6:00 - take an extreme fat burner (I took either Venom or Dren)
8:30 - made myself a delicious, thick breakfast shake (ice, one banana, a couple strawberries 20-30g vanilla protein powder, tablespoon of greans, handfull of "All Bran" cereal, tablespoon flax seed oil, and soymilk)
11:30ish - an apple and protein bar (Animal Snak) plus multi
3:00ish - take my preworkout (Primed Ultra and Amp or NO Shotgun back then)
6:00 - drink post workout protein (usually half serving of Cytogainer)
8:00 - dinner (lean white meat with veggies usually)

* For the first three weeks on that program, I didn’t cheat once - limit dairy except fat free cottage cheese, and no bread. After that I’d have one or two cheat meals on the weekends.

My workout program: *before every workout I would run as long as I could on the treadmill. 10 miles was the farthest I ever got, but usually around 4-7 miles.

Monday - Shoulders, biceps, and abs
Tuesday - quads, calfs, and abs
Wednesday - back, triceps, and abs
Thursday - hams, glutes, calves and abs
Friday - chest, biceps, and abs
Saturday - make up day, usually played sports
Sunday - day of rest

* I think I was also taking a vaso dilator like NO Xtreme as well as Xtest. And I started tanning also which helped me see results faster.

Today is the first time my deltoids actually flexed bigger than my biceps-which is how it should be, and what I’m going for!  Pretty much since ninth grade I’ve had "big" arms (comparatively speaking to the guys my age), and when I lifted, my biceps and triceps just continued to grow and develop, and I neglected my shoulders.  This last month and a half, I have really put my priority on my delts for the first time and have been hitting them harder than the rest of my arms, and the results show (I’ll really need to post some pics soon).  Just standing there holding dumbells, I actually looked proportional for once!  Haha, it hasn’t really been that bad, but I used to notice it.  I also looked more solid and shredded overall, and I guess other "rats" noticed it too because I got two unexpected compliments regarding my "big arms" and improvement from a couple guys who I see every so often.  All the "NO" I’m takin is making my veins bulge all over, and I have vascularity I have never had in my life!  I had a very good lift today, as my title says, and for the first time I’m not looking foreward to my day off tomorrow.  Probably because I know what it usually leads to.. (cheating my diet and regret)  I’ll do some stretching or meditation or something and make it part of my same daily routine during the week, so I can trick myself out of doing that.  I’ll post my results!  And I think I’m just going to change my schedule to lifting how I did this week, starting with cardio on Monday and doing everything a day later- I liked it alot better because I had no problem getting in all six workouts.  Thanks for reading, and I appreciate and welcome any/all support!

Today, I decided to make it a cardio and leg day again instead of an arm day.  This time, rather than starting out bad like I did on Wednesday, I was off and running great right from the beginning.  My preworkout was perfect, enough to give me great drive and endurance but not too much to make me feel like I’m about to have a heart attack (like last week).  I cut it down, so today I took the half dose of Primed Ultra (1 cap) and two AMP capsules.  I felt awesome for the whole 65 minutes of running - sweating enough to feel productive along the normal "high" you get from preworkouts, loud music, and running.  Another cool thing, I normally will run 20 min at 7mph, the next 20 at 6.5mph, and that final 20 at 6mph (if I can make it that long on that particular run); but today I felt too good at the first 20 mark to bump it down too soon so I ran till 35 min at 7, and the last 30 at 6.5 and got in 7.25 miles.  Next time I’m going to increase my intervals to start at 7.5 instead and see how well I do.  Maybe I can increase every 5 min by .5mph for the first 20, and staircase it back down for the next, and so on..?  I don’t know yet but I’ll figure something out and definitely post what I decide to do.  I also did 4 burning sets of legs, and I admit I could’ve done better- but I think my great run somewhat justifies it because of my goals, priority is more on the cardio.  Tomorrow:  ARMS - biceps, triceps, forearms, deltoids, abs

Yesterday, for whatever reason, there was a technical issue that wouldn’t allow me to post my blog that I was looking foreward to writing.  My cardio day started rougher than usual, and I was even thinking I would have to stop around three miles and even that would be tough.  When I got to about two miles, I started thinking: "I’ll just make it to the thirty minute mark and then I’ll see how I feel".  I noticed that by the time I got there, running had just become easier and easier until I got to about the 50 minute mark.  I ended up running till I hit 7 miles and about 62 minutes or something like that.  It was very satisfying, and I’m happy not to have to have written that I gave up earlier than usual.  I decided that I have been taking a bit too much ‘NO’ with a full dose of NO Xtreme daily as well as my preworkout primed ultra.  So, I knocked my preworkout down to half a dose (1 pill) and apparently that worked, and it alleviated some of the pressure that I noticed it had on my heart/chest.  Today was another great back workout, and I am very proud that my workouts have all be at such a great intensity with little to correct lately.  I did two of the workouts that I "invented" from my last back day blog, and they worked even better this time!  I was also shown two different exercises I have never done, and threw in a couple sets of those with everything else I was doing (one was kinda like an upright row with the rope and pully, and the other was a lower back and side workout with dumbells-both felt great).  Again, I am very pleased-and I’m happy so far with this blog, that I can have somewhere to go to vent my thoughts.  Tomorrow I’m deciding between an arm day (as scheduled) or another cardio leg day that would fit in to my switch up this week.  I’ll let the world know tomorrow when I post my success-

