Thursday, June 7, 2012

WOW!!! It's Been Longer Than I Thought!

So I have been away for awhile, training clients, keeping up with my own training and nutrition, and just life in general has been really crazy! Let me explain.

For any of you that have been following along either through blogs or on Facebook know that I have been considering competing later this year. I $703.32 my "diet" on January 1st and was planning on staying the course until the fall shows. My goal that I felt would keep me on pace for these shows was to be at roughly 190lbs by June 1st (last prep I was at around 200lbs around June 1). Fact is I fell 10lbs short of that goal, but here's the catch! THIS DID NOT PHASE ME, I refused to let the scale defeat me. I was disappointed that I hadn't reached my goal but I was prouder then hell that I lasted 6 whole months with the focus and drive to get myself from around 240lbs to 202lbs when I weighed in the beginning of June. This time at 200 I have realized I am much fuller and muscular then previously at is weight, so I have no complaints.

Here is the part I hope you can all learn from and realize that sometimes you just need a break, just a few days to relax unwind and let your body recover. I went hard for those 6 months that I Watson my "diet" and the last 30 days of it NOTHING felt right y strength was gone, energy and motivation ALL GONE! It was depressing! I didn't want to break the focus or break the streak of working out eating 100% right but I just couldn't do it. I decided to take a break about 3 days before my original cut off, I cut it short on May 26th, just in time for the Memorial Day weekend. We had a BBQ to go to that weekend and I just needed a break. So on that Saturday my gf and I let down to a restaurant on the water it was a gorgeous day, I was ready to eat whatever I wanted and I actually indulged in a cocktail which is very rare for me these days. Sunday we had our BBQ and if I told you everything's ate drank etc yu would not believe it, so let's just leave it at that. Monday was a recovery day so my diet was absolutely non existent. Tuesday I felt phenomenal, but I decided to take it easy and I stayed out of the gym. I made the decision to step on the scale for only one reason, which was to see how much damage I had done. To remind myself of why I can not do this on a regular basis. I was up 12lbs which was not a shock, it was expected considering I had not had large amounts of carbs or sugars in months and I definitely over indulged.

On that same Wednesday I woke up felt great and made the call to get back to the gym, I started on a bulking plan with the intent of adding some serious size from now until the end of the summer. I know I will be eating more and I mine as well use the increase in calories to my advantage. I started the new workouts and I am going to be honest I have never felt this worked post workout since I started working out. I am sore again, my strength is coming back thanks to the increase in calories and I just overall feel amazing. The best part of it all is that after that horrible weekend I was back to 204lbs and have been maintaining close to that every week since, I am hoping to stay close to this weight gaining just a little bit each week in an attempt to gain some more mass.

The basis of this story is for people to learn to listen to their bodies! It will always tell you what it needs you just need to pay attention to what it's saying. You need to be aware of the signs and learn your body. Fatigue is natural but when it's overbearing yu need to make the smart decision.

I hope to be back a little more regularly now that things have settled down. If you have any thoughts or questions you would like answered leave a post here or on Facebook and I would be happy to answer it.

Happy training!