Hello once again T-Nation Rock Stars!
Sadly, as it often does, life has thrown a few curve balls and I have been away from here. With everything settling, life in general going in a great direction, I decided to take on a new adventure and wanted to share it with all of you! With the surprising support I received in: T-ransformation 2017: HeraWynn1's Blog - #19 by HeraWynn1 I knew the positive vibe of the T-Nation Forums is something that will help me reach this new goal.
As you will see in the blog that is linked above, these last two and a half years yielded some great change. With the help of @robstein I have gotten to the point that I am today. To catch anyone who is reading this up to speed, here is the short version:
Through fitness and nutrition, I have lost over 160lbs and currently have 2 clients of my own as a Certified Personal Trainer. So whats next? Well, from the title of this blog, I am sure you can guess it. Go ahead…Guess. I will wait.
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So if you haven’t guessed yet, obviously beat from the gym or suffering from Keto flu, I will fill you in. Over the next year, I will be prepping to be on stage for my first body building competition. As you will see from the pics I am going to post, I have a long way to go, but have built a decent foundation to start. So what does this mean I need to do? Well, working with my amazing coach, @robstein we sat down and came up with a plan.
I am currently weighing in at 208. Once again, those pesky curve balls of life. Sure the stress attributed a bit to my 10lbs gain, but really, for the last two months, we have been trying to figure out a good balance of eating and fitness to determine my maintenance level. I will admit, I enjoyed myself a bit too much. Haven’t had a slice of pizza in like 2 years, so did that, enjoyed Halo Top a bit too much, had some cake and cookies (Panera Bread makes amazing cookies!) and re-visited my love for all things Gummi. Needless to say, I am actually sick of all that and been DYING to get back on a regiment. This regiment is starting MONDAY September 11th! No significance on why that day, but I know, being that date, I will indeed do what we all should be doing, not forgetting that day. We (Mr. Steing and I) will be taking this mini test prep to January 1. So what are we doing? We are going pretty aggressive.
Currently, as mentioned, we are at maintenance calories per day, with some extra carbs built in on workout days, pre and post workout. As for workouts, I have been on a 4 day split, throwing in post workout LISS cardio. Nutrition was basically carbs only around workout times with a light amount on non-workout days. The new plan is something like this:
7 day workout, broken down into 5 lifting days, hitting my weak spots, Chest, Lats, and Delts, twice a week. LISS cardio on three of those days, and the other two days will be some HIIT cardio.
Nutrition, we have it split into heavy, medium and light days. Heavy on leg day, medium for all other lifting days, and light on HIIT days. Keeping a fairly aggressive 15-20% calorie deficit, we are doing a nice mix of protein, fat and carbs on every meal, of course heavier carb counts around workouts.
Now for the hard part… Due to being such a large fella guy in the past, I have a decent amount of extra skin. Thankfully, I met with a plastic surgeon, got an estimate, and will be working on a funding page (not sure which platform yet) to help get rid of this skin. I know talking to Rob, we really can’t set targets until we get rid of this excess and get an idea of stage weight, body fat levels, etc. Due to getting life back on track and starting a new job, they are VERY supportive of my transformation and journey and support me in the time off I need to get the surgery and work towards being on stage.
I have a great support system behind me, Team Stein, some other guys in the fitness world I have met along this journey, an insanely proud and supportive girlfriend, as well as you guys. I do have to say, the comments on my T-ransformation blog were a big deciding factor in taking this next step. I look forward to hearing from everyone here, and may post the link to the funding in case anyone wants to help me make this dream a reality. So here goes! I will be posting before pics, chatting with Rob on what to post in here, and will be documenting EVERYTHING, including the personal struggles with image I am and will be facing throughout this! Thank you for reading and follow me from being as big as a stage, to being on one! Truly living what seemed to be an impossible dream
