I've received numerous questions about what I'm doing for diet and cardio right now so here's some info and a little history. I'm not completely sure I should be sharing this much detail, but screw it - I'd rather be honest with you guys and if you learn something new...great.
Week 1-4: Calories - 3900; Protein 366g; Carbs 449g; Fat 88g. During these weeks I was doing 30 min of cardio 3x a week first thing in the morning.
Week 5-6 (in week 6 now): Calories - 3500; Protein 360g; Carbs 355g; Fat 84g. For these weeks I've been doing 4x a week at 30-40 minutes.
The plan with the high calories at the start was to shock my body and get my metabolism rolling so that the diet would be more effective. If you start off with a slow metabolism you're screwed from the get-go. This is particularly a problem with people who pretty much diet and do a lot of cardio year round.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Recent Progress Pics
Ok - these are tough for me to share but here they are. I really don't like people seeing me out of shape, but I better get used to it if I want a blog right!? LOL. Hopefully at the very least at the end of this we'll be able to look back at these pics and see a huge transformation. Please excuse the extremely tight competition posing trunks. I almost ripped them trying to get into those things LMAO! I couldn't find my bigger ones that I usually take progress pics in. Rae (my girlfriend) probably hid them!!!
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Steve Cook Event
For all you real estate investors out there, I just got back from the 2-day Steve Cook investing conference in Baltimore, MD. I wasn't happy that it was on a Thurs and Friday because I had to get out of work, but it was excellent and I learned a lot. The main focus of the event was on creative financing and variants thereof; an important topic in today's restricted lending market.
Steve is one of the most genuine individuals I've ever met. Not only is he an investing genius, even more important (to me at least), is that he makes every effort to live his life the way God intended. He's truly a role model and I encourage anyone to look into his teachings and philosophies. He focuses on incorporating investing as part of your life vision and encourages you to think about how you want to live your life and what's important to you. He also has an investing forum over at www.flippinghomes.com. Check it out - it's a nice community over there.
Steve is one of the most genuine individuals I've ever met. Not only is he an investing genius, even more important (to me at least), is that he makes every effort to live his life the way God intended. He's truly a role model and I encourage anyone to look into his teachings and philosophies. He focuses on incorporating investing as part of your life vision and encourages you to think about how you want to live your life and what's important to you. He also has an investing forum over at www.flippinghomes.com. Check it out - it's a nice community over there.
So when is my contest anyway?
I can't give you a direct answer…yet. Let me explain…
This diet is quite different than anything I've ever done in the past. This past offseason, I took an extended cruise. During that time, some of you know I applied as a contestant for American Gladiators and cut my weight significantly in an effort to become more agile and have a better strength to weight ratio.
Around that time, I was thinking about how Kevin Levrone was famous for his ability to get leaner and bigger as he approached a contest, and I got the crazy idea to try something similar. Now I'd be lying if part of me didn't think this would also be great because I could slack off eating-wise and not stuff myself to gain size.
I talked with Kevin D (my diet guy) about it, and he thought it might work. Basically, our approach is to dramatically increase my calories with clean food, throw in some cardio, and see if I can gain some size and lose some fat at the same time. I'm 3 weeks into the diet now, and my calories have hovered around 3800-4000/day. I'll be honest - it's pretty tough to get in all my meals because I don't have a big appetite to being with. (That’s partially why I actually like dieting!). I'm pretty much within 5 lbs of where I was when I started (220 lbs) but have dramatically changed the way I look. I'll post some pics in the next couple days.
Anyway - back to the contest date…because we don't know how my body is going to respond, we haven't picked an exact show yet. Rather, we've chosen a range depending on my progress. I actually like this approach because I don’t feel stressed out about being ready and I can relax and just monitor my body. Right now the choices are Bev Frances' show in NY, Jr. Nats, Southern States, and USAs. All of them span about a month from June to late July. We're going to play it by ear at this point and monitor my progress. We'll know more as we get further into the diet. The first show is 11 weeks away. As soon as I know which show(s) I'm doing, you'll be the first to know ☺
This diet is quite different than anything I've ever done in the past. This past offseason, I took an extended cruise. During that time, some of you know I applied as a contestant for American Gladiators and cut my weight significantly in an effort to become more agile and have a better strength to weight ratio.
Around that time, I was thinking about how Kevin Levrone was famous for his ability to get leaner and bigger as he approached a contest, and I got the crazy idea to try something similar. Now I'd be lying if part of me didn't think this would also be great because I could slack off eating-wise and not stuff myself to gain size.
I talked with Kevin D (my diet guy) about it, and he thought it might work. Basically, our approach is to dramatically increase my calories with clean food, throw in some cardio, and see if I can gain some size and lose some fat at the same time. I'm 3 weeks into the diet now, and my calories have hovered around 3800-4000/day. I'll be honest - it's pretty tough to get in all my meals because I don't have a big appetite to being with. (That’s partially why I actually like dieting!). I'm pretty much within 5 lbs of where I was when I started (220 lbs) but have dramatically changed the way I look. I'll post some pics in the next couple days.
Anyway - back to the contest date…because we don't know how my body is going to respond, we haven't picked an exact show yet. Rather, we've chosen a range depending on my progress. I actually like this approach because I don’t feel stressed out about being ready and I can relax and just monitor my body. Right now the choices are Bev Frances' show in NY, Jr. Nats, Southern States, and USAs. All of them span about a month from June to late July. We're going to play it by ear at this point and monitor my progress. We'll know more as we get further into the diet. The first show is 11 weeks away. As soon as I know which show(s) I'm doing, you'll be the first to know ☺
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
HELLO!
Hi Everyone!
Here it is…my first official blog post. The original intent of this blog was to follow my contest prep diet for some upcoming bodybuilding shows, but after receiving some input, I've decided to make it more general and include aspects of my life, bodybuilding, investing, as well as my views on other select topics like family, friends, and what's important in life. I think you'll find this more enriching (and hopefully more entertaining), as I will share my thoughts, goals, inspirations, and frustrations rather than just list the foods I ate for the day and how much cardio I did. LOL.
The updates are going to be done weekly for the most part. It'll be a mixture of video and text. I'll try to keep the updates short, as most of us suffer from information overload these days as it is. Welcome aboard. I hope you enjoy our journey together.
Jason
Here it is…my first official blog post. The original intent of this blog was to follow my contest prep diet for some upcoming bodybuilding shows, but after receiving some input, I've decided to make it more general and include aspects of my life, bodybuilding, investing, as well as my views on other select topics like family, friends, and what's important in life. I think you'll find this more enriching (and hopefully more entertaining), as I will share my thoughts, goals, inspirations, and frustrations rather than just list the foods I ate for the day and how much cardio I did. LOL.
The updates are going to be done weekly for the most part. It'll be a mixture of video and text. I'll try to keep the updates short, as most of us suffer from information overload these days as it is. Welcome aboard. I hope you enjoy our journey together.
Jason
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)