fitnessprincess’s BodyBlog

I get asked a lot by friends and folks interested in doing figure what I do and therefore what do you need to do in order to compete? So, I thought it might be worthwhile blogging on this topic. Many people seem to think that all that’s involved is dieting down or dieting down and exercising. There’s quite a bit more required if you really want to do it right - enjoy the process and feel good about your very short time on the competition stage.

So here are the key elements:

1) Diet - key elements here? a diet filled with healthy, whole foods (meat, poultry, veggies, fruits, and breads/crackers) that delivers the right amount of calories and the right macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, healthy fats, vitamins, minerals) in the right amounts! And please note we are not talking starvation diet here ladies! unless you want saggy, baggy, unhealthy looking skin and no muscles when you stand on the stage in your little bitty competition suit! For a variety of reasons not the least of which is our modern world and what we have done to the animals and plants on it, you are going to need to use supplements and I am not talking about fat burners here (no such thing by the way ladies!). I mean vitamins, minerals, amino acids, creatine.

2) Exercise program - key elements here? solid, old-fashioned weight training with heavy weight DBs, Bbs and some cardio (mix of HIIT, plyometrics, and ss cardio). Your program should not be hours of cardio each day ladies. You should be working your whole body and your workouts should emphasize compound exercises like deadlifts, squats, lunges, etc. 

3) Stress management - yoga (also great core training!) - I got introduced to yoga by Cathy Savage Fitness’ Ms. P (my eternal thanks lady!), adequate rest, and sleep!!! You have to manage your stress if you want to lose weight, maintain your sanity, and your health and get up on that stage!

4) Posing - It may look to you like those figure ladies are just standing up there, smiling, and all relaxed but that’s far from the truth! To get the most out of your physique you have to flex your muscles and it isn’t easy and you have to figure out how to do this in such a way that it emphasizes the best aspects of your hard won physique and hides your flaws (everyone has some by the way! everyone!). Walking in 4" high heels isn’t easy either and you have to make it look that way smiling the whole time. All of this takes practice - months of practice! in your high heels in front of a mirror! and near the end in your posing suit.

5) Appearance - posing suit, makeup, hair, tanning, fingernails. To compete in figure you need to get a figure suit (these aren’t cheap!) and these typically have to be ordered 10-12 weeks in advance of your competition date. Even if you tan outside or in a tanning bed (I hope you don’t do the latter - very bad for your skin’s health!) you will need to learn how to apply competition tanner so you look nice and dark on the day of your competition (your tan needs to look ridiculously dark but will look great under the harsh stage lights). You will need makeup (many women use false eyelashes) that compliments your figure suit, hair, etc. Lots to learn and lots to do here and you can’t do it at the last minute.

Many of us hire a coach to help us navigate the labyrinth of figure prep.  Some folks hire someone to help them with diet. Others hire someone to help them with training. Still others hire a coach who will help them with diet, exercise, and some of the other elements of figure prep including suit selection, makeup, tanning, posing training, etc.  You can get a coach who will design a program for you on-line.  Of course, it is harder to get assistance with certain elements, e.g., proper exercise form, posing, etc. many of us use this approach (on-line coaching).

Two weeks ago at my WW meeting, our leader Tanya led us in a discussion about saving money and food.   Recently I stopped buying the local paper because the daily had gone up to $1 on weekdays and $3.50 on the weekend.  Coffee has always been my "sacred" untouchable vice.  On an average day I would get a medium DD coffee on the way to work, then a Starbucks tall caffe americano before and then another after teaching my morning class.   My final cup another medium DD coffee would come after teaching my afternoon class around 2 pm.  That’s about $10/day.  I never realized how much I was spending on coffee and don’t get me wrong I am certainly not rich!  So, I decided to cut back to one cup.  I didn’t think I could do it but a week has passed and so far so good

I am now officially working with Noel Clark of Maximum Fitness (http://www.maximumfitnessconsulting.com/).  Many of you know Noel.  She’s a national level NPC figure competitor.  She’s also a member of the Bodybuilding.com community:  http://bodyspace.bodybuilding.com/AUTiger13/ and was amateur fitness competitor of the week a while back.  See URL:  http://www.bodybuilders.com/noelc.htm  She’s also a mom   Amazing!  And now she has started her own personal training business, Maximum Fitness!  Woo! Hoo!   I have admired her for a while (LOL! clearly!) so I am really excited to have the chance to work with and learn from her. 

