My Kiddo Keeps Me In Line

Day 90

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Nope! Not going to do the pizza aka crap-loading thing. I didn’t look bloated this morning, but there was no dramatic difference in my muscle shape or fullness either. I did, however, weigh exactly 1.5 lbs more than the day prior. Day to day weight fluctuations are totally normal, but I’m not going to eat something the night before the competition that incites an upswing in my weight. I’ll also feel much more prepared mentally if I eat chicken and oatmeal the night before. If I eat completely clean I’ll feel smart and prepared going in. This sport may appear physical, but when it comes down to pulling it off the biggest feat is mindset maintenance, no question.

So I have my real PT Laura who totally rocks, but I also have a live in very influential personal trainer. His name is Charlie, he’ll be 4 later this month, and I should listen to him all the time. He tried to stop me from ordering that pizza yesterday. He kept saying he’d rather have the salmon (king, fresh, on sale, woohoo!) we’d gotten at the store. I finally talked him into going pro pizza with promises of delivery being exciting. He was right though, we should have had the salmon. We had it tonight and it was deliciously tasty. It is so rich compared to the fish I’ve had lately due to the higher fat content that eating a small portion works – you still feel satisfied.

Today my only free time was between 9 am and 12 pm and I REALLY needed to, ya know, do some of those assignments from that full load of accounting classes I keep on the side ;) It is really hard to want to prioritize anything but The Emerald Cup this close, but I can’t blow off the obligations that existed prior and in the grand scheme probably take precedence. I was worried it could mean a skip day so I did a full 50 minutes for am cardio instead of the usual 25-30. When evening rolled around and we got home from school I asked C what he wanted to do: stay home or go to the gym? He was all pro gym. I was all tired and complacent and I tried to sell him the merits of staying home. No go. He was really insistent, stuck to his guns on this one. I’m glad he did though, he was right. I would have had regrets if we hadn’t gone. We only stayed one hour instead of the usual two though as going at all was pushing Mr. Non-napper’s bedtime as it was. He gets excited to see his gym friends and I think he is overall largely in it for the shake he often talks me into getting him on the way out =) I trained back and abs while we were there: two variations of lat pulldowns, dumbbell bent over single rows, two variations of seated cable rows, straight arm dumbbell pullovers, DB Decline Push Crunches, and DB Side Bends.

I am very pleased with how I ate today: totally clean. Great macro ratios and under my cal budget too. I started a new class today. It is totally outside of my realm: it’s an every other week dialogue group on creative learning. It’s just one credit and it is pass/fail which is perfect. What was so funny though is that when I showed up they had bowls of those pink and white frosted and rainbow sprinkle covered animal shaped cookies sitting out everywhere for munching. Haha, I didn’t touch them! I did have a small handful of the pretzels, my carbs still clocked in low today and they appeared to be whole grain pretzels :P If I take 13 credits instead of 12 for a few quarters I can avoid having to take another 16 credit quarter, thus the desire for a one credit class. I can do 16 credits, but it’s a gpa killer and a major stress upper. Most importantly, I suck at giving Charlie undivided focus when we’re home with 16 credits and that’s not fair to him. With 12-13 I have enough breathing room to prioritize our quality time together.

Macros

151.3 grams Protein 147 grams Carbs 52.2 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,663 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(892) Training Burn
(677) Net Loss =)

Pizza with Purpose

I haven't been on the scale at home in a good while.Turns out I'm at the lowest I've been in almost 6 years. I wasn't anywhere near this lean back then though. As for the other pictures, read on:

Day 89

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

I’m down to the wire for planning my peak week. I’ve heard about four different approaches directly from people who’ve done it and I’ve read many many more. There’s sodium manipulation, carb depletion followed by carb loading, fat loading, and water depletion. Some people do all, some one or two, some none. Most recently I read about “crap loading.” No, don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds! Basically that means you eat crappy food for dinner the night before your show. It’s essentially doing your big cheat meal 24 hours early, but for a purpose. Time and time again I see people writing on the forums about amateurs looking way better the day after their show than the day of. Why? The cheat meal they had after. A big influx of carbs and sodium inflates and hardens your muscles by filling them with glycogen and the sodium draws the water in where it is supposed to be instead of spilling over and flattening out your look, or so they say. I don’t have the time for a trial run peak week, but a trial run of crap loading, to determine whether or not I should include it in my peak week was doable.

