I'm thinking about keeping water in all the way through the show for the NPC Pittsburgh on May 7. I've had success with the water cutting method on Friday, but I always feel so flat from it. Weight shouldn't be a major issue this time, so I thought I'd give the "keeping it in" method a try.
I've read through a lot of old posts about people keeping water high all the way through the show, but most of them are over a year old, so I was wondering if anyone has had any experiences with that method recently.

Thanks.

Dave,
The high water thing really does work as my wife just competed this past weekend in Figure and was drinking a gallon and a half the day before the show!! It really comes down to the manipulation of your carbs!! I used last year and drank 2 gallons the day before my show in June!!
Here's the article by Dr Joe Klemczewski about using water to be dry on contest day:
Dr. Joe Klemczewski

Using Water to be “Dry” on Contest Day


Drifting in and out of sleep for most of the night, your routine ran through your mind at times, your pulse raced, you wondered if “it would work.” You were awake long before the alarm sounded but you were afraid to look. Maybe just a little more sleep. Finally, you amble to the hotel bathroom, turn on the light, and slowly lift your shirt to reveal your abs. Would your skin be dry? Would deep crevices and vascularity be visible like so many days in the last two weeks? Or...would you look soft…like last time.
There are countless locker room experts to guide you through the last week of your contest preparation. They competed a decade ago in the County Novice Mr. Nobody, have their PhD from Flex Magazine, and their advice is free. You listened. If my psychic powers are tuned correctly and Jupiter is in the right position, I bet I can get close to your formula. Carb deplete Sunday through Tuesday, drink tons of water, maybe sodium load a little, carb load starting Wednesday, start cutting water Thursday (Friday virtually none,) eliminate sodium for two or three days prior to Saturday, start taking 99 mg of potassium every 2 hours, and use a magic cocktail of glycerol, creatine, sugar, toss in a little wine if your from the British team, and finish it all up with an over-the-counter dandelion root-based diuretic to supercharge your vascularity. By the way, if you ever get tired of bodybuilding, pharmaceutical companies pay volunteers to test new therapies far less complicated – you may want to apply.
I know; I’m being cruel. How can I joke about this when you’re standing in front of the mirror shocked at how you could follow the “protocol” so perfectly and be flatter and softer than you were last Saturday. I hate to tell you, it will get worse. After the disappointment of not being able to recover your form all day, you’ll wake up tomorrow full, hard, and vascular. Sunday, that is…just like last year. Why is it so hard to time a peak? Turn off the T.V., you’re going to want to concentrate on this article.
Water balance in your body is incredibly complex. The end goal of a bodybuilder on contest day is to look “hard.” Body fat must be gone, that’s a given, but even with the leanest physique you can present, the shredded/dry look comes from having a minimal amount of water under your skin. Really, what this means is interstitial plasma, which can be thought of as any fluid outside the cells in your body. There are several processes that affect cellular fluid dynamics. We have to start with the big picture first.
Water makes up 50-60% of your body and up to 75% of your muscle tissue. If you’re 2% dehydrated it will negatively affect your muscle tissue and athletic ability. If you’re 5% dehydrated you’ll cramp and if you’re 7-10% dehydrated you’ll hallucinate and risk death. Think back to when you were drinking a gallon and a half of water a day. You were full, hard, and vascular. Why? You had enough water in your body. The morning of the show you were flat as a pancake, soft as a marshmallow, and every muscle on your body shook and cramped on stage. Why? You were dehydrated. When you see pictures of top WNBF pros that are clients of mine, be assured they didn’t cut water one bit.
Why weren’t they waterlogged and soft? The water was in their muscle tissue making them full and hard, while interstitial water was at a minimum. Keeping water intake normal gives you the opportunity to be full, but being hard depends on what we do to channel it into the muscle. This is where the sodium/potassium comes in. Sodium is the major extracellular fluid cation and potassium is the major intracellular fluid cation. “Aha!!!!! Professor Novice Mr. Nobody was right in having me cut sodium and increase potassium!” Nope, misapplied science. Normal physiology maintains 55-65% of our fluid intracellularly anyway. If we are in a normal condition, we have more fluid inside than outside our cells. It’s when we screw something up that this percentage heads the other direction and fluid is diverted outside the cell. Fluid dynamics is controlled with incredible precision via our kidneys. Though you hear the phrase “you have to trick your body” every time you get a locker room lesson on peaking, trust me, there is no tricking your body. It’s much faster than you and much more sophisticated than you could hope to account for. Every time you do something extreme trying to cause an extreme reaction, you’ll get one. Two problems are that first, it may not be the one you wanted, and second, if it is, it will be very short-lived because the extreme reaction will be quickly countered in the other direction just as severely until the “pendulum” that you violently swung slows back down. Take a serious look at what happened to your body during the fictitious example I gave. You went from hard and full, to harder, then a little smaller, then huge, then huge and soft, then soft and flat on the morning of the show, then huge and vascular on Sunday, and finally as soft and squishy as can be for a couple days after that. That’s the kind of instability you get when you start trying to “trick” your body.
Yes, sodium and potassium are key ions that regulate cellular fluid dynamics, but you can’t create extreme environments and expect to time them for a show. You can subtly influence them, but keep in mind this phrase: water follows solutes. Water is attracted to and will follow the ions as they travel across the cell membranes. We want plasma to be attracted to the inside of the cell but it won’t happen by just increasing potassium, it will be because we have the right balance of sodium and potassium. The goal should be to simply maintain the “normal,” stable environment that would have 55-65% of the fluid there anyway. Just as big a factor, however, is sodium’s role in blood volume. Deficiencies in sodium will lead to a drop in blood pressure which means plasma (water) has been pushed out of the vascular system. If it’s not in your blood vessels, it’s around them interstitially which means subcutaneously. That, of course, means SMOOTH!!! This will then start a chain reaction that will take days to remedy. When sodium is dropped from the diet, your kidneys will be influenced immediately by the hormone Aldosterone to conserve sodium from being excreted and remember; water follows solutes. If sodium is being resorbed, then water will be as well. You retain water and with the lower blood pressure, it’s all under your skin instead of in your vascular system.

