Just Hustle Up.

So, after doing the mentality self-evaluation, I realized that I needed more work and to put in more effort and focus on this training if I really wanted to be ready in time for my show.  So, I backed out fo the show.  What I used to see as a failure on my part has actually given way for me to accept that when it came down to it, I wasn’t as dedicated and working as hard as I should have been.  I wasn’t sacrificing anything, and to gain anything you must be willing to lose something.

I’m not giving up though.  This is something I really want to do and think I could be very good at once I do what’s necessary to be serious about this.  So, instead of just giving up, I’m just changing my plans.  Instead of the September show, I’m shooting for the OCB Battle of the Swords in November.  The plus side to this is that they have a 101 division which I really think I could use considering I’ve never been in a figure competition before.  Before, I was arrogant enough to believe that I didn’t need to start at the bottom and work my way up, and since have discovered that there is no shame in beginning at the beginners level– that’s what it’s there for.

It wasn’t all training.  I probably could have pulled it together in time if it weren’t the money factor.  Between supplements, posing suits, competition costs, and all of the acompanyments, it just wasn’t plausible for me to be able to pay for everything.  I have since told my parents of my interest, and though they support my want to do this, I don’t think they believe I will stick with it, and therefore I refuse to ask for their help with the monetary situation I am currently facing.  Lucky for me I have a job at school and quite a big lump some of money coming in from a loan that I can stash some away for November.  So, all is well.  Another plus i sthat my rugby season is beginning again in a few days, and I can supercharge my cardio routine with rugby conditioning.  Cardio is the devil, and I am really determined to tame that beast this time around.

 I’m feeling a lot more secure in my choice to postpone the show.  Before I think I would have beat myself up too much for backing out of the september show, but in all honesty, that was just NOT meant to be, I guess.

So.  Here we go again…

The worst that could happen, has.  I went on vacation with my family, thinking that continuing to eat right and just doing cardio every day would suffice in keeping my training on schedule.  The diet wasn’t the problem, aside form the fact that I allowed myself to drink.  I fought the ocean every day for half an hour, a fantastic workout.  But I didn’t lift, and I didn’t do more cardio when I needed it.  I am successfully back up to 140, and I am starting to lose the muscles that began poking their heads out to play.  I’m panicked.  I’m 8 weeks out and I’m a chub again. 

Contrary to my last two statements, though I am worried, I’m going to use my worry constructively to get back on track.  I’m still convinced it isn’t too late to pull a decent looking body out of this.  I learned my lesson.  No booze, more cardio, and back to serious lifting.  There’s no way I can fail at this.  I can make a come back.  I may not look as great on stage as I would have, but I won’t allow this detour to keep me from doing my thing.  I put too much into it, and I genuinely want to do this.  What’s nice is, this show is 8 weeks away.  A friend of mine found another show she plans to do in October in New York, and she gave me the idea that I should join her.  It’s 16 weeks out.  I’m seriously considering it.  If I can get myself to a point where I can be worthy of going on stage after 8 weeks, imagine what I can do in 16. 

I told my mum and dad I might be interested in doing figure competitions, and to my surprise, they were all, "Talk to Nikki, she can help you!" (Nikki is my dad’s trainer, and she does shows).  I was surprised by their answer.  Nonetheless, I told them about the show in October, but not the one in September.  If I can be semi-decent by the beginning of august, I’ll still do it, and I’ll tell them.  If not, I might just hold off and hook up the show in October to give myself more time.

The downside to that is, I don’t want to miss my rugby season.  Playing while training is a stupid idea.  What if I get hurt?  But I also really want to play.  Rugby is my first love.  First and foremost.  So, I might anyway.  I don’t think I’ll be able to keep myself away.  Plus, it’s cardio, right

I’m worried, I’m frenzied, and I’m panicking.  But it’s all good.  This week will be a lot of hard training to get myself back on track and hopefully within the next few weeks I’ll be worthy to call myself a figure hopeful.  It can be done, I know it can.  I just need to push.

Right?