I have only just begun but already learned a lot.  Noel asked me to take a week off from the gym and I just about jumped out of my skin.  A question she asked on her questionnaire though had already had me thinking.  She had asked when I had last taken time off and well I haven’t in at least 2 years.  I was a bit leery as I have put on - sigh! - quite a bit of weight since my last competition and I am terrified of gaining any more.   I knew I was tired though - no, let’s be honest - bone tired, beat.  So I agreed and it has been a terrific week.  I can’t remember when my body didn’t hurt.  I also can’t remember when I slept -really slept well.  I think this has been a wake up call to me.  I am an A+++ personality and tend to be extreme when I tackle things - it’s all or nothing.  It’s clear to me now that a break every once in a while won’t hurt and may in fact give my body the time it needs to heal.

Change is afoot! LOL!  Yesterday I officially started my diet.  That’s going to be quite different for me, too.  First, Noel is having me eat at maintenance for 2 weeks.  I have been dieting for too long.  Hmmm… a theme here.  Since I know what I had been doing wasn’t working (I have been struggling with binging), making this change is a "no-brainer."  That said eating at maintenance is another challenge for me as inside me someone is screaming:  Don’t eat! Don’t eat! You will get fat."  I know that’s not true intellectually but that doesn’t of course change how I feel inside (afraid).   Second, Noel does it all for you.  She gives you literally a roadmap in terms of what to eat and how much to eat meal-by-meal.  Very different from what I am used to.  My last two coaches gave you macros and then you decided what you wanted to eat.  I believe this new approach may help me in two ways:  First, show me how to properly design a meal - I already have the sense from my emails with Noel that my food choices haven’t been what I will call A-list foods.  My last coach had absolutely no interest in what I ate and I never received any feedback concerning my food choices.  I have agreed to change my wicked vegetarian ways with Noel and am going to eat meat and see whether that gets me where I want to go body-wise/health-wise.  Second, I have a tendency to do things at the last minute - not a planner.  So, my meals are typically thrown together based on what I have and how I feel at the moment and I get the idea that may have led me to make poor food choices that clearly haven’t helped me health and fitness-wise.  Third, the other thing I have already noticed is my plan is rich in healthy oils - nuts, nut butter, and fish oil.  I have been fat-phobic for I don’t know how long.  I love nuts so I am super happy about this. 

I hope you can sense my excitement!  Can’t wait to see what she has planned for me in terms of workouts!  I want legs and abs and shoulders and arms like Noel’s  

Post script:  I was quite excited when I started but my experience with Noel was extremely disappointing.  I do NOT recommend her.  If you are looking to work with her better to work with Erik Ledin of Lean Bodies Consulting, who taught her what she knows. 

I blogged about the Farmers’ Market last summer but it bears revisiting.  Yesterday was the official opening of the Copley Square Farmers’ Market here in Boston.  I had the opening marked in my datebook about a month ago.  I so love the Farmers’ Market.  Likely you have one of these near you and they really are worth checking out.  Basically the idea is that local farmers bring their produce to a central location and sell it to the public.  You will find all kinds of different products at the Farmers’ Market:  of course fruits and veggies, herbs, coffee, tea, fresh eggs (nothing like ‘em! and well worth the price!), cheese, honey, fresh pies, bread, arts and crafts as well.  The prices are usually competitive with Shaw’s and Stop & Shop on the produce and it fresher so it is healthier definitely tastier and best of all you are supporting local farmers.  Good for everyone!

Ours is open Tuesdays and Fridays from about 9 am - 5 pm and I usually go on Tuesday at lunch time and if I plan things right I usually go Friday afternoon just before I catch the commuter to visit my mom on the weekends. 

Yesterday I picked up some fresh herb salad mix and baby bok choy as well as some middle eastern spices (I am half egyptian - my dad).  I usually steam the baby bok choy and top with a spritz of Bragg’s aminos - yum!

I am so glad today’s a new day and it’s a new week, aren’t you?  Both of us have a clean slate and can make a fresh start on things.  That said I am going to give a plug here for the power of reflection. 

Sigh! You would think I know better by now and that I wouldn’t repeat past mistakes. Sigh! But therein lies the conundrum: we are all creatures of habit. When push comes to shove and the pressure is on we revert to those habits that are most deeply ingrained within us. This is the reason it is so important to work hard to form healthy habits and to keep them. For most of you the change of month likely passed without too much notice but for me as I am a professor at a university, January marks the beginning of a new semester. Some of you might think: So what? After all, I made it through the fall semester, right? Yes, but the beginning of the spring semester is quite challenging for most teaching faculty as we really don’t have any time in which to do the prep. Most of us have the summer off or do research so we have ample time to prep for our fall teaching responsibilities but prep for January usually takes place during the last week or so of December during the holiday season as the earlier part of the month our focus is on last lectures, final exam prep and grading. Consequently, the first week of the semester is usually a frenetic dance in which I try desperately to keep all the balls in the air and avoid stepping on my partner’s feet too many times since we are going to be together for the next twelve weeks.