Take a look at this study:
NORMAL DIET
Urinary Sodium-217 mmol/day
Aldosterone-10.4 ng/100 ml
Serum Sodium- 139 mmol/day
ON A LOW SODIUM DIET
After one day
Urinary Sodium-105 mmol/day
Aldosterone-11.7 ng/100 ml
Serum Sodium- 139 mmol/day
After 2 days
Urinary Sodium-59 mmol/day
Aldosterone-22.5 ng/100 ml
Serum Sodium- 139 mmol/day
After 6 days
Urinary Sodium-9.9 mmol/day
Aldosterone-37 ng/100 ml
Serum Sodium- 138 mmol/day

Within one day of dropping dietary sodium, excreted sodium is cut in half and continues to decline as more Aldosterone is produced. BUT, look at blood levels of sodium: they’re conserved perfectly!! YOU CAN’T TRICK YOUR BODY!! All you did by cutting sodium was screwed up the osmolarity of the cell membranes and you won’t know where the water is going to go. If you keep your water intake and sodium intake normal, your cellular fluid dynamics will stay normal. You’ll continue to flush excess water and sodium out of your body. So, you ask, “What’s normal?” The RDA for sodium is a range of .5-2.4 grams per day but other sources recommend up to 3.3 grams per day. The RDA for potassium is 1.6-2.0 grams per day. One quick side note on potassium: excessive potassium will also stimulate Aldosterone. Don’t add potassium in amounts that place it higher than sodium intake. Everyone, of course is a little different, and this is precisely why I don’t just “peak” clients. I have to have more than a week of working with them so I can make and observe changes in their body before I detail out a perfect plan for them as individuals. If you’re going it alone, you also need some self-practice to see what’s right for your body.
I know you may be disappointed to hear all this talk about “normal,” so I want to give you a chance to manipulate a variable that WILL make a huge difference. Since I won’t let you whack your sodium/potassium around, what other nutrient could possibly affect water balance in a very, very positive way??
Carbs. You already know that every gram of glycogen (stored glucose/carbohydrate) attracts water to it – 2.7 grams of water to be exact. Remember the “water follows solutes” thing? Glycogen is a solute too. This is why you get so full and feel so huge when your carbs are high. Your water content is high also. We already established that when your water is low, you’ll experience the opposite: flat, soft muscles. The real trick is to have enough carbs in your body to attract water in your muscle tissue to be full and hard, but you may have also heard the phrase “spilling over” in relation to carbs. This is a legitimate concern. The average adult can only store 375-475 grams of carbs in the body, about 325 of which would be in the muscle (90-110 grams in the liver and 15-20 as blood glucose.) When you consume too many carbohydrates, which is likely with a traditional carb-up, the excessive glycogen ends up in the interstitial fluids, the water follows, and now there’s another reason for the water under your skin. How you carb up, how much you carb up, and the foods you use are all factors in making sure the glucose is in the muscle not outside. Combine this with water intake, sodium/potassium intake, and even your training and you have the full picture of how you will look on Saturday morning.
I know this is an incredibly complex subject, but if you read it, make notes, sort it out, you’ll see that peaking can be consistent and predictable, not a gamble. I’ll let you go back through the article to isolate the details but I hope I have impressed upon you that dropping water, eliminating sodium, increasing potassium, and carbing up hard are not only physiologically contrary to your goals, but has been the sabotaging of your contest day! Try doing things in concert with your body instead of trying to trick it and practice them several times before contest day!

Dr. Joe Klemczewski is a WNBF Pro and consults with top pro and amateur bodybuilders through his unique online Perfect Peaking Program. He hosts his own nutrition and weight loss radio show and speaks to groups and corporations around the country. He can be reached at dr.joe@joesrevolution.com.

Here's another article about Peak Week from Dr Joe K.
PEAK WEEK – IT HAS TO BE PERFECT!!
Dr. Joe Klemczewski