I put a lot of thought into this. There is a local non-chain pizza place I love, but pizza has substantial variance and I need carbs and sodium to be constants not variables here. Answer? Domino’s. There’s one here that delivers and there is one within delivery range of the host hotel for my crap dinner the night before the show if I do it. I had 4 slices for a total of 36 grams Protein 104 grams Carbs and 32 grams Fat. Craziness! I haven’t had a meal with that many carbs in it in months! That’s more than 60% of my total daily carbs allowance and more than 50% of my total daily fat allowance, but only about 20% of my daily Protein allowance. You can see why bodybuilders consider pizza to be “crap,” don’t get me wrong, we think it’s yummy just like you do, but it is the opposite of what is needed to lean out and cut body fat. If a bodybuilder was a car, putting pizza in it would be like putting diesel in a gas engine. You won’t be getting on the road to your goal anytime soon!

Alrighty, I’ll stop dissing pizza before I offend everyone! I decided to trial crap load today because I was super-duper well-behaved on nutrition all day (my 1st 4 meals were made of oatmeal, whey protein, sweet potatoes, and Isernio’s spicy chicken sausage) By 2 pm I had burned about the same number of cals working out (1,124) as I’d eaten (1,191), never mind BMR. As I was rolling in heavy on cals burned and rolling in light on cals eaten I decided it was a good day to completely blow my macro ratios and cal budget. Well, it’s never a good time for that, but it was a better time than already running heavy on my counts would have been. Tomorrow morning I’ll allot an extra couple minutes to do some posing when I first get up. Then I can make the call on whether or not I should crap load for The EC. If I look bloated it’s a definite no. If I don’t appear bloated and my muscles have a nice hard filled out look then it’ll be a yes. I’ll let you know tomorrow.

I did my am cardio today, but got cut off at 25 minutes. C woke up and came in at 21 min, but I got him jumping on my bed until I hit 25. He then insisted I jump on the bed too. I noticed that bouncing really accentuates my abdominals so I said “oooh, my abs came in.” He said, “I don’t have abs! I have spider-man boots!” Haha. It’s true too, he may be Mr. Skinny, but he does have a little belly =) I also trained biceps, triceps, and shoulders at The Rec for an hour and 15 minutes immediately followed up by my second cardio session (30 min on an AMT machine).

I feel good about doing this to plan my peak week right, but I regret eating the pizza. I wouldn’t have done it for its own sake. I wasn’t even really craving it, neither was C. I asked him if he wanted pizza or salmon and he kept answering salmon. I only talked him into pizza by telling him a delivery guy would bring it (he’s used to it being freezer derived). We’ll be having the salmon tomorrow night.
What happened to the extra slices? The freezer. I have frozen pizza around for C all the time and it doesn’t tempt me.

Macros

147 grams Protein 248 grams Carbs 77 grams Fat

Scary!

That’s a blown ratio if ever there was one.

At least I did it for a purpose ;)

Pizza with purpose, haha.

Cal Tally

2,273 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(1,124) Training Burn
(299) Net loss (Still!) =)

Ready NOW & Dreading Reverse Dieting

Day 88

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

If The Emerald Cup were this Friday instead of the following one that would be great. I feel like I’m just playing a waiting game now. The energy drain is making me weak when it comes to resolve and I keep wanting to have just a few bites of various disallowed foods. I’m getting these cravings every single day. It’s a problem. I’m not sure how I should kick it. I’m considering limiting myself to just a few foods and only those foods until the competition. A lot of people go down to something like that for the last week. One guy’s peak week diet that I read was basically just cashews, sweet potatoes, salmon, and top round steak. He was intentionally loading fat. I forget why. I can recite the water depletion, sodium, carb depleting, and carb loading bits pretty well, but I forget the theory behind fat loading during peak week. That same guy also practices what he terms “crap loading” which is where he eats a cheat meal the night before the show instead of waiting until after the show. The logic being that is that a lot of competitors look fantastic the day after the show because all the carbs and sodium in their cheat meal (think pizza) fill out their muscles and make everything look hard. It sounds interesting. I need to come up with a definitive peak week plan of attack pronto. I’ve procrastinated on those decisions long enough: my peak week starts this weekend!

