ectoBgone’s BodyBlog

I’m to the point now where I don’t even feel like eating when I’m hungry. Weird. Just tired of eating. Can’t stop though … must … eat!

Incline Barbell Bench + Bent Arm Pull-overs + Flat Dumbbell Press = Terrific Pump.

Felt like I was going to pop.

After going from 172.5 to 172, I bounced back to a personal record of 173.4. Bodyfat is still looking steady with the scale and the mirror, so I’m happy. I am going to add one more cardio on Saturday mornings just to be safe though. I’m also pretty sure I can see where the muscle is building up, which is in my back and chest, and a little bit in my arms. My quads seem to be growing too as my jeans are starting to feel different when I wear them. At 175 I’ll take new measurements and find out where it all went. This is encouraging though. I’ve never made gains like this and I can only attribute it to all the things I’ve learned at this site. Yeah for bodybuilding.com.

I remember thinking about 6-8 months ago that I would be quite pleased if I normally looked like what I did when I was pumped. Well, I would say that about 6lbs. later I achieved that goal. This has me pretty psyched because I had an awesome pump going today after changing up my chest/tricep workout and I can’t wait to become that under normal conditions. That’s one of the great things about the workout pump. It show me what I will become if I continue to work hard. It’s a great dangled carrot. It also didn’t hurt that I had one of oldsuperman’s contributions in a thread echoing in my ears the whole time:

"So my friends, it’s not so much the time you train, yet HOW YOU TRAIN that counts!!!!
MOST people have NO idea the "intensity, consistency, and diet" it takes to get the kind of body you want.
Even most on this forum have no idea what it takes."

I kept yelling back at him in my head, "I will not be one them!" (who doesn’t know what it takes). Ed rocks!

This week one of my wife’s friends pulled her aside and mentioned that she noticed some definite changes in my physique. They were visiting a couple of weeks ago when she noticed but she was afraid to say something in front of her husband, LOL. That was good to hear because sometimes it’s hard to tell if I’m deceiving myself when I think I look different. I’m also thinking that maybe I was not imagining things when a co-worker did a subtle double-take after not seeing me for a couple of months. I’m confident that I’m going to get close to the 5lb gain goal in a couple of months and look forward to coming up with some progress pictures. I’m going to try and do a better job with them as my initial photos were rushed just to get something up. I think I may try my first upper body shave.

I judged my upper chest to be a weak spot with respect to body symmetry, so I modified my Chest and Triceps day to begin with decline bench instead of flat bench. I’ve pretty much always made incline bench my second chest exercise, which means it ended up being the third exercise of the day. This means I could never give incline bench my best effort of the day with fresh muscles. That’s not good, as it seems that many folks around here think incline is really the better exercise anyway. Well, it ended up invigorating my entire workout today and gave me a great pump. I’m looking forward to keeping it this way for about 6-8 weeks, and then I think I’ll switch it back and forth on a rotating basis.

This was one of those weeks where it seemed like everyone was conspiring together to get me to miss a day of lifting. Didn’t work though. I either shuffled things around or roused myself out of bed extra early to hit the gym in the morning instead of my normal lunchtime slot. I’m definitely not a morning person so yesterday was tough getting started, but about 15 minutes into my routine I felt normal.

I figured I would jot down what I typically eat during the week. This is a Mon/Wed/Fri eating plan. The only thing that changes on Tues/Thur is 2pm lunch, which is usually some leftover that consists of chicken or beef, a good carb like brown rice, some veggies and almonds. Feedback and suggestions welcome.

7:30am - 3/4 cup of egg whites, bowl of cereal (Kashi Heart to Heart, Multigrain Cheerios, Mini-Wheats), banana. Daily Vitamin. 2 cups of coffee black.

10:30am - 1/2 cup nonfat cottage cheese, 6 oz. yogurt, 1/2 cup (dry) oatmeal (plain rolled oats, no instant)

12pm-1pm workout

1pm - Post workout shake (3 full scoops of cytogainer lean muscle maximizer)

2pm - 6 oz. Wild Alaskan Salmon sandwich on multi-grain bread. Salad (from grocery store salad bar packed with green leaves, cauliflower, broccoli, etc) or steamed veggies.

4pm - 6 oz. lean steak, 1/2 cup rice noodles, fruit (orange, apple, red grapes)

6:30pm - Whatever the wife makes, which is usually pretty well balanced with protein, carbs, and veggies. I drink a big glass of milk and take 1 tablespoon of flax seed oil. Also take one GNC Mega Men Sport Vitamin.

9:00pm - Evening protein shake (3 full scoops of cytogainer lean muscle maximizer).

I also drink about 60-80oz. of water. The only problem between that and my evening shake is that it interferes a tad with the "rest" requirement for body building. I can’t get through the night without getting up. And no, it’s not just ’cause I’m getting old now!

I was all mentally pumped and ready to go on leg day today and quickly became upset over the fact that I could not put up as many reps on my first set of squats as the previous week. While reducing the weight for the second set, I realized that I had added wrong on the first set! I had 20lbs more than I should have, which translates into 11% more for this squatting noob. The good news is that I was able to throw up the same number of reps on the second set using the same weight as the first set from the previous week. This means I’m holding myself accountable to blow past my best number of reps on the first set next week using the correct amount of weight.

I weigh myself every Friday morning after I wake up and go to the bathroom and I find that it yields very consistent results. Today I broke the 170lb barrier and made it to 171. This is the first time that I have been back to this range since I halved my bodyfat percentage from about two years ago. According to the bodyfat scale and the mirror, my %BF did not go up at all, in fact it may have gone down slightly. This is pretty exciting for me even though it is only one pound because I made some changes recently where I increased my calories and cut back on cardio a little bit because I feared that I was hampering my gains with too much cardio and not enough calories. I’m optimistic that I’ve finally figured out the right balance of calories, lifting intensity, and cardio that will enable me to make modest muscle gains without packing on the fat. That’s all I want, and I’m 25% closer to my goal of 175 / 10-12%BF  by Summer.