1 Month Post Show

by: Joe Lyons - June 16th, 2008

This weekend makes 4 weeks since I was on stage. It's been an extremely stressful 4 weeks, but I survived and things are going to be just fine.

My goal was to stay lean after the show. Then I was having the mixed emotions of taking advantage of the post show rebound or stay shredded. I decided to safely push for the rebound by eating when my body was saying I was hungry. The issue there is my appetite hormones are off the wall, so I'm ALWAYS hungry!

I shot up to 219lbs for a few days and brought it back down to 210 where I'm holding pretty steady now. I had veins still in my legs this past weekend, but the abs are getting very blurry. I'm still eating clean, but in higher amounts. Today is my first high carb day where it's very high (600g) with no added fat and very lean meats. I will be then go to medium and low days for the rest of the week and this weekend with be two low days with a focus on fish for protein. The fish emphasis is because that's what I'm craving most, aside from cake.

Training is going great! No aches or pains at all. I haven't squatted in 4 weeks till last week and I was still able to squat 365lbs for 12 reps without to much effort. I think my legs needed the break anyway. My focus is still on upper chest and my arms. I'm happy with how my arms are responding, but there's not much I can do to change the shape of them. I can only make them bigger and I'm using lighter weights and more concentration. I think my shoulders were taking away from my biceps development because I'm doing what Dorian advised and starting with concentration curls of some sort and then doing the heavier movements and it seems to be working.

I'm still doing cardio as well 15min of HIIT with another 15 min of lower intensity cardio. It's not keeping me shredded, but I should be much fatter now with all the food I've been eating. I don't plan to break the 215lbs mark this year...or anytime soon. I don't like being over 220lbs. I just don't feel good and could care less if I'm the biggest guy in the gym. LOL

I do want to say thank you to everyone for their support. It's been a life saver!

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