2012: Year of the novice bodybuilder - Parallel Journeys - Moses with 3DMJ

[Shazriki]

Your eats are INSANE brO! Glad to see some lifting vidz too bluuuuuD

Keep this up or else Lavado will have to come regulate. And by regulate I mean eat your sammiches.

Haha thanks Chris! Admittedly it was all the vids in your log that inspired me to take a couple of my own last workout. Worked out nicely too as I got some pointers for squat form!

Will definitely keep it up, but brah if you touch my sammiches there's gonna be beef.

Haha, I love that you say "your local butcher" as though you just assume that I have one. I do and I don't think he carries venison regularly. Which is weird because he carries a lot of stuff I would never assume he "would" carry on the regular....

LOL I guess I've been living in England for too long. Here it seems as if there were butchers before there were towns, so naturally I assumed. Butchers that carry exotic meats ftw. Need one that carries horse.

Workout AND diet are brutal, brother.

Pancake bread. Yes. Yes, this could work. I'm actually digging this.

You're giving Ash a run for her money on the food pron, btw.

Thanks Phoz. The workout was ever so slightly grinder but so far the diet ISN'T. Let me promise you that that's going to change real soon

Give it a shot, I had no idea people would be attracted by it, it was simply the product of when ingenuity meats necessity: I had pancake batter that needed to be cooked, I didn't have a stove, so I baked that sh!t.

Ash is taking time off, when she gets back into the swing of things she'll be putting all to shame once again.

[FrmrHoss]

I gave you a shout out in the log for this masterpiece:

[Shazriki]

I gave you a shout out in the log for this masterpiece:
]

I posted in your log! That looks too awesome to be for real.

[Shazriki]

Let us begin with some pics. I call these "fatz": first time taking pics after reading an ACTUAL posing guide.

[Shazriki]

Day 11: 25 weeks, 1 day out

Today sh!t finally starts to get real on this prep. Sent my first update to Eric and we're dropping macros a bit, adding another HIIT session, and tweaking my lifts a bit. Excited as hell!

The rest of the day was pretty much revision + carido in the PM (my HIIT session). Buses were a little messed up getting home, so I actually wasted a few hours to what amounted to a 30 mins cardio session, will have to get up early tomorrow, get cardio out of the way, and rip the books a new a$$hole.

In other news, I will now start experimenting with eating some simple carbs pre-workout along with my BCAAs. I have been training fasted for around 4 months with good results, but before christmas I got a couple of sessions in where due to lack of BCAAs I actually ate breakfast, and I remember they were some of the best I'd had in a while. As a compromise, I'm going to try eating around 20-40g carbs in whatever form is easiest along with my BCAAs around 15 mins before training, just to see if it gives me a little boost. I'll still be doing complete IF on off-training days, and will still be partition the majority of the day's calories in the post-workout window, both for convenience and for favourable partitioning. Cardio will still be fasted because honestly I do feel a little funky doing cardio with food in me.

Protocol changes

-25g protein on all days except refeed

+1 HIIT session for 400 cals


Morning weight 197

Training

Stationary Bike 30s work 90s rest intervals, 400 cals burned in 26:40

Nutrition

220P/247C/65F


Pita filled with ground venison, spinach, onions and mushrooms



Roast chicken breast, butternut squash, veggies sauteed in Bambi fat



Choc PB proats with ice cream

[snrygo]

wot is bambi fat? was it YOU that killed bambi?

[Bnizzle163]

Mmm... bambi fat .

Uh oez! Macro change! Now it's getting real!

Posing definitely needs some work, but PLENTY of time to get it dialed in. Plus, you will be working with Jeff, right? The man is a posing guru. He fixed all sorts of little problems that I had. I'll give you a few pointers that I notice though.

Front lat spread - looks the best out of all your poses. Take a deep breath in, stand up a bit taller and try not to lean back.

Rear lat spread - SPREAD THOSE LATS! This one you can get away a bit more with rounding your shoulders forward a bit (as opposed to the front LS), however, make sure you lean back a bit and FLEX those hammies and glutes!

