Brandon's Contest Prep: Week 8
RECAP
Week 3 post-diet break and things aren’t changing toooo much. Scale weight is only slowly trickling down, but I am marginally feeling better.
I decided to post some post-gym progress pics. Anything involving my lats tend to be my best poses.
Its also crazy that even at THIS state, I still think I have a good chunk to go before I would consider myself stage ready. The legs overall could use more striations and my upper body needs to start coming in a bit more.
One HUGE takeaway from this process that I KNEW going in, but can now absolutely confirm is that:
“You always have a lot more fat on you than you think”
I started at 195 lbs and did NOT look that bad
I am now past 170 and creeping towards 167 and I still have about 5+ lbs left till I’m “there”.
Takeaway
Just goes to show to plan ahead EARLY and anticipate the worse. Not many people can dig super hard at the end to get the last bits of fat off.
Contest Prep can be a Marthon that concludes by SPRINTING towards the end and that is not something many people can mentally handle.
Nutrition
Last week (here), I talked about how I am almost eating the same meal plan day to day. I’ve done this to minimize variables, hit my targets, and NOT worry about food.
This is great for days to fly by and put you at ease that you did what you could. A question that comes up on prep and even in some normal cases is:
“When should you allow yourself to go off your routine?”
Execution out of your routine
I ate the Salmon, but opted not to eat this super tasty rice that it was sitting on top of :(
Versatility: I’ve said before that the best dieters are the ones who can “excel when in and out of their routine”. This comes from experience of how to execute and formulate a routine AND knowing what tools to use to stay on track when NOT in a routine.
Experience cures anxiety: When pushing yourself to get to levels of leanness you have never been at before, you will eventually start to enter “territory” that you have no personal experience in. No matter how much research and reading you do about it, you will never truly know what it feels like to be in the thick of it until you experience it.
You may not know how you are going to react to stressors and whether caving in to them will throw you severly off track.
My Current Situation: I excelled in my off-season and beginning of the diet at being flexible. At this point, I’ll admit, I got accustomed to and CRAVED the routine I was in. This has made it initially hard to justify coming out of the routine without special circumstances.
Mothers Day:
I had been a 95-100% accuracy for my macros for 16 straight days in a deficit and I decided that for Mother’s day it was okay to flex in my lunch that day and guesstimate.
My family, especially my parents, understand the situation I have purposely put myself in. They are curious of the process and support me all the way. They understand if I come out to eat with them that I will skip out on apps, not drink and get a lower calorie meal. But above all, they would rather SEE me than have me skip all together.
Mother’s Day was a special day and I knew at this restaurant I could formulate an approach to still stay relatively on track.
I ended up getting salmon with a rice and salad:
Salmon: a food I’ve made before and therefore, could eyeball the portion size. After tasting it, I even added some fats to my numbers that day because it tasted better than MY version I usually make (not uncommon at restaurants that use a lot of cooking oil with their foods)
Salad: Something I could eat slowly and munch on to distract me from the appetizers. Not to mention my vegetable intake is high now so I wanted to keep total food volume similar to my usual routine meals.
Rice: As you can see from the pic, the rice was WAY too good tasting for me to “afford” this in my macros. It was made with a special sauce and butter. I ate the salmon around it and then just had some of my mom’s plain rice on the side while they had mine. Remember, you don’t have to eat everything on your plate, no matter what society has led you to believe.
Training
I haven’t recorded a lot of my training lately. Part of this is because I’ve been trying to be efficient with my time in the gym. Another reason is I have been putting a lot of emotion into lifting lately and it just pays off to be completely in the zone during these weeks.
tapping into hype reserves early
In early weeks (here), I touched on how I like to ramp up my training to “peak” at a height of emotions in the latest weeks of training. Deep into prep can present an exception to this rule.
Reasoning/Execution:
Low calories: Low calories and lower carbs means you are going to have less energy to put towards your mental clarity. You may just have to bite the bullet to devote MORE resources to training and accept the fact you may be really tired later.
Progression: In periods of severe calorie deficit, volume progression is what is going to signal to your body to retain the muscle it has now. I haven’t necessarily gotten stronger, but at least week to week I try to maintain or progress by a couple reps here and there.
I therefore, planned ahead to do easier moves to execute (a lot of machines, higher rep ranges) so that more focus can be put into targeting muscles and progressing movements.
Caffeine: Lastly, I’m finally starting to up my pre-workout caffeine content as a result. I try to stay as low as I need (per usual), but lately I’ve been pushing it up to help me “go there” for my workouts.
This is not sustainable and prep in itself is not sustainable, but at this point I have invested so much time to the process that devoting even more of my ENERGY each day needs to be done
events
excelling at work on prep
An “event” that happens 5 days a week for me is my day job.
I work full-time, usually around 8:30-5ish Monday to Friday, for 40 hours a week. I do this on top of training, dieting, online clients, sleep and any other hobbies/relaxation.
