So the Holidays are finally over! I make it sound like they’re a bad thing, well they’re not totally bad, but not totally good either. The "Holiday Get Together’s" can really sabotage your diet as they are usually accompanied by a lot of food and alcohol. And yes I confess, I did indulge a little, I gained some fat back but I’m really not too concerned. My workouts have been regular, the only "scheduled" workouts that suffered were my 2 times a week pole dancing classes because they were pretty much closed for the holidays. However, my weight training has been going better then ever! Which is mainly why I’m not too concerned about the bit of fat gain.

Since getting off Keto, I switched to eating at 20:40:40, about 2200 cals/day. I’ve noticed that my strength has really gone up. I’ve been able to increase weight on bench, shoulder press, even squats. I’m really pleased with how things are going. Not only that but I’ve been adding quite a bit of variety to my routines, which keeps them interesting and fresh. I started doing supersets and most recently I started adding drop sets which I think are the greatest thing since sliced bread! I’m really loving them because now, more then ever, I really understand what "going to failure" really feels like. I’ve always tried to go to failure, my general rule of thumb has always been that if I’m on my last set and I’m not really struggling past the 6th rep then I’m not lifting heavy enough, but now, I do the 6+ reps to "failure," immediately reach for a lighter weight and go till I absolutely can’t go no more, and WOW! Absolutely love the pump I get from it!

So all that aside, in about a week I’m starting school. Decided to take some part time courses (3 times a week) which is gonna put even more structure into my life. And by sheer luck (I guess), this week they opened a 24/7 Premier Fitness down the street from the college I will be attending, which makes missing a workout on those days inexcusable! And no one could be happier about that then me. So, in short, I made myself a workout schedule, I’m gonna follow it the first week and see if I need to tweak it. Come April I will start cutting, not sure if I’ll do Keto again, but it will definitely be with some sort of carb cycling. So that’s my plan in a nutshell.

Well I guess that’s all for now. Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday, now back to reality! Happy training!

Couple of things I want to also mention before concluding Keto. If you choose to do this diet, make sure you SERIOUSLY use a fibre supplement! I’ll be straight up with you, no toning it down cause I’m a "proper lady." Taking a shit on this diet is a flippin’ mission and a half! No fibre = no poop, and no poop = not a happy camper! Also, if you are female, yes I’ll address that too, this diet seriously ****s with your menstrual cycle so be aware of that. I’m usually very regular, most times I can call it to the day, not on this diet, I would say it was almost completely random! So again, just a word of warning, something to keep in mind, don’t loose too much sleep over it if this happens to you.

All that aside, this is pretty much the only diet I will ever do when I want to cut again. I already know how it works, what foods to buy/make to keep it somewhat interesting. I am really happy with the results I got on it but I need a break and with winter coming this is the perfect time to put on some mass and get cut again for summer, so I think this will be my game plan for the next several months.

Tomorrow I will take some progress pics and post my final measurements and then it’s morphin’ time!

Anyway, things have been going pretty good. Everything is on track, I feel great and I’m still making progress so no complains there. Except for… haha, time for a confession! So last weekend was my 25th birthday weekend, needless to say, my carb-up was a COMPLETE disaster!!! The week went by as planed, no slip-ups, great workouts, I even went in on Friday to do my final depletion workout and then I went home and had my birthday cake! Following that I went out, had some drinks, had some pizza, and had more birthday cake! I sort of binged :S Then since it was Halloween, I had some treats… My god looking back at it now I feel like I should have been the Cookie Monster for Halloween cause I just ate whatever the hell fell on my lap! Saturday was a bit better tho, didn’t pig out on too much shit, but probably burned off a lot of those cals at the Halloween party I attended on Saturday night where I pretty much danced my ass off for no less then 4 hours straight!

Sunday I was back on track and this week was absolutely flawless! I actually ended up doing a shit load of cardio as a result of my crap-eating carb-up, and I think it did me good cause I lost half a pound since last Friday so I’m pretty happy with that. Cause trust me, I was a flippin’ monster last weekend!

But yes, things are going GREAT, I’m at 136 lbs as of this morning, I have my depletion workout still to do in about 3 hours and this carb-up will be CLEAN, & that is a promise

Week 6 was flawless, and this week was even better. I’ve been dead on with everything, workouts, intensity & diet. I’m feeling fantastic and I can see the fat just melting away! I love it! This may be the most strict diet I’ve ever put myself on but holy smokes does it deliver if you stick to/with it. I even had one of my pole dancing instructors approach me yesterday and ask me what the hell I was doing cause I’ve toned up so much over the past 2 months. I’m not doing this for anyone but myself but I’d be lying if I told you that it doesn’t feel good when other people notice.

I actually haven’t weighed myself in a few weeks, no real reason, I just haven’t. But to be honest, at this point weight is almost irrelevant. I kind of don’t care if I lose the 10 pounds I’ve set out to lose in the beginning, as long as I look lean and toned who cares what the scale says? I will weigh myself next week tho because I’m also gonna post some new progress pics. I like taking progress pics every 4 weeks or so, I don’t like to do it daily or even weekly because realistically, how much different can I possibly look from day to day? At least over 4 weeks you can see some changes. Anyway, I think that will be all for now, it’s late and I don’t know what I am still doing up.

It’s all day carb-up day tomorrow! Yummmm, fresh bread!!!

With that said tho, Sunday evening I started feeling a bit sick and unfortunately Monday morning I woke up feeling like complete shit! I actually have NO appetite, I just eat at intervals of 3 hours cause I know I have to, but I can’t even taste any flavour, which kind of makes meals even easier to prepare because I just eat according to the food labels, but that’s the only positive. I haven’t gone to the gym the past 2 days, which sucks because I was really sticking to a pretty strict workout schedule. Diet wise I’m right on, just the training is really suffering. I hope this doesn’t screw me up too much, considering the "progress high" I was on last week. I think I’m gonna hit the gym tomorrow regardless and just do what I can, I am feeling a tad better today so hopefully I will be even better tomorrow. This sucks, I’m really pissed.

