 Alright everybody, first things first, gotta say guys, gotta say, these are white monsters, this is the second one I've ever had in my entire life and as opposed to the blue zero sugar monsters, these are just on another level, they're so good, they actually remind me a little bit of solo, the lemon drink or Lyft in New Zealand, so they're fucking good, zero calorie, 160mg of caffeine per drink, I will be continuing to buy them and drink them, this video though is not about that, it is an update and weigh in because we are a total of 5 weeks out, today is actually Monday, so it's not 5 weeks out, it's actually about 4 weeks and 5 days, so what's that, 5 7s, 35, minus 2, you've got 33 days, 33 days until stage time, am I ready, absolutely not, last week wasn't ideal, I'll get into all that but first of all I'm going to have a weigh in, it's not going to be a brand new low which is very disappointing, but there are reasons behind that which I will get into in a second, first of all let's weigh in, let's go, alright guys, so this morning well it's about 10 o'clock in the morning, I haven't eaten anything, I did eat quite a bit last night, it may have thrown it off as well as the introduction of Crea Team back into my diet, that usually not only does it give me slightly better pumps, it also adds a couple of pounds, maybe 3 pounds on to the scale, so you never know, I may be leaner than last week but I don't believe I am because my diet wasn't good, so yeah this week I am 196 pounds which is 88.9kg, last week I was 193.2 pounds which is 87.6kg, that was a brand new low, I hadn't been under 88 kilos for the longest time, I think what that did subconsciously is it flipped a switch in my head saying that I could let off the pedal for a week which is pretty much what I did, I did my usual meal prep but what happens is I'll eat it too fast to be honest, I can't really say too much about it, I've made up great meal prep meals with 50g of carbs, 50g of protein and very minimal fats, perfect macros but I won't stick to the amount or I won't stick to the meal timing that I'm meant to, I have been using intermittent fasting so I'll fast some days up to 2 or 3 in the afternoon and then I do struggle, I struggle to rain it in at the end of the night, I'll make sure I have one or two pre-workout meals before I train, I'll go on train with weights and then I'll eat the majority of my calories after I train, that is when I get really hungry and once again subconsciously in my head because I've had such a big fasting period I will add a few things in and I don't count them, my tracking wasn't perfect in the last week and with that being said for the first 5 days, so we're talking Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, my macro tracking was absolutely perfect but in saying that the amount of food that I ate as I said was higher than I wanted so my macros for the first 5 days of the week were 280g of protein which is way too high, 350g of carbs which is too high and 70g of fat which was pretty much ideal. Overall my total calories were up around about the 3000 mark which is way too high, I'm not going to be shedding body fat at least not at the rate that I need to with that higher calories so that wasn't ideal. Come Friday, Saturday and Sunday I had complete days off tracking anything, if anything I kept my protein up, carbs was up as well, fat I tried to keep to a minimum but I really have no idea how many calories I consumed on those 3 days, today is Monday, I have begun tracking again as I said I haven't eaten anything yet but what I've done this morning is I've started some meal prep for the coming days, I've made 18 meals, here is 3 examples so I've made 18 meals, with those 18 meals the total macros for all of the food combined is 925g of protein, 382g of carbs of which there's 154g of fiber and 64g of fat so divide all of that by 18, you've got each meal has 323 calories, you've got 51.5g of protein, 21.5g of carbs of which 8.5g of fiber and 3.5g of fat so those meals are absolutely on point for cutting I don't want to cut out carbs altogether but I definitely want to bring them down 350g is way too high, one of the reasons why I wasn't able to stick to my diet is because I got a package in the mail that I've been waiting for, when I was away in Thailand just before I went I ordered a shitload of fucking protein bars and all different types I got power crunch bars which have proven to be my Achilles heel, I really shouldn't have bought the amount of protein bars that I did but last week and I didn't track all of these but I did go through an entire box of power crunch bars and an entire box of these smart carb sugar-free peanut butter crunch bars which are delicious, this one is peanut butter cream so obviously I've got a peanut butter fetish at the moment I don't know what I'm doing but I went through an entire box I probably tracked half of them so you know I told you my macros were 280 protein 350 carb and 70 fat although probably higher to be honest I really let myself go this last week I really don't know why or what happened exactly I just really struggled with keeping my appetite under control especially at night especially post training and obviously seeing the scales jump up was not the nicest thing to see it sort of put me in a headspace where I have you know mixed emotions about competing at the moment because I'm at a point now where I've got absolutely no choice but to really fucking knuckle down and grind you know what I mean so basically I've got myself to this point let me have a drink here I've got myself to this point I'm I'm fairly lean look I don't know if I'm under 10% body fat I feel like I've gone backwards this week but like I said before I've added in creatine creatine is something that will fuck with my head when I diet I don't know if it really causes too much bloating to be honest but as far as you know seeing a brand new low I was I was literally