 Hey! What's up you guys? You know what man? Shit! Shit I might start using my phone camera more often. It's a lot easier, it's a lot smaller and a lot lighter. Guys, I'm happy to report, I'm gonna try and look into the lens as much as possible. I'm happy to report I've just had my second meeting with IFBB Pro bodybuilder Steve Orton at Body Core Gym here in Christchurch and it went swimmingly, it went fucking awesome actually. I was nervous, I was nervous as hell. Today I told him before I went in that I was going to focus on posing. I wanted a half an hour session, I didn't want to get trained, I wanted to train beforehand and then go over to the posing area and see what he thought of me. See what IFBB Pro bodybuilder Steve Orton thought of your old mate Jake McDonald from Christchurch. So he put me through about 20 minutes of posing. Then we took my body fat and then we chatted about the plans and about how the week was and about what's to be expected in the next week. Now I will say guys, I will say that he's definitely put my mind at ease because I am in shape and he's confirmed that to me now. So we took my body fat percentage last week, came in at 10.4%, I've gone in this week, he's taken my measurements again, they're actually lower. So I was meant to go away and increase my eating to put on a little bit of weight so that about 10 weeks out we'd drop the calories, we'll start dropping the calories and we'd have a much higher and much higher in the way of calories position to start from going into a competition diet when you're going to get as lean as you've ever been. So last week I got presented with that plan, I went away and I didn't do it, my eating was shocking. It's almost like, to be perfectly honest with you, it's almost like after being told to go and eat more, I did the exact opposite. You know how those things happen sometimes? And I also did two rugby trainings last week, played the game on Saturday in atrocious weather, got on the piss on Sunday, didn't eat fuck all, fell asleep before eating, you know, I woke up on Monday, hung over, dehydrated, you know, light as a feather, tried to train was absolutely not happening. So after seeing them on Wednesday last week, I went away. I had two workouts, two good workouts, I had a rugby training and I had a rugby game. And then I took four days off. So we come back, it's Tuesday, I hit chest, shoulders and triceps yesterday, it was a great workout. I mean, I mean, I wasn't feeling 100% at the start, but I'm glad I got it done. And then this morning, I've come here at 8.30 to body core gym, knowing that I've got a half an hour meeting with Steve at 10. So I trained back and biceps for an hour and a quarter. It's a fantastic workout. And then we've gone and done some posing. So I had worked out, which is good because, you know, my back at least and my biceps were pumped. So what that means is that when we're doing posing, I can sort of, you know, get a better picture as to how I might look on stage after a pump up session. You know, because that's what you do before jumping on a bodybuilding stage, you carb up, you dehydrate yourself and then you pump your muscles. Well, you don't dehydrate yourself too much. You manipulate your water. You try and do whatever you can to make the water go from underneath the skin and go into the muscle. But at the end of the day, if you're lean, it doesn't matter what you do. You're still going to look good. If you're lean enough, you don't need water, you don't need water tricks, water retention, fucking voodoo. You know what I mean? You don't need anything. If you're lean enough, you're lean enough and that shows on stage. You can be flat as a pancake. If you're lean enough, you still look impressive. And especially in a natural show, conditioning is going to be key. I know that I'm going to be pushed harder as far as diet, as far as, you know, psychologically and physically. If I decide in the end to compete in this show in 16 weeks time, I know that, you know, especially those last four or five weeks, I'm going to be pushing harder than I ever have before. And that's scary. It's scary. But what I will say is that I actually presented those thoughts to Steve today. So he knows exactly how I'm feeling. I told him the only thing I'm really fucking nervous about is getting on stage. If I can control my nerves, I know that I've got it in me to grind through any physical fucking pain, any workouts on low calories, fucking fasting if I need to. I could fast for 48 hours just like that if I had to. I'm that kind of guy. But let's hope it doesn't get to that. And I know it won't because right now I'm pumped because I've just finished my session with Steve. And, you know, the plan is, you know, I'm going to be back here in another week's time, 10 o'clock Wednesday. And I'm hoping that, well, I say I hope, but I know that if I'm going to stick to the plan, I'm going to be eating around about 30, 36, 38, even 4,000 calories, probably a little bit more on, you know, a really strenuous training day. And we've got to bump up these calories, man. We've got to get my calorie expenditure up at a lean body composition. And so with Steve in my corner, I feel like we're definitely going to do that. He looked at me today. We posed. I was shit scared. I was shaking, to be fair. You know, I stripped down to my jocks. I'm posing in front of an IFBB pro bodybuilder that's been on the Arnold Classic stage. And he said, I'm in shape. You know what I mean? Do you know how exciting that is? Do you know how good that makes me feel? It means all this work I've done over years and years, loving bodybuilding, but never ever like posing in front of a proper coach, and all I've done is pose in front of the mirror. Apart from the men's physique show that I did and the fitness model show that I did. You know, apart from those two, the only posing I've ever done is in front of the mirror. You know, by myself doing progress pictures in the gym, you know? Setting up my camera in the toilet so no one would see me, you know? I've never been involved in a gym, a proper bodybuilding gym that that's accepted. There's people prepping for bodybuilding shows all throughout the gym. You know what I mean? It's like posing is just a part of bodybuilding and it's accepted. So when you see people stripped down their jocks and they're looking at themselves in the mirror, it's not frowned upon because this is bodybuilding and that's what I love. I love bodybuilding and I always fucking will. It's a passion. I don't know where it was lit, but it was lit somewhere. It was probably lit from Dragon Ball Z. You know what I mean? I'd say a lot of bodybuilders around my age, they're fire for, if it's not from the Hulk, it'd be from Goku and Dragon Ball Z. I'm not going to lie, that's probably where it came from for me. We're here and look, I'm going to shut it off now. I'm glad I made this video, otherwise it might never have been made. Today was a fantastic day. I learned a shitload. I got put through my paces and apparently I'm in shape. So feels good. Hopefully next week I might put on a KG or so, get my metabolism, you know, firing. I'll feel stronger in the gym, which will feel great because I have been cutting for so long now. And it's just a mindset. It's a shift. You know, it's a few days. You change something for a few days and you form a habit and it doesn't seem so hard. It's exactly the same when I had to transition from bulking into cutting this time. Took three days, took a week. Once I had my first week of cutting, I had, you know, my first week of good results and it was easy from there. So this, you know, I'm at that point now. Last week I really struggled to flip the switch and go back into a bulking phase. But this week I'm going to do everything I can. Steve's there if I need him. You know, it's great to have him in my corner. I feel fucking, I feel blessed, bro. I'm playing rugby. I'm bodybuilding again. And I'm rubbing shoulders with people that, you know, are inspiring to me. And to do that is really cool. So with all that being said, guys, I hope you have a fantastic day. For anyone that has followed my bodybuilding journey, my natural bodybuilding journey for years, you know, ever since I started making vlogs in 2013 or 14. Natural bodybuilding vlogs, I thought. I love natural bodybuilding. I loved everything about it. I loved the fact that you only got out what you put in, literally. And it was the harder road. You know, it was the road less travelled. And I wanted to travel that road and I'm still travelling that road. So guys, thank you so much for watching. It's time for me to go. You've listened to me for 10 long minutes and I appreciate it. Peace out, guys. Have a great day. Later.