity and volume moving to two sessions a day when I can fit them in. In the weights room I am going to return to split training rather than the more full body sessions I had teamed with the keto-ing. I think this just fits in better with my motivation, that I am at the gym most days and have a specific focus for each session. However I am still going to have one intense full-body session at the end of the week to just add that little extra to my results. Pumping out an intense session of super-setting and drop setting is very satisfying and a good end to the week.

Ok refueled, refocused and ready to take this to another level, LetsGetIt, Alpha and Out!

Barking Cold

It appears the assignment induced sleep deprivation has caught up with me today with my throat sore, voice hoarse and mucus sticky. Several nights of 4-5 hrs sleep along with changing weather temperatures and conditions could have only led to the same conclusion. I am a master at pushing myself but am now facing the consequences of overstepping the fine line line of overworking. Now enough of that moping, to ensure my progress and the impending December 4 deadline are not affected too much diet and recovery will be critical. I am still going to train hard this week as planned as I feel that it stimulates me to bring up the flem and it's what I need to do. The crucial bit will be away from the gym. I think I will need to be bed ridden as much as possible or at least warm and comfortable wherever I am to make sure this cold is extremely temporary and doesn't linger as I cant let it derail my progress.

Speaking of progress I am continuing to climb to the summit of perfection. Last week apart from Monday blow out and missed touch and the lack of sleep was perfect. My results on the scales whilst not as spectacular were still very solid losing under 2kgs but 1% body fat indicates that whilst it slowed it is still very much targeting the fat stores. My plan this week was to ramp up my training volume with 2 a day sessions however with my cold I might reconsider and just focus on really perfecting my diet and training with high intensity. Up and at em with plenty of recovery sounds to be the ticket, Alpha and Out!

Bang!Bang!

Monday night suffered a double shot to my progress. Firstly my arvo nap went to long, I slept through my alarm and missed oztag and the associated cycling. This means I will need to make up for it's omission throughout the week. However this can be easily accomplished due to the extra day of ketoing to fit in with a family gathering.

The second shot was the first major blow out while on the keto diet. I was stretching out my meals to work in with oztag but it obviously didn't go to plan resulting in a large gap between arvo snack and dinner. Combine this with the intense pressure weighing heavily on my mind and boom, presto Blow Out! However this was a blow out with a difference. Whilst I relented to pressure and caved into extra food I was still wrong enough to target protein and fat foods emphasizing the need to stay in ketosis. I am happy with that portion of my response. Soon I will be strong enough to resist altogether which is good timing as I plan to up the anti in the near future as Stereosonic looms. Keto Let's Go, Alpha and Out!

Carb Up Pump

Veins popping, arms inflating like balloons. No I was not in the middle of a big arms session, I was in the middle of my weekly cook up. The joys of the carb up I guess as the glycogen was racing to the muscle to be stored dragging along water with it. The one and a half days of carbing up was quite enjoyable, a welcome relief from a successful but ultimately draining first week. I still need to tweak the carbs as I didn't seem to gain any weight over it suggesting more carbs next week. Overall a good problem to have.

I have made some tweaks to the keto meals throughout the week. The majority of which centralize around the avocado meal. I had immense difficulty slamming down the avocado slop the whole week. So to make it more edible I took out the cheese and mayo and added chorizo sausage in it's place. Furthermore I focused more on the layering of the ingredients using salad to try and split the avocado up to avoid masses of it on it's lonesome. I also used this in the tuna meals just to help ensure that was edible as possible. I am ketoing an extra day this week to fit in with some family commitments so this poses a twist and new challenge hopefully my body will continue to drop the fat. All looking good and confident I can make the Saturday deadline. Alpha and Out!

4.85kg and 2.2%

Despite losing over 20kg of body weight I had always struggled to drop the body fat percentage by any significant margin. However one week of ketoing and I dropped 2.2%!

The keto diet is working and now I am enjoying the start of the "carb up". I had a big Mac with medium chips and coke for dinner tonight but it left me unfulfilled. I think I might make myself a large pasta dish next week instead. Something extensively "carby" instead of the processed drivel from Maccas. Overall the diet has been enjoyable in fact it hasn't felt like a diet at all. The fat component really does numb your hunger. However the pangs usually perceived in the stomach seem to move towards the brain but these subsided as the week drew on. I largely stuck to the prescribed cal levels I had planned out apart from extras such as black coffee, zero softdrinks and sugarfree gum. The only extras were cheese and sausages as I figured the key was to keep in a state of ketosis rather than worry about the extra calories. The only real change I'm going to think about is the composition of the avocado meal. It became progressively more and more difficult with the meal today almost on the verge of throwing it up. I think it is the consistency of the meal, it's hard to explain but it is very gooey and fatty. The first couple of bites are fine with the salad but when the salad is gone the avocado is difficult.

The exercise side of things was average, mainly based on the Tuesday leg session where I was really low on energy and the weights I could lift were quite low. I think I also need to re-planthe full body workout on Friday afternoon. I think it would be better to have an intense session to wrap up the dieting week. This means more cardio, supersets and just a generally intensive session.

Finally away from the diet and exercise of things, mentally I am as strong as I have ever been and this is converting to increasing my self confidence. This sort of power I am enjoying at the moment is incredible so much i want to be able to guide others to feel this sort of control, power and positivity. Bring on the final A.L.P.H.A! Alpha and Out!

