My dear fellow weight trainers...

At the start of every year I create a list of goals that I want to achieve and I set an interesting challenge or two.

My challenge for 2010:

Enter and win my first ever natural bodybuilding competition.

You may find it hard to believe that someone who has trained with an extreme degree of passion, intensity, dedication and consistency for over 16 years has never competed. Honestly, I've never felt the need to. My training has always been something that I do for myself. I just love it, and I enjoy the challenge and creativity of each workout.

I have always eaten very good food. My diet is healthy, balanced and nutritious but I am not an extreme food nazi and I like to enjoy my life. This is all well and good but as I approached 30 it became obvious that my metabolism was slowing down. My older friends warned me that it would happen but I figured that because I trained so hard and carried a lot of muscle it wouldn't affect me. I was wrong...

So about a year ago I decided to clean up my diet and made the following changes:

No sugar - only honey in coffee and tea and on cereal if needed
Less salt
No soft drink, fruit juice or energy drinks
No junkfood
No desserts except on special occasions
No carbs after lunch
Smaller dinners
Only skim milk or water in protein shakes
No RTD protein shakes (too much sugar)
More low-fat and low-carb options
More lean meats
Slightly less wine (there is no way I'm giving up my other passion)

This made a big difference and I went from 94 kilos to 90 with my best ever combination of muscularity and condition. This became a very helpful starting point for the bodybuilding comp.

3 months out from the Sydney ANB Show I cleaned up my diet a little more. 2 months out I did the same and 1 month out I implemented some drastic changes:

No alcohol - I miss my cellar terribly
No honey - I now use stevia or nothing
No carbs at all - not even for breakfast
No flavoured or salted tuna and salmon cans
No fruit
Only green veges or salad greens - no other colours
Only very lean beef, chicken, kangaroo or fish
Only egg whites - no yolks
Only fat-free, natural yoghurt
Low-fat cottage cheese
Only skim milk Double espresso (instead of large latte with extra shot and honey)

I also upped my supplementation:

Branched Chain Amino Acids - 3 caps morning, before/after training, evening
Glutamine - 3 caps morning, before/after training, evening
Dymatize Xpand - 4 caps morning, before training
Kre-alkalyn - 2 caps morning, before training
Fish Oil - 2 caps morning, evening
Juice Plus+ - 2 fruit caps morning, 2 vege caps evening
Multi-mineral - 1 tab evening
B-group vitamins - 1 tab morning
Probiotic - 1 cap after training (before protein)
Melatonin - before bed

The results? A very lean, mean and healthy 86kgs... WITH NO CARDIO!!!

That's right. I haven't performed ANY cardio during my contest prep. I decided to use this competition as an experiment to see if it is possible to drop body-fat with nutrition and weight training alone.

So with one week to go I am on track and have shown beyond a doubt that it IS possible get very lean by focussing on nutrition alone.

This demonstrates how important your food choices are. Everything that you put into your body has an effect on your physical and mental performance. Make wise food choices by reading nutritional panels, researching on the internet and focussing on whole-foods. If you are going to eat shit you will look and feel like shit. Life's too short for that. Eat like a champion every day.

Regards,

Joey Sheather

Unleash the inner mongrel...