well, 2 more days left and there's a big chance of not making it in my weight class (75 KG). I woke up this morning weighing in 74.2 KG, with a 30.8 inch waist @ 3.8% fat. Ofcourse, the fat was measured with an electronic fat caliper and doesn't reflect my true body fat. To be honest, i'm anywhere between 4.5 and 5%. Still, i'm totally depleted, and have minimal water retention. the next two days will be carb loading days, with 350 grams of carbs each day, and depending on how i look on thursday, i'll judge how much carbs i should eat. I usually get a 1-2 KG increase in body weight after carb loading, which is scaring the $#it outta me. I'll be tanning wednesday morning (taking the day off work), and going to the sona at night to get rid of all the water weight. If i don't go below 75 KG on thursday morning, i'll just tan again, and wear a sweater all throughout the day. Anyways, i'm just holding off for the junk attack after the contest. The lower i place, the faster i can go to burger king (they call out the contestants from bottom to top). wish me luck people, i'll post my diet and exercise schedule for the the past 6 weeks when i'm done with the contest just to shed some light about it, since it's very different from anything i've done.

cheers

How to Deal with Ramadhan

To tell you the truth, there is no way to deal with this month. The whole thing defies the point of fat loss and muscle preservation, or muscle building with minimal fat gain. There are ways to go around it though, but keep in mind that it would need precise planning and timing. But let’s be honest here for a second. Ramadhan is all about fasting for about 14 hours, then binging yourself senseless with food on the dining table (this article has nothing to do with prayers. So don’t try to criticize me and say: “what about salah and reading the quran and yada yada yada?” I’m not here to preach about religious matters). So, what can you do?

Personally, I would suggest you try to maintain what you worked hard for (hopefully) in the last couple of months or years. Whether you were bulking or cutting, just try to maintain your current state by eating what you have to eat and keeping exercises to a minimum (I’m talking sessions, not intensity). Here are some guidelines to get you through the month with minimal damage:

1- DO NOT BINGE ON BREAKFAST!!!!!!!! Only eat what you have to eat. Calculate calories needed on that meal and do not exceed them. If you need to eat those desserts that are only made once a year (Only god knows why), just eat a couple of bites to please your taste buds, not to stuff your face like a pig.

2- YOU HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO EAT 5 MEALS A DAY!! Let’s say you break your fast at around 5 pm. You can eat your second meal at 6:30. Train with weights at 8 pm, then jog. 10 pm you drink a protein shake. 11 pm you eat another meal. Finally, you wake up before fajr prayer and eat your last meal. Let me explain. You’ll be fasting for a long ass time, and you’ll probably be awake more than half the time. So, the first meal would be digested and absorbed in record time. That’s why you can eat your second meal 90 minutes later. You’ll then have enough sugar to go through your weight training work out to deplete yourself. Then you jog to burn some fat (unless you’re bulking, but it’s still good to include 2 cardio sessions/week just to keep the fat from building up). The protein shake is absorbed in 30 minutes or so (I would suggest a meal replacement powder instead of pure whey. You do not want to go into ketosis in ramadhan). So you can eat your 4th meal about an hour (or less) later. Go to bed. Wake up before morning prayer, and eat your 5th meal. Simple.

3- DO NOT TRY TO DEPLETE YOUR BODY’S SUGAR BY CUTTING OUT CARBS!!! Ofcourse, most of the carbs (I’m talking 80-90%) should be from complex sources. Simple carbs can only be eaten (you should know this by now) when breaking your fast and right after your workout. Still, don’t go crazy on them.
4- TAKE WEEKLY MEASUREMENTS!! I’m not only talking about your weight. You should monitor your waist (and wherever you mostly store your fat) measurements and, most importantly, your body fat percentage. You’ll have to adjust your diet accordingly.

Remember, these words aren’t carved on stone. I know some retards will say “Come on man. It’s Ramadhan. We want to enjoy our food and eat all the goodies that are on the table. You can’t tell us to go on a diet and eat tuna and oatmeal for breakfast!” I don’t know, do you expect me to pull out a magic wand from up my ass and wave it around your face and say “you can eat whatever you want and you won’t gain fat… SHABAM!!” I don’t decide if you’ll lose fat or gain it or whatever. You do. If you’re gonna eat and train right, You’ll get good results. If you’re gonna overtrain and eat crap all day, don’t blame me for your ignorance.

By the way, just to remind you guys, the worst food that you could ever eat is all cooked in ramadhan. Yes, if you ask your mom, dad, grandma, whoever, they’ll say it’s extremely healthy. But what the hell do arabs know about health. Do you know why ‘Harees’ tastes so good? Because it’s nothing more than crushed grains drenched in animal fat with pieces of “tender”, AKA full of fat, meat. And to top it off, they dig a hole in the ‘Harees’ at the middle of the plate and just fill it with animal fat. So, everyone in the family can enjoy a couple of table spoons full of fat. Now, that’s what I call healthy.

