Well I figured now was a better time than ever to start my official "offseason" log because I really need something to hold me accountable. Looking back on the 2007 contest season beginning in January I realize that I accomplished nearly every goal I set out to achieve. I got leaner, harder and thicker than I have ever been- I attained my all-time best physique. I also won several of the classes I competed in, made it to an overall posedown and placed top 5 in a very competetive Pro Qualifier open class. All this in only my second season as a bonified "bodybuilder". Am I satisfied? Yes and No. I think that I did my best, but that I may have been able to be a little harder/tighter or maybe even peaked better. However, given my placings and the way I looked, I realized these may have been unrealistic expectations. My body is still getting used to the whole routine of contest prep and I expect to get freakier every time I compete. Age has much to do with it as well in terms of hardness, density etc.
One thing I also learned was that it is MUCH harder to stop binging than I anticipated it would be. It's a combination of being essentially "free" of the precontest shackles and also the fact that all this food is so readily accessable. It's not even an issue of hunger- eating all this junk is more of a psychological response to being deprived and denied for so long. Basically I ate myself into oblivion on saturday night, had some airplane junk on sunday and tried to get back on the game today. When I woke up this morning I was holding 12 lbs of water- I looked like a blimp. Joe has me on a low 200g CHO to help flush out all the fluid and return my metabolism to baseline. The morning started out well despite the fact that my knee joints were in excruciating pain from the overnight weight flux. But as the day wore on, I allowed myself to have "just a little bit". Hey, I deserve it right? It was ALL DOWNHILL from there. In went the cookies, cake, Icecream, muffins, granola, cereal and anything else I could get my hands on. At midday I was up to 181- that's right 20 lbs heavier than friday morning. At that point I got pretty pissed. I knew If I did not stop RIGHT NOW, NOW, NOW I would balloon up and lose a lot of self respect in the next couple days. Plus the fact that I would feel like crap. So with the help of Mary I systematically de-junked my house, threw it all in a giant trash bag, poured CLOROX all over it and started over. I'm stronger than this. From 2pm Monday I got back on some semblence of a diet.
So now I'm back to Joe's orginal reccomendation of 225/200/40. Basically I'm just going to to with chicken, fruits and veggies for the rest of the week. Keep it clean. The only real allowances I will make is my flavored Quaker Weight Control oatmeal in the morning (banana bread mmm :) ) and I will have some non-fat, skim milk cheese on my chicken/veggies. I'll keep the sodium as low as possible and take in 2-3 gallons of water/green tea per day.
As far as training is concerned, I think I will begin doing LIGHT LIGHT full body splits to try and use some of this glycogen up. I cannot go heavy because the joints are just too sore. I will also incorporate some moderate cardio. I know the weight I'm carrying could not be more than 4 lbs of fat MAX..that's if I'm lucky. To store 4 lbs of fat, my body woulf have literally had to process 14,000 kcal and convert it in 48 hrs. This just seems unlikely even with the hypersensitivity to lipids and slowed down metabolism associated with post contest. By next weeked, I hope to be within 5 lbs of contest weight and looking less like a marshmallow.
When I am within this range, the bulk will begin. The only real question now is how long I want to stay away from the stage. I know I am young and I need to take advantage of this unique period to put on as much size as possible. However, having a show to shoot for keeps me motivated and fired up- so it is really a toss up. I also don't want to get so far from competing that I get out of shape. Only time will tell. At this time, I'm thinking 1 year of solid uninterrupted growth is a must and 2 years is a definite possibility. Beyond that, we shall see.
Stay tuned!