telling myself not to take creatine because because I didn't want to see the scales go up and that is absolutely ridiculous being a natural lifter coming into these last few weeks when I'm going to get leaner than I ever had before I want to I want to maintain as much size and as much mass as possible and creatine is going to be you know one of the things that's going to allow me to do that it's going to increase performance it's going to increase size when I go and pump up backstage at my show I want creatine to be running through my system you know with that being said I've gone and trained back and biceps today not only did I have three days off tracking macros I also had three complete days off the gym on Thursday I felt as if I may have injured my elbow which was not a good feeling at all it's quite worrying so what I did was take some rest I didn't try and push it I really did want to train but you know I could have trained legs but at the end of the day I trained legs on the Wednesday and on that day as well I felt something go in my groin and it's just basically it's getting lean you know it's it's trying to push through heavy workouts with not enough nutrition running through your body and eventually you're gonna fucking get injured so that you know puts these thoughts in my head again thinking is it really worth it but then I've got my mate down in Adelaide who we've been sort of prepping together motivating each other and he's you know he's still trying to motivate me he's he's shredded as fuck where where you know nearly four and a half weeks out and he is shredded I really do believe he could step on stage within a week and that is the point that I wanted to get to I really wanted to get ready at least two weeks before the show and eat up into the show actually raise my calories into the show so I don't have to worry about trying to peak on a particular day I'll just be basically rolling straight into the show like it was any other day that would be the ideal scenario what I've found myself in at the moment is a scenario where I've got absolutely no choice but to do some drastic things to make the stage in time like I've said before I'm not going to jump up there if I'm not ready and you know only time will tell so as I said I've got all those meals made up I do have some protein bars that are low in carb low in fat high in protein to satisfy my sweet cravings I have been having a lot of mixed berries strawberries raspberries blackberries uh blueberries all sorts of berries because they have a lot of volume to them with fairly low calories so that that's going to be something I'm going to have to heavily utilize is volume foods things like chickpeas for example vegetables you know lean protein sources things that I can have a lot of for fairly low calories and stick to those macros that I've told you guys so actually I haven't told you the current macros that I'm going to be trying to stick to which will be 250 protein 200 carb and 60 fat I do believe 60 fat is is getting towards the low end for me personally I don't want to go anything below that just yet it may get below that if I need to but you know I'll I'll see you guys in another week on Saturday at four weeks out we'll see what my weight's doing I think the creatine in my system will have sort of stabilized your body does sort of self-regulate with creatine that's what I've found so you know I might I might see myself you know going back down to the 193s even even lower maybe definitely if I stick to this lower carb diet the excess water weight is going to be flushed out immediately basically you know one or two days that'll be gone and I should get a brand new low so let's see what happens it's all up to me now I've got no choice like I said but to fucking grind hard this is what I love to do this is what I preach I can't be a dreamer anymore I have to step up and I have to do what I talk about I have to I have to walk the walk I can't just talk the talk anymore I gotta fucking walk the walk so I'm looking forward to it I had a good workout today I don't care about what I see on the scales I know that if I stick to these macros I'm gonna shed the fat I'm gonna shed the water weight I won't weigh myself until this time next week or Saturday next week which will be very interesting I'm gonna stay completely off the scales but I'm gonna track everything so it'll be good for my headspace I think but in the meantime guys have a great week I will too I'm well and truly back into work right now I think I've got two days off in the next fortnight which is going to be a a stretch it's going to be a struggle I'm trying to have a good life work balance at the moment I did go out on Saturday night I said to myself you know not only am I not going to go to the gym not going to track anything on Saturday night I had a few drinks that's going to be my last drink until until the stage I don't even like drinking to be honest it was great to go out and see the guys it was for a birthday it was awesome but drinking isn't really for me like you guys know I have a smoke every now and then which also can affect my appetite so with that being said I'm going to try and cut that out as well probably be relying on things like this more often because they are nice and they do give me a kick and they don't have too much caffeine so I can have at least a couple a day which I do so until next time guys until next Saturday or until this Saturday that is me that's how the biceps looking Jacob McDonald Alice Springs Northern Territory born in New Zealand living in Australia I want to be a pro natural bodybuilder this show is going to be the start of my journey in the INBA to the PNBA which means professional natural bodybuilding association not international natural bodybuilding association that is the goal we've got less than five weeks to fucking start the ball rolling so I can't wait until until then I'll see you guys have a great one peace