 What's going on you guys? It's Rafe here. So I wanted to do a little update. I'm exactly 11 days out from my competition. It's all-natural men's physique. It's going to be for INBA. Their Instagram is INBA Global Official. I'll put it down in the info box below. And I hired a coach to help me with my diet plan and with my posing because for this league it's a little more in-depth. They have more bodybuilding style poses included like front double bicep stuff like that inside chest. So man, so this has been basically a nine-week prep for me and I have just under two weeks to go. At this point, man, every day is like a struggle. It's a battle for me. I'm to the point where I just feel depleted all the time. I really don't have energy. I don't feel completely rested. I just got an update to my diet plan so we're knocking off another basically a couple hundred calories and my cardio is being ramped up as well. So instead of doing 30 minutes three times a week, I'm going to be doing 40 minutes three times a week. So my calorie expenditure is going up. My caloric intake is going down. That just equals an even greater caloric deficit on a day-to-day basis. So before I started dieting I did the skin fold test to see what my percent body fat looks like. For me that was a seven skin fold equation that I use measurement and with that I had between six and six and a quarter percent body fat probably closer to six and a quarter and then I just did it today. So that's what? Just over seven weeks into my diet and my percent body fat is just over five about five and a quarter. So I've lost about a percentage of body fat. I'm hoping to get down under the fours and I think in the next 11 days I can do that since I'm going to be eating even less. My cardio is going up and I still have to work like crazy and it gets busy bartending and I burn a lot of calories doing that. So as long as I'm drinking enough coffee, pre-workout, caffeine in general, then I can keep my physical activity up and then hopefully burn off a greater amount of fat. Man, but it is not easy. So lately I find myself a lot of times really feeling down to be honest. I feel, I wouldn't say depressed but I get very emotional lately. I'm very sensitive. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with my diet being hormonal because of that and hangry as it were. But at the same time I really think I'm pushing myself harder than I think that I'm capable of. I think I pushed myself really hard this time and there's something about doing that and other people around you are like, I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you're so strict with your diet. I don't know how you're so disciplined. I don't know how you stick to it or people saying, you know, you're crazy. This isn't right. This isn't healthy for you. You're doing too much. It's not worth it. And this is all stuff coming from people who care about me, people who love me and they want the best for me. But only you know on the inside if you're doing what you know is the right thing for you and if you're, if you know you're capable of more than what other people think or know or see because they're afraid for you, for your health, for your well-being, etc, etc. Fair. It's fair. I understand. I've been a little cray-cray lately. I cry a lot more than is normal. That's for sure. Yesterday I had a good cry in the shower. I doubt myself a lot. Anyway, yesterday I was feeling really, really down. Just every day now, when I go to the gym, I'm so exhausted. I'm so tired. I just, when I was training the other day with my trainer, we were doing legs and he was pushing me. I even had a couple PRs in some of my workouts, but I was doing the seated leg press and I was pushing, pushing, pushing and it hurt so bad and I was so tired that I was just covering my face. While I was doing the exercise and by the time I was done, I just was hyperventilating. I bent over into my knees, buried my head in my knees and I was hyperventilating and then suddenly out of nowhere, I just started like bawling. I was crying in the middle of my workout, tears streaming down my face and he's like, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. He's like, okay, well, when you're ready, let's go to the next exercise. I'm like, all right, let's go. Wow. So, and of course, to people on the outside who see that or hear that, they're like, you're fucking crazy. I would never do that to myself. I don't know how you do it or why you're doing that, but that's fucking crazy. But for me, it makes complete sense, you know. Oh yeah, another thing I wanted to talk about is aside from feeling depleted and sometimes angry, frustrated, like I want to give up, just don't even want to do it. There have been times where I'm like, fuck this. I do not want to do this diet anymore. I do not want to do this. I just want to eat. I just want to relax. I'm so over it. And on top of that, that theme of loneliness again that I talked about in a previous vlog. But man, I feel really lonely lately. I spend most of my time alone when I'm not at work. I'm just training, prepping, eating, running errands, just working on social media stuff. And most of the time I am by myself. It's true. I've read it before and I hear about it, but going, going for it, going for your dreams, going after what you're passionate about and really living life to the fullest and pushing yourself to your limit is a lonely road. It's a lonely endeavor. And that's really fucking hard for me because that's something that I've always struggled with is feeling alone. So I'm doing all right though. I'm good. Yeah, as I'm crying. That's just because it rings true. You know what I mean? When you speak from your heart and something is impactful, it happens. At least for me anyway. So, but for real though, I'm good and I'm learning and I'm getting stronger every single day and I'm finding a sense of peace more and more with being alone. I remember I did a vlog about it before and I was, you know, pretty upset. I've come a long way since then. I can handle a lot more and it's starting to get to the point now where it's fun and I'm starting to enjoy it and I'm starting to feel like, yes, I'm doing this and I can be on my own and I'm good. Like I'm making it happen and that's really rewarding to know that I could do that. But my best friend Blake, what's up, Blake? He reminded me that we used to listen to this artist on iTunes. I'm looking it up but it's called. It's fearless motivation. There's a ton of albums and it's a bunch of guys and they're all just just bowding motivation non-stop. It's spoken word but it's so good and the backing track is so inspirational and motivational and it gets you hyped and I've been listening to that on repeat. The most important thing I can do for myself is to surround myself with motivational, uplifting, positive words, affirmations, gratitude, humility, just having the right perspective. So I strongly suggest, again, I'll post a picture of the album that I'm listening to in particular right now but there's so many of them and they're so good. So I'm just going to surround myself with that. I'm going to bust out my gratitude journal and start writing things that I'm thankful for every morning because that really helps too. It helps set your day. I get so caught up in the hustle and then in doing things and feeling like I got to be accomplishing things constantly so that I can get ahead that I forget to spend time with myself and so a lot of times I don't take those moments to, I don't know, go on a nice peaceful hike by myself or be in nature or listen to things like this or meditate or pray or just anything. Most of it is a solitary thing because I need to like go inside myself and get grounded and get good for myself. So anyway, 11 days out folks. One thing I've been slacking on is posing. Posing is absolutely making crucial. I know this and I'm going to start now to focus and that's all I'm going to be concerned about for the next 11 days. I'm going to meet with my coach one more time. We're going to practice posing in the T-Walk so that I know exactly what I'm doing. I'm going to have everything sharp, ready, good to go and I'll try to keep you guys updated on social media as to what's going on in the next couple of weeks. All right guys, kids. Wish me luck. Here goes. Peace.