Eastern Province BB Contest Review (junior division)

Ofcourse, you'd never find any advertisements for these kinds of events. Nonetheless, I had to attend to see how the contest would be organized and what i should expect for the 1st class contest (above 21 years of age). Let me be the first to tell you that this contest was nothing more than a freaking joke. From the audience, to the competitors, nothing was in place. The thing that bugged me the most was that the competitiors (18 to 21 years of age) were heavy steroid users. Is that what we're encouraging? is this the arabian bodybuilding community? "hey kids! you want to win a bodybuilding contest? here, take some roids! they'll make you look fabulous!" WHAT THE F***! One of the trainers in my gym told me that what i saw was nothing. He knows 13 and 14 year old kids on roids. Now i know where all the myths about impotence, stunted growth, and low/no sperm count, which are linked to bodybuilding, came from. Enough of that crap.. let's talk about the event:

The judges:

45 minutes late. That's all i have to say. I guess it comes with being saudi.

The audience:

When you take a long hard look at the audience, you'd find that 50% of them look like MC-Hammer clones, and the other 50% look like Vanila Ice clones. I guess you know what kind of people attend these events.

The stage:

In the middle of a volley ball court, there's a small 8 meter by 5 meter stage covered with light blue foam tiles and 2 spot lights that don't even work. Now, usually there are more than 3 competitors in every weight class, sometimes 10. How the hell would a stage that small carry all of them up while doing the mandatory poses? Freakin' idiots

The competitors:

60 KG class: I would understand if you were 5'3 wanting to compete at a 60 KG weight class, but when the shortest guy out there is 5'8? it looks like you got a couple of marathon runners and told them to pose. All anyone saw in that weight class were rib cages and hip bones. There were only 3 competitors in this class.

65 KG class: Same thing. all of them looked terrible!!! Only 2 competitors came out.

70 KG class: Here's where you start to see some muscle mass. But it was sad. I couldn't believe my eyes. The first guy that stepped on the stage was loaded with GH. How do i know that? when you see someone with a belly so distented it looks like he swallowed a TV set, yet a six-pack is carved on to it, that's GH right there. The guy was only 18-21 years old!!! Still, with all that GH and all those roids he was using, he had no legs!!! no one did!! what the hell is wrong with these people? atlease do some leg presses!! come on! Anyway, the GH dude won first place. second place wasn't even close. there were 9 competitors in this weight class. Other than 1st and 2nd place winners, they all looked like they weighed 60 kg. pathetic.

75 KG class: Again, first guy to come on stage.... HUGE AND SHREDDED!!! no GH, but a shitload of roids. how do i know? 1- you don't look like that if you're 18-21 naturally, hell, even if you were older you'd never look like that. 2- seeing veins on his legs while sitting about 10 meters away is quite an obvious sign of juicing. anyways, finally, someone who trained legs. Who stepped on stage next? You won't believe it even if i said it a thousand times, but i swear to you the guy that went on stage next was no less than 15% percent fat!!! that's fifteen, it's not a typo. You know what the funny thing is? the judges actually called him out and asked him to pose! pathetic. there were 7 contenders in this class.

80 KG class: When all of the competitors stepped on stage, i got so pissed off, i just left. There were 4 competitors, and not a single one of them was below 8% fat.

85 KG class: beats the s*** outta me. wasn't there to see it.

90 KG class: No competitors in the class (info from my coach)

Conclusion:
After seeing this pathetic excuse for a disgraceful show, i almost pulled out of my contest. Then, i thought about the past 20 weeks. I worked my ass off just to compete. Although i don't want to have any association with those jokes of a federation, i won't let all that hard work go to waste. F*** it, i'm 2.5 weeks out and ready. wish me luck, i'm gonna need it against those GH freaks.

Chicken ala "thank god it's not tuna"

Here's a little recipe for all those who want to add a little flavor to their tasteless, foam-like food. I Usually eat this stuff when i'm watching my sodium intake. So, if you don't care about sodium, you can add salt according to taste (after it's cooked)

Here's what you need:

A jar of Pizza, or spaghetti sauce (I usually use ragu)
2 lbs (900 grams) of skinless, boneless chicken breasts
White vinegar
Two onions

Preperation:
Defrost chicken breast by keeping them out on the kitchen counter or where ever for 3-6 hours

Slice up the onions whatever way you want

mix 1.5 cups of pizza or spaghetti sauce with 4 table spoons of vinegar in a big a** bowl and add the onions

Poke holes, with a fork, in the chicken breasts

drench the chicken in the marinade mix and place it all (with any left over marinade) in a plastic bag. Seal with a twist-it or just tie the bag up

refrigerate for atleast 8 hours (over night is a lot better)

Place all the contents of the bag in a pyrex tray

cover with aluminum foil and poke 6-9 small holes in it

cook in over at 300-350 degrees for 1.5-2 hours (you should check on it to make sure all the liquids didn't evaporate)

eat up and thank god it's not tuna

Why can't people get over the weight loss thing?

