Four weeks from today
Everything is going very well. Thanks for asking.
For the first time I woke up on Thursday morning and looked in the mirror and new I was going to make it. I've still got some fat/water to lose. It's hard to tell how much of which. I've got veins coming out all over the place and my delts look just like grapefruit sections. My abs are almost totally separated. The top two "squares" are clearly defined, the next lower two are almost there and the bottom are separated horizontally, but not vertically, maybe they just won't be. The quads are defined although they've lost alot of size and my hamstrings are looking good. My back has much more detail than I ever thought, but needs more width for sure. I finally got another mirror so I can see myself from the rear while I pose.
I started out on January 4th at 5'9" 192# (with clothes and shoes on) and I'm now 164# (undressed). I've lost alot more than I ever expected. I haven't been this light for a long, long time.
Workouts are going well although I often don't feel very motivated to get started, but once I get going on the first few sets I'm usually fired up. I've lost some strength, but I still try to push myself to lift the same weights for close to as many reps as I'm used to. I keep the workouts the same as before. Just straight sets. Nothing fancy.
Cardio is 6 days a week first thing in the morning before eating. I ride a stationary bike with the handle bars that move to work the arms for 45 minutes at a high intensity. Once or twice a week I'll do another 30 minutes in the evening after my weights just to give the metabolism a boost. This is at a fairly low intensity.
I've been tanning for four weeks now and am getting dark. My diet is really strict now. I take in about 1900 calories a day, 340 grams of protein providing most calories, and the rest from fats. I'm mainly eating fresh chicken breasts, lots of eggs, salmon, turkey breasts and Starkist low sodium tuna. I'll have some natural peanut butter whenever I'm feeling particularly bad. I don't eat carbs at all anymore. I've come to realize that dropping carbs makes the biggest difference in how I progress. I've also dropped the protein shakes completely during the last week based on advice from dpsquat. It seems to have helped me drop more water so far.
The only carbs I get are from a fiber supplement. I take this twice a day to keep me regular.
Without it I was squeezing out what felt like a jagged rock from my ass less than once a week. hehe I take a multi-vitamin twice a day, 1 gram of vitamin C twice a day. Hydroxycut 3 caps 2x/day. Fina 75mg/day started last week. I take cranberry extract to protect the kidneys and drink about 2 gallons of water a day.
I've also been practicing my posing for weeks now. It's definitely a good idea, because it's much harder than it looks. At first after 10 minutes of practicing the mandatories I'd be sweating worse than from my workouts and my arms would be shaking uncontrollably. I certainly don't want that to happen on stage.
I'm not trying to be dick, but machine99 you should be more concerned with practing the mandatories than with perfecting your routine. The mandatories are where you'll be judged and only the top 5 even get to do the routine at the night show. If you don't have the mandatories down you won't be in the top five.
Since this is my first time at contest prep I've learned a few things. In the early weeks I was having cheat days where I would eat pretty much anything once a week. This was a big mistake for me. All it did was set me back and after having one day of cheating the cravings are very bad for the next few days. Once I got used to eating clean it wasn't nearly so hard. I don't recommend crap loading as some people do during your dieting phase. It may work for some, but I think unless you have great genetics in terms of leanness, or are on a lot of fat burning drugs it won't work for most. Also I think I've sacrificed alot of size trying to lose the fat. Next time I'll clean up the diet earlier and try to lose more fat with less cardio.
Only four weeks to go now and I'm getting very excited and nervous too. I've got all my competition supplies (posing suits, Pro tan, diuretics, etc) on the way. I'll get the hotel rented this week so I've got nothing more to worry about. It turns out I'm going to have a decent cheering section there for me. Quite a few of my family and friends are coming to see me.
Wish me luck!