I could fill a book with the quotes I hear at contests from competitors who placed from second to last in their class. There are many versions, but just one quote. I’ll paraphrase: “I screwed up my peak.” That’s it – end of quote. It’s usually sandwiched in a paragraph including words like carb loading, sodium manipulation, water depletion, and it always comes right before the line, “I tried something new this time.” Now, I’m talking about legitimate peaking screw-ups, of which there are many. The one thing I want to eliminate from your mind at the beginning of this article is to blame your body fat percentage on peaking. Some people start peak week at 14% body fat and think that by doing one neat, new little trick that they read about, they’ll wake up Saturday morning looking like Frank Zane. You’ve seen them. The ones at 8% body fat who say, “Yeah, I was just holding a little water today.” This article isn’t for them. This is for people who know how to dial in on contest shape and now want to know exactly what to do in order to wake up Saturday morning and shout, “Eureka! (or ‘****!’ -if you’re on the East Coast) - I did it!! I finally nailed my peak!!”
First of all, let’s begin with how you should plan to enter peak week. If you still have to be concerned with losing “the last couple pounds” in the week before the show, you won’t be able to peak properly. Peak week should be thought of as recovering slightly, being fresh, and focusing just on making sure the muscles are full and hard yet visible because of proper subcutaneous water elimination. Fat elimination should be over before this last week.
The next thing I want to erase from your thought process is the myth that you have to make extreme changes to manipulate your body into looking good on contest day. You’ve no doubt experimented with massive sodium loading and depletion, varying carb loading schemes, and endless water depletion schedules to try to be your biggest, hardest, and driest all at one time. You also have probably experienced the shock at looking at a flat, shriveled up, smooth physique (with it’s mouth gaping open in terror) in the mirror six hours before prejudging. DO NOT PLAN ON DOING ANYTHING DRASTIC DURING PEAK WEEK!!
Your body is constantly being monitored by your brain with thousands of chemoreceptors that are sending feedback on millions of chemical reactions happening in the body. It’s how your brain manages to balance the chemical necessities for life. This vast neuro-hormonal-chemical network is brutally dynamic and always in flux. I’m not smart enough to predict and override these millions of reactions in my body to create an unnatural super-compensation effect exactly at prejudging and then maintain it all day. Neither are you. What we can do is understand the cycles that our body goes through in directing water into muscles or outside of the muscle cells, the way our body stores carbohydrates, and how to gently massage these cycles so that we ride the right wave into the right day and predictably peak perfectly and naturally instead of trying to force a freaky, extreme response. That is a gamble you’ll lose nine times out of ten.
When I peak a bodybuilder, I control protein, carbs, fat, sodium, water, and training. We start seven days from the show and I provide a chart that tells the athlete exactly what to do in what amounts each day for the entire week. I use these variables to control the normal cycles of water and glycogen flow in and out of the muscle tissue. We start out the week in a certain pattern and then each day the variables change in a subtle way to be able to predict and control peaking. Obviously, every bodybuilder is different in the amounts of each of the variables. Some people have unbelievably fast metabolisms and some people are very carb-sensitive – two extreme differences which dictate different amounts of each nutrient variable and a slightly different schedule. But, the actual flow and cycle is still very similar. It is important to know and understand what to expect on each day so you know how to adjust. For this reason, even my “long-distance” clients have daily communication with me during peak week. I want to go through each of these variables and give you some physiological insight to why peaking is so elusive.