Side chest - Arm closest to the camera is WAY too far down. Don't pull down on it with your opposite arm. That arm should be focused on pressing up against your pec to get some pop and helping to flex your biceps a bit (on the arm closest to the camera). Also, twist (but don't lean) toward to camera and make sure you're sitting on that hamstring!

Side tri - pretty much imagine a side chest but flexing your tri. I notice the same issues on this pose.

Like I said, if you're working with Jeff. You'll be dialed in . So keep working at it.

[andyboi]

On target to get peeled mate! Keep working on those poses, they're sooooooooooooooooooo hard to do! Maybe you would like to check this guy's posing guide:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MikesMus...?feature=watch

www.michaelfaba.com

[anuragp122195]

Choc PB proats with ice cream

WOAH. Some of the most awesome looking proats I've seen. Brief me a bit on how you made those please? Love the log BTW. Good eats and good lifts. Cool that you are with eric helms & 3dmj

[Shazriki]

wot is bambi fat? was it YOU that killed bambi?

Haha it was some leftover venison fat that I just reheated to fry some veggies in But yea bambi is sitting in my freezer.

Mmm... bambi fat .

Uh oez! Macro change! Now it's getting real!

Posing definitely needs some work, but PLENTY of time to get it dialed in. Plus, you will be working with Jeff, right? The man is a posing guru. He fixed all sorts of little problems that I had. I'll give you a few pointers that I notice though.
Yup I'll get some face time with Jeff but not for a while

Front lat spread - looks the best out of all your poses. Take a deep breath in, stand up a bit taller and try not to lean back.

Rear lat spread - SPREAD THOSE LATS! This one you can get away a bit more with rounding your shoulders forward a bit (as opposed to the front LS), however, make sure you lean back a bit and FLEX those hammies and glutes!
The leaning back is what's getting me, I feel as if I go too far back I'm going to shrink my torso, but now looking at the pics I realize I'd have to practically be playing limbo for that to happen, hams and glutes definitely need to remember to flex those

Side chest - Arm closest to the camera is WAY too far down. Don't pull down on it with your opposite arm. That arm should be focused on pressing up against your pec to get some pop and helping to flex your biceps a bit (on the arm closest to the camera). Also, twist (but don't lean) toward to camera and make sure you're sitting on that hamstring!
Agree lol, my arm is practically pointing to the ground. Good call on the outer arm pushing the pec forward, that'll be a good queue to remember!

Side tri - pretty much imagine a side chest but flexing your tri. I notice the same issues on this pose.

Like I said, if you're working with Jeff. You'll be dialed in . So keep working at it.

Replies in bold! Thanks for the tips brah!

On target to get peeled mate! Keep working on those poses, they're sooooooooooooooooooo hard to do! Maybe you would like to check this guy's posing guide:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MikesMus...?feature=watch

www.michaelfaba.com

Thanks mate, and you're right I had no idea that posing was that difficult. Definitely not something you want to leave for the last minute, you would look like such a dick on stage

Thanks for linking that site, I've already watched a couple of videos, he really breaks it down! Awesome resource!!

WOAH. Some of the most awesome looking proats I've seen. Brief me a bit on how you made those please? Love the log BTW. Good eats and good lifts. Cool that you are with eric helms & 3dmj

Thanks for the kind words dude! Those were just some standard proats made with XF UP 2.0 Choc PB (water+splenda+cinnamon+oats -> microwave) and then topped with some vanilla ice cream, easy

[Shazriki]

Day 12: 25 weeks out

Not much to report from today, just a bit of AM cardio and a fair chunk of revision. I've got 3 hairy exams coming up next week. At least the training will break them up nicely Refeed tomorrow!

Morning weight 196.8

Training

Elliptical 400 cals burned in 31:10

Nutrition

219P/252C/65F - touch under pro for the day


Green curry paste-rubbed chicken salad with blue cheese dressing and fried eggs on toast



Green curry fried rice

[vitornoob]

Came here to ask for apologizes since i am not posting in the forum a lot, just using my iphone, so I did not see your log, but today saw your sig with the new log...now I understood why you were not updating your old log...

omg, I am 12, and what is this food porn?

