My BodyBlog

One of the biggest problems I have encountered in my quest to gain size is the ability, or lack thereof, to maintain a proper diet while in Baghdad.  There are dining facilities (DFACs) and other places to eat (Subway, Pizza Hut, Popeye’s, Taco Bell) but none of these places really have a good, healthy selection of food.  The DFAC is the best bet, but almost everything they serve is fried or boiled, or both.  Sometimes you can find some good meat (pork loin, roast beef, roast turkey) at the carving table, but more times than not all they have is pit ham or corned beef, and I despise both of those.  Meatloaf seems to be a frequent option, and while I don’t mind it, I have to assume that the grease that runs out of each bite can’t be good for me, so I try to avoid that altogether.  The only thing I do that isn’t healthy for me is smoking, and I know I’m going to hear it, but I know it already, smoking is bad for me, got it.  I’m going to quit someday, but I promise it’s not today, unfortunately.

My usual diet consists of something like this:

Breakfast:  1 small bowl of Oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins, 1 English muffin with butter, 1 cup of peaches or pineapple, 4 fried eggs.

Lunch:  Carving table meat (turkey, beef) OR the meal of the day (almost always something high in fat and carbs, which I try to avoid consuming too much of), 1 cup mashed potatoes (usually with gravy), corn OR peas (if available), OR I will have a panini sandwich with ham, turkey and roast beef topped with a slice of Swiss or Provolone cheese. 

Dinner:  Actually, this is exactly the same as lunch, the selections don’t change much.

Snacks:  I try to consume at least two 42g tubes of New Whey Liquid Protein (0 fat, 0 sugar, 176 calories), 2 Animal Snak bars (30g Protein, 4g fat, 35g carbs, 304 calories) during the course of the day, as well as having a protein shake (Torrent Cherry Blast) after my workout, and occasionally 1 or 2 Animal Max shakes (although I usually forget that I have this stuff, so I don’t do it as often as I probably should)

That’s the diet I have been on for the last two months.  I guess I am going to just have to increase everything because I have been stuck at 180lbs for 2 months.  Not that I mind that really, since I dropped about 45lbs of fat at the beginning of the year and am enjoying being "skinny" again, but I would like to gain some lean mass and there isn’t a whole lot we can do to make that happen out here.  I generally weigh myself at least once a week, and the scale I have has a BF percentage, skeletal mass, visceral fat, BMI and resting metabolism reading on it, so I can find out a lot each time I weigh myself.  I also try to tape myself once a week to see where I am with size because I know that weight isn’t always a good indicator of muscle gain / loss.

There is no grocery store to speak of, we can buy steaks and grill them, and we do that occasionally, but it’s not something you want to do daily because it’s just too damn hot outside to stand over a grill every single day.  There is nothing else to choose from. 

I try to avoid eating at any of the "fast food" places, except the Subway, where I usually get a 12" tuna on white with cheese and salt / pepper.  I may do that once or twice a week, but usually not more than that.

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, please pass them on, I’ll try just about anything at this point, I just don’t want to have to gorge myself if I can avoid it.

So, this is my first bodyblog.  It’s been a long, but fun road to get to the shape I’m in currently, and lately I have been thinking that I might even start looking at some competitions, possibly as early as middle of next year (2009).  Presently, I am serving as a civilian in Iraq, and I work out with my buddy Heath (rollingwithforbes on my friends list).  We’ve been working hard since about the end of March to try to get back into a shape that isn’t round, and we’ve had some pretty damn good results. 

The thing I am concerned about, and he’s mentioned this a few times as well, is how quickly we are moving up on the weights.  In just under 5 months, I have gone from a max flat bench around 140 or so to a 1RM of 315lbs, and working out with 245+ lbs for each set on the flat, incline and decline bench.  It seems pretty ridiculous, but then I don’t have anything to gauge it against because there isn’t anyone else out here that seems to be at the gym as regularly as I am.  I’ve been taking the Animal line of products (3 weeks of Stak, 1 week rest, 3 weeks of M-Stak, 1 week rest, and now on 3 weeks of Stak / M-Stak, along with Flex, Pump, Nitro and Pak, and after this phase, a 3 week phase of Cuts), and it’s working like magic…literally.  Since I started, I have consistently increased weight on every exercise by at least 10lbs every single time, and some exercises (leg press, iso-lat high row, etc.) increased by over 50lbs per set, per day.  For example, I would do flat bench and max at say 285lbs one week.  Three days later, I would do dumbbells for chest / tri’s, 3 days after that, do cable exercises for chest / tri’s, and 3 days after that, I would max on the bench again, and in this example, I went from 285 to 305.  In 8 days.  That doesn’t make any sense to me, it doesn’t seem like it should go up 20lbs that fast, but I’m not complaining about it.  I am just hoping it’s something that other people have experienced, and that I am not going up too quickly.  I really enjoy it, and I don’t want to injure myself and not be able to lift because I tried to do too much. 

Every time I say that, I get told "if it was too much, you wouldn’t be able to do it 15 times…trust me, you’re fine."  So, I suppose I have to listen to my partner, because he’s going up just as fast as I am, and in some cases, faster haha!