Carbing-up is the great myth started and continuing with 250-pound steroid using bodybuilders who consume huge amounts of food anyway and then take prescription diuretics to eliminate the steroid bloat. If this describes you, traditional carb depletion and loading may work. If you’re body isn’t an eighth grade science experiment out of control, let’s stick with normal physiology. Even the hardest, leanest bodies cannot metabolize and shuttle glucose into muscle cells at a maximum rate without having some extracellular spill-over. Read that sentence again. You cannot deplete carbs and then supercompensate and expect all of the glucose and water to end up in the muscle. You’ll certainly fill out, but you’ll also smooth out. Some a little, and some a great deal. Yes, a lot of carbs will go into the muscle, but a little or a lot will end up outside the muscle cell with a lot of water which makes you smooth. Next time you’re dieting and you’re fairly lean, log some comments every day in a journal. “Woke up pretty lean. Very smooth – must have been the sodium in the chips. Very vascular. Hard as a freak’n rock!!” Just write down comments on how you look in the morning. I guarantee that you’ll consistently be your hardest after a couple of low-carb, high-water intake days. You may not be your biggest because the carbs aren’t as high, but the lack of extraneous carbs and water under the skin makes you very tight and you appear much bigger. Who wins the show: the big soft guy or the bone-dry striated competitor? The way I carb up my clients catches the wave of glucose and water entering the muscle on the way up, but not at the expense of smoothing out on the rebound effect of over-carbing.
My general carb cycle for peak week is to start at the highest point on the weekend before. I start at a slightly above “normal” level on Saturday and Sunday and schedule no training. I want this weekend to be a recovery time with a refilling of glycogen. As training starts again on Monday, I slowly drop carbs each day. It’s a subtle drop, not a severe depletion. The training each day, Monday through Wednesday, with the slight drop will create a sufficient carb deficit without total depletion. Depending on the client’s metabolism, I keep the carbs coming down and keep the water very high all the way through Friday. For a very high metabolism bodybuilder, I’m not going as low on the carbs during the week, and I may start re-carbing on Friday. For carb-sensitive clients it’s very important to wait until Saturday to reload. By waiting until later in the week to carb up, you eliminate the chance of glycogen and water spill over. Your body can metabolize glucose very quickly and you don’t have to start three days ahead of time especially if you haven’t completely bottomed out with a severe carb depletion. There are also some issues with the type of carbs you use to reload. There are some that create more subcutaneous swelling due to being food allergens. It’s important to know which are the most common and how they affect you.
Water is just as misunderstood as carbs. The traditional carb and water theories have people drop their water sometimes days before the show. Nothing will flatten and smooth you out faster! You have to maintain a high water intake because your muscle tissue is around 70% water. No water, no hardness – just flat, squishy muscle tissue. The reason people typically start dropping water is because they’ve over-carbed so much that they’re already spilling glycogen and water under the skin and think, “Oh, my gosh!! I’ve got to get rid of this water!!” With the carb reload as I described, you won’t have that problem; you’ll actually get harder and harder throughout the week. KEEP THE WATER INTAKE UP AND LET IT FOLLOW THE CARBS INTO THE MUSCLE!! IF YOU’RE NOT OVER-CARBED, THE REST OF THE WATER WILL BE ELIMINATED!
Sodium also has to be cycled. Start with a moderate amount of sodium, up to two grams at the beginning of the week and around Thursday start dropping it slightly but don’t eliminate it completely. If you do, you’ll force water out of the muscle cell, you’ll look flat and smooth, and you’ll cramp like there’s no tomorrow. You need approximately four times more sodium than potassium for your muscles to contract normally. Again, don’t let the myths from the pharmaceutically dominated side of our sport lure you into doing things that aren’t physiologically correct. You don’t have all those drug side-effects to combat in peaking properly. If you sodium load and/or deplete in a big way you’re gambling with extreme chemical rebound effects that you can’t possibly time. If you’re lucky enough to stumble into a good effect, it will be short lived because you’re on a pendulum swing that your body will adjust to and you’ll look absolutely lousy in a very short time.
I also use specific tricks regarding fat intake and schedule very specific contest day meal strategies for the individual needs and characteristics of my clients. As I get to know their metabolic rates through the dieting process, I’m already planning their peak and everyone’s a little different. These general guidelines, however, I hope will dispel some common mistakes and put you on a path to learn your body type and peak perfectly every time!!