I will read the log when possible, but i will try to keep my eyes here

good luck

[Shazriki]

Came here to ask for apologizes since i am not posting in the forum a lot, just using my iphone, so I did not see your log, but today saw your sig with the new log...now I understood why you were not updating your old log...

omg, I am 12, and what is this food porn?

I will read the log when possible, but i will try to keep my eyes here

good luck

Bro no need to apologize, glad to have you following along again! You're not the first one to miss this though, maybe I should post a link in big capital letters or something just in case people are wondering.

Not much to catch up on brah, some food pictures, and me maintaining weight for about a week haha. Stick around though, dis gon' be good.

[Shazriki]

Day 13: 24 weeks, 6 days out

Exam 3/5 out of the way! And I have to say that it went pretty damn well, just two more to go then I can finally chill out and get my video game nerd on. I've got Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, FF13, CoDMW3 and probably other to catch up on... and an entire week off before the next term start. Cannot wait.

My workout today was strange. I went in juiced with poptart power so was expecting plenty of energy to hopefully set some PRs or get close to it. Well, I did set some PRs (more on that in a sec), but I completely collapsed on squats. I racked up my usual working weight and it felt HEAVY AS HELL. Even walking the bar out was a challenge. I banged out a measly 2 reps and knew that in going for a third I'd get pinned so I called it a set. Dropped the weight for my next set and could still only bang out 3 solid reps before I felt like I was getting crushed. The crazy thing is that after all that I my legs barely feel as if they did ANY work today. I emailed Eric about it because I thought it was so strange that I could have such an epic workout with such crappy squats. He suggested that it might be some neurological fatigue and it doesn't make sense for me to keep bashing my head against this weight without approaching it from a different angle. So we're going to backcycle my squats a bit and build the weight back up over a few workouts. At least it'll leave me with more energy for the other lifts!

Well now with all that boo-hoo crap out of the way: the rest of the workout. Today was my lighter DB day, so I was able to rep out a bit more than I usually do, and it felt pretty damn good. Set a PR for reps at that weight which I was pretty happy with. I might ditch the 27.5kg altogether and move up to the 30kg DBs as my lowest weight. Lat pulls were also powerful and finally got to move up the weight on my skullcrushers so hopefully I'll be flashing some slightly bigger tris come stage day

Squats aside, maybe there is something to poptarts = PRs....

Morning weight 197.4

Nothing to see here, just a sodium bloat from too much soy sauce last night

Training

Barbell Squat:

280.5 lb x 2 reps
253 lb x 3 reps

Dumbbell Bench Press:

60.5 lb x 13 reps
60.5 lb x 12 reps
PR at this weight for reps

Close-Grip Front Lat Pulldown:

180.5 lb x 9 reps PR
180.5 lb x 3 reps
180.5 lb x 3 reps
180.5 lb x 3 reps
180.5 lb x 2 reps
Myo-reps

Lying Barbell Triceps Extension ("Skullcrusher"):

77 lb x 10 reps PR
77 lb x 7 reps

Stir The Pot:

14 reps
13 reps

Nutrition

Refeed!

227P/476C/59F

Chicken chili with roast sprouts



Reese's mini PB cup Pumpkin bread with choc-PB-GY frosting

[snrygo]

Moses, your green curry stuff from yesterday actually inspired my soba noodles from last night!

also, dont sweat the squats, we all have those days

[FrmrHoss]

Mirin the pumpkin loaf for sure .

I've been going hog wild on the roasted sprouts lately. So good.

[anuragp122195]

Reese's mini PB cup Pumpkin bread with choc-PB-GY frosting

Reese's PB Cup BREAD?

[Shazriki]

Moses, your green curry stuff from yesterday actually inspired my soba noodles from last night!

also, dont sweat the squats, we all have those days

Yea I saw those, they looked awesome! I love curry paste, easily the best ingredient. Just gotta watch the soy sauce though lol.

I know it's a one off, but it was a sh!tty one off. As of this morning my hips are feeling tight so dropping the weight was a good idea, plenty of foam rolling and stretching to sort it out too coming up.

Mirin the pumpkin loaf for sure .

I've been going hog wild on the roasted sprouts lately. So good.

