Greetings everybody and welcome back to the Prep Diary! As of writing, I am 10 weeks out from my competition debut with Pure Elite and since the last entry, there’s been some updates, challenges, highs, and lows so let’s explore how things have been going.
As you recall from last time, I have now been working with the team at Chase Perfection in order to bring my nutrition and training up to the required standard for the show and so far, things have been going really well. The diet is far more densely packed with nutrients than I had previously and whilst the calories remain almost the same as what I was dealing with before, the meals are spaced out a lot nicer and the balance is great. That’s not to say however that I don’t get cravings and feel hungry, because of course, I do. Anybody who’s been on a diet knows this will always be the case, but what I’m finding now is that these urges are easily managed as the next meal comes at the right time, thus quelling the anger brewing in my stomach. Nutrition is such an important factor with any successful prep, not only in terms of what you eat but keeping your sanity. So far, this has been the most important change in approach, as I’m happy with my food and the relationship is healthy.
One “challenge” I faced – trying to get a decent tan!
We all have challenges during prep, whether it’s late night working hours, financial issues, illness or any combination of those. My personal plight was being abroad for a week. Thankfully I am very familiar with Varna, Bulgaria, so finding good gyms to train at is easy as I’ve done that plenty of times, but sticking to my nutrition; that’s a whole new ball game. Typically, my intentions whilst away from home are good however I often descend into random eating habits with minimal training. This time though, I was fortunate enough to be joined by my very close friend, who actually encouraged me to join a gym five years ago and I haven’t looked back since. Training, therefore, was easy to manage as he was very keen to join me on my sessions and this allowed me to continue pushing myself to my limit.
Snapshot from the Chest and Arms session
As an aside, I can’t stress how crucial it is for me to have a training partner. I’ve previously trained alone for months at a time, and while the solitude is peaceful and I can simply get on with the task at hand, it’s just too easy to back out of going all in and getting that extra rep. With a like-minded partner, however, those extra reps become three or four more, that set you didn’t want to do becomes your best one and overall, the session is a far more productive one. So my point is this; if you find training to be a chore or boring, get together with someone. Training is the fun part, the easy part. It needs to be done right though, as it’s a component of the machine that steers towards success.
Back to the week just gone by overseas and let’s focus in on nutrition. I mentioned above that my desire is always to try and stick to some sort of mental guideline, but typically I’ll get derailed by the plethora of wonderful restaurants available to me. This time, however, I was armed with my meal plan, a suitcase filled with supplements, my electronic weighing scales, and a specific intention to buy only what food I needed to and do my meal preparation in the apartment. Having a direct plan of action this time made things a lot easier; yes I did eat meals out but I controlled my urges and kept as close to my plan as possible, with the odd question fired at my coach to make sure I wasn’t stepping out of line anywhere. The result? Progress in my quest to reduce body fat and also seeing more weight drop off without limiting my lifestyle.
Latest progress picture; taken post Leg workout.
I’m seeing the weeks tumble away into the past now as the big day draws ever closer. There’s excitement, nerves, and optimism; this has been a dream of mine for just over two years now so I’m determined to make sure I’m bringing the very best version of myself to the stage. To all my fellow competitors; let’s go there and tear the house down.