I agree with what Craig has posted.

Water should be kept higher than most would think going into a show.

I did this last year and it made a positive difference in my condition.

Craig, any chance you could share some of the specifics in regards to water/sodium/potassium?

In health and fitness...

Ray

Well here's what I did and what I have been doing for the past 3 years or so by working with Dr. Joe and sometimes the numbers have changed depending upon my condition each year and each year was better than the last due to being ready ahead of schedule each year!!
This past year I was ready to go about 3 weeks out from when my show was!! That really made that final week a lot easier to move some things around, So what I did was slowly increase my carbs for the last 3 weeks out from the show, where I was normally doing numbers close to 200/100/40(1560 cal) for 5 days, one day of 200/150/40(1760 cal), and then just a higher protein day of 250/100/40(1760 cal)!!! My water consumption was near 2 gallons per day!! Dr. Joe had some time to refill a Little bit so we went to a new 7 day plan for a couple of weeks and the carbs were increased to 3 days of 200/125/30(1570 cal)still around the dsame just lowering the fat for more carbs, 1 day of 225/100/40(1560 cal), 2 days of 200/125/40(1570 cal) same as 1st 3 days, then one day of 250/150/35(1915 cal)whihc would be another carb up day and i used this plan for the last 2 weeks before "Peak WeeK", and for those 2 weeks my weight maybe came up a 1 lb-1.5 lbs before the Sat. before the show!! My beverly Supps remained very high and did not change much in that last week either!!
Precardio=3 lean out,3ER,2 GHFactor,2Zantrex,VitE
Prefood=ultra40-4,8 Synergy,3 bcaas
after food=multi,B,C,E,2CLA
Prefood=Ultra40-4
Prefood=Ultra40-4,3Leanout,3BCAAS,2GHFactor,2ER
With food/preworkout=10musclemass,3Lean out,2 MuscleJack,VitE,2ER,2GH Factor,2Zantrex
Post workout=multi,B,C,E,2CLA,3BCAAS,Creatine
Prebed=8MuscleSynergy,3ZMA,2ER
now the last week which worked for me went like this where with my body type, Dr. Joe had me go Sat and Sun 225-250/100/35 while my water was at 2 gallons and my sodium levels were at 2800 mg for sat and sun with no workouts but 2 45 min moderate intensity cardios!!!
MOnday was the carb up day where my numbers for Mon were 200/200/40 while my water again stayed at 2 gallons, and sodium still around 2600 mg!!Legs were done for the last time on Mon without forced reps at 80% intensity!! 30 min cardio at moderate intensity!!
Tues would be a little drop in carbs to where my numbers were 200/175/40, and 2 gallons of water, and sodium around 2500 mg, back and bis workout 80% intensity, 30 min moderate cardio!!
Wed was a little drop again for 200/150/40, 30 min cardio, ch/sh/tris workout, 2300 mg of sodium, still 2 gallons of water!!
thurs was a gaina little drop where I did 200/125/40, 2000 mg of sodium, 30 min of cardio, 2 gallons of water, 30 min whole body circuit about 3 times!!
Fri was the same but the protein was alittle higher at 225/125/40, sodium down to 1500 mg, and a very light whole body cicuit at home!! still 2 gallons of water!!
