Week 14 (13 weeks to go)

My bodyweight finally went up to 270lbs again and surprisingly the condition was not getting any worse.On the contrary I am feeling like I look much fuller now.

The training since I am back in the US gets better day by day as well.It is still quite warm in Vegas and the temperature level helps a lot to improove my training especially when you are still training as heavy as you can.

Every training I am thinking about the contest day now. I started to practise my posing routine and I will increase my diet in one week again.The "12 weeks out" mark will be some kind of special. Many athletes start their diet then and for me this means basicly another big step ahead to my Pro debut. I will force myself to be even more motivated, more dedicated and absolutely determinded from this moment on.

The though phase for the mind starts now. The contest gets really close and you always want to be in a better shape as you currently are. I keep painting pictures in my head. How I will look on the Ironman stage? Which placing can I achieve? No matter what happens in this period now, you have to believe in yourself. Keep working for the ultimate goal.

I know that some hard weeks are directly ahead of me but I also know about the exciting moments I have already marked in my calender. Almost every week there will be a photoshoot in Europe from now on already. This will motivate me with every new picture taken.Up to that day, when I leave to America again.
Until this moment I have only 9 weeks to bring myself as close as possible to contest shape as I want to travel to Las Vegas 4 weeks before the show. At this moment I want to be ready. I have to be prepared for the honour to work with famous American magazines and photographers.

And of course I have to be at my best, when my name is called out the first time on a Pro stage.

Some days ago Muscular Development published my "In The Trenches" Video which was filmed by Robbie Durand during the Olympia weekend.For those who haven't seen it yet, I invite everyone to take a look. Maybe it can show my attitudes, my opinions and my plans a bit more detailed to you.

Dan

Week 12 (15 weeks to go)

After coming back to Germany my first goal was to return to my daily routine again.
The flight back to Germany was really hard and the jet lag you get flying east is horrible. The first two days I really had to force myself to keep my workouts on an high intensity level and at the same time I needed to write tons of emails after having had many successful meetings in Las Vegas.

Because of all this stress my body went down to 260 lbs for a short time.
So my trainer Francisco Guerrero decided that I am allowed to have my first cheat day after 12 weeks of dieting and I spent a great evening having as much Sushi as I was able to eat.

The following day my next photoshooting was scheduled and receiving so many positve answers from the USA, I decided to come back to Las Vegas this week.
My bodyweigt is finally again at 265 lbs an my shape is getting better week by week.



I am really looking forward to the next weeks. I am very grateful having met so many great personalities in the last weeks. Starting by all the photographers I will have the honour to work with and most of all my girl Tonya who is making me smile inside and out all the time in these days.

I feel so much better in the USA and I simply know that this is the place to be for my future.

Week 11 (16 weeks to go)

LAS VEGAS Mr.Olympia weekend

Arriving in Vegas the travel started really bad.
Not only that my connecting flight from Charlotte was 2 hours late, I also had a problem receiving my rental car. Somehow they didn't find my reservation and so
I spend 2 more hours at the rental car station.
Even before checking in into the Orleans Hotel, my first stop was the closest Wal Mart.I needed fresh meat and of course rice.
As I stayed in a hotel without kitchen, I had no chance to
prepare some vegetables. So I bought a lot of Sodium reduced V8 juice.
Finally I was able to go to bed at 3.30am in the morning after just 30 hours of travelling.

The following days started slowly. I needed to recover from the flight and
so I did't make any appointments on the first days.
It all started on Monday when I filmed some parts for my DVD with Wayne Gallasch and GMV. I was really happy about the results and luckily the dry air of Vegas made me loose some water.
It was followed by many projects for other websites, like Muscular Development "In The Trenches" or even Magazine Photoshoots with famous photographers. I need to say thank you to all those video- and photographers, who were interested to shoot me even in this early phase of my diet.

The Olympia weekend itself turned out to be a huge success as well. Besides meeting photographers, and fixing photoshootigs in January, I am also pretty optimistic that there might be a future sponsorship of an US company very soon.
It is hard to get your name out in the US, but maybe this travel was kind of a breakthrough for myself.

Already I have some new projects in America next month. I know that the travelling will be very stressful again, but I simply feel, that America is THE place for my future. I can train better, feel better and the whole atmosphere is much more positive to me. Maybe I still would have decided to stay in Germany and not travelled to the US before the Ironman again if I didn't meet Tonya. But we had an instant connection and meeting her made my days. She is beautiful inside and out. When she finally said, that I am invited to visit again, there was no question at all for me anymore if it would be good or not to go back to the Staates.
Next week I will fly back to Vegas and even if I am very exhausted from the jet lag, I keep smiling every moment in these days.
I am very blessed how everything developed and I am looking forward to every new day of my diet.

I hope you will enjoy my small video-diary of my days aroud the Olympia.
I had a great time and I am so grateful having met so many good people for my life.
It was the best thing that can happen to you as a Pro Bodybuilder.
I travelled to Vegas for business, but it changed my life very positve in every sigle way. Jobwise and privately.
I can say for sure that I am one step closer to my goal now: "Living a good life because of Bodybuilding"