16 Mar Brian Carroll: The Arnold XPC 2017 Part 3 – The bloat and fun
Part 3 – The bloat and fun
[wa-wps]Friday Am – At CB
This is my favorite part. Getting to eat again, but I make sure not to EVER experiment with something I don’t usually eat. I also have my list of meds (Cutting Weight ebook) I take which are outlined and suggested, to keep my stomach from going sideways.
In the bag are some of my meds I take
Per usual at either iHop or Cracker Barrel, I ordered a lot of drinks at Cracker Barrel. So many that I told the waitress what I wanted, followed with “that’s a lot of drinks eh, like $10 worth.”
Water, apple juice (large), coke, coffee, and my Gatorade, then Pedialyte. I’m a weird person. I find something I like and hoard a lot of it or I get on kicks and only want that particular thing – I find something I like and it’s all I’ll want or talk about.
In my house I keep a lot of diet drinks
I like excess, but stupid things – like 15 peanut butter jars in the fridge or 5 different types of Chocolate Milk because I want to, no other reason. So that’s why so many drinks, because I like it, plus I’m very thirsty – and it helps me fill out. Win/win/win.
I keep a lot of peanut butter – this is just my back-up stockpile!
In the Cutting Weight ebook, I suggest having a go-to after weigh in. Mine starts with water, then Gatorade/Pedi and then apple juice and Coke.
Pro-tip: Guys, there are many experts that tell you how to cut weight who have never done it, done it much or done it well. Then there are experts who have done it for years and have done it well – but you don’t want to try their methods as they are CRAZY (ie Matt Kroc method – no offense).
Listen to the later if either of the two for advice, as experience brings wisdom. The key here – theories are just theories – until they are proven over and over. If people have theories but suck at proving them, then move on. Esp when it comes to filling back out and putting the weight on. Don’t buy into the hype (of you only need so and so to replace glycogen) – you should be stuffing your face and stomach with as much as possible, especially after big cut. Hell, even if you didn’t cut 8%, starve for 3-4 days and/or deplete for a week, you should STILL be stuffing with carbs and sodium to be completely full as a bull on meet day. All the more reason when you do cut a big chunk.
Super high sugar rush and high squatter – Dave Huff
Derek, Emily, Todd, Lisa, Ria, myself (liz?) and maybe some other people (I can’t remember) ate a lot of food and then I went back to do my IV and rest some. This is always the best time – All of my bags went in me fast and I immediately felt better and filled out. I did what I always do and grazed and drink all day. If I’m not eating I’m sipping and vice-versa. This is the key. To be honest, I cut out any sugar the whole training cycle, as I used to abuse it – so once the Coca-cola started to hit my system, I felt like I was high all weekend, it was awesome. This also made the bloat super good.
My new book “10/20/Life Second Edition,” (this a whole story in and of itself for another date) – landed around 1pm in Ohio, just in time for Ria and Tuesday to run them to the XPC for the day on Friday – right on time, but not really (thank you ladies).
A real miracle, no sarcasm… as it really wasn’t going to make it for the soft release (mad face). Those that know me well, know that I can be very relentless, persistent and aggressive when pushed, or sometimes not pushed. Amazon, who I self-published with, made a mistake, and I called them on it and was smart enough to get the whole conversation in writing, in email, thankfully. I learned this from Ria and her savvy real estate skills (NOTE: those that text instead of phone calls, really aren’t always {just some} the degenerates you think they are – they may actually be for a reason).
So, I had to escalate the problem on Tuesday, during my weight cut and demand that they make good on their word (it was in writing). After repeating myself over and over what was told to me in response to delivery time for 45min straight, I got through and things went from “that is not possible” to “I’ve worked here for 10 years, and this is very doable unless something very unforeseeable happens.” The key here was not attacking personally, not cussing and staying on the topic and fact they told me in writing, incorrectly. Over and over. Beat them into submission.
Props to createspace for making it right, thank you very much! Mistakes happen, it’s how you handle them! To top it off, the Crowbars didn’t make it either on time, as DHL was delayed and didn’t make delivery on schedule (who uses DHL anyway, bro) but showed up on Saturday before we started, thank God.