I trained glutes and chest today. I managed to get in 40 minutes of am cardio at home before breakfast and before C woke up. That was great. I was only at The Rec for an hour and 10 minutes this afternoon. A short one: glutes, chest, and 15 minutes on the StairMaster. I have been tracking macros throughout the day and am clocking in right on target:

Macros

139.1 grams Protein 160.5 grams Carbs 58.3 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,723 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(976) Burned Training

(701) Net Loss =)

I have a headache yet again. I’m not sure if it is the afternoon coffee, the tightness in my neck lately, something seasonal, or whatever else. Even though I’ve never liked it I think I should take up with yoga in the off season. I never stretch adequately and I read an article in F&M Hers awhile back about how beneficial yoga can be to building muscle. The added flexibility primes the muscle fibers to grow more freely or something to that extent. I’m starting to dread reverse dieting, that’s what you do after a competition. You gradually start adding back your carbs, you cut down your cardio, you don’t freak out if you only get to the gym 5 days a week. That all sounds like a nice relief of my packed schedule, but at the same time I dread covering back up the definition I’ve quickly grown to love so much. I’ll do my best to embrace the merits of the off-season though, and then right about the beginning of July I’ll start shedding again for the Ironman (it’s end of Sept beginning of Oct – don’t know the exact date yet).

I Like to Breathe in the Testosterone

That’s white roughy (5 oz. portion) baked with lime and salt and pepper and served on a bed of kale sautéed up with bacon, garlic, and balsamic. Yes, bacon. I can afford the 5 grams of fat in 1 slice and it makes the kale rich and yummy. I threw in the two tasty green olives for a last minute salt rush.

Stats: 27.5 grams protein 7.3 grams carbs 8.8 grams fat 218 cals

Day 87

Monday, April 4, 2011

I really love my fake tan. I love being tan in general, if not for that whole kill me off with skin cancer bit I’d take a daily 15 minute nap in a tanning bed. I’d like to live to be a crotchety 93-year-old woman out at the bar having a long island iced tea with my lifelong friends (or more likely sipping coffee at home ;) though so I resist the siren call of the sunlamp.

Being tan in my hot pink tank top and black capris in a weight-room packed almost 100% with college boys is highly entertaining. There’s just something totally invigorating about being the only girl in there, many days there are other girls, but seemingly never more than 3-4 of us. Don’t worry, I don’t want to find a date next to my weights, lol. I tend to go at lunch and it tends to be packed then. This correlates with my getting some of the best mental pumps and consequently some of my “heavy” weight records.

I’m a very competitive personality and the more packed the weight room is, the more in the zone I get and the higher weights and additional sets I log to show for it. My favorite thing is when I spy a guy using the same or lighter weight than me for the same exercise. This entertains the crap out of me in that I can be all girly in my pink, weigh 20-50 lbs less than the guy, not have anywhere near his amount of testosterone (women have a little) yet lift the same or more. I don't see it as him being emasculated or anything like that, I just like to have my think I'm a tough chick moments. I like to poke fun at everything, so my other “theory” is that there’s a bunch of testosterone in the air in there and that breathing it in ups my upper body strength and explains the heavy pumps I’ve gotten in that weight room ;)

I had a freak injury there today. I was training back and shoulders. Thankfully, I had finished with free weights before it happened, as getting a good grip on a dumbbell afterwards would have been a bitch. I was removing a metal short bar with D-handles from the seated cable row pulley and the damn thing had a sharp spot in the metal that sliced my thumb tip wide open. It was a total gusher too. The guy manning the desk was nice, and apparently not squeamish, about helping me get a bunch of tape on there. I had to come back twice more for more tape because the damn thing kept wanting to soak through. I finished my workout. I didn’t get to do my pull-ups though, too much tape for a good grip. It was down to a dribble by the time I finished my cardio and tore it all off to rebandage. I’m now wearing a Toy Story band aid, snazzy.