I just had to make a real bread after you posted it Surprised at how well it turned out, but I agree with you you need something extra to really get that PB taste throughout the bread. Maybe peanut flour+cocoa powder+a bit of real PB into the batter would bring it up.

Yea roasted sprouts are my go to, they're serious business.

Reese's PB Cup BREAD? [img]http://altsune.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/thats-smart.png[/ig]

Just getting my veggies in brah.

[lakergreat1]

Day 13: 24 weeks, 6 days out

Exam 3/5 out of the way! And I have to say that it went pretty damn well, just two more to go then I can finally chill out and get my video game nerd on. I've got Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, FF13, CoDMW3 and probably other to catch up on... and an entire week off before the next term start. Cannot wait.

Haven't gotten my gaming on for a while.. hmm

My workout today was strange. I went in juiced with poptart power so was expecting plenty of energy to hopefully set some PRs or get close to it. Well, I did set some PRs (more on that in a sec), but I completely collapsed on squats. I racked up my usual working weight and it felt HEAVY AS HELL. Even walking the bar out was a challenge. I banged out a measly 2 reps and knew that in going for a third I'd get pinned so I called it a set. Dropped the weight for my next set and could still only bang out 3 solid reps before I felt like I was getting crushed. The crazy thing is that after all that I my legs barely feel as if they did ANY work today. I emailed Eric about it because I thought it was so strange that I could have such an epic workout with such crappy squats. He suggested that it might be some neurological fatigue and it doesn't make sense for me to keep bashing my head against this weight without approaching it from a different angle. So we're going to backcycle my squats a bit and build the weight back up over a few workouts. At least it'll leave me with more energy for the other lifts!

Stop copying me!! I did this last week! Don't you hate that feeling when you take the bar off and you're like.. "****."

Great PRs, glad to see those stir the pots come up too.

Nutrition

Refeed!

227P/476C/59F

Reese's mini PB cup Pumpkin bread with choc-PB-GY frosting

F.U.

Recipe Neowwww.. making tonite. Frosting recipe too. Happen to have left over pumpkin sitting in the fridge...

[FrmrHoss]

Hmmmm, I didn't think about peanut flour. Maybe using peanut oil in the mix as well, must experiment further!

[Shazriki]

Haven't gotten my gaming on for a while.. hmm

Stop copying me!! I did this last week! Don't you hate that feeling when you take the bar off and you're like.. "****."

Great PRs, glad to see those stir the pots come up too.

F.U.

Recipe Neowwww.. making tonite. Frosting recipe too. Happen to have left over pumpkin sitting in the fridge...

Gotta catch up brah. I've got so much gaming to do I could not leave me room for a week. But that might make prep difficult.

I really hate it, especially when you psyche yourself for a sick set and as soon as you take the weight off the rack you KNOW it's going to suck, but you still go down because that's what it's all about.

You love your STPs Yea I must admit I felt a bit stronger on those yesterday, probably the poptart!

Recipe:

145g flour (I used whole wheat but can use regular)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
lots of cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice if you have it (I don't so I just used cinnamon)
75g applesauce
160g pumpkin
15g splenda
1 egg
1 egg white
8 Reese's mini PB cups

A few hours before you bake put the PB cups in the fridge or freezer, it makes them brittle and easy to chop through. For the actual batter: mix all dry ingredients together and stir with a fork, put all the wet ingredients in the dry mix, mix with a mixer. If the dough is a tad thick just add a couple of small splashes of water and mix well. Put batter in a greased bread tin.

Preheat oven to 175C or 350F and bake for about 45 mins. Make some sexy sludge and chomp that sh!t.

[andyboi]

poptarts are amazing for energy. I get that rush once I've had them as well

[Shazriki]

Hmmmm, I didn't think about peanut flour. Maybe using peanut oil in the mix as well, must experiment further!

Please experiment away and let me know how it goes. I can only experiment once a week

poptarts are amazing for energy. I get that rush once I've had them as well

How long do you usually wait to train after eating one? I just smash one like 10 mins before lifting and I'm good to go.

[FrmrHoss]

Ahhh, I'm on dat dere daily 70/400/185 trying to maintain for the next few months to hopefully stay in the 181 weight class. But, even with those macros, a 1400 calorie breakfast loaf forces a wee bit of restriction the rest of the day lol.