As Ri and Toots took care of running the books over the XPC where 10’s of my fans waited, Zane, Byrd and myself ran to Max and Erma’s for a good burger and endless fries which = perfect bloat food.
As we ordered, our hearts dropped – out in the cold, we saw a homeless guy outside, so invited him in (we had a window seat). This homeless man was David Kirshen. If you don’t know Dave, you are missing out. He might be the funniest man on the planet. We took him in to eat and fed the poor guy, then the girls showed up just as the burgers landed from the kitchen. Perfect… After chowing down, we then brought the crew back to the Crown Plaza as we were all staying there and hung out in my room with a whole bunch of other people, ate, cracked jokes and rested up. Julia, Julia’s friend, Kirshen, Zane, Byrd, Tuesday, Ria, Liz, Lisa, Todd and a few others were chilling and talking smack. I was stuffing my face.
These are the best times with the out of town meets. And when the meet is over. I try to stay relaxed without burning up too much energy thinking about the meet. This works well for me as a great distraction.
Later that evening, some of the team went out to eat, some ordered PF Chang’s which I love and we hung out in the lobby and ate. Thanks to Todd G for picking this up for us. After a little bit, it was very cool to see a Male Bikini model having a hardcore photoshoot in the lobby – literally right next in the same room to us as he was flexing but was supposed to look like he was relaxed, sitting on a couch reading a book or something like that.
After a few minutes, our friends Jeff and Dani Monson showed up and we caught up with them. Jeff is a pretty good friend of mine (the male bikini model and crew got a pic with Jeff) and half the team follows MMA pretty hardcore so they had a great time catching up and meeting him. Jeff wanted to come watch us compete, so that’s pretty cool. Jeff is an awesome dude that loves powerlifting and is a HUGE fan. He was excited to meet the team.
After dinner, Zane and I went outside and chatted for a bit. Zane is one of my best friends and has been for a long time. Since 2008 or so when I first started coaching him, he’s one of the first guys I programmed for, it just didn’t have a name yet.
I told him some things which were on my mind and wanted to hear his feedback overall. He mainly just listened but if I were to ask him now what he thought, he would probably tell me he knew I was full of crap. He knows me pretty well. More on this later.
10:30pm came, It was time for bed. These days of gluttony just fly by. I jumped on the scale and it read 270, so I was in a good spot but not too heavy since I’d lose 2-4lb overnight since I was hyper-hydrated – right on point. I made myself eat a little bit more then put some drinks beside my bed and tried to go to sleep, but I didn’t sleep for crap this night.
These two are awesome and did a hell of a job for me
It wasn’t due to anxiety or anything but I was so hot from eating, I could feel the steam coming off of me, even with it being freezing in the room and snowing outside. I finally got to sleep and 6am came around very very early!
Saturday AM
I met Byrd down in the Lobby along with Shawn Frankl and we headed out, early and plenty of time. Things were going just fine, and the way I like it – according to plan. We got dropped off at the meet, and got our spot – Ria was going to see what everyone wanted to eat then grabbed Nicole Tejero and went to Denny’s to get some to-go shizz for the crew – thank you both.
Lisa was already there, in costume and almost ready to go & warm but there was confusion on when they were starting flight one – was it 8, 8:30 or 9:00?
I did very little coaching this day but still slipped some in, here and there (I was mandated by a few people NOT TO) – just reassured her to she’d be fine and to breath. I overhead the judges and Danny Dague sounding like someone wanted to do the man-dance, so I got out there (very sceri) and found Keith and we got my rack height. I forget every year how much this mono swings, then remember. Everyone has to deal with it though…
This was on my mind, nothing else
It was getting close to time to warm-up. Byrd was nice (he’s a great friend) and got me a pair of headphones with Bluetooth (so we didn’t have to be bothered with cords). Not those stupid giant-douchebag Beats that you see people wear, while walking on the side of the road in their burger king costume. These are small, wireless ones that are perfect. Anyway, I couldn’t get mine to connect to my stupid iPhone. Byrd had no issues with them, but headphones aren’t related to the bench press either.
I threw a small fit, told Byrd they were pieces of shit, then put my tangly ones in my ears and went to the bathroom to apply some heat, tremble alone and put on my big boy panties (under armour for squats).
Brian Carroll
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