I feel great about today! (especially after just watching "my girls" [Shawn J. and Nastia L.] take their last medals in China) - I ate very well, and I even passed up on opportunity to go out for a free lunch because I was sure it would result in another one of my binges that I regretfully confess about in my blogs.  But I stayed strong and ate great. - My workout also was awesome:  I must have done about 50 or so sets today, it was crazy.  I started with my shoulders and chest with dumbell presses at each possible angle on the sliding/angle free bench.  I started with the top notch at a complete upright shoulder press and worked my way down notch by notch (probably between 15-20 total) till it was a completely flat dumbell press, and I finished with one more set on the declined free bench.  I rested no more than 2 min. between each set.  After finishing that long chain of lifting, I moved on to superset 3 times between 2 exercises each time and I did 3 sets each.  I finished off hitting the abs well with about 6 exercises and felt great leaving the gym after that.  I am excited to feel my soreness and see the chest pump tomorrow morning, and I’m interested to see how well I do with my cardio and leg workout tomorrow (hopefully no chest pain like last time!)  I’ll be posting my success-

Well Sunday wasn’t a complete success or complete failure, so I won’t dwell on it but I’ll just say I ate better than on past Sundays, but I definitely have room for improvement.  Today has been awesome with the diet and supplements, but I had a weird experience today with them.  After running four miles easier than ever (on my pre-wo combo 2pu+1amp), all of a sudden I started to get a pretty hard pain in my chest and it forced me to stop.  I wasn’t worried about having a heart attack right there or anything, but it seemed like a warning and I didn’t want to push too hard and take any chances.  I think it’s weird though, I have been taking this same stimulant, NO, preworkout schedule for awhile and I’ve never had any problems.  Stimulants and preworkouts have always tended to lose effect after taking them for awhile, but I’m curious why it turned out to be more intense today.  After I got off the treadmill I just continued on to my leg workout, and my chest pain was immediately gone, so I did some lifts for a half hour and jumped back on the treadmill thinking I had rested enough to where I could bust out a couple more miles, but my pain was back as quick as it left and I was forced to stop before I even hit .5 miles.  I’ll be watching myself tomorrow and especially on Wednesday when I run again to see if it continues to happen, and if so I plan to make some adjustments to my program.  When I hopped off for the second time, again all pain was gone right away and I was able to finish with some great lifts, and I worked my sides with a few high rep/good burning sets.  I ended the day with some tanning, steam room, and a shower.  I feel great now, but still a little thoughtful about my cardio situation..

I had one very long but extremely productive workout today, and my diet has also been in line.  Usually Saturday has been a day that starts "the weekend", in which I decide its okay not to work as hard and that then leads somehow to me going out to dinner and binging-its a vicious cycle that has been difficult for me to overcome.  I was able to overcome it this week by catching myself off-guard (not intentionally) by cheating yesterday instead of today!  Haha, I am definitely far from proud of it, seeing that many of my blogs consist of my regrets and me wanting to change my cycle of sabotage so I can reach actually my goals.  In fact, because I am embarrassed, I almost chose to leave out of this blog the fact that I two meals at restaurants till I was so bloated and full I thought about puking, and because of my first lunch meal out at lunch, I was unable to even go to the gym.. and thats why I ended up doing my arm workout today rather than yesterday.  But I decided that I needed to write it or else this bodyblog wouldn’t be the place where I can create leverage against my "sins", and that is the whole point of this thing: to hold myself accountable and to give myself extra credit when deserved.  And maybe if others read it, they’ll also give me a virtual "pat on the back" or "finger wag".  Some people say I am kind of extreme when it comes to guilt-tripping myself and with my expectations of what my diet should be, but I know that when I reached my goals a year ago, cheating was VERY rare and that was the time when my transformation was fast and consistant.  And apparently I’m not strict enough, as I continue to have these set backs.  But anyway, I decided last night that I would treat Saturday and a ‘redo Friday’: I’d wake up early, take supplements and morning smoothie on regular schedule, I even went to work which was totally optional, ate lunch and took my preworkout at the same time, went to the gym and hit it better than even most week days.  I have be seeing great improvement with my delts as I’m working for after setting up my routine to hit them three times a week.  Overall, I am very pleased with how today turned out despite my "fall" yesterday.  I plan to wake up early again tomorrow and stick with the same schedule but rest and stretch instead.  I’ll post my success..

