Day 4 and I’m back in the gym focusing on the upper body, somewhat apprehensive of how difficult today’s session will be.

Day: 4
Date: 15/05/2013
Workout Day: 7
Weight (lb): 168.0 (3.8 lb loss)
Body Fat %: 15.8 (0.8% loss)
Health: Fine

Breakfast was particularly enjoyable today, a ribeye steak covered in chilli sauce, with some rocket and balsamic vinegar. It feels like a guilty pleasure eating this but it’s just one of nature’s gifts of some good food really does taste great. Much better than cornflakes!

After a great start to the day I embraced the gym over lunch. I managed to go up a weight in every exercise, (except chin-ups where I just observed tempo more accurately). On the dips I knew they would be relatively easier due to my weight loss, so I wore a dipping belt with an extra 6 pounds in weight to more than compensate. I also swapped my BCAA tablets for a BCAA drink/shake instead to see if it made any difference. I received the shake for free from MyProtein and it tasted fairly good, although the sucralose artificial sugar it contains isn’t ideal. I drank a gulp of this between every set, and 1 big scoop of this powder equates to 36 grammes of BCAA, exactly the same as the 3g per superset of tablets.

The training went well. I think I’m getting more mentally adapted to the rest periods and intensity, but I did feel quite nauseous throughout the session. I’m not sure if this was the new BCAA drink, the intensity of the heavier weights or the undigested steak; but I focused on keeping in my breakfast and powered on through. It’s a slightly macho approach, but sometimes you just need to suck it up, tell yourself that you’ll be fine and continue training. One PWO shake later, and with my appetite shot to pieces I deferred lunch for some snacks mid afternoon. I still felt pretty sick, but as a point of principle I was not letting my steak and supplements go to waste!

The nausea got worse and continued for several hours, and I’m now thinking it was the new BCAA drink. I’ll have to experiment and find out for certain. But after a dinner of grilled chicken breasts, oven baked peppers and mushrooms I’m now feeling fine, and again looking forward to tomorrow’s rest day.