Drained

I was hit by the same feeling of depletion that I got from 3hrs of hard cycling, whilst doing leg weights this morning. The result I suspect of doing about 3 hours of cycling to and from location plus oztag last night, without replenishing muscle glycogen. The keto diet I'm on advises Monday and Tuesday half body splits to train the muscles for 5-6 sets. They advised this to reduce muscle glycogen, the energy stores of skeletal muscle, to an adequate level to ensure the fat loss is maximized whilst conserving the muscle. However I don't think they intended for a person to add on about 3hrs of cycling and 30-40 minutes of oztag. No matter though I think I just need to play with the timing of my protein shake and preworkout better. Currently I am having half a scoop of jack3d before I ride into gym and half while I'm working out in the gym. After this session I am thinking of sipping on my protein shake combined with the jack3d whilst working out just to provide substance and some food energy to the workout as it really affected the intensity I could train at.

Other than this morning the keto diet has been manageable and actually quite good. I have had no problems sticking to it as my hunger pangs are being suppressed by the increased fat intake. Compared to the normal diet where you percieve the pain of hunger to centre around your stomach the "pain" of a keto diet I have found is localized to the head/brain. This makes sense as compared with the rest of the body the brain requires glucose I.e. from carbs and doesn't adapted well to ketones. The timing of my meals (every 2-3hrs) has so far been working well as despite early starts and late finishes on both days I have been dieting so far ending with the ride home, I have had sufficient energy for all but literally the final minutes of the ride. The only straying from diet so far has been an extra sausage last night. I was extremely depleted and drained and the half shake I had planned simply wasn't enough to allow me to do some study. So along with a black coffee I ate a sausage. At about 100 calories and consisting mostly of fat and protein I was happy to take it on board without affecting ketosis. It's going to be interesting how the remainder of the week until the "carb up" goes, I'll keep you poste, Alpha and Out!

Keto! Let's Gooo!!

And here we are! Time to introduce my plan to take this journey to the next level and begin to reach the pinnacles. To take my muscular but still undefined phyisque and chisel out abs of stone, arms of power, legs like trees and pecs like dinner plates. With that in mind I am not looking for pure size, I never have been. I am looking for defined, proportional and functional muscles. The kind that Zyzz made famous, with a little personal tweak towards triathlons to set me up for my eventual return. To do this I am hitting the diet hard and working my training in around that.

But before I expand on this I'd like to update you all on my stats, where I've come from and where I intend to go. I measured my stats this morning to mark the start of the new phase of the Alpha journey. Currently I am sitting at about 85kg which is about 15-20kgs from my peak a mere 12 months ago. It doesn't feel like that much but when I check out the figures, damn I'm happy with that. Body fat percentage is not quite as amazing at 23-24% down from 30% but still an improvement. The next big gain is a loss of almost 20cm from my stomach from 110 down to 90, happy with that but still a bit to go. My chest has come down to 100 from 110 and the rest of my body has generally decreased by a couple of centimetres at least as I carve away the fat. Overall I am immensely proud of where I am at and exceptionally excited about where I am heading.

Now to my plan of attack. Based on the stats above, the one aspect I want to focus on is my body fat percentage, where I have only made moderate losses. It is time to home in on the excess cutaneous fat I am still carrying. To do that I am utilising a form of the ketogenic style of dieting made famous/infamous by the Atkins diet of the 70-80s. However as you know I am not a fan of desperate housewives dieting so this variant is honed to the athlete or body builder. The ketogenic diet is based on replicating the body's response to starvation by removing essentially all carbohydrates and basing the diet on protein and fat. Now this might go against all the mainstream fears of fat however its research is long and reliable as it is a therapeutic to treat epilepsy in children. Essentially the body changes from utilizing glucose for energy and moves to ketones and free fatty acids, essentially targeting adipose tissue to supply energy to live and train.

Now where my variation, the cyclical ketogenic diet (CKD), comes into play is a day and a half of "carb up" where carbs are consumed to refill muscle glycogen, the stored energy for muscle. This allows for a reduction in muscle loss from the dieting as well as ensuring adequate energy levels throughout the week to train properly. For people interested in trying it out I thoroughly recommend The Ketogenic Diet by Lyle MacDonald. He breaks down each macronutrient (protein, carbs,fat) as well as outlining training required to optimise fat loss while minimising muscle and performance loss. Once my calculations were done my stats came down to 2100 calories, 10g carbohydrate, 150g protein and 160g fat per day. To accommodate this into a diet I have based breakfast around eggs, mid-morning snack around avocado (healthy fats), lunch around tuna, mid-afternoon around almonds and dinner around beef mince. Extras include protein shakes, olive oil, full fat cheese, mayonnaise and some salad to provide the small amount of carbs as well as dietary fibre.

To optimize the diet my training is as follows;

Sunday - Long Cardio, either bike or run (exploiting the "carb-up" days of Friday arvo and Saturday)

Monday - Upper Body Weights

Tuesday - Lower Body Weights

Wednesday - Cardio in the Gym

Thursday - Sprint training

Friday - Full Body Weights

Saturday - OFF (for carb-up)

I will be hitting up twitter a lot with minute-minute experience as I try this diet as well as it will most likely be the focus of my posts for the next month or so as I tweak and refine things to perfect the plan and keep on track to a diced up physique. Ok, Lets Go, Alpha and Out!