Road to the Leigh Brandt Muscle Classic 2021 - 11 Days Out

I am now only 11 days out from the Leigh Brandt Muscle Classic and the question is have I left it too close? Is there any way I can get lean enough to be contest condition? If I had been prepping for this show the way I normally would done, I would be a lot leaner at this point but I would have also been in a much harsher diet deficit for a much longer period of time making my body less responsive to continued dieting.

The advantage I have not being in so much of a diet deficit leading into my last two weeks before the show, means when I do push my body into a hard diet deficit this last two weeks, it will respond to it much better as my metabolism is healthy and my body will be more willing to respond well to the harsh dieting at least for the two week leading up to the show.

So in theory I am hoping to see really dramatic changes over the next week and by this coming Saturday I hope to have a better idea on if I will be ready or not for the show. I hope everything goes as planned but at 52 years of age sometimes my body doesn't always do what I want it to do! Fingers crossed and see you on Saturday when I do another check-in...

October Update Video - Possible Upcoming Show

I have been missing in action for the past several weeks mainly as I have been spending a fair bit more time taking care of my other YouTube Channel or should I say past YouTube channel. My Replica Airguns YouTube channel was taken down by YouTube with no notice other than a termination notice and so we are now in the process of uploading over a thousand Airgun related videos to Vimeo which is another video streaming platform.

On a more positive note I just might be doing a Fitness show, the Leigh Brandt Muscle Classic in a little over two weeks from now, I have my work cut out for me for sure and so it really depends on if I can get into the shape I need to be in and I probably won't know until about a week out from the show as my prep time is limited but I feel I can make the changes I need to as I was not super far off going into the process.

CoolSculpting with Frozen Jaw Pack to Reduce Jawline Fat Experiment

So a while back, actually it's been about 4 years now, oh how times flies! Well I made a video titled  "Ice Packs to Get Rid of Body Fat - CoolSculpting - Brown Fat". My plan was to not only discuss the idea of using ice packs as a means to do your own in-home CoolSculpting but my plan was to also try it out myself. The problem was I didn't really think it though too much as we were heading into winter at the time and I keep my house rather cold so applying ice to my body just didn't really work out for me.

So here we are 4 years later and I thought I would make myself a human guinea pig and find out if using an Ice Pack or in this case a Cold Pack will really reduce the amount of fat in an area that I feel holds more fat than I would like it to. For me this is my Jaw line, both under and on it. As I have gotten older I am starting to get a little bit of that Jowl look and I feel it ages me more than the rest of the way my face and body looks so why not give it a try!

I will be applying a Cold Jaw Pack once per day for 30 days, at least that is the plan as long as my body can tolerate it, I may have to do this every second day but we will see how it goes. I will report back when the test is over but to get full results I will need to wait at least a full month after my last session as it does take some time for the body to absorb the dead fat cells. So stay posted as I really want to see this one through!

Which Wear OS Watch is Better for Me - Samsung Galaxy 4 or TicWatch Pro 3 GPS

This is far from a review, more of an update on my plans to test out the new Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 to see if perhaps this is the best solution for my needs?

I just recently switched from my Garmin Fenix 5X to a TicWatch Pro GPS. Now the Garmin Fenix 5X was a fantastic fitness Watch but lacked in the SmartWatch category. On the other hand the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS is a really great OS Wear SmartWatch and the Fitness integration is there but is cumbersome and not as refined as what you get on a dedicated Fitness Watch like what Garmin offers.

So here we are with the new Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 running a new version of Wear OS 3. I have used Samsung Galaxy Watches in the past and liked them a lot even the Samsung App which runs on your SmartPhone and watch is a very full featured App. So I am hoping maybe this solution will get me not only an awesome SmartWatch experience but also solid Fitness tracking capabilities.

Right now I am in the testing stage so the jury is not out yet but so far things are look positive overall with a few hiccups that may or may not be an issue! Stay posted for my more in depth review of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and if it is up to the task at least for my requirements...

TicWatch Pro 3 GPS As a Fitness Watch with an Android Phone

There is a ton of info in the video that would make for a huge read if I actually wrote it all out so I will summarize here to keep it short and sweet but make sure to watch my full TicWatch Pro 3 GPS As a Fitness Watch with an Android Phone video for the complete details on the inner working of how I was able to make my TicWatch Pro 3 GPS Smart Watch into a fairly usable Fitness Watch.

Fitness is important to me but I also like the way a good Smart Watch becomes an extension of your Phone allowing you to keep it in your pocket a bit more which can in a way be less distracting and time consuming keeping track of all the incoming pings and dings...

That said I need to have a Smart Watch that at the end of the day can track my daily steps accurately, record my fitness activities again accurately and also have a good on board heart rate monitor with the ability to also connect an external chest strap based heart rate monitor for more accurate heart rate readings. I also need all of this information to sync automatically with MyFitnessPal so I don't need to manually record this data into my food tracking app.

So here is a quick rundown of some of the Apps I need to make this all happen on my TicWatch Pro 3 GPS since there is not a single App that can do it all :)

Adidas Running App: I use the Watch version of the App to record my activities like Weight Training, Walking, Biking... The Adidas Running App syncs this data to MyFintessPal along with Google Fit.

Google Fit App: Google Fit does not sync properly with MyFitnessPal even though it claims it does, I did find a work around by using a third party App called Health Sync which allows the syncing of data between Apps that normally do not have this option so because Google Fit has an App on my TicWatch Pro 3 GPS that counts steps I can then sync these steps to the Fitbit App which then syncs the steps to MyFintessPal.

iHealth Sync App: Again Health Sync is a mediator between Apps and for me I use it to sync Google Fit Steps to Fitbit, I also use it to sync my iHealth Scale to Fitbit which then in turn syncs that data to MyFitnessPal so I don't have to manually enter this every time my weight changes.

Fitbit App: Fitbit at least for me is another what I call transition App as it plays nicely with MyFitnessPal so any data that I can get into Fitbit will then be synced with MyFitnesPal so in my case, Steps form Google Fit, Activities form Adidas Running and body weight from iHealth.

Mobvoi Fitness App: I really don't use the Mobvoi Fitness App much other than to occasionally look at my sleeping adn maybe my steps since it record all this data no matter what from the Watch App. It's a decent Fitness App but has too many limitations like not being apple to sync with MyFitnessPal and no External Heart Rate Monitor option in the Watch version of the App.

MyFitnessPal: This is the end game App where my goal is to get all of my Fitness calorie data into from my TicWatch Pro 3 GPS. The purpose of this is to track my calories consumed via food and beverage and then offset those calories with my base daily resting calories burned combined with my exercise calories to see where I stand calories in versus calories out.

Yes it all sounds a bit confusing and id did take a lot of trial and error to get this sorted out and working on my Android Phone. It's all working nicely at the moment but you never know as I could be one update away from something in this rather complicated workflow from not playing nicely for me...