I am really starting to get sick to my stomach over people who only want to lose weight!! What the hell is wrong with you? You always hear this s***, especially with women: "there's a party next week and i need to lose 10 pounds" "oh man, i have a date and i need to lose 20 pounds" "i think if i lose 45 pounds i'd look really good". I just wonder what kind of parties, dates, dinners, or whatever these people go to. Do they have a scale and weigh every body in before starting? what the hell? You know what's worse than hearing them complain about how they have to lose weight? Looking at their plan to lose it! "I'm only gonna eat 2 leaves of lettuce, and a glass of juice once a day. that should work" FREAKIN' IDIOTS!!! Here are two stories i'd like to share with you. one of them is an email i got from a personal friend of mine who went against everything i know, and another about a friend who didn't freakin' listen to me (still doesn't believe me) and has stopped losing "weight" for the past 2 months. Let's start with the email:


I can tell you that I was one of those guys who didn’t give a SHIT to what you were taking about..

And for most people, I am a hero….
I lost 52 (118 -> 66) kg in 98 days…………………………………….

Yet, I realized then that it wasn’t much of a success as much it was Foooooooolishness..

Let me tell you what did that 3monthes and 10 days led to

1: total weakness: I always feel week, yellow face, for people I look sick, incapable of a lot of exercises that I use to do when I was fat………!!!

2: I was the worst night mare for my dietitian.

3: I had to go throw 6 months of special diet (and by special I mean EXPENSIVE drugs and vitamins), special exercise…. And that was pain full..

4: that freaky no-food diet lead to extensive skin and yet some areas are still fat (imagine your self)

Still, this guy thinks it's extra skin. well, i saw him, and i can tell you that it's not skin. it's loose fat with no muscle to hold it up. anyway, The diet this guy was on looked something like... 1 meal every other day and living on juice and water. That's what i remember.

To our second idiot. Now, i saw this guy at the gym when he first started (he's a good friend of mine. so, i went and talked to him about how he should lose fat). Ofcourse, he didn't listen because he had the Saudi attitude of "if you eat, you'll gain weight. If you don't eat, you'll look beautiful!!" So, he decided to do it his own way. Cardio (they call it swedish around here. stupid name) 5 times a week for 2 hours every session, and training Abs everyday for 45 minutes. Retarded? yes. his diet consisted of 2 meals of salad and yoghurt. barely reaching 300 calories a day. Anyway, he lost 20 lbs in 2 weeks. Big whoop. I'm being extremely truthful when i say he looked like s***. His skin got darker... the kind of color which makes you say "are you okay?", his belly and chest (breasts) started sagging (i smell muscle loss), and he was just tired all the time. After that, he didn't lose a single pound. For 2 months, he tried decreasing his food intake (I wouldn't be surprised if he went days without food), and he increased his work out time to 3 hours of cardio and 1 hour of abs every single day. Still, he didn't lose a single pound. He called me up a couple of weeks ago and explained the problem to me. It felt sweet when i said "I TOLD YOU SO!!! GOD, WHY DON'T YOU EVER LISTEN!!" and i told him what he needed to do. and guess what? he didn't even try to follow it. He said "no man. that's crazy. i'll be fat again with all that food. i'm not doing it." I'm happy to say that he's gaining 'weight' all over again. :p

You know what really kills me? people over 35% fat that try to lose weight by going on the same program as a bodybuilder at 2 weeks out from a contest. The only difference is that the 35% dude doesn't even exercise and think he/she'll lose the fat by diet only. Let me tell you, if you're over 25% fat, all you need is exercise and a bit of clean food. i'm not talking about extremes, like eating 200 grams of tuna 6 times a day. No! eat some chicken, beef, eggs, stay away from fried foods, hell... you can even eat at mcdonald's a couple of times every week! but just exercise. once you get to the 15-18% mark, you should start worrying about your diet and how to develop a more effective plan to preserve your muscle mass and burn fat almost exclusively.

To anyone who's still not convinced about muscle preservation and fat loss and all that stuff, imagine if in one year you lost 20 lbs of fat and gained 15 lbs of muscle (a net loss of 5 lbs in a whole year) , how good do you think you'll look? Now, imagine losing 40 lbs of 'weight' in 3 months. How BAD do you think you'll look?