Today was definitely the best back workout I have had for as long as I can remember!  Just as I was losing faith in my pre-workout stack (2 pu + 1 amp) -after the last couple days of only a little above average workouts-, it picked me up and carried me through the amazing 2 hours of pure, productive lifting better than I could have expected any supplement to do.  I created three lifts today that I have never seen done before that worked great to hit the areas of my back I sometimes feel like I’m neglecting (rear delts, lower lats, middle back). 

1. The first lift was with the cables (and it may have already been popular somewhere, but if not it should be)- I lowered the cable down so you pull it from near the floor-with feet about shoulder width and knees slightly bent and leaning foreward so the chest is almost parallel with the ground-(when doing your right side) position yourself so the cable is next to your left foot-reach across your body and grab the cable with your right hand, pull it out and accross your body and back till you’re squeezing your lats, traps and rear delts and then lower the cable till its about in line with your right leg and back out again-your elbows should be nearly locked throughout the motion-and use lower weight (I had it between 20 and 30 lbs and 10-15 reps) - Then, switch and work your left side.

 2. The next was somewhat similar, but this time I used dumbells and knelt on the floor.   I grabbed 10 lb dumbells and and mat and leaned on my hands and knees-the dumbells were in my hands close together, and I had my weight on the dumbells-I was leaning foreward with my back straight and core tight, and the angle between my calves and hamstrings was probably about 100 degrees or so-to start the lift, raise your right arm straight out from your shoulder and up toward the ceiling till muscles are tense and lower it slowly till almost the starting position and back up-elbows should be nearly locked on this lift also-during the lifting your core will be even tighter to balance on the one arm that is supporting your body-then switch arms.

3. The last workout I "invented" today was by far my favorite! (again, I’m sure someone has probably already thought of this, but I’ve just never seen it done)  Using the angled lower-back raise thing (don’t know the name), and after all of my other back lifts, I grabbed two ten pound plates and jumped on the "thing" and raised my torso to the up position with my lower back flexed and tense-while in this "up position" I began to do back flies with the plates in hand, and really squeezing-I did my flies lower so I could get the middle of my back more, and I lifted like that until I couldn’t do anymore-then, I brought the weights in and hugged them to my chest and burned out with lower back raises-I did three sets of this, and afterward I felt the best full back burn I have ever felt!  I really suggest you try this one!

After my successful workout, I tanned a bit and hit the steam room and shower.  I am very excited and hopeful to see how sore I am tomorrow, and to see how well my cardio and leg day will go!  -btw, please let me know if you do read and try these workouts, I’d appreciate it!

I am pleased with today’s workout - ran 4.5 miles (I couldn’t reach my best cardio days at 6.5/7 miles, but I’m still content), I hit the legs as hard as I planned to (6 burning exercises), and I finished off with a great set of side raises (30 reps per side holding a 45lb plate).  Before leaving the gym, I sat in the steam room, showered, and tanned a bit - so now I’m feeling refreshed.  I’m still using that primed ultra and amp combo, and I still love it-though i wish I was still having those astonishing gym days that I had in the beginning.  I could be any number of things though, including my bad eating the past few days.  Hopefully after a few days of eating perfect like today, I’ll be able to see those days again.  If it continues to lose its "awesomeness", I’ll add another AMP cap and see if that does the trick.  I plan on taking a break from all of the harder supplements (stims, NO, test, creatine, Pre workouts, etc) mid-September, and ill go "all-naty" for awhile with only protein and multivitamins.  Glad I kept my promise with my eating today, and I’m glad my workout went well too!  I’ll be posting my success after tomorrow’s ‘back, traps, rear delts, and lower back’ workout-

After my near perfect week of diet and exercise last week, I was extremely happy because I could hardly ask for anything more from myself-and I knew I would be on the fast track to seeing the results I want to see within only a couple more weeks like that.. but I blew it this weekend, once again!  It’s like a never-ending cycle, in which my mind finds some way to justify "binge" cheating (not quite binging but thats what i felt like after).  I guess when my body was too worn out on Saturday to do the cardio and legs I was planning on, I figured that I wasn’t "wasting" a good work out when I began to eat a couple brownies and cookies, and my Sunday rest day I just decided to call my cheat day so I wouldn’t feel guilty to continue eating bad.  My plan now to help from this happening again next week is to change my workout, so I don’t plan a tough workout on Saturdays but make that a "make-up" day and a recreation day.  This way I can still burn my calories maybe through basketball, swimming, raquetball, or mountain biking, and I won’t be as quick to justify any bad eating since I’ll still be on schedule with my exercise program.  It wasn’t as bad a funk as two weekends ago, but today wasn’t the "Monday" that last Monday was.  That was the result of one my last lake trip for the summer, which was today.  Other than some handfulls of chips and Twislers that I could not abstain from during that, I ate perfect.  I am happy I was still able to get off work early and get in a good full chest, delts, and abs workout before the lake.  I promise myself (and those who read this) that tomorrow will be as perfect as it gets with diet, and I will have a more-than-satisfying cardio/legs day!  Till tomorrow-