"There are no accidents"
-from Kung Fu Panda, the Movie

 Sigh!  I believe this to be a profoundly true statement.  This weekend I went way off course - so far that there is no way I could call what I did an accident.  It is a stressful time of year - the end of the semester and while that signals a winding down for students for faculty it is anything but that.  We have to prepare and grade exams and prepare our lectures, syllabi, etc. for the next semester all at the same time.  On top of this I decided last month I was going to continue after my last competition of the season to diet down  during the holiday season.  Hmmm…Well, I "binged" though I hesitate to call what I did that.  I ate everything I have been dying to eat for the last six months all weekend long.  I must say that I did it consciously knowing full well what I was doing and doing it anyway because I just wanted to eat, to not track my food, and to eat all the delicious things I haven’t had for what seems like forever. 

I have to say that this has been a real struggle for me in terms of this past year.  When I lost weight on WW no foods were ever forbidden to me and I can truthfully say I never felt deprived and that has been a real issue for me in terms of contest prep.  When I worked with CSF I was truly miserable because everything I enjoyed was forbidden.  Things have been much better with Dr. Joe but there is still that tension there created in part because of the macros I have to make which favor protein and leave me little in terms of carbs which are my preferred foods.   I love cereals, breads, beans - all of the starchy carbs and I can’t "afford" them on my current diet.  I think this is an issue I really need to resolve so I can move forward. 

I cannot tell you how excited and happy I was last week the week before my competition on Saturday November 1st. My feelings were so different from those I had prior to my competition in April. Last April, I was not looking forward to the week before my competition. How could anyone in their sane mind look forward to it when their coach called it “Hell Week.” Hmm… should have told me something wasn’t quite right then and there but I couldn’t see the forest for the trees as they say and I was frankly so brain fried/fogged at that point that well I never could have seen the problem.

Last Saturday I went to a seminar put on by Nancy Andrews about nutrition and competing in bodybuilding and figure in the INBF.  My coach Dr. Joe Klemczewski (URL:  http://www.thedietdoc.com)spoke about his expertise in nutrition and peaking. 

I thought it would be useful for me to summarize what I took away and I thought other folks would find the information valuable as well which is why I am blogging about it today.

First and perhaps most important is to recognize how important nutrition is in terms of your physique.  You cannot out-train poor nutrition.  Nutrition counts for 80% of your success so if you aren’t eating right that’s where you need to start.  Next it is helpful to recognized that what is effective for any individual in terms of weight loss is highly individualistic.  Genetics play a significant role.  Studies typically show a 50% difference in results for folks using any diet (all participants following same program).  This is really important to understand as you can’t blindly follow any program and expect to see success.  What works for you may not work for someone else and more importantly what works for someone else may not work for you!  If you really let this information sink in it is actually quite “freeing” in that you are now better able to give yourself permission to “tweak” things to fit YOU! And that is the only way you will ever be successful.  I speak from experience here by the way – I lost 110 lb on WW.

Second for most women the starting point in establishing a diet is knowing how many calories your body burns on a daily basis.  On average this number, your average metabolic rate, is 1500 calories/day. 

Next you need to portion this based on your need for macronutrients, specifically, protein, healthy fat, and carbohydrates.  When you diet obviously you need to take in fewer calories than your body can burn.  So you don’t suppress your body’s metabolic rate it is best not to go cut more than about 400-500 calories.  If you can it is best to start dieting earlier and to not put on tons of excess weight during the off-season.  This way you can eat more food, do less cardio, and be less hungry while dieting down.  16-weeks is a good time frame to think about.

Women need on average about 70 g of protein a day.  This number goes up of course if you are in fitness, figure, or bodybuilding.  You need protein for muscle but it can also be used for energy.  More importantly more protein isn’t necessarily better.  Excess protein will be converted into glucose and fat.  The flip side is if you consume too little protein you will get cravings for carbohydrates (your body’s normal/preferred energy source) and your metabolism will slow down.  You also need some healthy fat.  Fats are used by the body as your source of energy of last resort.  You shouldn’t be afraid of fats but you want to eat relatively little fat – say 15-20% of your total calories.  97% of fats are immediately converted into bodyfat.  Once carbohydrates are consumed your body looks to fat as an energy source.  Carbohydrates are the biggest variable when setting up a diet. You need them as they are your body’s preferred energy source in order to lose fat successfully.  If you eat too little carbs then your metabolism will stall and your body will never tap stored bodyfat as an energy source.  On average your body can handle about 20-25 g of carbs per meal.  Eat more than that and your body will convert them into bodyfat. 

