Every day, I get up in the morning and go straight to the kitchen for breakfast. Sort of.
The first thing I consume every day since I began this bodybuilding quest of mine is a pile of nutritional supplements that my bodybuilding coach, Muna Breitem, assigned me to take, and judging from the reaction some of my friends have had online and in private messaging, most people feel like I’m taking a quarter-ton of concentrated horse steroids and human growth hormone.
The reality is that I eat cleanly, constantly and take in a ton of protein every day, which forms the building blocks of muscle. I thought I would have to take in upwards of 240 grams of protein every day to get in the shape I wanted to be in.
Instead, Muna has me taking in about 650 grams of lean protein, including a post-workout protein shake that often hits the spot in a way I can’t really put into words. In addition, she has me taking a tablespoon of high-concentration fish oil, a multivitamin and a digestive enzyme to help my gut health. In addition, I take a thermogenic supplement 15 minutes before I work out and use a Branch Chain Amino Acid (BCAA) drink to quench thirst and fuel muscles during my workouts. No steroids, no testosterone boosters and no human growth hormone. Nothing you can’t buy over the counter at Popeye’s or GNC.
The results have been fairly impressive to date, mostly due to her expert coaching and my own simple stubbornness – including my near-pathological need for positive feedback.
I fear I have become a social-media attention-monger, revelling in every like and thumbs-up to my shirtless update photos like some sort of 20-year-old Instagram hoochie showing her backside and calling it inspirational, but it appears as though I have no other way to ensure my daily accountability.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being some sort of 20-year-old Instagram hoochie showing her backside and calling it inspirational. If that’s how you make your living, more power to you. It’s just not for me.
As for the weekends, I like to take it real easy on weekends. Most Saturdays I try to sleep in a little bit, and I usually have to coach my son’s basketball games on Saturday morning and that’s a lot of fun both for me and for him. If he plays in the late game at 11:20 a.m., I try to sneak in 45 minutes on the rower before going to train in the afternoon. Because I’ve already done my rowing, I try to make the training day a chest-triceps or an abs-legs day, which are both enjoyable.
Certainly better than just legs. Or planking with our feet in TRX suspension cables, am I right?
Blech.
On Sundays, I usually have to work around Cole’s hockey and flag-football games and my daughter’s Bantam AAA hockey games, so I train when I can. With NFL football playoff games on the docket many of the last few Sundays, I’ve tended towards training in my extension where I can watch the games as loud, and as long, as I would like. Cardio on Sundays usually means taking my dogs for an extra-long walk, something like two and a half hours, if weather permits.
So I only out in about three and a half hours of training on weekend days, which is similar to my heaviest daysd during the work week. The one difference is the cardio is often far less intense, and that’s ok, to my mind. The HIIT work will only ramp up as Nov. 10 approaches and my quadriceps heals. I can’t wait for that.
No, really. I can’t wait for that.
OK, stop laughing. Please?