I workout with nasty headaches (yesterday and lasting into the 30 min of cardio this morning at 6:20 am) I workout while bleeding (hygienically under wraps) I had my son with no drugs and still have my “I’m tough” souvenir sealed bottle of hydrocodone they gave me after that I never used. I like to think I’m not a whiner. My issue is not a lack of will, nah, it’s a lack of time in the day. What I wouldn’t give for the freedom to be at the gym daily without a 90 minute limit, without a 2 hour limit, without other pressing things that are getting put off to be there, without putting off needed sleep to clear some, but not all of those things later. I sure dream a lot for someone who doesn't sleep much. Maybe I should go buy a Lotto ticket ;)

I screwed up my cal budget today. I didn’t do anything outlandish or outright rebellious, I just didn’t track. Most days I tally macros before starting each subsequent meal. That way, I know if a particular macro, or total cals, are running high while it is still early enough to catch and fix. Today I just tallied up for the first time two hours ago and found I was already at 1,737 cals with macros along the usual ratios. Crap. I still had one more meal coming and skipping the meal was not an option as that leads me to binge from hunger or wind up going too many hours in the night without muscle maintenance fuel. So:

Macros

185.6 grams Protein 167.2 grams Carbs 60.5 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,955.7 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(1,006) Training (355 am cardio + 453 1 hr & 10 min weights 198 pm cardio)
(498.3) Net Loss =)

Why is my cal budget only 1,800 when I still run a net loss at higher intakes? Yeah, I don't know. I know a lot of other figure girls eat far less than I do, so somehow that translated into my deciding to cap my budget at 1,800 daily for the last 3 weeks to be competitive or something. Or, put another way: I don't actually know what the hell I'm doing. Remember? This whole thing is a crazy experiment ;)

Gold's Gym Total Body Transformation Challenge Before/After Pics

Click the picture to enlarge to a viewable size!

I have to say now that I'm seeing the before and after side by side, damn, I truly have transformed myself =)


Day 86

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Remember The Gold’s Gym 12 Week Total Body Transformation Challenge that I entered and began this blog about? It kind of got forgotten after I went crazy (read: got some balls) and decided to enter The Emerald Cup didn’t it? ;) Well today was the final day so off I went to Gold’s this morning to get weighed, measured and photographed. Here are the results:

BEFORE AFTER DIFFERENCE
WAIST 30.5” 27” Lost 3.5”
R THIGH 24.5” 22” Lost 2.5”
HIP 40” 38” Lost 2”
R BICEP (Unflexed) 10.5” 11” Gained 0.5” =)
BODY FAT % 20.4% 15.1% Lost 5.3%
WEIGHT 150.4 lbs 140.2 lbs Lost 10.2 lbs

Not bad, eh? I think the before and after pics say it all. I still have a long ways to go to have a chance at placing as a figure competitor, but long gone are my saggy butt and pudgy stomach thank you very much!

I trained my biceps, triceps, and abs today for 45 minutes and then did 30 minutes on the StairMaster. I’ve had a splitting headache since before I got out of bed this morning. I got up for aspirin and went back to sleep, didn’t work, took more aspirin getting home from the gym, still have it now while I type, bleh. Here’s hoping by the time I wake up tomorrow morning it is gone!

My macros were in perfect order until I got oatmeal cookies on the brain. Someone in my fb feed was talking about them and I’d read a bodybuilder dude’s pre-contest diet and peak week detail earlier and he eats all this junk during peak week to carb load, including oatmeal raisin cookies! Yeah, they got in my mind I had 8 big bites of the cookie dough, and then I baked them, took 2 bites and remember how much baked cookies suck compared to the dough so I quit. It was dumb, but it could have been worse. I could go calculate the p/c/f grams in that cookie dough, but I don’t want to. I think it’s fair to say I wiped out my net cal loss. How about we just say that and call it a night?

