A brief summary: In the life of a future natural bodybuilder
Hi everyone!
This is my first ever blog post. I wanted to first off say thank you for finding the time to read this and hope you’re having a wonderful day.
I’m using this platform as a way to document my experiences throughout my journey as I work towards becoming a bodybuilder or fitness competitor of some sort (haven’t decided yet).
I have been working out since the age of 17 and my first transformation was a 13 month transformation which used to have a few million views of youtube. My account got hacked a few years ago and youtube took down my content, unfortunately I didn’t have a backup meaning the video is lost forever.
I don’t want to go into too much detail with this, but essentially went to the gym around 5 times a week to do bodybuilding type workouts and did squash around 4 times a week too along with football (soccer) and other form of activities while on a 2100 calorie diet. The difference in terms of weight was only around 20lbs, but clearly have gained muscle and lost a considerable amount of fat.
From this point I have always lifted in some form of bodybuilding type split, I’ve done a lot of routines since and my body comp has changed considerably over the years. From the period of 2017–2020 I got to my heaviest ever weight of 19 stone 7 +(275lbs+) after lifting heavy, partying way too much and not really caring what I eat. It wasn’t until January 2020 that I decided that I needed to do something about my weight and set a goal for myself to lose the fat by September 2020. Although covid hit that year and everything to follow including gym closures etc. the goal was overly ambitious. I hadn’t taken pictures of myself in January 2020 because I was too self conscious of what I was seeing in the mirror. It wasn’t until March 2020 I decided to commit to taking pictures as you can see below:
From January 2020 to November 2020 I went from 275lbs to 220lbs. I took a diet break from November 2020 to the start of December and gained around 10lbs during that period. Now at 229lbs and desperate to get back on track I hired an online coach, mainly as a motivation during another lockdown and to help me stay on track during the Christmas period. I worked with my coach from December 2020 to April 2021 and lost 30lbs and got to 199lbs.
During this time I do think my calories may have been a bit too low, as I decided to start doing at least 10k steps a day from March onwards and I stick to that rule still as of today. Today has been my rest day and I’ve done 15k steps!
When gyms reopened in May I wanted to get my calories back on track so as soon as I parted ways with my coach I started reverse dieting. When it came to May my calories were at 1900 and I’ve been increasing them ever since. I’m now on 2500 calories a day starting this week.
I’ve been taking training extremely serious since being back. Here you can see my recent progress: (June 14th 2021–193lbs / 30 years of age).
From here my plan is to continue raising my calories towards my maintenance calories which is on average 3.2k a day; from there I will slowly cutting calories back down until I can get the leanest I possibly can. After that, I will be main-gaining towards my first show!
