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Howdy to all you Blueprintians!

I hope it's OK for me to blather on here so prematurely since I can't actually start my BP until after Labor Day, but I'm antsy (and a bit bored here at work) so here it is.

Unlike many of you smart ones who at least have some youthful weight training/sports, I've got just about none! A lil baseball... lots of dirt biking. I'm now cruising thru my 48th year of breathing (6'2" btw) and I never touched a weight until I hit my 40s when my 3 bulged disks (youthful indiscretions) started acting up and PT was required. I'll add that I have had 'trick knees' since gradeschool also.

Did 3 intermittant years at gyms, almost entirely on cables. Interrupted by bi-lateral carpal tunnel surgerys. But I caught the bug. I felt good! I looked better! I got stronger! (tho I never build any significant size) I lost 20#s in the process. I started researching supps and methods and systems ..... and got totally overloaded and confused!

Then I got lazy for a couple years. And really busy. Work, church & hobbies. Weight crept up to 230. and THEN my nephew moved in. Just 21. Lifting experience. Motivation and energy. My new workout partner!

My goals are not a bodybuilders. Nor a power lifter. My genes are wrong and it's too late for such folly. BUT... It's never too late to get in shape! As a scientist, I love the B.P.'s thesis. Lots of science. lots of research. lots of data. To be brutally honest, I want bigger gains. I need someone to tell me what to do. What to buy. How to do it. Rob and his BP are it. LOL! No pressure, Rob!

I've got 6 weeks to study & prep. (I'm droppin weight this month with my wife) I'm reading everything here and in the book. Trying to understand it all. I'm a planner, so I need it all mapped out in advance! btw: if my nephew decides to follow the BP too, I'll buy another book. It's only right! I'm scraping funds together to start buying consumables too.

oh yeah... and I've got 6 weeks to ramble on and on and on!

Wow that's very nice of you Duffer on the nephew thing. And yes, you'll definately benefit from his youthful ways!

Understand and appreciate the goals at this point in life. Turning 40 did the same to me. Currently trying to slim down a bit but it's hard after 25 years of power training.

Very much value your background as it allows me/us to assist in your goals. There is definately a way to accomplish within the BP and we'll help you get there. Biggest modifications will be frequency of training (less) and volume (again, a bit less) vs. your nephew.

Having said all of that... I have every confidence you'll BOTH succeed!

Welcome to the boards and good luck with the planning and executing!

Thanx for the support! I figure part of my blather is to supply enough background so that you'all can better guide me along. Wanted to post some pics, but don't know how. Links only?

Inventory of my garage gym:

Nephew & I picked up a squat cage today. Craigs score. So now we have:
One of those gazillion position cable/weight stations that can do most everything I can think of EXCEPT seated cable rows (the nephew is already maxing out on seated bench and leg press!), An incline/decline bench with preacher, EZ bar, long bar, DB bars, my well used eliptical and about 350#s of Olympic weights. We still need to pick up a few more 2.5 & 5# plates for the DBs. I think we can do about anything now SAFELY. I'm feeling ok with bench press even tho I have zero experience, but I'm really hesitant about the squats with the back & knee history. I think I'll be fine if I watch my form, but I'm still anxious about it.

so... never smoked, seldom drink (even tho I'm V.P. of the local homebrew club!) Zero drugs. I have pretty good stamina. at 40 minutes pushing the eliptical my heartrate chugs along in the high 150s to low 160s and the sweat doth flow. Doing a lot more dirtbiking this year. Mostly single-track. Budget-minded I'm riding old school so bike weight 265 wet and for a judge of intensity, a 2.5 hour ride with couple 5 minute breaks will log under 20 miles. Slow & technical. Good workout for legs & upper. Thighs & tris are pretty sore a couple days after!