I’ve been cutting now for, what, maybe four weeks.  And not to complain, but I still feel fat.  I guess I keep on thinking that all this hard work and constantly shoving food down my throat when I’m not hungry all for the sake of speeding up my metabolism is going to just magically happen one day and I will wake up looking like Monica Brant.  Now, I know how unrealistic that is, but I didn’t expect to still feel so heavy all the time.  Hard work, check.  Miserable diet, check.  Cardio that I hate doing every day, check.

 So.  What gives?

I’m starting to feel now like I will never be ready for this show and I am just going to make a fool of myself.  I keep wanting to give up.  Maybe my body wasn’t meant to look the way I want it to.  It’s depressing me, that nothing I am doing is yielding results.  I’m starting to really hate the fact I got so excited just to let myself down so badly.

Unfortunately for me, giving up really isn’t in my blood.  So… great, the only option is to be a soldier about it even though I feel like a failure.  Damn my sense of pride.

Sorry about the bitch fest.  I’ll try to limit these from now on, get my mental back and back to being positive.

I started cutting last week.  Takes a lot of will power– not drinking is really going to be the hardest part, but the more weight I see coming off of me, the more mu muscles start showing up, I think the more motivated I’ll be to keep truckin’.

 My mood’s improved since my last blog, and I think it’s because I was feeling very down on myself for carrying so much exra weight when I was trying to build muscle.  It’s hard looking in the mirror and seeing a fat girl.  I don’t like it.  Plus, I ate clean before the bulking stages, and when I was bulking I was pretty much pigging out every two hours…  I don’t think my body agrees very well with processed foods anymore. 

I’m starting to get relly concerned now with being ready in time.  What if I’m too soft come competition day?  I know I’ll feel like a failure even if I’m not. 

I started to kind of prep my father for the news of me doing  figure competition.  My exboyfriend is the one who got me into this, and when I made the decision to do a figure competition I made the choice not to tell him or my parents.  My parents will think I’m doing it for his attention, which is untrue.  I am doing this for me and for no one else.  I don’t have to impress anyone, and I’m definately not going to try and waste my time on someone who so clearly does not want to be with me.  This is about learning to love myself and allowing myself to take credit for something that no one, exboyfriend included, thinks I am capible of.  When I told my friends I was doing this, a lot of them were like, "Oh, yeah?  Cool."  but I could see in their faces they didn’t think i could do it.  My exboyfriend flat out told me there was no way I could even stick to a simple diet because he’s onvinced I can’t stop drinking, which to me is ridiculous.  Anyway, I didn’t want to tell my parents, I didn’t want their reactions to be about the exboyfriend instead of about me.  But cutting and living under the same roof is difficult, especially since my parents are really really big on family dinners every night.  They don’t really ask why I’m eating something different every night, but they wonder and I can tell they do. My dad’s personal trainer is a figure competitior (I can’t ask her for help b/c she’ll spill the beans, how unlucky am I?), so when my dad told me that, I told him that I may one day have interest in it.  He didn’t really respond, which is okay.  I don’t really need their approval, anyway.  I chose not to tell the exboy about it, either, for multiple reasons, which really bites me in the ass because he’s a genuis at this and has helped other girls pretty much win figure competitions.  Not having him on my side sucks, but the alternative would be unacceptable for me.  Not only does he have no faith in my ability to do anything and would be negative and nitpick everything I do (and I really don’t need any more negitivity here), he’d also be ready and willing to assume I’m doing it solely to impress him… and nothing would piss me off more, than for someone to take what I am doing and make it about someone other than me.  It’s like taking my hard work away from me, and I deserve more respect than to have someone strip me of my efforts.  Just because he opened the doors of possibility to me doesn’t mean he had anything to do with me walking through.

I wish I knew whether or not what I am doing is the right thing to do, the kind of right that makes me ready for this show.  I still need to find a suit, help posing, get more supplements… and I’m doing this almost totally on my own with very little help from other people, so I’m really tweaking out.  I’m going to ask a figure competing friend of mine if she’ll fill in the blanks for me, and I’m totally terrified.

Let’s just hope this leaning out thing starts working fast or I am royally and utterly effed.

