Well, i had to go into hospital for an operation on my jaw last week, that all went ok but the tablets that they gave me have been making me feel a bit ill, and off my food, so eating's been a little tricky. However, i AM back to eating, and, just because i can, i've had full lamb roast for the past 3 evenings!

i decided to change my training routine. Yeah, this is H A R D. it's based around the 20 rep squats routine (google it)

Monday:
1x20 squats followed by pullovers to stretch
3x8 benchpress
3x8 military press
3x8 random tricep exercise

Wednesday:
1x20 squats followed by pullovers to stretch
3x8 b/o row
3x8 shrugs
3x8 random bicep exercise

Friday:
1x20 squats followed by pullovers to stretch
3x8 SLDL
3x8 leg extension
calf raises to failure

The focus on each day is on the squats, followed by 2 compound exercises. The isolations are less important and more of a 'winding down' exercise.

Today was day 2, i have 16 more of these animal builders to go...

2 medium/large sized chicken breasts
half a lemon
pitta breads
lettuce
red onion
mayo

turn on george foreman type griddle.
place chicken breast on foil, cut the lemon into 2. squeeze some of the lemon over the chicken and place the lemon onto the chicken. Wrap and seal the chicken in the tin foil and repeat for the other chicken breast.
Pop those onto the foreman.
Slice up some lettuce, and chop up the onion into fairly chunky chunks.
After around 6-7 minutes, remove a piece of chicken and open up, check the middle to see if cooked. If it isnt, reseal and pop it back on. Once cooked, remove from foreman and remember to switch it off!
put 2 pitta breads onto grill pan, splash a table spoon of water onto each and pop them under the grill. after a minute or so, turn them over for another minute then remove.
Carefully slice along the edge of pitta bread to 'open it up'.
Cut up chicken into sizeable chunks, put them into a bowl and add a couple of spoons of mayo. Stir the chicken/mayo mix together and season with a dash of black pepper.
Put half the chicken mayo mix into a pitta, and top up with onion/lettuce. Same with the other pitta.

Lovely! And you'll wonder why your local kebab doesnt taste anywhere near as good!

So i figured that whilst i am actually learning to cook quite well, i'm not really filling this blog with many recipe's. I hope that i will get the time and inclination to do so.

Meanwhile, i'm takng the blog sideways a little. I went a bit skewiff with my eating, and my weight dropped from my regular 72kg's, down to 68kg's. Whilst 72kg's can be described as slim, rather than skinny, i lose weight real quickly. That was when i decided to create this blog initially. But, i've decided i'm going to use this blog as a fuel and motivator with my training schedule.

So, i reached my usual 72kg's the other week. I took a photo on the 23rd of June 2008 to show me at 72kg's.

yes, i know my hair's a little wild! it has since been shave off.

i'm continuiing my training and eating, and hopefully a monthly photo for comparison. i'm aiming to reach 82 kilo's and then cut back to around 80. Start of November is my target date to end 'bulking'.

Diet plan:
i dont want to go to much into details, but it looks roughly like this...
breakfast
mid morning
lunch
mid afternoon
evening meal
pre-bed

and somewhere in the region of 3000-3200 calories daily. this may need to increase slightly.

Supplements:
Flax seed
weight gain shake
creatine (1 week at 10gm's, 5 weeks at 5gm's)
whey protein on training days

Training plan:
mon -
chest, shoulders, triceps
bench press, military press, tri extensions

tues -
back, traps, biceps
b/o rows, shrugs, curls

fri -
legs
squats, SLDL, calf raises

this is what i've been doing for the past few weeks or so, but i'll be changing it shortly.

Tonight is legs night...

ok, things needed...

chicken breast
couple of garlic cloves
about ½ red onion
lemon
tin foil
black pepper
olive oil
george foreman style grill

Switch the george on and let it heat up.
Whilst thats heating up, cut several slits across the chicken (across, not lengthways). Cut the slits in about half way through the depth of the chicken.

finely chop up the garlic and the onion, and stuff it into the slits. Also sprinkle some garlic on the surface of the chicken.

add some black pepper over the surface also.

place the chicken breast onto some tin foil. you need enough foil to be able to wrap and seal the chicken. Squeeze plenty of lemon juice over the chicken, drizzle on a small amount of olive oil (about a teaspoon) and seal the chicken up with the foil. You dont want any of the lemon/oil to escape.

By now, the george will be up to temperature, so pop the sealed chicken into it and close the lid. give it about 7 minutes and then remove, open it up and check the chicken is cooked through.

Lovely!

goes well with garlic spicy rice.

So... rice... sounds so easy, but tricky to get it right!

Ok, lets do some rice.

1 cup Long Rice
half a dozen chilli peppers, or jalapeno's, or both
clove of garlic

Put the rice into a sieve, rinse it and leave it soaking in a pot of water.
Crush the garlic, and slice up the peppers. Keep the seeds, they can go in too.
Put the kettle on to boil.
Put a couple of table spoons of olive oil
into a pot, set it on a medium heat and gently fry the garlic and peppers and seeds.
Now tip the rice into the pot, and turn it over a few times so the rice has a light coating of oil.
Add boiling water at a 1:1 ratio of the rice. so if you used 1 cup of rice, add 1 cup of boiling water. Bring it to the boil then turn it down to simmer for around 10 minutes, occassionally stirring it.