To add a couple more things:

1) My build is tall, very thin in my youth and never build much muscle (except shoulders did ok). Zero chest muscle. ever. as a kid I was definition of the "98# weakling"

2) My whole household is doing the HCG diet again (round 2) thru August. If you are not familiar, it's a hormone sublingual with a strick 500 cal/day diet. I'm not selling the program, but it does work for me. 1st round in Feb went from 226# to 196 in 40 days. Then cruised. Give the body a break. Let the skin catch up. I started working out with nephew and gained back to 211#. (some muscle some not. belt got just a bit tighter) I'm doing a shorter cycle this time. Target low 190s - high 180s. Down 7#s so far. Worked out 3 times this week and cardio'd once so far.


3) No free squat info yet. This week, last set info: Cable leg press = 260-ish X 10. Bench = 165 X 6. (nephew did 275 x 3) I can only do 3 clean chip-ups and 3 clean pull-ups. BW dips = 8,8,6. Preacher 60# x 7. We'll continue working on form thru the month. Expecting no gains but clinging to what I have so far!

Heading out for our weekly dirtbike ride now!

This is great info and essential to know what you have to work with.

Now the power cage and those barbells/adjustable bench are virtually all you need! That and some ingenuity, which you certainly have in spades.

Now do take care to accurately mark that power cage for all movements. Do so with an empty barbell to ensure if something goes wrong you're safe. In time, you'll come to really appreciate it and it'll allow you to maximally overload your big barbell lifts.

You've got some good baseline lifts to work with so don't sell yourself short. Being tall you probably have some challenges squatting but no matter, you'll find the correct positioning and we'll help you.

You want to check pin position on the following lifts:

Flat bench
Inclines at 3 different positions (one low incline, one high and one in the middle)
Declines

Squats
Rack pulls (top range, top 1-2 inches with a shoulder width stance)

Seated shoulder press

Re the the HCG diet:

1. 500K/day? I thought Famine was bad
2. Sulingual hormonal tabs - are these homepathic? If so, I'd like to know the ingredients.

"Expecting no gains but clinging to what I have so far!" - We're going to be revising your expections. I have high expectations of both you/your nephew. You should too!

Your first BP run - Famine will be difficult. It is for everyone but done correctly, it's a healthy detox exercise. You in particular will benefit as a periodic cleanse such as this is a wonderful thing. The HCG diet wait... I've heard of this now. Friends mother was injecting Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin (real HCG) and eating about the same caloric levels. Is that it?

You're both going to thrive on this. I don't know what your nephews goals are but he has an EXCELLENT starting point given those #s. He is going to be a monster after just a few BP runs. Suggest he look into the BP Periodic starting on page 60 if power/size is his game.

Right here for you so let me know if any further questions. We're doing this together man. We're a team..

Thanx again, Rob.

Yeah, that's the HCG we are doing except not injected. (my sis-in-law did this first round) I'm taking this cycle time to get off all suppliments. We'll stabilize a couple weeks before we start the BP. I don't know what the HCG interactions might be with the BP stack so I want to be sure that hormone is cleaned out completely. Down 9.2#s in this first week. (I'm hesitant to get into the details since this is not an HCG forum, ya know?) If ya could do the Famine with HCG tho, it would be a breeze!

Our Saturday ride was pretty anemic. I didn't realize we would be SOOO down on stamina. Plus it was rainy which makes the trails extra slippery and takes more energy to control. and riding in the rain, all hot and sweaty, with my required glasses fogging up constantly sucks! plus at the 2 hr mark my right thigh started cramping.

Sunday was homebrew/BBQ meet, but I did pretty good. Only a few samples consumed and meats/veggies injested. Amazingly lost an even pound still.

This morn was full body, no real structure, and playing with the rack. My pluu-up & chin were up to BWx5 each, but my bench down to 135. Just tough with such low caloric intake. It's all good tho. As expected. Butthead nephew still benched 275x2 tho!

I'm off today, so time to do some honey-do's!

Wow! This is an extreme diet for sure.

Thanks for sharing. I'd be interested in hearing more. We don't pile on criticize here. We learn, share and grow

Just respectin' The Forum!

These sublungual drops say "Homeopathic hCG 6X, 12X, 30X, 60X" in 16% ethanol. that's it. Recommended dose is 10 drops 6 times a day. Spreading them out helped my nephew a lot, but I do mine 3Xs / day. Measures out to 1.5mls / day.