The bulking stages are really wearing on me because I’m now a whopping 145 pounds.  I hate it.  While I’m sure a lot of it is muscle mass, looking at the scale is still messing with my mental.  I came into training with such a positive attitude, and now my mind is playing tricks on me. 

Cutting starts monday, and I couldn’t be more excited for it– which is funny because who in the hell looks forward to cutting for 4 months?  I’m about 18 weeks out and I’m scared to death.

I did buy some creatine, though, to keep my muscle building strong for when cutting starts.  I was leery about it at first, but I’m anxious to see if it yields the results I want.  I’m mostly concerned with gettingoff this ridiculous 30 pounds.  It’s going to be hard while i’m living at home and grandma and mum are making veritable italian feasts right under my nose.  But I am focused, and I’m determined, and I will soldier on. 

The next stress is posing suits… SO expensive!  I could usually ask my parents to help me out, but I’m not telling them about the show, so no dice there.  I mean, I have a job– just not one that makes enough money to pay bills, rent on my apartment next semester, supplements, food, and a damned 500 dollar posing suit, all within the next few months.

I like the fact that this competition is challenging me mentally and physically, but somedays, I just get really run down.  I’m trying to stay positive.  I really am.  I want this and this was the life I chose, so I shouldn’t even bitch about it.  I mean, no one said it was a walk in the park.

Speaking of walk in the park, I have to go do cardio.

The beginning stages of training are going okay, I guess.  I play mind games with myself a lot because I expect to immediately look like a figure girl, and I know that’s irrational– but it doesn’t stop me from being really pissed when I look in the mirror and I still see a fat girl.  I imagine everyone kind of goes through this starting out.  Especially because one of the girls that’s helping me train has me bulking, aka, eating everything in sight.  So, I’m getting fatter before I get skinnier, and that, of course, makes me nervous.  She won second place in her show, though, so I am thinking she knows what she’s doing.

I’m starting to get nervous that I’m not going to be ready in time.  I have another, what, five months?  But I feel like it isn’t enough.  If August comes and I don’t feel like I can be ready, I am not doing the show.  I’ll find another one.  I don’t expect to even place my first show, but I don’t want to be the soft girl on stage if everyone else is a hard body.  It sounds silly, but I am still striving for a certain look, a certain goal, even though I don’t know yet if my body is even capible of doing what I want it to.

Its kind of funny.  When Lindsay and I go to leave the gym for the day after lifting, I am sad.  I’m the one out of the both of us that says, "No, why don’t we just do one more set of skull crushers."  or after a ton of bicep excersizes, "Shit, let’s do some preachers before we go eat."  I hate the point where I have to stop lifting the weights, no matter how much my muscles burn.  She’s probably a little more smart about it because she understands the idea of overtraining.  All I know is that if I don’t wake up sore tomorrow, I’m going to be a little ticked I didn’t get to do old school extensions today.

I have this problem.  I like being the best at what I do.  I’m a perfectionist.  And for me, it’s hard to be a perfectionist doing this, because I don’t necessarily know everything that I’m dealing with.  I’m pissed because my traps aren’t symmetrical.  My bi’s aren’t defined the way I want.  My stomach is starting to poke out even though I work it just as hard as everything else. My butt is huge and horrible looking.  Little things that aren’t a big deal now feel like the weight of the world to me.  I just hope during training that I can find a hybrid of push and confidence.  Where I like myself, but know I can be better.  That’s the real goal, almost.  To find confidence in my transformation and appreciate the hard work I’m doing with knowing that I can still improve.

I want discipline.  I have people helping me with my diet, with my lifting, with my cardio.  But I have no one saying to me, here’s how your mental needs to hold up.  I think I’m doing an okay job right now, but something about the way I’m thinking has to change or come competition time I am going to be a bitch to myself, and this is all about loving me and learning to love me. 

Anyone else have this problem when they started training?  Let me know.  It’ll be comforting to know I’m not alone.