I have noticed a MAJOR difference already. Not only did I notice it, but people around me noticed as well. I have been approached at my gym by several people asking if I’ve been doing anything different because I’ve really toned up. When I see results like this after only 4 weeks it really motivates me to keep going. I’m not really sure how much I still want to lose, I’ve lost about 4 pounds so far. Originally I said I wanted to drop 10, but at this point I don’t even want to throw a number out there because I am strictly going by how I look. I am not entering any fitness competitions so I’m not even aiming for a particular body fat %, I’m just doing this because I want to, because I know I can. Knowing my past weight issues, and seeing how far along I have come, I am pretty friggin’ proud of myself.

The biggest compliment I get is when people at my gym ask me how I got into weight training and when I tell them I used to weigh over 200 pounds, more then half of them don’t believe me. The fact that I have transformed my body soooo much that there’s barely any evidence of my past weight issues is pretty amazing. Sure, I have stretch marks in some places and that will never go away, but overall I have done what people often think is impossible, and I’ve done it by educating myself about the importance of nutrition and training and then worked my ass off to implement what I’ve learned. Can you tell I’m on a bit of a high! Hahaha, but I guarantee you it’s not a sugar high since I’m not allowed sugar for a few more hours!

Anyway, I’m out! I took some progress pictures this morning, so see for yourself where I’m at.

The depletion workout last Friday was also a lot better, I didn’t feel like a complete zombie after walking out of the gym that evening. As for the carb up, I’m still working on it! I did pretty good but as I mentioned last week, I’m struggling with portion sizes because again, all day on Saturday I felt bloated and stuffed like a pig ready to explode! I’m still trying to figure out a way to make it just a little bit easier on myself. I have the next 3-4 days before my next carb up so I’m gonna have to sit down and plan it out a little.

Other then that, I really have no complains! I already lost 2.5 pounds which is perfect since I don’t wanna be losing anymore then 1-2 pounds a week. Also, now that I have a pretty good hang of this diet I am able to eat a variety of different meals so I’m not as bored with eating eggs with mayonnaise all the time. Tomorrow I’m having some BBQ ribs (seasoned, no sauce, sauce = carbs & carbs = BAD)! Looking forward to that! I even figured out a couple of desserts! Yes I confess, I have a bit of a sweet tooth that needs to be satisfied! But these desserts stay within the diet’s perameters, with less then 3g of carbs & plenty of fat & even protein! I’m a monster, I know

Wednesday I ended up feeling pretty good so I went to the gym and did an hour of some low intensity cardio. But Thursday was a disaster! I was beyond tired. I pushed through the leg workout, and I stress PUSHED. Again, I did the weights and reps that I set out to do but it wasn’t easy. Friday was a little better, still had to really push myself but it wasn’t as bad, maybe it had to do with the fact that the carb up was literally hours away; something to look forward to.

As for the carb up itself, it was rather enjoyable! I didn’t carb up on too munch junk, most of the stuff I ate was what I would normally eat if I wasn’t doing the CKD. After getting home from the depletion workout I had a whey protein shake with chocolate soy milk, and an hour later began my "carbfest." When I woke up Saturday morning I was CRAVING carbs like crazy! However, I found that the quantity of food I had to eat during those 30 hours was a lot, so next weekend’s carb up is going to have to take a bit more planing.

This makes sense tho, if I’m eating 1500 cals/day, high fat, for 6 days, my portion sizes are rather small. Now going from this to eating about 2700 cals, low fat, my portion sizes pretty much doubled, if not tripled. That’s why I found that I had to drop the diet pop and drink the real stuff, just to get all of those carbs in within the allotted time. I’m thinking next weekend I might even just get up extra early on Saturday, eat and go back to sleep because by the end of the day I felt so bloated and full from practically stuffing my face all day that I was actually looking forward to going keto the next day! Sick isn’t it?

But anyway, I feel great today and I’m ready to do this all over again, so hopefully I won’t be as tired as I was last week.

I know it’s only day 3 but so far I’ve been 100% on track. But as in all my previous diets the way I see it is you either do it at 100% or don’t bother doing it at all. I hate half assing anything and that’s actually what I found most appealing about this diet, you really can’t afford to slip up once during the week or the entire week is shot to shit. That definitely keeps me on track. Imagine sticking to this for 3-4 days and then ****ing it up with a bite of carbs, knowing that the carb up is just around the corner. I’d be pretty pissed at myself! I’ve been able to keep my carb intake to below 30g each day, and most of it comes from a fibre supplement so I’ve done really well, today shouldn’t be much different.

Definitely looking forward to the carb up tho…. yummm I get to have oatmeal for breakfast, & trust me when I say that I LOVE oatmeal… but until then it’s hard boiled eggs with mayonnaise.

I’ve done my research, I did my math and on Sunday I am restocking my fridge with pure fat & protein! I must say it was a little weird planning my meals, I’m not exactly used to incorporating mayonnaise and cheese into almost every meal, I actually hardly ever eat it at all! But, like I already said, I’ve heard a lot of people get great results on it, and I actually personally know a couple that have tried it (again, with great results) so I’m willing to put everything I know about clean eating aside for the next little while and load up on pork, beef & just good old lard at every meal

I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I am just a little excited about getting on this thing, I’ll probably bitch and complain when I actually start and feel like crap for the first week or so but we all have to get over that initial hurdle.

Wish me luck, I hope to update regularly