I studied the physiology quite a bit before spending the money. I don't have the books in front of me but basically Human Chorionic Gonadotropin is a hormone found in women, only when pregnant. Physiology relates to the hypothalamus and its theoretical effect is that it 'makes more readily available' fat stores for energy usage by the mother, and therefore the fetus too. Stabilizes (and ensures) the baby's nutritional intake. I think it kills the appetite because there is so much 'dissolving' fat circulating thru the blood stream. It does not, however, kill the mental side of appetite. If I stay busy, I'm good there.

Seems to have a stronger effect on men that women. 1#/day losses for men. 0.5#/day for women. The body will build up some resistance at around a month for most folks. The only widely reported side-effect seems to be some temporary hair loss. I've had no problems so far.

The diet is very well spelled out. Basically, no breakfast. Lots of fluids all day. Coffee, teas, water. 1 tbsp milk/day. "juice of one lemon" No other dairy at all. No sugar of any form. Stevia or Sweet n Low only. Very low fat intake.

The rest of the day = 2 portions of: 100gram (before cooked) skinless chicken, high-end steak, xtra lean hamburger, white fish, seafood like shrimp, prawns, crab or canned tuna in water.

Fruit 2xs/day: Medium apple, orange, 1/2 grapefruit or "handful of strawberries".

Veggie 2xs/day: 2-cups lettuce, broccoli, asparagus, onion, radishes, celery, cauliflower, cabbage, tomato. Note no peas, corn, squash, carrots.... ie good tasting veggies!

Carbs: 2 Grissini bread sticks or 2 Melba toasts. We do like 5 'table crackers' (water crackers?) whatever they are called per day. Whole wheat thingys. So low carbs, but not zero carbs.

omg, it's incredibly hard to find stuff without some form of sugar. Like spices! Salad dressings. Gum.

Someone on 'the other forum' gave me a bit of crap. "wanna lose weight? control your eating.", he says. and he's right, but it's one of those things that I'm weak on. especially when I'm bored.

Ooooo, I better throw this out to any BPers following along!

This hCG weight loss thing we are chatting about HAS NOTHING to do with Rob's Blueprint! Don't confuse it with the B.P. Famine Phase!!!

and on another topic: now I know what the catabolic, ammonia sweat smell is like! After our attempted dirtbike ride..... we both absolutely reeked! Left our muddy riding pants to dry in the box trailer and it's pretty bad in there.

So it's obvious that on our 500cals/day, even with the hCG 'improving fat access', strenuous exercise causes the body to break down muscle tissue! I just got my multi-stix today so I'll test myself tonite just for fun and data.

I am subscribing to this one.

Duff I am here to tell you that you will make some serious strength and size gains on this program. In fact you are going to be like a kid in a candy store once you hit that 2nd week of feast and the personal bests keep on coming.

Plus having your nephew around will do nothing but stoke the fires.

Ditto on that!!

Updates: Work has been keepin me busy. Not much to report just yet. Still cruising thru the diet. Had a couple days of plateau and a bit of cheating, but back on track and moving forward. This morning weight = 201#.

I've done a couple days of elliptical this week and one full-body workout but no longer pushing the weights. It just does not make sense with the limited calories to think we are gonna make lifting gains. Just keeping the routine and staying loose. Nephew is gonna help me learn squatting in the cage next week.

I did the multi-stix this morn. Shows higher pH and only trace protein.

I've ordered SupercissusRx and a pulse watch. We'll order 2 ULTIMATE MASS Bodybuilding Kits probably tonite. 1 for me and 1 for nephew.

On the shelf, we've got Fish oil caps, Whiteflood, Purplewraith, Blackpowder, syntha-6 and creatine mono.

will use the fishoil during feast & cruise. will use the mono during cruise. others may be used during cruise experimentally.

btw: best price I could find on Cissus works out to be 90 cents / day. Cheapest Animal Flex (recommended by Hank!, right?) is 59 cents / day. interesting.

anything else grampa-duff should buy?