During this prep I have been working Full Time at Stryker in Mahwah, NJ as an Engineer
One thing I’m very proud of is that I’ve still been adequate AND performing quite well at work. Therefore, I figured I would give some insight to some of the tools and tricks I use to function at work while on prep.
Bodybuilding related tools:
Training: I get my training done in the morning. This lets me get some alone time where I can get my mind right to start the day doing something I enjoy. That way when I FINISH work, I can go home and relax.
If I’m running short on time, I will also superset some of my later accessory exercises such as DB curls and DB skullcrushers to conserve time.
Nutrition: Meal Prep (as mentioned here) has been a big reason of why I’ve been able to excel with not worrying about what I have to eat day to day.
I also get 3 of my meals in AT work. This makes sure that I have energy and am not hungry during the work day. I would rather worry about hunger after work where I don’t have to put on a pretty personality or be as lively because I can be alone.
Relaxation: When I am NOT at work, I do not THINK about work. I relax and spend time on other tasks such that when I come to work I can go all in for my job. Thankfully, I have the luxury to be able to do this at my current position.
On top of this, not a day goes by where I don’t get 7-9 hours of sleep the night before work.
Work-related tools:
Efficiency Systems: whether it's spreadsheets, task lists, scrum boards, short cuts. Anything that "externalizes your mind" and makes you avoid duplicating any work you've already done. Every minute saved is HUGE!
Rating Tasks: For me, I DO have moments when I have a wave of energy. During this time, I'll make sure to do the most mentally consuming tasks on my board. Then, when I feel tired and losing focus, I'll switch over to do the more "mindless" tasks that I categorized as "easy".
Communication: During periods of dieting I will make it even more of a point to prioritize meetings or on-boarding sessions to make sure my Team above anything is up to speed. That way I can "externalize" and potentially spread around out work to where it seems fit so we can collectively get more done.
Additionally, if there is a task that I think needs additional work, I will make sure that I don’t take on more than I can handle. I will then communicate with my team if there is a way to reset expectations given the current status of the project I am working on.
Take initiative: If there are potential problems or roadblocks I will go out of my way to open a discussion to solve them. Part of my job is to be analytical, creative and questioning of all my tasks. That means I must assess the validity of problems or work we are doing as a team. If I see there's a way to cut the fluff on a project or solve a problem that could arise to do it, I don’t wait around. I will be the one.
Lastly,
My job didn’t ask me to do a contest prep.
When they hired me they didn’t know that was one of the criteria that came with me.
Therefore, it is MY responsibility to make sure my performance doesn’t slip. Just like I planned ahead with my diet and training, I’ve made sure I’m prepared to approach my job in a similar mindset.
MINDSET
Dieting can be fun for YOU because you get to see how your body evolve over time. You get to see how WITHOUT a shirt/clothes new striations and cuts pop-up week to week or even day to day.
An overlooked aspect of cutting, especially in contest preps, is that you reach a point where your clothes do not fit you.
My clothes don’t fit me
Sweaters: At work, i will tend to wear sweaters if I can because
1) I get colder easier because I have been dieting for a while and my body produces less heat (to conserve energy)
2) they are one of the few items in my current wardrobe that actually fits me.
T-shirts: I will sometimes wear t-shirts if I hit my upper body in the morning that day. Reason being is my ARMS don’t even come close to filling out my sleeves anymore.
Pants: I started with 6 pairs of pants that fit comfortably with me, especially around the legs. I’m down to 3 that don’t feel that baggy.
Belt: I’ve gone down at least 2 belt loops from the beginning of my diet.
I work at a job where your “dress for your day” and it's very intimidating at times because you have higher ups walking around in full-blown suits and many of my co-workers in shirts and ties.
I’ll admit, sometimes it hits into my confidence pretty bad. I’ll just want to stay at my desk all day because on a particular day I’ll realize the outfit I wear doesn’t fit me anymore.
Why don’t I buy clothes?
Atypical Scale Weight: I’ve thought about this but, to be honest, I weigh ~169 lbs right now. My normal body weight is somewhere in the 185-195 range. Within a couple months of me competing, I will have NO BUSINESS hanging out at my current scale weight. On top of that, I’m investing a fair amount of my money into bodybuilding at the moment.
Flat=Bad look: Not to mention, when in a calorie deficit (especially if you are digging), you will feel very flat. You won’t feel that great about your appearance no matter what clothes you wear.
My Mindset:
So for right now, it's to concentrate on my PERFORMANCE at my job and let that be the fuel to my confidence. Additionally, it's reminding myself that it is not permanent AND this is a common feeling amongst natural bodybuilder competitors.
Looking “meh” now is a temporary feeling that is usually a good sign that I am losing body fat. On top of that, my apperance should have nothing to do with the way people treat me at a job un-related to body appearance. I was hired for my brain, not for how I look.
CONCLUSION
I’m starting to approach the 1 month out point for my NYC show in June.
Still pushing further conditioning and digging a little harder. Trying to get another chunk off so we can re-assess during a “mock peak week” and plan to come in at MY best at this show.
Any questions? Reach out to me on Instagram @brandonjod