So, I finally think I picked a show.  It’s September 6, OCB Mr./Ms. Natural Steel City.  I really hope to be ready by then.  I caluclated out how much body fat I need to lose… a whole 26 pounds, which is going to be rough.  I also calculated out when my serious training and dieting should begin… May 17th, 17.3 weeks before the competition.  I just am so excited and feel so flabby and huge that I want to start now even though the competition is so far out.  I very rarely don’t eat clean, so I feel like if I start doing more/harder cardio multiple times a day and begin lifting now I can easily get myself to the point where come May 17th, I can start an even harder process in training and be ready physically for what that might entail.  Next week, I plan on quitting drinking.  One more week to wyle out sounds good to me, but I want to do this the right way and that means eliminating unneccesary crap like beer calories from my diet. 

After our tournament this weekend, I stayed in SRU and went today to the Mr./Ms. SRU show that my friends were in.  My one friend places 2nd in the heavyweight bodybuilding class, and he looked absolutely amazing.  My other friend did a figure competition, and she was in the "tall" class– she got 3rd place but was robbed blind.  She was much more defined and her poses were definately more solid than the girls that placed higher.  In any degree, watching her on-stage made me all the more certain that I wanted to do a show, but it made me realize, too, that this was going to be very time consuming, demanding, and probably not a lot of fun most times.  I also know I have to be really responsible and focused, and that’s something I’m looking forward to, also.

I like the feeling I’m getting from being motivated to train for this.  I feel for once in my life like I deserve something.  I feel like I can finally do something for myself that will be really satisfying, and I like the wy it feels to want to love myself.  It’s different for me, and I dig it.

Once I get my diet set up correctly and my training schedule all set, I’ll post it.  Should be done in a couple of weeks assuming I have the time… which I hope I do because I’m getting ansty just thinking about it!

On the ride down to myrtle beach, SC, I totally binged out on chips in the car.  I tried to counter this with a MetRx protein bar and shit tons of water but I felt really disgusting about it.  My stomach wasn’t pleased with me later.

 Today, I ate super clean and I am really proud of myself, because it’s very easy to binge out when you’re on vacation (even though I never have much of a problem with this because I’m so used to it that I crave clean foods opposed to anything else– I’m also a big pain in servers’ asses when I go out, lol).  I went out and bought myself some whey protein (it was about time, really), natural peanut butter, eggs, brown rice, turkey, and tuna– a lot of each, and I hope it all travels all right in the trek down to Panama City tomorrow.  I knew alcohol would be a bit of a problem and that it was bound to happen and I actually look forward to coming home from spring break and cutting those useless calories out of my diet (difficult when you’re living a college lifestyle).  My other indescretion today was a diet coke, but I knew it couldn’t be much worse than beer.

I didn’t do any cardio today or work out   I feel a little irresponsible in this respect.  There’s no excuse to be so lazy, especially when there is a gym and a pool in our hotel.  I could have done a lot with that.  I did do a little bit of ab work (about 15 minutes) and push-ups, but I don’t know how well that’s going to help me.  I guess it’s better than nothing, but it isn’t great.

 Melda, thanks for the advice on drinks.  We drank light beers mostly all day today, but we’re about to head out to the bar, so I hope to use your advice there!  And Jeep, thanks for the kind words!  I really enjoy interacing with people who care about their fitness as much as I do, and I always appreciate pointers from anywhere I can get them because I know so little about what I’m trying to accomplish that any beads of wisdom are much welcomed.

So, going on spring break tomorrow.  I’m not really concerned with how my diet will fare because I eat clean every day and have for the past month and a half.  I’m worried about the calories I’m going to be consuming from alcohol and that I won’t have the drive to get up and do cardio.  It’s important to me to stay healthy while still trying to have my last hurrah before I begin hard training…  I dunno.  I want to have the confidence in myself that I will be smart and do what I need to in order to maintain what I’ve already begun to accomplish, but in the same turn, I haven’t really accomplished anything.  Losing ten pounds is nice, and having a flatter stomach is really boosting my self esteem, but it isn’t really that much of an accomplishment because it hasn’t been hard.  I like to think the more difficult something is the more rewarding it is.  I hope I can keep up, eat clean, and keep hustling. 

PS.  If anyone actually reads this, I need some pointers.  I have no system set up for myself with training for a figure competition, and I just need some general tips before I start working with a trainer… someone who actually does figure competitions or even just knows a hell of a lot about them.  It would be much appreciated.