amysuds’s BodyBlog

I have the weirdest ear pain tonight. It started on the plane decent when I came home from vacation a few weeks ago. On the plane, I had severe pressure (unusual for me)…and I was expecting my son to be crying at this point because his ears ALWAYS hurt . I turned around, he was sitting behind me and unaffected by the pressure. Anyways…within a few days, the pain stopped. It came back a few times since then, but I just ignored it. The last ear infection I had I was 18yrs old. The pain was so brutal I will never forget it. This does not feel the same, almost like the pain is away from my ear canal, but it’s in my ear somewhere! Tonight as I ate my chicken and salad, my jaw started to tighten up. Back when I was 16, I had my jaw broken and reset…the doc told me I would have arthritis issues there when I got older. They literally left wire in my head as part of the procedure, I have the worst luck at the doctor, so I avoid going at all costs. The strange things seem to happen to me. For example, one time my glands swelled up suddenly in my neck, and I wasn’t sick. They were huge! I go to the doc…I had a friggin calcium deposit in my salvilary gland. They had me lift my tongue and they sliced underneath to get the thing out. Another time a few years ago, my ob doc found my lymph nodes were swollen under my arms. So…I go through the hundred tests, come to find out they are all swollen in my body. They found I have multinodular goiter in my neck. WTF is that??  LOL!!  Then they find a cyst on my liver….no biggie, not a problem they told me. After it was done and my thyroid biopsied….all was fine. But I still have swollen lymph nodes and docs don’t know why. So, back to the story…with my luck, the wire in my head probably pierced my eardrum or something weird like that. So if I am MIA from here the next couple of days, it’s from my ear. Ha ha……………………

So I expected that my jeans would be too small with my added weight gain. Yup, today I had to bust out the "tweeners"…not the skinny jeans, nor the largest size I have. They all fit so differently, my lower body has changed alot. Hopefully there is a bit more muscle under the fat. What I did not expect today, as I tried on a few blouses…I can’t even come close to buttoning them. I am certain my B implants didn’t grow…ha ha….so I am so surprised how much my middle back has changed! I typically do not gain much fat on my upper body, so that is great news for me. Now I get to tell my hubby tonight that I need new clothes 

As this week comes to an end, I am pleased with my weight loss of 2lbs since Wednesday. With my carb intake being much lower, I feel as though I am back to balance with intake/usage of them. I noticed this week that I am now able to identify my hunger pangs much better. I REALLY remember my crazy dieting when I joined this site  (see the above pic!!) and did cardio alone without much weight training. As I lost weight, I had these hunger pangs that felt like my body was eating away my stomach and I think what was happening was my body was using lean tissue for fuel. As you can see in my legs here particularly, there was not much fat loss there. My legs stayed chubby, but I weighed about 130lb. I never once felt that feeling when I leaned down for my last shows. It was different….I did get hungry, especially in the final weeks…usually in the early evenings after leg workouts. If I couldn’t stand it…I would eat almonds (extra ones) or spoons of peanut butter. That was a BIG mistake. As I confessed this to Layne, he encouraged me that every day I stuck with the nutrition plan was an accomplishment comparable to a killer weight workout. What I did was slow down my fat loss I believe…which dragged out the process a bit for me, in my opinion. The hunger I was experiencing was my metabolism increase…which I know now is the time to suck it up and take advantage!! For whatever reason, this week I can actually feel when my body switches to burning fat (I think)…I get this sweet taste in my mouth after I feel I burned up the available carbs I took in. I could be way wrong here…just my opinion. Sometimes the taste lasts the rest of the day….I experienced it alot the past 2 days. When I did cardio before breakfast while drinking Xtend one day this week, I tasted it right away. Maybe it’s my imagination!!  LOL!!  I also seem to feel when my body’s urge to become catabolic is coming ( I get the beginnings of the hunger feeling I talked about in the beginning) . This helps me figure out the right times to take in some of my meals and minimize the chance of muscle loss. So…going forward with this comp prep, I will NOT give in to the "increased metabolic hunger teasing", when my body sends those signals. I am making sure to drink a few glasses of water now if I feel like that, sometimes I think I am hungry…but I am really thirsty. I have to remember it takes MUCH more water to digest protein (which I eat alot of) . I plan to follow Layne’s comp prep plan to the EXACT number…no giving in. It will only make this process much smoother, and I owe that to Layne. I work SO hard in my gym all the days, I need to steer that drive to my diet also.Layne spends the time to figure out what the correct macros are for me based on my metabolism. Everyone’s is different….he is the master in this regard ,as well as with his training plans. I will stay strong and challenge myself to the fullest!! 

So here he is again…8 years old and anxious to be a bodybuilder. On vacation I asked him to smile for me while I take his pic. He busts out these poses…I ask him about the back one. He says…"saw Layne do this at your show Mom".

