Progressive overload. Simple, but it works.

Honestly, getting my cardio done after a long workday has been rough. Some days I’m exhausted before I even step on the treadmill.

Creatine. That's my non-negotiable.

The frustrating part is that the pain usually isn’t even that bad at first. It’s just enough to notice. Then you keep training around it until your entire movement pattern gets jacked up.

For me, the goal is to make the final weeks boring. If my conditioning is already where it needs to be, I can focus on staying consistent instead of freaking out over every mirror check and scale fluctuation.

For me, the biggest difference has been training my whole body instead of only doing glutes. My shoulders, back, and legs have developed more balance, and I feel stronger overall.

I switched to an upper/lower split and started tracking every lift. That alone made me way more consistent.

I prep my protein in bulk. Chicken, turkey, and eggs make everything easier.

I've been doing two lower-body days with one more glute-focused and one more quad/hamstring-focused. It feels much easier to recover from than the four leg days I was doing before, and I'm still getting stronger.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that consistency beats variety. You don’t need 20 different recipes every week. Find five or six meals you genuinely enjoy, make them easy to prepare, and rotate them. Once eating well becomes convenient, hitting your protein and calorie targets feels much less lik ...