I recently attempted to compete in the RPS Backyard Brawl on June 9th.  I say “attempted” because I bombed out.  I get to what went wrong in a few more posts.  For now, lets talk about what I did right:

My weight cut.  I will say, this was the best it’s been.  As with the past several cuts, I used Brian Carroll’s Weight Cutting Manual.

9 days out from the meet I weighed 218.  I left the gym Friday of the week before really wondering if I was making the right decision to try and cut to 198.

I’ll leave the play by play to those that choose the read the book but day by day:

Monday (5 days out): 216lbs

Tuesday (4 days out): 214lbs

Wednesday (3 days out): 210lbs

Thursday morning: 206lbs

Thursday afternoon: 201lbs

Thursday before bed: 200lbs

Friday morning at 4am: 199lbs

I drove the 4.5 hours up to Greenville, NC and spit for a bit just to help keep my sanity.  I might have over did it a bit because I weighed in at 196.

I left the meet site, grabbed breakfast with some friends and was damn out eaten by a <100lbs woman.  I still ate more than I should have.  The idea was that I needed more fluids.  In my instances of trying to get my weight back, I eat too much too soon and continue to eat more than I should.  It ends up impeding my ability to get back the necessary amount of fluids.

I had already prepared all my fluids and had a plan for the day.  I stuck to it.  Food was enough to keep it coming in but fluids was the priority.

By noon I was 208.

By 4pm I was 210.

By 8pm I was 214.

By 10:30pm when I went to bed I was 218.

I woke up at 216 and still had by morning fluid prepared.  Right before I started to slide on my briefs, I stepped to the restroom and stepped on the scale at 220lbs.  I haven’t seen that on the scale in almost 6 months.

I felt amazing.  No diuretics, no IVs.  Just simply followed everything in Brian’s book.  I can’t thank him enough for all the knowledge he’s imparted upon me over the years.  Either personally or through the information he’s written, he’s been a who’s influence on my lifting and ideology.

I had only hoped to had preformed up to the standard that I felt I could have.  I know what I was doing wrong and I’ll get to that in another post.