Thanks Dustin!
I am digging it!
Sorry, I didn't see this before we did all the meals.
Thank you Sir!
Awesome Brother, thanks for following and than you very much!
Thanks!!!
It really was in spite of all the extenuating issues.
Thanks!
Yeah he got annoyed, he posted something to his story earlier before he saved it and wasn't able to capture any pics off of it but that one. He didn't realize what had happened before it was too late.
Now that is dedication!
Yes Sir!
He really did a bang up job this weekend with what we ended up working through.
Thanks Man!
Yeah so hopefully without going on too long we had issues with peaking as you said. Pat thinks he figured out the issue. My water load was no longer a water load because with the 3 recent preps I have been at 2 gallons most of the last month. So when we bumped it back up to 2 gallons after having just did those 2 preps we think we needed to push more water than we were. There is also the flight which had me heavy, and then noting we tried was working. We kept moving toward the goal in my legs then my back would water over, them my legs would go super flat. By the third meal of the loading process it became evident this peak would not be anything like that last 2 and we were going to have to do our best to navigate the treacherous waters. What we woke up to was a flat but spilled over physique this morning even though we pushed over 1200 grams of carbs in the 2 loading days. I couldn't spill for anything then woke up spilled. The dyazide couldn't even do it's thing appropriately because it didn't have time since we were up until past midnight last night trying to get me to spill then had to be up at 5:00 to get me to tanning by 6:30AM. What is worse is that I was still physically full in my stomach the first hour.
@Hyde, to your question we tried just about everything. We intentionally kept things cleaner because I had gotten some stomach issues from it the last 2 times. However it appears it was more due to overeating and being too stuffed when I went to bed to be honest. We started with a higher fat, high carb load originally like we did previously and after 3 meals we were not getting a reaction. Noting really changed from them. So we decided to drop the fats and push carbs harder, we spent 3 meals doing this and we started heading in the right direction then my legs started loeaving again, as my back was tightening up. So we had to make another adjustment back to fats which looked like it might work and everything started looking much better before bed We expected to wake up peeled but that didn't happen so we had to start figuring out the issue again. We went back to low fat, higher carb and had some good tightening finally, then finished off with 1.5 blueberry muffins about 15 minutes on stage. he got me from looking like a mess in the morning to looking very respectable up there on the stage with some guys who I was sure were completely out of my class by looking at them.
On top of this, this is where the big bonus go, this was not a baby or regional, these guys were a cut above. I was proud to look like I belonged on stage next to them. In the end both pat and i think if I had the condition and peak from the 10th I would have made the first call outs at a minimum. i did make some rookie msstakes, but I am a rookie trying to play with the big boys. So that is to be expected. Many of these guys had competed for 10-20 years, and they were big and dense. Plus their posing and overall presentation was much more polished and better than mine due to the experience.
I am proud of what it took me to get here, and proud of how I handled all of the pitfalls along the way. Most of all I am proud that now I want nothing more than to pick myself up and get back to training hard after a little downtime and a push myself to be better. I told my wife a while back if I don't peak well or something I will have to do a show until i am on stage in what I feel is my best condition ever and I told coach, I think we were about 2% away from it which he agrees.
We discussed moving forward we were still going to bulk but I will about 5% leaner throughout the year and may do a mini-cut somewhere in the middle to restore the physique and prime it for growing even more after.
So this year we focus a lot more on posing, I will be able to flow by then with all the work I intend to put in on things. We will also maintain a lower top end bodyfat percentage.