Now I thought and joe though I could handle getting up at 1 am and start a small carb meal so I did and my carb meals were slowly spread throughout the day 1st at 1 am with 3 oz of chicken breast and 1/2 c of sweet potato, 8 oz of water, then my next meal would be at 5 am where I would drink 8 oz of water with 10 g of creatine, wait 15 min and then eat my next meal which was 4 oz of filetmignon and 1/2 c of white rice at about 530 am with 8 oz of water, the next came at 8 am which was a half a protein bar and 1/2 a banana which was also with 8 oz of water, then next came the 3 oz filet and 1/2 c of sweet pot with again 8 oz of water at 1030 am, then next was the repeat of the 1/2 banana and the 1/2 protein bar at 12 pm with the 8 oz of water, the 30 min before prejudging I ate the 2 rice cakes with a tsp of PB and tsp of jelly on the rice cakes!! Just small frequent carb ups throughout the day and then after prejudging was over I would again start the whole process over agin w/o the 1 am meal being included and the 1st meal after prejudging had 16 oz of water,and then just kept eating the same way until my time came and i was on and very,very tight!! NO real lowered water and no potassium either, just careful meticulous manipulation of the carbs and the sodium!!
My wife's peak week for last year started at 2000 mg and stayed there until friday where it was dropped to 1500 mg while drinking up to 1.5 gallons per day up until friday and her carsb for the week went like this, sat-125 g, sun-100 g, Mon, tues, wed-150 g, thurs-125 g, and Fri-100 g!! This was for figure show and her metabolism is more of an endomorph, with some good muscle retention, but I don't think like yours as you sound like you are pretty solid if i recall correctly!! She weighed about 108 at the last figure show she did!! protein around 125 g and fats were at 25 g!!
Oh yeah in the past 3 years I have not used any herbal diuretics(taraxatone), and have never used any potassium pills at all!!

Craig

Thanks for the info!

The take home point is nothing drastic.

I did not cut water last year. In years past I would do so the day before a comp after going up to three gallons early in the week.

The bottom line is that if you look good a week before a comp there is not reason to think you will nto look at least that good a week later if you do nothing different, so nothing extreme.

Ray

This is a great post but it is confusing me just a little bit. I've read through it a few times. I'm feeeling pretty good right now just over a week out, but I still need to dry out a bit. Will this method do this, dry me out, or are most of you guys who use this pretty much dry looking when you go into the final week? I really like the idea of higher water, but am wondering if a less drastic approach to water manipulation might work, like 2 gallons for the whole week, dropped to 1 1/2 or 1 gallon on the friday before the show. Maybe I missed the point of the article. Any extra advice for my dense skull would be aprecciated .

-Bill

Keep the water high, it will work trust me!! Its about keeping the water high and dropping the sodium too much while at the same upping the carbs in the sun/ Mon day range and slowly dropping them down as the week progresses!! Carbing up the old way is really not the answer for the natural athlete, carbing up should be a simple process in which carbs are the answer to filling for the most part late fri night, and sat in small spurts!! NO K+, and use spring water!! Keep it high and keep the water in the cells and not in the skin through some other process!!