You will be most successful in losing weight if you consume low glycemic carbs, eat many smaller meals, regularly throughout the day and consume some carbs at most of these meals.  Eating carbs ensures a steady energy supply (keeps the metabolism hummingJ), stable blood sugar level, and greater food saiety.  That said nibbling all day long is not a good idea either as it doesn’t allow time for the blood sugar levels to fall so that the body is forced to access and burn bodyfat.  Be sure to allow between 1.5 and 4/5 h break between meals. 

OK now how does all of this relate to losing weight.  Your liver stores about 160 g of carbohydrates largely in the form of glucose.  When your blood sugar goes down (and you get hungry), your body releases this glucose.  Your muscle tissue also stores carbohydrates in the form of glycogen and when the liver carbs are depleted your body will use this as fuel.  It takes about 2-3 days on average for your body to deplete these stores before it will turn to your bodyfat for fuel.  If you can simply make it through this period, your body is now poised to lose bodyfat.  Unfortunately, it is near the end of this period that folks often end up having difficulties as they experience hunger, headache, fatigue, etc.  and that people end up overeating (binging) which refills the glycogen stores and they give up or they start the whole process all over again without losing any fat. 

It is often useful during the weight loss process to periodically (once a week) increase carbs.  This is valuable because if you eat low carbs for too long you can inadvertently sensitize the body to insulin and slow/stall your weight loss.  Be careful though not to increase the carbs too much though as this will in essence be a binge which as discussed above will slow/stall your weight loss. 

Two last points:  Your body is largely water.  Consequently it is very important to stay hydrated.  You should be drinking water all day. If you are a coffee drinker like I am there is no harm and perhaps even some benefit to drinking coffee.

 References:

• 81% of US 10-year olds are afraid of being fat
• 45% of US women are on a diet on any given day
• 95% of all dieters will regain their lost weight in one to five years
• Americans spend more than $40 Billion on dieting and diet-related products each year
• The average US woman is 5-foot-4 and weighs 140 pounds. The average US model is 5-foot-11 and weighs 117 poundsIn Boston, we have this great free shopping magazine called Lola. I just love it. You never know what you will learn or find in it. In the September issue there was a side bar entitled “Health Watch” that gave some statistics on women and dieting taken from the National Eating Disorders Association. I clipped it and laminated it to use as a bookmark. I thought the statistics (listed at the top of my blog post) are extremely good food for thought (bad pun PAM!) and decided to share those with you today. 

 

One of the first things to go when you are dieting down and one of the first things you lust after is chocolate.  It is simply downright sinful how enticing chocolate can be.  I swear I can smell the stuff at a quarter-mile.  I don’t know about you but I find I do far better on my diet when I don’t forbid/outlaw any foods.  The path to diet destruction, the dreaded binge, in my opinion, is outlawing a food.  This has made me creative in my approach to dieting and I think actually healthier for it.   In the case of chocolate and many of my other favorites I have developed coping skills.  With chocolate the strategy that works best for me has beenn to identify low or so-called no-calorie foods that contain chocolate, are relatively healthful, and taste good.  Here are a couple of chocolate treats you may find help you defeat the chocolate craving and keep you on track with your competition diet, too:HerbaSway crème de chocolat.  (URL:  http://www.herbasway.com/) This is a white tea concentrate containing an infusion of pure cocoa that is sweetened with stevia and lo han fruit – so no artificial sweeteners.  You add a dropper to a glass of water to prepare the tea.  Zero calories and lots of good anti-oxidants.  Yum!  Hits the spot just right for me!  You can buy this online or at any Whole Foods store.Chocolate PB2.  (URL:  http://www.bellplantation.com/) This is a powdered peanut butter that is partially defatted and mixed with cocoa.  Caution folks:  if you love chocolate and peanut butter the buck stops here!  Just mix with small amount of water to reconstitute and create a creamy pnb blend that is perfect on top of a slice of Ezekiel toast in the morning!  12g serving (equivalent to 2 tbsp reconstituted) has 52 calories, 4 g protein, 6 g carbs, 2 g fat, and 4 g sugar.  By the way if you love pnb you might also try PB2 which is their lowfat powdered pnb – warning:  addictive stuff!