LIFE BEFORE PREP...
...no meals prepared ... eating what I want, when I want ... I was consciusly trying to consume at least 150g of protein, but since I wasn't tracking anything, it's safe to say I missed the mark on a lot more occasions than I'd like to admit.
So, the diet was basically one of convenience, which pushed my weight up to 91kg (at my heaviest) while on holidays in Thailand - November. Training wasn't overly intense either, and leg days were close to non-existent (lol)! Why? I've got a tweak in my lower back (due to a twisted pelvis) that makes doing squats and deadlifts properly close to impossible. When I would "give them a crack" on the odd occasion, the lower back would be in pain for 3-4 days and I'd struggle to walk upright. Ergo, I said "buh bye" to leg days!
Here we come to the embarassing part of the blog! The starting pics!! I wasn't looking for good lighting, or flexing, just as relaxed as possible. In doing so, I realised my natural posture is WONKY AF!! It looks as though I'm favouring my left side a fair bit -> I did have a nerve-related injury 2 years ago where I lost all strength in my left side (could not do a pull up or a push up), so there could be a few imbalances I've managed to overlook while building the strength back on my left side.
PS> I have no idea how my pants just don't slide down, I have no butt to keep them up with!! Another reason why my squat form does not exist lol.
TIME TO GET DOWN TO BUSINESS!!
I'm one of those people that works a lot better when there there's a clear goal or deadline in front of me - where I have to take everything a little more seriously. This is one of the reasons I used to leave my assignments and studies to the last minute before making a start on it! So the goal is simple: be bigger and better than the last time I was on stage! This was 2 years ago, where I weighed in at 74.3kg and competed in Bodybuilding. This time around, I'm hoping to come in at stage weight between 78-80kg and a little bit leaner than 2 years ago.
STARTING MACROS & CALORIES
Going with the starting calories of about 2600. Before prep, I would usually eat 2 to 3 meals (only), but they would be very energy dense (Kinoki Deli, Fried Chicken & Chips, 4 sushi, pizza etc). So, it was hard for me to predict my maintenance calories based on an irregular calorie intake, but I came up with roughly 3100 calories. I'm making my initial deficit at 500 calories, which gives me about 2600 to play with... and macros:
Protein - 180g
Carbs - 300g
Fats - 75g
The protein content might go up depending on my recovery times, and the other two macros are likely to go down as I continue dieting.
I'm planning on implementing 2 or 3 diet breaks during this prep too: where I would re-estimate my maintenance calories and consume those for 4 to 5 days before going back into the deficit.
Why diet breaks? What are they? I'll tell you in the next blog :)
Peace out,
Boris