Back from holiday yesterday. Went to Las Vegas and diet was absolutely awful. I actually can't remember the last time my diet would've been that bad. On the positive side, the place is amazing. If you haven't been, I'd definitely recommend that you go. I drank serious amounts of root beer. I love the stuff and I'm kinda glad they don't really do it over here.

Anyway, I'm jet lagged and need time to adjust but training will resume tomorrow. I'm still undecided on what to do though. I know Alex and Rab have suggested cutting for another month or so and then start bulking, but I'd like a few opinions on what to do?

Do what Alex and Rab has said

Go for the cut so you're at least 10% and then leave yourself there for 2-4 weeks so your body has some time to get used to being this lean and you can start to maintain/build strength.

From there maybe look to try the ABCDE diet - http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_arti ... generation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; although I wouldn't bother adjusting training too much as they outline.

I tend to sway towards this style of diet naturally as I make subtle adjustments over 5-7 days but I don't make big enough swings in calorie intake to really warrant calling the differences distinct bulk and cut mini cycles as the differences may only be 200 calories at most.

So during the bulk cycle I'll eat pretty much as normal with carbs through the day and evenings while with the cut cycle I'll remove late afternoon and evening carbs and replace with more green veg and salads. The calorie change is subtle but enough to promote a small deficit and some fat loss.

I find this is enough to promote small amounts of fat loss without loss of strength or any real muscle mass and it's more likely to stay off due to the slower nature and the body not really thinking it's in a constant of starvation. It's also less likely to play havoc with blood sugar levels, depeding on your macro's, so is another advantage.

Agree wwith Alex on cutting

Id say take a week to settle back into crappy normal life after vegas and then next week start a 4 week cut

Go at it hard and get it otu the way. you wont be happy bulking if you are too fat and will hold back and just get fatter.

Id go for 120g carbs per day....whatever you recon in protein....250-275? and fats just coincidental from egg yolks, red meat, fish etc.

after the first week. asses. take a little carbs out and add a little extra cardio each week...keep going for the 4 weeks and you will lose a whack and be ready to grow. last week will be sore but worth it.

nice and simple. KISS for me!

it will hurt but will be worth it. have some sweets after training for sanity and to keep you going. i like a turkish delight. 38g carbs and not too much else. ditch the powder carbs post work out and eat them in sweets i say. Haribo or jelly babies are good too



quick example

whey & 50g oats (mix whey into proper oats -30g carbs)

chicken & veg

chicken & veg + 3 rice cakes and a medium banana (40g carbs)

eggs (say 3 yolks 5 whites maybe?)

train

whey and haribo (20g worth of sugar)

red meat or fish with baby potatoes/sweet potato/rice etc......30g worth of carbs left so figure

whey pre bed

**********************

i like to butter banana onto rice cakes. gives you something nice mid day when you have the taste for something sweet. might sound shit but when dieting i find it a life saver and the best thing ever

Haven't updated this in a while and I haven't been logging workouts either, but I've changed to a split routine (stolen from ollie). Chest/back, legs and delts/arms. I was planning on doing two on, one off, one on, one off, repeat, but I still have ridiculous DOMS from chest and back on Friday, so I think I'll be sticking to one on, one off and maybe train more frequently when my body starts to get used to this style of training again.

Although, I'm not logging everything, training is going very well and I feel I'm really training hard and focusing on every rep/set more than I ever have before and hopefully the results will show this. I've also started bulking and after only a week or so, I am bigger already. Now obviously I know I wouldn't have really grown in that week, but it really is a noticeable size and fullness difference I've achieved simply from upping the carbs... I can really see myself growing over the next few months and I think cutting really helped me realise that I was not eating enough when I've tried to bulk previously.

It's a good Upper/Lower split that Ollie follows so should work out very well.

Keep it up mate. I take it tat you're stiill doing cardio during this phase?

Nope, no cardio. Would you say I should be?

roadz wrote:Nope, no cardio. Would you say I should be?

I would always do a little, just for health and fat burning reasons. Even 10 mins after weights twice a week will help

Haven't updated this in a while but had a decent legs session yesterday

Squat
100kg x 10
110kg x 10
120kg x 12

Leg Curls
3 x 10 with a hard squeeze at peak contraction

Leg press
150kg x 20
200kg x 15
250kg x 12, drop to 200kg x 10 and drop to 150kg x 10

Calf press
3 x 10 - really burning

Best legs session ever for me - PB on last set of squats and it was really hard. My training partner took a video, which I may post up if I can workout how. Drop set on leg press as ridiculously painful and I found it hard to stand up for a good while afterwards. Recently I've been focusing on training balls to the wall, whereas in the past I think I've been guilty of being too methodical with routines and not going all out.

Good stuff mate, leave nothing in the changing room as my old rugby coach said, nothing.

Good stuff mate

Ive found now that instead of being foolish to think that any one way of training is best....the only common factor i have found is that a good physique is always achieved by fcuking hard work...be that a fancy pants program, lotsof volume, high reps, low reps, low volume....thres a hundred quality physiques who advocate each. Only common factor for the average guy is veryhard work day in day out balls out training

Rab wrote:Good stuff mate

Ive found now that instead of being foolish to think that any one way of training is best....the only common factor i have found is that a good physique is always achieved by fcuking hard work...be that a fancy pants program, lotsof volume, high reps, low reps, low volume....thres a hundred quality physiques who advocate each. Only common factor for the average guy is veryhard work day in day out balls out training

Yep, for me, it doesn't really matter what routine you're doing (within reason of course) but just that whatever you're doing, you're doing it hard. I train in a commercial gym and 95% of the trainers are there doing half arsed sets and I think to myself 'do you really think you are going to achieve anything training the way you are?'

Trained in a different gym tonight and I went for it big time...

The highlight was 130kg squat for 7 reps - PB for me. Trained so hard that I puked a bit after the session. Is this something I should be proud of?