fitdiva83’s BodyBlog

I am currently five weeks out….not much time at all! I still have about 10 pounds of bf to lose, which means two sessions of @ least 45 minutes of cardio daily as well as including two meals with white fish and greens into my diet.  I spent this weekend, working out and preparing my meals for the week! Yes, Saturday at midnight I was baking sweet potatoes and soaking my steel oats. I then got up at 8am Sunday morning for a run in the park, which was absolutely wonderful. Doing the morning cardio helps me stay sharp and productive for the rest of the day. So now, I can honestly say that I’ve pretty much devoted my priorities to preparing for the competition. I really want to see how far I can push my body…I haven’t looked like this since high school! I just have to get over the fact that I will have no boobs soon. But gotta get it tight, gotta get it right!

I went out both Saturday and Sunday nights. From house parties to a football game, food temptation lay all around me. And amazingly, I resisted. Saturday, I went to a bar to celebrate the completion of an exam with a college friend. The owner had provided complimentary nachos with all the fixins and wings along with drinks aplenty. I declined shot after shot, and stayed with my chicken breast mesclun salad with peppers, tomatoes and avocado and water. The next evening I headed to Jersey for the Giants game. After three hours of travel and listening to spectators cry out ‘get those f**kers!’. my blood sugar was also crying out, ‘I’m low, I’m low, time to eat.’ I forgot to pack something and ended up munching on cashews. The protein options were limited to hot dogs and chicken tenders. After a long search around the stadium, I was finally able to locate a chicken breast sandwich which I ate without the bread. I didn’t realize that I could have that much willpower. I am thrilled that I didn’t cheat at all this weekend!

I have just about eight weeks before my first competition ever….I’m excited, nervous, but pumped to truly undertake this task. I know if I can get into stage shape in two months, then I can do just about anything. I have a whole slew of supplements, from this new yummy Dessert protein to Redline (gosh that stuff is amazing). I’m bumping up my cardio to two sessions a day: 30 min interval training/functional drills in the mornings and the 45-60 min. steady state or intervals in the evenings. Next week, I get stricter with my diet–only a serving of fruit per day. What will I do without my sweets?

I’ve finally done it. I went out and got a personal trainer to whip my behind into shape. So we’ve pretty much abandoned my traditional bodybuilding-esque split routine in favor of circuit training with lots of pylometrics. No more hard-core leg workouts…we are trying to break down some of the muscle in my thunder thighs and slim down my hips and butt so that my physique can be more symmetrical. I also have to run a lot. Sigh. Who said this was going to be easy? I also cooked my meals for the week: baked my sweet potatoes and cooked a pot of brown rice, seasoned cod, tilapia and salmon and steamed some spinach, broccoli and string beans. I used to be addicted to chicken…but have noticed a difference since I’ve stopped eating religiously. We’ll see what the consistency brings. In the meanwhile, besos.

I’ll be moving back to NYC in a few days and am a little anxious about it. I trained twice this week, hitting back and hams as well as my quads. I also got some cardio in. But I’ve been generally exhausted and have rarely gotten through a workout without hitting the sack as soon as I walked into the door. I’m eager to start my fall training program and to get my eating schedule back on track. Glutes and legs are coming along nicely; now i’m starting to worry about lower abs. I guess you just can’t win ‘em all.

I’ve been doing well with my training, getting the cardio done, strength training diligently and eating pretty clean. It seems, lately, that I have no desire to eat anymore. It’s a struggle to get down three small meals a day much less five or six. I’m moving out of my NYC apartment and will be living in Boston for six weeks this summer. I will be close by to my figure competition prep team, which is very exciting to me. The competition I want to do is six weeks away and I’m nowhere near where I thought I would be by now. I’m loving my upper body, shoulders, especially. But not too happy with the glutes. As my upper bod leans out considerably and my lower bod lags behind, I’m looking more and more like a pear than ever. I’ve trimmed another inch off my waist, 28 inches. I don’t know if it’s physically possible to get it smaller than 27. But my real concerns are the hips and butt. I’m going to switch to a circuit routine for one of my leg training sessions, add a sprinting and stairs session once a week as soon as I reach Boston (there are no high school stadiums here in the city) and then add some pylometric activities on one of my upper body training days. We’ll have to see how tweaking the training helps. If not, then I’ll have to look at my diet. You are only supposed to change one thing at a time and lord knows, I don’t want to do any additional cardio (lol).

So I’ve been hitting the gym pretty hard for the past few weeks, doing cardio like it’s nobody’s business. I’ve been doing at least 30-60 min. each session, at least 4-5 times a week. This frequency is unheard of in my training, since I hate, hate most forms of cardio unless it’s spinning, kickboxing, dance or organized team sports. But my secret has been mixing it up: walking on an incline on the treadmill, intervals on the crosstrainer or bike, doing hills on the arctrainer. I have yet to attempt the Stepmill since I almost fell off the machine last year. Lol. And you know I’ve been diligent with the weights, focusing on legs, glutes and abs. And my diet has never been cleaner. See what trying to look like a million dollars in a designer bikini can do for a woman’s motivation? Here’s a sample dinner meal:

6 oz. of grilled halibut

8 asparagus spears

1/2 cup of strawberries (for my sweet tooth!)

It’s been months since I’ve posted or put an updated pic up. Soon I promise. I haven’t been able to really train for competition as I would like. 3 days a week will not cut it if I want to cut up. Lol. So I’ve put competing off until the summer and the early fall. The stress of my job should have ceased and I will have my master’s in a month! All the hard work on that end has paid off. Stay tuned for training updates.

So I’m slowly trying to get back into the swing of training and eating very clean and it’s a lot harder than it was last year. I think I’ve gotten just a tad bit complacent. Also working ten to twelve hour days has started to take its toll. I’m slated for a competition April 14. Lots of work needs to be done. But most importantly, it has to start mentally.
On another note, I would just like to comment on the negativity I’ve seen circulating the site….i.e the low ratings on people’s photos. I think that as a fitness community we should all be here to encourage one another. If you don’t have a good rating to give, don’t give one at all. It’s that simple. And if you are going to give one, man or woman up and leave a comment and tell the person what’s so bad about their particular bodypart, feature, etc. Stop being petty little biotches or weird bodyspace haters.

Today I did a full-body circuit followed up by a 45 minute walk on a 10-15 percent incline on the treadmill. My abs are aching as are my glutes. Those are my current areas of workout obsession. Nonetheless, it felt good switching up my routine. If I’m not sore, I don’t quite feel as if I achieved anything. I’m trying to slink into a teeny dress for the holidays. So the gym has to be a regular thing despite the hectic holiday schedule.  Let’s see just how committed I can be.