Good info. My posing coach and I were just having this discussion, and he recommended to keep H20 high... Now I feel even better about doing so!

Bill,
I gotta agree with Craig. Keep water as high as possible, maybe dropping intake by 1/4-1/2 on the Friday before the show.No crazy carb-ups on thu/fri. We all have our preferences (mine being a mild fat load) but the worse example I can remember about not drinking enough water was a few years ago when I competed against an NBI Pro bodybuilder (who, BTW has a world of experience). He told me backstage that he had not had any water in 2 days. Well, not only did he look flat, but his skin was loose and flabby, and when I started to do partner towel pulls with him as a backstage pump up, he had absolutely no strength, and couldn't do em. He didn't do too well in the show either.

The more water you drink the final week,while tapering off on carbs, the more your skin will wrap firm and tight around your muscles and by the time you wake up on Saturday morning, you should be hard, dry, and peeled.

ANH

Thanks all, having the water will actually be real nice, taking it out is one of the things I dislike the most about all of the precontest prep. I bet I won't cramp as much this year. Also it will probally help with the dreaded post contest bloat, which I always have a major problem with, gained like 30 lbs in a week last year.

-Bill

I just calculated my sodium for the day it was around 600mg. I really never noticed how low it was, but it has been this low for awhile at least the last month or so. So I have another question. What would be a good level to raise my sodium levels to during the last week? My body is obviously used to this low level and I never cramp or anything like that, so I was wondering if I should go up to the levels mentioned above (2000mg or above).

I think you should try and bring it up, i hope this low level of sodium is not causing you to hold onto water in the wrong areas!! You should try and elevate some way if this is truly your actual sodium for the day!! If you are looking that good at 600 mg, imagine what you would look like at 1500 mg and then maybe 2000 mg, try and work it up slowly becasue this will work in harmony with your water and your carbs!! when is your show?? then you can try and raise it in the the sat before the show and keep it there and maybe lower it 250-500 on the thurs before the show and then maybe 250 more for Friday!! so try and go it like this with water between 2-3 gallons all week and then maybe cut it back to 1.5 gallons for Friday!! Sodium start out near 2000 mg for sat, sun, mon, tues, wed, thurs(1750), then fri(1500 mg), I don't know where your carbs are currently at so i would need that info in order to where we would start!!

THanks for the info, yeah I know that sounds low (it is) but that is where it has been for awhile, I just never use salt and have cut egg whites recently. But I'm gonna give it a shot with the added sodium, it sounds like it has worked for you all. My show is May 14th so what you suggested would work fine, plenty of time.

-Bill

Aram,
I know this would be of benefit for those who are more ectomorphic, but when you raise you fats in the last week, do you just raise them and keep them there or do you raise them in small increments throughout the week as you drop your carbs??

where is your show Bill??

Oh my carbs are currently at 0g, just some veges right now. I am extremely carb sensitive, so I have to be careful with it. I did a carb load test at the beginning of the week, coming off of 8 days 0g carbs (only veges) I did 300g (yams, rice cakes, 1 serving grits, rice), I really filled out nice and had some pretty sick vascularity. No added fat, sodium or anything else that day the only variable changed was adding the carbs. I stayed pretty ful the follwing day until about 8pm that night than started to get back to "normal", not draastically flat, but a little les vascular. Then I went back to 0g for this week, it's where i'm at right now.

My show is in philadelphia. Philadelphia Classic at Germantown High school. Used to be an NPC national qualifier, for the last 9 years, but this year It is a WPF show. I did it last year and took 4th in the middle novice and 3rd in the open

Bill,
your weight right now is what?? Thats really tough on the body and being able to maintain some muscle becasue you are and endo, butman I don't really think this is the best way of handling your carbs, WOW!! Small little parts of these complex carbs could be of more benefit than you think, but all veggies, not a great idea.

weight was 178 this morning. I feel pretty good though getting drier as the days go by even more right now than i was this morning, but what would be your suggestion?