Wednesday 12th May

80/84 Feeling better today because of two strange events yesterday. Firstly, the legs appear to have come through early and secondly Eddie gave a huge smile when he looked at me and said that he was very happy! I am full of confidence now and so is Marc, I saw him today and he looks great, he is at contest weight so now we will carry on depleting and getting him under weight a bit longer before carbing him up. Eddie takes his last look at me tomorrow and I will do the same for Marc on Friday. It's all going to plan again and we are all looking forward to Sunday more than ever!

Monday 10th May

78/84 Feeling so tired, the depletion diet has started to hurt today. Marc is suffering more than me and I have to pick him up daily but I know he will be OK. I will see Eddie tomorrow and he will keep me going. The thing that I do to get through the hard days is to make a few plans for the near future. In the short term I will have a large Cuban cigar and a glass of Scotch waiting for me after the Body Power Expo. Then, after some solid rebound training, my girlfriend and I are off for a well deserved holiday at an absolutely amazing hotel, the Moon Palace in Cancun, Mexico http://www.moonpalacecancun.com/. This place is pure luxury, with a 2 person jacuzzi in the suite, a private balcony, ocean view and restaurants with food that defies belief. Oh yes, each of those will do as an incentive!

Sunday 9th May

77/84 An excellent weekend. Marc is looking good even though he has now started carb depleting and I saw my posing coach Kev Simonds today who was impressed at how well everything has come through. Marc & I are both a bit flat because of the depletion so no photos today! Congratulations to my good friend Adam and his beautiful new wife Shelley whose wedding we attended on Saturday. Caught up with a lot of old friends including Angus who I haven't seen for a while. Eddie was there too, he is a great laugh when we go out, although I'm sure that he took some sadisitic pleasure in making sure that I didn't eat anything all night! I didn't even take a bit of wedding cake home, how's that for willpower? It will all be worth it by this time next week, of that I have no doubt.

Friday 7th May

75/84 Well finally, after a long wait we now know. It has been a long hard road but yes, Tottenham will play in the champions league next season! The election was a bit of a joke wasn't it? So if you get the most seats and the most votes you still don't win if the others decide to gang up on you? Great thing this democracy. Marc has had a slight relapse today so tomorrow I am having a look at him and we will have to make some decisions from there. My preparation is going well, here's my chest, the latest part to come in right on time. I'm carb depleting now so I feel flat and tired but this time next week I'll be carbing up and then we can see if all the hard work has paid off.

Wednesday 5th May

73/84 Just to answer a few questions today. Yes that was my son Steve winning £50,000 on "The whole 19 yards" on Saturday and no he won't lend you any of it. Marc is much better and will be back in the gym tomorrow. I don't know who I'm voting for yet but please make sure that YOU vote tomorrow, or you can't complain about the result can you? And finally a couple of people have asked how the abs are looking. Well apart from the scarring and a little bit of water that I will shift next week they are not bad for a 51 year old!

Tuesday 4th May

72/84 Happy Star Wars day - May the fourth be with you. Well I've been waiting for something to go wrong with Marcs preparations and on Sunday he called me to say that he was very ill, today he is still no better so we have a race against time now to make him healthy as soon as possible. On the plus side all of the hard work has been done so it will just be a case of re tuning him when he is recovered. I am feeling fine, just a bit tired, but it is worth it as the legs have now started to come through at exactly the right time, this picture was taken last week and they are looking better every day. If the legs are good and Eddie is happy with them then I am happy too!

Sunday 2nd May

70/84 Todays blog is dedicated firstly to my Mum, who would have been 70 today, love always Mum. Secondly it is dedicated to my good friends Tommo and Perry who both got into the best shape of their lives for yesterdays NABBA South East Britain. Tommo won the over 40's and Perry came second in the class 3 but was only beaten by a top quality opponent and would have won any other NABBA class 3 contest that I've seen recently. Well done to both of the guys, they have worked so hard over the winter and it has paid off as you can see in the photo. So they have set the bar high for Marc and I at the UKBFF show on May 16th, but both of us are confident and just can't wait to get on stage!