Mike Liberatore Training for the 2011 IFBB Europa Show of Champions: Journal Entry #3

Details

Written by Mike Liberatore

Well it's the last week and the show is within my sight. This was probably the hardest prep I have ever had to go through, outside doing a full keto for the 1st time. I think my first ketogenic diet was so difficult because I was new to the program and to working with Dave. I didn't know what changes Dave was going to make and what was going to happen the final week of my prep. Believe it or not, "not knowing" is the hardest thing for me to deal with. If I know something is coming-- that I have to hammer down and suffer-- then I can do anything. Not knowing it's time to suffer, and then being told you have to suffer is a very difficult thing to do! It's painful and a huge mind-fuck!

Doing my own diet and making the changes I need is a lot easier for me to handle simply because I know what changes are coming. I always ask Dave for his opinion on my diet. Bouncing ideas back and forth works great for me. My knowledge of dieting has grown tremendously and I feel that I have a solid grasp of what needs to be done with my food intake and cardio when progression starts to stall. I, actually, got sick twice during my diet and that created a much bigger challenge than I anticipated. At one point, I stopped dieting and decided not to do this show. Dave and Aaron later talked me back into doing it and I re-started up again 1 week later. The second time I got sick I couldn't eat or hold food down, and fluids tended to exit anyway they felt fit. This left me depleted and weak and I, once again, took a week off to eat and pull myself back together. The only bonus to this was that my body acted like a sponge and I filled out nicely.

With all that being said, I'm very happy with how the prep turned out. My condition is on point and I feel like I've improved from last season. I will finish up these last 2 days and head out to Orlando on Wednesday. My carb-loading will start that Wednesday as well so, hopefully, I won't run into any issues at O'Hare International Airport. Airport nightmares can wreak havoc on a precontest body. I totally forgot that this was a two day show so I will need to make some slight adjustments to the timing of my water depletion and carb loading the day of the show. It's not hard to hold condition for 2 days but the start-time to prejudging and finals are both at 3pm Friday and Saturday. This is sort of weird when you're used to prejudging beginning at 9am and finals at 6pm of the same day. The added bonus for the finals being so early at the Europa shows is the fact that we get done early. Yes.....there's actually time to have dinner at a nice restaurant! Plenty of time to shower off, clean up and head out to any restaurant you want. Since you know me a little better now, you know I'll certainly hit up and nice steak house. Shula's....yes coach Shula's steakhouse. Shula's is one of Orlando's best steakhouses and it has a pretty solid dessert menu. And that's just as important as the great tasting cuts of meat.

Well, that about raps it up. I want to thank the fans for following my "journey" through this interesting contest prep. I think everyone will be happy with the look that I bring to the stage. I look forward to competing in 5 days and will have a blast sharing the stage with all the other IFBB Pros. We all came to do battle and it's only a few short days away.....ready.... set... go!

• < Prev
• Next >