I wanted to write this to share what it’s been like for me the past 8 weeks or so. Coming out of contest season has been a challenge. While my weight training has been fantastic…overall I give myself an F on cardio I should have done. I am kind of regretting that now. I also have not done a great job following Layne’s recommendation of slowly increasing my calories. My carb cravings were ridiculous. I partly blame this on my womanly cycle. It was once regular…to the day. It has been a trainwreck this summer….late and unpredictable. The normal "week before" cravings I normally had, seem to last the whole month….at full force…..comparable to the hunger I had when I was pregnant. So, with that being said, my weight has gone up more than I would have liked. The good thing is, that I definitely gained muscle. I can tell my legs and glutes filled in even more. I also can see that my body fat increase was evenly spread out through my body as I gained it….way different than before I weight trained. It always would go to just my hips /legs and butt for the most part. I also do not feel flabby…I feel firm everywhere except that rotten no good ham/glute tie in area For the first time in a LONG time…my upper body doesn’t look shredded…it looks much better in my opinion. I am about to start contest prep again for the fall comps. I have more work to do this time with less weeks to get it done. I have a feeling I will hit the stage at 135…5 lbs heavier than in the spring. I am good with that. That is why I worked so hard , lifting very heavy all summer. I also have a much better idea of how to make my body drop bodyfat this time around. Working with Layne Norton has been, and continues to be PRICELESS. So I am up for the challenge…it intrigues me actually. The past 2 months I have given my body what it wanted. It is now time to make my body DO what I want. I am refreshed after vacation and my determination is higher than ever. Let the games begin……..

Lately..I have been lifting very heavy. With only a few weeks til contest prep starts up again, I am so exhausted and skipping my planned cardio for the most part. Any encouragement is appreciated. It is SO worth the effort for us all to work very hard. It is also the truth that I will never give up, but I struggle just like everyone else. I WILL stay positive to get er done !!

Yup, this love goes WAY back as far as my memory goes. Growing up in a family with six children…my mom often times made meals I didn’t like. I love ya mom…but the tuna/pea casserole was unbearable. So, my dad and I always had the jar of pb. We kind of made it our thing….we ate it all the time. He would always tell me it was a food I could live off of. I don’t know if that’s true but as I was growing…I started getting muscular at about 15 or 16 years old. Peanut butter was my main dish. My dad is also very muscular…he has abs like a rock still. Anyways, I learned early on that if I was going to eat this stuff outta the jar, the white bread and jelly had to go. That combo means nothing but a quick way for me to get fat. I have done it way too many times, especially when I was pregnant.

As the years went by, I never grew tired of this taste. As my battle with the scale continued with the ups and downs, I couldn’t give pb up for very long. I did try I finally realized how I could eat it and not have a huge gain in weight. The secret for me…is that when my carbs are low or in control…I can eat a few spoons at a time…often throughout the day. Never do I eat alot at once. But…I do eat alot of it. I don’t know why, but it is a "mood enhancing" food for me. So when I tell people my muscles are actually pb…you now know why I say that!!

My dad always calls me now to check on my training. He laughed when I told him how during comp prep…I only had one tbsp of peanut butter a day usually. He knew how hard that was for me…he said "just eat it, it’s not going to hurt you". I said, "dad, you don’t understand how important keeping the diet is right now." He still told me to eat it! Love ya Pops!

I wish I was an ectomorph. All my research I have done the past few years reading books and on this site makes me dream of what I might look like as such. I would eat LOTS of carbs, build muscle busting my butt in the gym everyday and have a tight skin wrap to start with…..I’d have killer abs and I would be able to easily drop body fat through no rest circuit training. Sounds ideal to me…..I am just jealous! LOL!! 

A friend of mine here on the site has been nominated to enter the Best Female Physique Part 2 contest.Check out this profile! http://bodyspace.bodybuilding.com/HauteMama_ToTwo/She is such an inspiration to moms out there! I am so impressed with her physique and she is just as beautiful on the inside.

http://www.simplyshredded.com/forum/post547.html#p547

Today was my son’s 8th birthday. We decided to take a few of his friends with us to an amusement/water park to celebrate. I had been really looking forward to this, with all my competition prep…there hasn’t been many family outings. So, I went all out as a mom the past few days. It’s been alot of fun just doing all the party preparation. I woke up this morning and was raring to go. I packed all the towels, snacks, juice boxes etc. I made the kids breakfast and put on their sunblock. I decorated the table for when we returned home to have birthday cake. I wrapped my son’s presents. We arrived at the park and had a blast ! A few hours later…I started to feel " weird,weak,needing to eat…etc". I realized I had not brought ONE thing for me to eat. This is the first time in SO long I have done that. I looked around and there were nothing but fast food meals. OH NO!! What do I do? I didn’t eat for awhile. My husband bought a bucket of FRIED chicken tenders and asked me to please have some. Oh geez, I can’t remember the last time I ate anything like that. I did eat…..I still cannot believe I didn’t even think to bring my food with me. After we ate and went back to the water slide, I looked down at my skin…getting all burnt. It was 85 degrees I believe. I FORGOT to put sunblock on!  Needless to say, I am looking much like a lobster as I type this….ha ha.

This is the kind of day I needed. Just a mom……I am always trying to improve. For just one day, I completely forgot about myself…..and it felt good.