After 10 minutes, turn the stove off and let the rice stand for a further 5 minutes.

Serve with whatever you're having with it.

Good question! I'm not a dietician. Nor am i a cook! I'm just a guy trying to survive and maintain a healthy-ish diet at the same time.

So why am i bothering to put the approx calorie count down with the meals?

I try to aim each meal to be around 600 calories. On the basis that i'll eat 3 meals a day, thats 1800 calories, plus snacks etc during the day, that brings me up to somewhere in the region of 2400 cals per day. I've calculated that i need around 2400 cals per day to maintain my bodyweight and nearer 3000 to increase. Throw in a weight gain shake or similar, and i've hit my 3000 calorie target.

bodyweight (lb's) x 16 = maintenance calories. low metabolism people probably ought to use x14 or x15
bodyweight (lb's) x 20 = weight gain calories. low metabolism people may want to use x18 or x19

i would imagine the figures for females will be lower, like say x12 for maintenance and x15 for gain. For weight loss, reduce these numbers the other way.

i'm not bothering to break down the calories into their 'macro nutrients' of protein, carbs and fat. I use full fat milk and a little bit of fat on my bones won't do me any harm.

30 minutes to wake up, shower, coffee and breakfast before heading out to work...

07:10 Roll out of bed having finally got fed up of hitting the snooze button...
walk into kitchen, put kettle on (use fresh water, not water from day before...)

jump into shower, cleanse, dry off, clean teeth, apply deodorants etc.

back to kitchen. Crack 2 eggs into a plastic jug, add about half cup of milk, a few twists of salt and pepper, and gently whisk with a fork for a few seconds. Put a couple of slices of toast in toaster and pop the egg mix into the microwave on HIGH (but not FULL) for 3 minutes.

Throw some clothes on and return to kitchen.

Remove egg from microwave, use a fork and break it up a bit, and pop it back in the microwave for another minute or so. Butter the toast. Remove egg from microwave, drain any fluids that are left in there away, beat it again with fork and tip onto plate with the toast. Add another dash of pepper.

Make coffee.

Voila!

Lovely scrambled eggs on toast, which will show about 600 healthy calories, plus you've managed to get all ready to go to work, in less than 30 minutes

I kinda stumbled into this by accident, but its simple and tasty. It's pretty healthy too, and should weigh in at around 600 calories per portion.

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Serves: 2, or 1 plus packed lunch the next day.

Chicken Breasts (i get the pre-packaged, cook from frozen bags from tesco. Theres 5 or 6 fillets in the bag, each individually bagged up and ready to freeze)
Dried and Chopped Basil (herbs/spices section, small glass jar)
Paprika (its near the Basil)
Dolmio Bolognese sauce extra onion&garlic (500g jar, in the pasta section)
Short Pasta (i use Fusili as thats whats in my cupboard, but any short pasta is fine. Go on, use those spirals!)

Take 2 chicken breasts out of the freezer, pop them onto a plate and into the fridge before going to bed. When you get home from work the next day they'll be good and ready to cook with.

Switch the oven on to 180deg and let it warm up.
Take a small baking tray (large enough for the 2 chicken breasts) and drizzle about a tablespoon or so of oil into the tray. Swizzle it about a bit.

Pour the Dolmio into an oven dish (i prefer to use a glass dish for this). Now, fill the jar with clean cold water from the tap, to about 2/3rds full (about the top of the label) put the lid back on, swish it about, and empty this into the oven dish.
Put 200g of pasta into the baking dish and stir it about. If you havent got scales (dont worry, i havent either) use your judgement... if you bought a 500g bag of pasta, then you need to use just under half the bag.

If you have dried chilli's, you can chop a few of these up and pop them into the pasta before cooking.

Take the 2 chicken breasts and place them on a plate. Sprinkle some paprika on them, and then some basil. Turn them over and do the same to the other side. Job done. Place them into the oven tray (the one with the oil in it)

Pop the tray and the dish into the oven. After 20 minutes, go stir the pasta. Another 10 minutes after that, go switch the oven off and remove everything from the oven.

Place one chicken breast onto a (clean) plate, then surround it with a few scoops of the pasta. Leave the rest to cool if you're not feeding someone else.

Eat and enjoy!

Once the rest has cooled down(give it a couple of hours), it can be put into the fridge. Stick it into one of those containers that your takeaway egg fried rice came in (you know, those plastic trays that you knew would come in handy one day...) and you have a tasty lunch for the following day

Oven
Hobs
Microwave
Frying pan/s
Pots (various sizes)
Utensils
Kettle
Toaster
George Foreman

the pots and pans, complete with cutlery and utensils can be picked up from Argos for about £25 as a 'get you started' job lot. Great gift if you know someone that suddenly got landed on their own!

They will wear out and break after a while, but will at least get you on your way.

Anything else can be picked up along the way. I'd recommend getting wooden utensils fairly soon though.

The plastic trays that you're takeaway fried rice comes in? Yeah, keep them dont bin them. Nah, nothing to do with saving the environment... these are going to come in handy!