Excerpts from the Diary of a Pissed Off Bodybuilder

6 weeks out

Yup… six weeks left… Actually, it’s 5 weeks and 5 days. Phil told me the new changes I’ll be “implementing” on my diet this week… And, well, I’ll just have to wait and see… uptil now, I haven’t lost an ounce, but my body composition is changing… DAILY!! The dude’s a freaking genius! You wanna see what he looked like back in 94? Here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uut4zYmCl64
Please pay no attention to his haircut… it was the 90’s

Movies

Last week, Mariam and I saw “The Departed”… kick ass movie. And last night, we saw “stay”, which was the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen in my entire life! What else did we watch… ummmm… the hills have eyes, texas chainsaw massacre, Bratz…. You don’t understand… it wasn’t for me!! I swear…. You see, my wife loves horror movies, but they scare the hell out of her… so, we watched bratz after the texas chainsaw massacre to calm her down… get it? … I’m waiting for Saw 3… should’ve been out yesterday
OH YEAH!!! We saw “thank you for smoking”… that was A REALLY GOOD movie… seriously, if you get the chance, watch it. (thanks Rashid)

Things I’d like to correct

As I said in a recent post, Phil taught me that there’s a lot of bullshit going on in bodybuilding today. Here are the things that probably contradict what I said before, but are the absolute truth. I apologize if I mislead anyone. Also, I’ve added some points that will probably help you to achieve your goals:

1- If you take bodybuilding too seriously (or anything else), get caught up in the small details and forget the basics, you’ll fail

2- You must eat fruits and vegetables in moderation. Not too much, and not too little. Know when to eat them and the right amounts to eat.

3- Your food doesn’t have to taste like ass. Learn how to cook, it’ll do you a world of good. (It’s been months since I had tuna, it’s all chicken now and it’s marvelous!)

4- EAT YOUR FIBER!!!!

5- You NEED to eat lots of fish oil and olive oil. And when I say lots, I mean as per your caloric needs of fat.

6- WRITE DOWN WHATEVER YOU EAT OR DRINK EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!! It takes one minute to do this. You wouldn’t believe how important this is to keep track of your caloric intake. If you do this, you’d know where you went wrong, and what you did right, and you can build on that

7- Too much cardio is plain bad for fatloss or muscle gain. Calculate how much you burn from cardio, and how much you burn from weight training every week, and adjust your calories accordingly.

8- Cheat meals will only hinder your progress. The whole calorie zigzag thing is bullshit. Cheat meals are only good to keep you from shooting yourself.

9- Do not… and I repeat… DO NOT START YOUR DIET WITH A LOW CALORIE INTAKE!!!

10- Take pictures of yourself every week, in the same environment (same lighting, same clothes, same stance, same everything). Because you’ll hardly notice the small changes that go on week after week unless you have a reference point.

11- Starting out your diet with a fat burner is the worst thing you can do.

12- High rep is bullshit. Keep it low. You built your muscles on low reps, and that’s how you’re gonna keep’em.

13- Liquid protein sources (whey, casein) are just as good, if not better, than solid protein sources. IF AND ONLY IF YOUR STOMACH CAN STAND IT!!! I remember last year, I was very busy one day and all I had to eat for the whole day was around 8 protein bars… It felt like acid was going through my intestines and I was this close to shooting myself from the pain. You have to know how much liquid protein you can tolerate first, then you switch sources. Don’t do it all at once.

14- The only three things you need to measure progress are a camera, a measuring tape, and a mirror. Scales and fat calipers will only offer false hope or depression.

15- When you eat out, be sure to pick the healthy choice meals. Usually, if I eat out with my wife, I get something from kudu or subway… grilled chicken and I take out what I want (mostly bread… and no I’m not on low carb… I just need to make sure that I take in a certain amount each meal), or I just order a subway grilled chicken sandwich and put some lettuce and mustard on it… I usually measure my food at home, so I know how much protein a chicken breast has, and I estimate the carbs from the bread. Other than that, I carry my fish oil with me. I did this a couple of times, although it fits my diet, I can’t do it anymore since I have to measure everything.