Macros (pre-cookie dough)

170.5 grams Protein 151.9 grams Carbs 51.5 grams Fat

Cal Tally
1,753.1 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(583) Training
(277.9) Net Loss
Less Cookie Dough Wipeout
Equals…It’s a Wash!

P.S. They don't judge the Gold's Gym Challenge until the 11th. I'll let you know if I place or not when I hear =)

Insert Witty Post Title Here

Day 85

Saturday, April 2nd, 2011

I hadn’t planned on it, but I made today a full real rest day today: no cardio, no weights. C and I were almost out the door this morning to the gym when I somehow managed to lock my bedroom door (the lock is on the inside) and I was still in a bathrobe and ALL my clothes were in there. That took a good while to get sorted out and by the time it did I started realizing that my lower back is feeling really tweaky. I think I may have, ahem, overdone my leg workout yesterday, please join me in laughing at myself ;) I got a bunch of errands done instead and had some fun trying on my posing suit and taking a few photos. I restocked with new clean foods and I’m feeling revived about my diet. Shorty post today!

Macros

139.8 grams Protein 165.4 grams Carbs 62.8 grams Fat

Cal Tally

1,786 Cals Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(0) Training
338 Net Gain

One Week Left to Train

Day 84

Friday, April 1st, 2011

Today is the two week mark. I find this both exciting and scary. What it really means is that I only have one week left to train. One week left to get my body fat to 13% (or less!) to finish my training. After that it is peak week. What’s peak week? The last week pre-contest. Everything changes then. If you’re water rationing you have to quit working out 3 days out when you start limiting water. Many people also manipulate their sodium intake too. I haven’t yet decided if I will dehydrate and mess with my sodium or not. There are viable arguments for both approaches and ‘m on the fence. I will get to carb load though! It’s not as decadent as it sounds, but still a welcome change. Peak week is known for being the biggest mental challenge. I’ll get back to you on how I feel about it when we get there.

I started having some nerves this morning realizing that today is the two week mark. I started off well, getting up before C for 40 minutes of pre-breakfast cardio. I haven’t missed am cardio once since school started and I’m proud about that. After dropping C off at preschool I went to The Rec and stayed from 9:35 am – 12:15 pm. Two hours of that was spent training my legs and the last 30 minutes doing my second cardio session. Here’s a video that sums it up well =)



I also got a tan today, a fake tan. An airbrush tan. Remember the Gold’s Gym 12 Week Total Body Transformation Challenge thing I entered back when I started this blog, back before I decided to go crazy and enter The EC? My “after” picture, weigh-in, and measurements are being taken Sunday morning. A tan better highlights muscle definition so I decided to try one.

My suit came today too! It’s beautiful. Why no ode to the suit picture set or posing video? I’m going to do that Sunday in conjunction with my “after” picture. It almost didn’t come today. I managed to miss my mailman and got home to the “we missed you!” slip, but I had seen his truck so I went back, found it again, parked and umm literally chased him down, lol (what? I was still in my gym clothes it made sense :P). He was nice about it and got me the package. Phew!

I’m headed to bed and hoping, hoping, hoping that I am not getting sick. This evening I am noticing scratchiness in my throat and really really hoping it is irritation from breathing in the airbrush tanning spray. If it is a cod I want to wake up totally sick tomorrow. Huh? That will give me maximum time to get better. If it doesn’t catch me for a few more days that will be worse. I can’t afford a cold right now, but if I’m getting one I’m going to be as positive as possible and try to work it to me lean out advantage headed into peak week if I can. Have to make the best of what I’m dealt!

I upped my macro and cal budgets today. I burned close to twice as many calories training today as I usually do by putting in such a long session so I knew I needed more.

Macros

147.9 grams Protein 197 grams Carbs 88.1 grams Fat

Cal Tally

2,172 Ingested
(1,448) BMR
(1,600) Training (494 cals 1st cardio + 780 cals 2 hrs intense weightlifting + 326 cals 2nd cardio)
(876) Net Loss =)