Monday, January 6, 2014

18 Weeks....WHAT?!?

I've been back to my normal training for a couple of weeks now.  The holidays did make it tough, so busy and so much not so good for you food everywhere, but I made it through and only gained about three pounds :)

Currently I am 150 pounds, I've definitely been gaining some size in the gym.  My body fat is 17.5%, a bit higher than I wanted it to be, but only by about 1%.  With proper nutrition that will drop quickly.  I really only want to lose about 10 pounds over the next 6 weeks, that way for the last 12 weeks of my prep I only have about 10 more pounds to go.  The first few pounds will come off easily because I know they are mostly from bad eating!

I had a moment a couple weeks ago where I was pretty upset with myself for how I allowed myself to gain pounds back by eating everything I wanted to eat.  My tummy is and will always be a "tough spot" for me, that bad food all went to the fat in my tummy and my abs were gone quickly.  I had a friend reach out to me to do a fitness photo shoot, only three days notice and I had to turn them down.  I was very angry with myself at first and decided to look at it as yet another lesson learned.  I can't stress enough to anyone wanting to get into figure competing, this is a lifestyle, especially if you plan on continuing competing and doing anything that could go along with that, such as a fitness photo shoot!

By all means have that night after your competition and even the day after to indulge in what you have wanted most, but then get right back on track and stay there.  Have you cheat moments, but make sure they really are just moments :)

My elbow is still killing me, I push through it on my workouts and we are adjusting things to help lesson the stress on my tendon.  I wear the strap I have for it every workout and remember to wear it almost every day, still stretching and icing it and taking ibuprofen.  I've had to go lighter on some of my lifts, but better to do that than tear a tendon!

I am officially on the Fighter Diet, so much food right now, I'm trying to get in 2200 calories a day, not wanting to really lose a lot of weight like I said before and trying to get my muscles to grow.  I HIGHLY recommend the Fighter Diet for anyone getting into competing, not just for the nutrition plan but for everything.  Pauline is extremely straight forward, you want your muscles to grow, then you have to eat right and FEED your muscles and you have to KILL it in the gym every time.  Heavy lifting is the way to grow those muscles and being insanely sore like I am every day is just proof to my body that I am making it bigger.

Kyle is keeping me on my heavy workouts with the 12, 6, 6, 6, 12 rep style.  I really am focusing on lifting heavy enough that I have total muscle failure on my last rep, or I push out one more.  I am keeping journals of all of my workouts to help me continue to go up in my weights, I am also trying to journal everyday about how my body feels, how I feel mentally how my emotions are, keeping a close eye on myself :)

Kyle kept telling me that we had built an awesome base in the last year of my lifting, I believed him of course, but when I started hitting it hard, it was so nice to see all of that muscle still there and ready for me to go past my limits to make them grow more.  After just a few days of proper nutrition my abs are beginning to show again and I've still got 18 weeks to go!

I have also decided to join my friend Shalae and run the Dam to Dam run here in Iowa, it is a 20K, basically another half marathon.  We all know how my last half marathon experience went, not the best.  I admittedly didn't train properly for it and am looking forward to already being in great shape but also training properly for this race, like making sure I get in ALL of my long runs!  The only weekend that will truly be tough and maybe not possibly is the weekend of my figure competition, I will be fully depleted and will probably have to put off my long run until the following Monday, see I'm already planning ahead :)

A lot of people out there say you can't be a distance runner and still have muscle, especially to compete.  YES YOU CAN!  It just means I will be eating more calories this time around for my prep with all the running I will be doing, and it might make cutting easier, not a bad thing in my eyes :)

Here's to 2014 and all of my big fitness goals!  I will for sure compete in two competitions this year, depending on how it goes I may do three.  May, October and possibly November will be really big months and I'm so looking forward to it!

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