16- Warm up before you workout, stretch lightly between sets, stretch like crazy after you’re done with the muscle. I usually see people stretch before working out and they think that they’re warming up. It’s wrong, people. When you warm up with very light sets, you are getting more blood into that muscle, making it warmer, and making the ligaments and tendons more flexible. Stretching a cold ligament or tendon before making it warmer is pretty dangerous. Think of it as a piece of toffee candy. It’s as hard as a rock. But when you put it in your mouth and keep it warm for a while, it becomes soft and flexible.
17- Here’s what I don’t understand in people, especially when they’re trying to bulk up. If you can take your muscle to failure using 1 or 2 sets, why the hell are you doing 12-18 sets?

18- Here’s one I really f***ed up on… eat when you’re hungry. And don’t stuff yourself when you do. If the food is clean, and the ratios are good, you’d be hungry every 2-4 hours.

19- If you don’t feel “right”, then there’s something wrong. Always listen to your body.

20- There are many supplements that actually work. The trick is to keep everything constant, add that supplement for 2-3 weeks, and then see if there’s a difference. That’s why you have to write down what you eat, and how you train, and everything you do when you try something new.

21- Finally, TAKE YOUR F***ING TIME!!! My waistline got permanently screwed from all that “get big in 12 weeks” shit that I used to do when I got started. Taking in 4000 calories per day will only do you more harm than good if you only need 3000 calories to grow. Do you know how hard it is for you body to build even 1 lb. of muscle?

Staring

Why? Why the hell do people do that? Not any people, just the Saudis. I’m not paranoid, cuz I talked to a lot of people and they say that they have the same problem. You walk into a place… restaurant, coffee shop, store, whatever… most people there will even twist their chairs if they’re giving you their back and stare into your face! When I’m in Bahrain, it’s different (I usually go on Fridays, so I don’t see many Saudis there). When people stare, if it’s me, they just look at my biceps (because that’s probably the only body part I have that grows), and they never look me in the eyes or look at my face (cuz they’d probably puke). Some women stare at my wife because, well, she’s the most gorgeous woman in there and they’re jealous :P … still, every one minds their own business. but whenever I see someone staring at my face and looking dead at me, I know he’s Saudi. Some of them have the nerve to stare at my wife like I’m not there (you know, the dirty Saudi look), so I just stop and stare dead at their face like I’m gonna kill them and when they see me, they look down immediately. But why the f*** do Saudis do that? I mean… yil3an um illigafa!!! And you know that it’s not that nice stare where if your eyes meet they smile. No no no… it’s that gross, perverted stare. Why don’t they mind their own f***ing business? Ask me, how do I know that Saudis stare in a gross and perverted way with bad intentions? I’ll tell you. Because, when an Indian, Pakistani, of Pilipino guy stares at you and you stare back and smile, they smile and wave hello. But when you stare back at a Saudi guy and you smile they give you that look of “what the hell is this guy smiling for?”… I’ve tried it many times, and 90% of the time, this shit happens. Sometimes people smile back. But sadly, they’re just a minority.


The duck that’ll put you to sleep

Here’s a little trick I developed long ago. IT WORKED WITH EVERYONE WHO’S EVER TRIED IT!!! And it should work with you too. Now, since people just started going back to work or school or whatever, this might come in handy to make you sleep at night. It worked with some of my friends who know about it, it worked with my wife, it worked with the girl that called my friend at night and bugged him about not being able to sleep. Try it… here’s what you do:
Close your eyes and picture a lake, the lake isn’t filled with water, no no, it’s filled with wet cement. Swimming in that wet cement is a small duck (not baby duck, just small), the duck is swimming very slowly (duh! It’s wet cement) but here’s the catch, the duck has tomatoes for eyes. Now, picture this duck swimming for 5-10 minutes and I assure you, you’ll fall asleep.