[Shazriki]

Day 14: 24 weeks, 5 days out

Good day today! Got to experiment with a form of cardio that I've only done probably once before in my entire life: barbell complexes. Fun as hell, and thrash your body to pieces. My arms were not loving the treatment but it was definitely more fun than doing regular MISS cardio or intervals on the bike (but those still both have their place). I don't think I'd be able to do all my high intensity cardio this way, but once in a while it'll sure as hell be a great alternative to the usual machines..

I meant to do all 10 complexes with 66 lbs, but accidentally started with 88 and wondered why I was getting wasted so quickly.

So that's 1/2 HIIT sessions done this week and 2 more MISS to get through. Bring it!

Morning weight 197

Weight down after refeed, but only because of the sodium bloat I had yesterday

Cardio

Barbell Complexes (5 reps of each in sequence, 90s rest between complexes)

Push Press:

88 lb x 20 reps
66 lb x 30 reps

Snatch:

88 lb x 20 reps
66 lb x 30 reps

Front Barbell Squat:

88 lb x 20 reps
66 lb x 30 reps

Bent Over Barbell Row:

88 lb x 20 reps
66 lb x 30 reps

Elliptical Trainer:

0:10:00 || Moderate

Nutrition

222P/255C/64F

Roast chicken sandwich and mushrooms



Ground turkey and mushrooms in cream cheese sauce with butternut squash mash



I actually wanted to try making butternut squash spaghetti, but I think I baked the squash for too long.

[lakergreat1]

Gotta catch up brah. I've got so much gaming to do I could not leave me room for a week. But that might make prep difficult.

I really hate it, especially when you psyche yourself for a sick set and as soon as you take the weight off the rack you KNOW it's going to suck, but you still go down because that's what it's all about.

You love your STPs Yea I must admit I felt a bit stronger on those yesterday, probably the poptart!

Recipe:

145g flour (I used whole wheat but can use regular)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
lots of cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice if you have it (I don't so I just used cinnamon)
75g applesauce
160g pumpkin
15g splenda
1 egg
1 egg white
8 Reese's mini PB cups

A few hours before you bake put the PB cups in the fridge or freezer, it makes them brittle and easy to chop through. For the actual batter: mix all dry ingredients together and stir with a fork, put all the wet ingredients in the dry mix, mix with a mixer. If the dough is a tad thick just add a couple of small splashes of water and mix well. Put batter in a greased bread tin.

Preheat oven to 175C or 350F and bake for about 45 mins. Make some sexy sludge and chomp that sh!t.

When and how much protein powder would u add? And would that cause any other recipe changes?

GY/protein/Splenda?

[Shazriki]

Ahhh, I'm on dat dere daily 70/400/185 trying to maintain for the next few months to hopefully stay in the 181 weight class. But, even with those macros, a 1400 calorie breakfast loaf forces a wee bit of restriction the rest of the day lol.

I was trying to read your post but I got distracted by the "400" in your daily carb allotment.

Kidding aside, I agree, there's nothing worse than plugging in your macros for that awesome breakfast and realizing it's going to be lettuce and dry tuna for dinner.

Couldn't you afford to gain a couple of pounds and just do some water black magic to make weight for the meet?

[Shazriki]

When and how much protein powder would u add? And would that cause any other recipe changes?

GY/protein/Splenda?

I didn't add any protein powder but I would say if you do you should definitely use whey, and add a couple extra splashes of water to get the batter to the same consistency before you mixed the whey in. Luckily it's whey, in mixes thin anyway.

Save you GY for sludge. If you're stuck for ideas I made an awesome one once upon a time which had peanut butter, nutella and XF Cinn Roll mixed with GY.

[snrygo]

Wwas your recipe for the cream cheese sauce? It looks pretty bomb

[Shazriki]

Wwas your recipe for the cream cheese sauce? It looks pretty bomb

50g cream cheese and 30g grated cheese (I used low fat cheddar). Spices for the meat were basil, garlic, smoked paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper. I'm going to make it again today it was damn tasty.