Waiting for that day

Well it's nearly time. After all of the endless preparation, all of the mad dieting to ensure a perfect look, all of the blood, sweat and tears, yes, tomorrow is the wedding of William and Kate. Whatever your views on the Royals you have to admit that we do this stuff better than anyone else in the world and that tomorrow will be a great day for Britain; so don't whinge or moan, just enjoy it. I have to add that Kate will not at any time (in her whole life hopefully) be dressed as my daughter was this morning, when I saw her walking down the road in a bright Pink velour tracksuit, I do love my little girl! Oh and by the way, I'm ready for my event this weekend too, I just have to dry out and carb up tomorrow, although that's actually worse than the diet! Win or lose I will put a report on here on Sunday.

Smelling the Roses

When you have dieted down this much it’s hard to get up and do an hour’s cardio before eating anything but it has to be done. To deal with the “mental tiredness” side of it, those that know me will tell you that I always find a positive way to get past that. The silver lining that I found this Easter weekend was to walk around a big lake while everyone else was still in bed. By doing this I was rewarded by seeing some real life nature close up. As you can see from the picture, these baby ducklings were not at all threatened by me as I was the only person anywhere near them, it was a lovely feeling. Like Tom Platz said, you have to “stop and smell the roses”, if you can do it a week out from a show, then you must be doing things right.

A nailbiting Wednesday night

What a fantastic North London derby last night! Although the result will probably mean that Arsenal's 5 barren years do become 6, as predicted here some weeks ago, it also possibly means that Spurs won't finish in the top 4. Regardless of those two facts it was the right result and a great night for football. OK now a moan, if there are 80,000 people on benefits because they are all either fat or drug addicts here's an idea, stop giving them benefits then they can't buy junk food or drugs! Too simple? Finally, Paradox are doing more filming for the documentary on Tuesday as I should be show ready by then, here's a still from the trailer that's already had a lot of views on YouTube.

Sunshine and the Princess

Well the verdict from Martin was that I am about right for two weeks out so the hard dieting will continue right up to the day before the show and I will just do a one day carb up. It's good to have Martin in my corner, he's a great help and I'm enjoying the preparation more now that I can get an hours sleep in the sunshine every afternoon to combat the tiredness. You can see exactly how I was looking on my 52nd Birthday as Paradox have posted a trailer for the documentary that I mentioned on you tube, here's the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIaLIgCxOJ8 Finally, I've seen quite a bit of my Princess Lilybelle lately and she just gets more cuddly every time I see her, she is one amazing little girl.

It's almost worth getting old

It's nice to have one last bit of enjoyment amongst all of the hard dieting and cardio this close to a show. So spending Friday evening with the six most important people in my life did the job brilliantly. Steve, Amy & Natalie came round with Lilybelle, Caden & Colby. We had cards, presents and cake (diet? what diet?). Then the Grandchildren decided to celebrate my Birthday by all having a bath together! I cannot explain what it is like when they are all here, it's chaos, there is carnage everywhere in my house and I love every minute of it, because it is the most magical feeling imaginable, I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful family. Anyway, back to work tomorrow, Martin will take a look and give me his honest opinion and we'll see what happens from there, here comes the pain!

Do I get a bus pass yet?

So tomorrow is my 52nd Birthday. Fifty sodding two! That's the amount of weeks in a year or cards in a deck, in other words, a lot! However 52 is also my resting heart rate so I suppose I should be grateful that I am that fit at this age, but it is also an undeniable fact that every passing year brings me closer to the day when my resting heart rate will be absolute zero! Anyway, I'm far too busy to worry about stuff like that at the moment. Everything is going well with both me and Danny, filming starts tomorrow for a documentary that they are making about me, I'll give you more news on that as it happens. Here's another pic from last weekend's outdoor cardio entitled "52 year old man inappropriately dressed for a public place"!

The wisdom of my Daughter

As it is now just mainly depletion dieting and high rep training for the next 2 weeks or so, I made the most of my last semi - normal weekend. On Saturday, cardio in the sunshine as pictured, a Mexican for my last cheat meal and then to the movies to see "Limitless" which is quite good, but the plot had more holes than the GF's fishnet stockings. Then today shopping with my darling Daughter Natalie, who afterwards wanted junk food for lunch. So I order hers and then order mine, she looks at me worryingly and says "Dad, ordering a salad and a bottle of water in McDonalds is like going to a prostitute and asking for a cuddle". Whilst I cannot argue with her logic, it is nevertheless distressing to hear it from someone who I still think of as my sweet little girl!

Its all good!

Whisper it quietly but things have gone amazingly well this week. I say whisper because I've not eaten any chicken or broccoli for a week now, those meals have been replaced with my own alternative foods and recipes, and the people that I respect at Golds all say that I've cut up much quicker this week; go figure. So I look forward with confidence to April 30th but I'm also thinking about July 31st which will be Daniel's first proper show. Dan is only 19 but is learning very quickly about the level of committment required, he is fully meeting the challenge, head on and putting all of the other juniors, and many others in the gym, to shame. I'll put a picture of him on here soon but I want him a bit bigger first. So here instead is my Princess Lilybelle, all excited to be going to play in the sunshine!

Finally.....

Today, at last, I finally became confident about being ready for April 30th. My weight is still just above 18 stone but Martin Duckett & Gaz Smith both had a look at my legs today and said that they are sure that they will be completely through in plenty of time. I can't actually face any more chicken and broccoli so I've started inventing bodybuilding show diet recipes, I might tell you more about them in due course, depending on how I look for this years shows! Yesterday was Mother's Day as I'm sure you know, I lost my Mum over 10 years ago but it still hurts; so Steve, Natalie and Amy all tend to rally round me on that special day. It was great spending some time with all of them, and I also saw Lilybelle, who is just growing up so quickly, they are not babies for long are they?