The Reality of Contest Prep Suffering

Look, man, the whole journey will teach you a lot about yourself. a lot because it's just a it's a journey of suffering I mean you're not going to do well if you're not willing to suffer and that's why so few people can do it because you're going to be suffering for I don't want to oh it's going to be a while it's going to suck it's going to be a while it's going to suck like shit it's just going to fall apart like your body yeah yeah your mental state will fall apart your psychological state you start getting the suicide the sidles suicidal genocidal homicidal trifecta I'm kidding it's not actually that's the stack you're looking for it's actually not that bad it's not that bad if you take your time I think a lot of people try to rush the process and they don't give themselves enough time because they don't realise how much fat they have to lose they're like oh I just need to lose like 10 kilos bro you're going to have to lose like 22 you're going to have to lose a lot more I've heard this before people think they've got like 7 or 8 kilos left and it's like Now you've got 15, 16. Especially nowadays because when I was competing back then, you didn't have to be as shredded as you do now. It's conditioning. If you don't have a walnut ass, you're not going to do well. So you do have to dig a lot deeper. You have to be willing to lose a little lean body mass, especially for naturals. But I would tell you the slower you take it, the better. And a lot of people will go, well, I'll do the old 12, 16-week shred and then get on stage. and you probably want to do at least 24 weeks. Yeah, well, my first cut is starting in October. Yeah. So the first and it'll go. Oh, your first phase. First phase and then it'll be just to hold for a few months and then I'm sure the real dig deep will happen. Turn the gas up again. Turn the gas up. That's it, yeah. What's nice is you get to a point where you're hungry at first and then your body just assumes that you're not going to find any food. So you go through this period of irritation but you're not that hungry anymore. you're just tired all the time. You're just fucking tired. Everything's a fucking mission. You'd be sitting on your couch like, man, I really got to take a shit. And you're like, God damn, the bathroom's so far away. I'll just wait. I'll wait until the turtle head's sticking out and then hopefully I'll make it. That was, Dean McKillop told us a story like that years ago when we had him on our old podcast and he literally was walking and he's like, all I could, I just had to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. He was deep in the prep and he's just like, He told his girlfriend or fiance, don't talk to me. Don't talk to me. I just need to put one foot in front of the other. That's all I can focus on right now. He's a fucking weapon, man. I love it. He's a cool guy. He looks so good. When he was, he looks fantastic. He's got a crazy body. One of the shows he was doing, when he decided to get back into it, he was like, we met up and we were hanging out and I'm sitting there eating like a fucking chili cheese dog in front of him. And he's just sitting there. I'm like, does this not bother you? He goes, nah, fuck man. I'd be losing my shit. Yeah. Crow said that. He's like a robot as well. Yeah. And I think this is the, like the conversations that I've been having with my coach and even watching like Alberto Nunez stuff, it's like, like think less, like set up your life to think less

because the thought takes away from everything else. Like you want to be a better partner, that neuroticism around food and when to eat and do this and whatever else, like, yeah, right, you may get lean, but you're probably going to be a piece of shit everywhere else. Yeah, fuck everything else. You know what I mean? It's like this guy is like, it's his choice to diet. Like I would say it seems like Dean, like I don't know him personally, but he's got everything in check, everything. Yeah, absolutely. And that's to the point where it's like, hey, whatever the fuck you want, man, I know I'm sweet. Yeah, he is. He's like that. He's like that. he's just when he sets his mind on something it's non-negotiable he just does it and i can't do that anymore i used to do that i'm too old now i remember because i had a conversation with him he a couple years ago but you were saying like oh the suffering and all that he was he was like uh it's not that bad he was just of the mindset like it's it's really not that hard he was like i just kept going into it and i just finished and i was like oh that's it yeah i think you just have to get you have to get it in your head to have a big enough extrinsic motivator yeah and then really like the why start with why look in and draw that into some type of hard intrinsic motivator that allows you to stay on track exactly what uh so i was gonna say