The Come Back Kid

Well it's been awhile but I had a lot going on. I was out of commission for a couple of weeks from hurting my back. Not from training, but from moving furniture and stuff around because I had to paint some rooms in my house. Thing was I didn't even twist my body or do anything funny while lifting something heavy. I tried my best to be very careful. But in the end it was just the stress of moving things the whole day that my back just finally gave up on me. I was in bed for a week and had to take it easy for a couple of weeks after that. When it comes to my back I can't mess around. I can't just go back to training once I get better. I have to warm up and slowly take my time and let my back readjust to the heavy training.

During the time off instead of just sitting at home and doing nothing I took a time out and reevaluated my training. I spoke to my trainer and told him to make me a new program for when I get back to training. The next step I took was to call a nutritionist I know Cindy Fogel, to take care of my diet. I told her I need to gain as much weight as I can by November for the MM World Championships and that I need her to help take care of my meal plans so that I can achieve this goal.
Gaining weight for me is harder than anything I have ever done in my life. I can get ripped down for contest no problem, but to gain size is very difficult. People tell me in order to gain weight all I have to do is eat. As easy as that sounds, what do you do when there is a very good chance that your stomach will get hurt and you throw up for a week. My stomach is very sensitive. I can't eat fruits and vegetables. There are only a few things that I can eat. I have very little stomach muscles. Digesting certain foods is very difficult for me. This being the case, gaining weight is one of the toughest challenges in my life.

After I explained my situation to Cindy we had another meeting and she gave me my meal plan. She put me on a plan with a caloric intake of 2800 cal: 58% carbs, 15% pro and 29% fat a day. She also told me to try certain fruits and vegetables that shouldn't hurt my stomach. Also she told me to try lactose free milk since I don't drink milk anymore because I'm lactose intolerant. In all honesty I was a bit worried if my stomach can handle all this. I have never in my life been able to eat a meal that contained all 4 basic food groups. When you see a picture of me just imagine that all that was done on eating rice, chicken and fish. That was all I ever ate because that is all my stomach could handle.

This meal plan will hopefully give me a much fuller and rounder look come contest time. I'm happy to say that after 6-8 weeks of the meal plan I've gained 10 pounds. I'm currently working on trying to gain 5 more pounds this month. I don’t know what weight I will come in at for the contest but, I do know that my shape at last years Canada’s was my best ever. Come MM Worlds in November, I plan on blowing that look out of the water.

Before I go I’d like to thank my fans for all the emails and wonderful support. I'm off to beautiful Hawaii in 2 weeks. I'll be training down there. Hopefully I can get some great pics and show them to you guys when I get back.

Take care and train hard,

Ryan Ortizo
Send me a Message.

© 2006 Fitness Universe, Inc. - All Rights Reserved