As you can tell by the title of this post, I am officially a NGA natural pro bodybuilder. I won the overall this past weekend up in Skokie, Illinois, at the NGA Windy City Classic. I won my weight class (light heavy) and won the overall to win my pro card. The overall was pretty much between me and the heavy weight, who was projected to win the show, until I showed up! Ha!
This was a tough prep for my wife and I because I put A LOT of pressure on myself to win this show. I knew I couldn't control who showed up, but I was mentally struggling during this prep. It didn't help that my work load at work tripled this year, plus I was teaching a class at a junior college, traveling with football, and dealing with some house stuff. I know these are all excuses, but this was the worst time of the year for me to go through a bodybuilding prep...let alone a prep with this much pressure/importance! Let's just say, I put all my eggs into this one show because I really did not want to diet down another five weeks for another show of the same importance.
With all this being said, my wife took a huge blunt of my emotional stress. So when I/we heard my name being announced for the overall winner, I can honestly say a 1,000 pound weight was lifted off of my wife. I know that is not fair to her, but she took it like a stud and called my bullshit out when needed. So, to my wife Amanda, thank you so much for sticking by my emotional roller coaster side!
All in all, my final week went really well. I peaked when I needed to, I was full/dry/hard and I did not even cut water. Besides my emotional freak out the Sunday/Monday of my final week, everything from there to the day of the show went smoothly.
Friday night I took my polygraph test, and weighed in 187.9 pounds. For the rest of the night, I put two coats of Dream Tan on and ate/drank the rest of my meals/water.
Meal 1: 4AM (7 hours out)
- 4oz steak
- 8oz sweet potato
- 8oz water
Meal 2: 6:30AM (4.5 hours out)
- 1 large Detour bar
- 1 small banana
- 8oz water
Meal 3: 9AM (2 hours out)
- 9-inch turkey sub from subway
- 8oz water
Meal 4: 10:30AM (30 minutes out)
- 2 rice cakes with peanut butter and jelly
- sipped on some water
Meal 5: 11AM (5 minutes out)
- 1 Reese's cup
Pre-judging
Meal 6: 11:45AM (post pre-judging)
- 4oz chicken
- 8oz sweet potato
- 8oz water
Meal 7: 2:30PM (45 minutes out)
- 1 Detour bar
- 1 small banana
- sipped on water
Finals/Night show
Meal 8: Post "night show" (even though it was 4:30PM)
- a large amount of deep dish/thin crust pizza
- water
Meal 9: 1 hour after pizza
- large Heath blizzard
Meal 10: later than night- already felt like complete crap
- 5 large chocolate chip cookies
Sunday's Food list
- 6 eggs with spinach
- 2 pieces of raisin bread
- 8oz sweet potato
- 3-inch turkey sub
- 2 protein shakes (4 total scoops)
- turkey sandwhich
- Detour bar
- 2 Cliff bars
- 1 sleeve of Girl Scout Thin Mints
- 5 chocolate chip cookies
- 1 large container of my buddy's queso dip and chips
*By now I was sick to my stomach. I actually did not eat as much as I have in the past, but I still enjoyed it.
I weighed 197 pounds Monday morning, so I gained about 10 pounds.
Here's my interview right after I won the overall:
I am not sure what my plans are yet, because I originally wanted to take two years off. However, after hearing a bunch of people tell me I am ready to place high on a pro stage right now, those two years might be reduced! All I know is my next two year goal is to place in the top five on the pro stage. Here I come!
