Ok, last weekend was my competition! I feel really good about it - I didn't place, but I didn't expect to. Here's what I did do:


Me on July 17th.


Me on October 28th.

That's a level of improvement that I can be (and am) proud of. I lost 23lbs in 12 weeks, while at the same time hitting the gym 4-5 times a week, tanning, doing cardio and working a job. My body fat percentage went from 18.5% to 8%. No one really thought I'd do it. Everyone who watched me practice for the last 3 months was incredibly pleased and impressed with my performance. As much as results are important, this is Japan, giving something your all and improvement are almost as well thought of.

It was my first contest, my posing could have been better, but you know what, that shit is HARD.

Best news of the day: Next year's contest will be held in Nobeoka a week before I leave Japan. I can go out with a bang!

Side Note: I'm going to be taking the week after as vacation, so if any of you American photographer types wanted to visit me in Japan, you could come to the event and then we could take a week to check out the more interesting places in the country. Think about it!

I'm going to post more pictures of the day's events (between V and I, we took over 1000!), but I wanted to get mine up to share :)

One more pict:

Well, it looks like Oct. 27th wins as busiest day in Japan. EVERYONE I've asked to come to my body building contest has other plans, most of them school related and un-changeable. *sigh* It's not that I need people there, but it would be nice to have a cheering section ;)

Here are tonight's pictures of my body building training. I have 3 and a half weeks to go, I'm 75kg right now, need to be at 72kg by the competition. No problem...Assuming it doesn't kill me in the meantime ;>

For those of you were are into such things, here is my chest day:

10 sets of bench press (5-12 reps)
5 sets of incline bench press (7-12 reps)
4 sets of machine bench (12 reps)
4 sets of narrow grip machine bench (12 reps)
4 sets of chest flyes (12 reps)
4 sets of pec deck (10 reps)

Oct. 4th pictures

Sorry it took so long to get them up, I had some on my camera from a couple of weeks ago, but by the time I got them off, they were too old for me to want to post. These are current up to an hour ago ;>

It's not something we as members of the first world are terribly familiar with. Oh, we get hungry, but hunger goes beyond that..for us to hunger, we usually have to set out to do so.

I hunger. Between dramatically cutting down my caloric intake and going to the gym 5 times a week, I have just about finished burning through my excess resources. I find that when I start to diet, for the first while it's not too bad, at least physically. Sure, you want food, and the mind's a bitch, but I'm VERY good at self control, and these days that hardly qualifies as an issue for me. (Sorry for those on my friends list who wish they had that level of willpower, but it's like anything else, it comes with practice, and I've had a lot of practice.)

Hunger supersedes that. Hunger is physical. I first notice hunger when I realize that I'm basically angry all the time. It doesn't go away, it doesn't get better, I'm just angry all the time. When I think about it, I can regulate it, but when I let my guard down, it comes out. This in turn makes me tired, 'cause it takes a lot of effort to stomp down your anger before you hurt the people you care about...or at least the ones who could make your life difficult.

I have 7 weeks to go. I've gone from 84kg to 79 in the last 5 weeks, and my current goal is 75kg, although I might try for a bit more. For those who are metric-impaired, that's starting at 185lbs and trying to get to 162lbs, while at the same time minimizing the loss of muscle mass. I have no doubt that I'll accomplish it, but well...hunger.

The other side effect of hunger for me is that along with anger, I tend to get a bit intolerant, and I apologize for that. One of the negative traits of my personality that I'm not proud of is that I'm most intolerant of weakness and complaining, so I tend to come across as a bully during these sorts of periods. I'm really, *really* doing my best to make sure that doesn't happen, but be warned, frivolous complaining may well be met with scathing sarcasm and a decided lack of empathy. There is no excuse for this. I really do believe that there are no such things as "special circumstances", everyone should be judged by what they do, not the reasons why they are what they are.

If I start to be a dick to you, please call me on it. Like I said, sometimes my self control slips, and when you are a walking ball of stress, aggression and hunger, that's more likely than normal to happen, although I wish otherwise.

In the meantime, one more hour until I can eat my banana.

So, since I'm going to be doing the Higashi-Kyushu Open body building competition in October, I figured I had better see what the hell goes on at one of these things. The Kita-Kyushu contest was this last weekend, and I went up with my friend Luke and his friend Kenchan. Luke is the guy I worked out with this last year until he finished his JET contract and moved down to the city. Both Luke and Kenchan were entering, so I got to follow them around and see the preparation involved as well - very educational.

One thing I was strongly reminded of - Freaks are freaks, regardless of nationality and/or topic. It wasn't so different from being with a bunch of skaters, or D&D players, or mechanics...each group has their own lingo that acts as a code to make things incomprehensible to outsiders. Having been training and posing for the last couple of months, I actually took a lot away from this competition, but I'm guessing it would have been pretty boring to an outsiders (unless you like muscular men, then I'm sure it would have been entertaining)

Here are my pictures, obviously there are a lot more of the guys I went up with, 'cause they want to see how they did so they can improve. Oh, Luke came in 6th and Kenchan came in 5th, if that matters to you at all (there were 16 VERY hardcore participants)

The 2007 Kita-Kyushu Bodybuilding Competition

I've posted this week's body building pictures up - Me in a speedo, who would have thought?

Body Building Training Pictures

Here are the "before" picts of my body building training...starting on Monday, every two weeks I will post an update, so you can see how things are going.

July 2nd Bodybuilding Picts

For those who care about such things, I weighed 83.5kg with a body fat index of 14.1%

Ok, so I may have mentioned to some of you, but I've been talked into entering a body building competition in October down here in Miyazaki. Me?!? Yeah, I know, the world is totally coming to an end.

I've been hitting the gym a LOT since I came here, and I've gained about 17lbs of muscle since coming to Japan. Today I measured myself out: 85.5kg (so about 188lbs), 16% body fat. For the competition, I need to get that down to about 6% - which means, starting next month, I'm in cut-down mode. Also starting July 1st, I will be posting weekly pictures of myself, so you'll be able to see the craziness unfold.