fluteangel’s BodyBlog

Every day I am shocked at my new found definition!!!  This plan is killer, but I LOVE the results.  I just got back from the gym about 30 minutes ago and right before I left I stripped down and just gaped at myself in the mirror! It’s been one week of the Davies fitness/diet plan and I am astounded with how quickly I am leaning out! I have abs without flexing! I have ripped, cut arms without flexing! My back is HOT! WOO HOO!!!! These are the results I”ve wanted to see for sooo long and couldn’t figure out how, and I’m wondering if I lean out this quickly in a week, am I doing it too soon when my show is August 1?

Ok, so couple of things I’ve noticed:
1) I’m tired almost all the time. I used to have boundless energy - nuh-uh. I’ve started taking Venom Hyperdrive 3.0, due to the rave revues and well, I haven’t seen ANY of the energy it promises. I took it with just fruit before my morning workout earlier this week and get this, not only did I feel slightly light headed, I yawned the ENTIRE time! Is it possible something like this could make me more tired?

2) I feel like I’m eating a TON of food. I’m never hungry for my meals and the thought of eating actually makes me slightly nauseous. Normal or not? 1 cup of oatmeal is a LOT at one time.

3) My pee has the most terrible smell…must be that asparagus phenomenon.

4) I’m not sleeping well.  I usually sleep like a rock.  I take my melatonin and Arginine and I’m out.  Now my brain won’t stop and I can’t stay down.

Gonna ask Mike about this. I feel like I bother him with questions every day, he’s so kind to answer me, but you know, I want to be taught, not just told.

I’ll get pics up as soon as I can!

As of tomorrow, it will have been one week that I will have been on Mike Davies’ contest prep diet and workout plan.  I am VERY pleased with how my body is responding, and how quickly, too!  The workouts are KILLER, but interesting, and loaded with plyometrics, which I HATE, and the cardio is the same way.

The diet is crazy.  He says he’s trying to deplete me so I could have a chance at competing in the Dexter Jackson Classic, which I really want to do.  It’s been one week and I’m down 3 lbs., no idea about inches, but I’m seeing definition I’ve never seen before (arms, back are ripped, abs area flatter, great serratus showing and hams are finally firming up!).  The diet is well, a lot of things.  At times, I really like it for its simplicity, not having to think about what to eat, and its consistancy.  A lot of other times, I feel like I’m eating SOOOO much, I really miss variety and eating fish at 10:30 AM is really difficult.  I miss my fruit, too.  And I have so many questions like: why only oats, roughy or flounder?  Why not mahi?  Why not sweet potatoes?  Why do I have oats after working out and no protein powder or simple carbs?  I could go on and on…  So here goes the diet:

Wake up: Drink 16 oz. water, take thermos and vitamins.

Eat a small grapefruit or apple or 1 1/2 cup of strawberries before training

Train/Cardio (50minutes/30-45 minutes)

Meal 1: 4 egg whites and 1 whole egg, 1 cup of oats  (unless I don’t have time to do evening cardio, then I leave out the  eggs)

Meal 2: 5 oz. flounder or roughy with 8 asparagus spears with glutamine and b-complex

Meal 3: 5 oz. chicken and 10 almonds with 1/3 cup oats and 2000 mgs of vitamin C

Meal 4: 3 oz. tuna, rinsed and 1 egg white

Meal 5: 6 oz. flounder or roughy with another 8 asparagus spears

Cardio (if time, so not on days I work two jobs): 10 minutes of stairmill followed by 20 min. walking 3 nights, Two days bike 30 minutes

Meal 6: 1/2 cup oats with 30g whey protein with b-complex and glutamine

Snack: 4-6 oz. roughy or flounder with 8 asparagus spears

Snack: Sugar free popcicle, jell-o or pudding only if you’re hungry (haven’t done any of these!!!)

Minimum 2 gallons water daily (only made it once.  Still trying, but usually get to about 1 1/2 gallons.  It’s tough!)

7-9 hours sleep per night and 8-10 on weekends if at all possible.
I’ve been averaging 6 hours of sleep a night and it’s killing me, because I don’t function optimally on normal circumstances with less than 8 hours, but when I get off work two nights a week at 9:30, so I’m not in bed till after 10 and I have to get up at 5 to make it to the gym, it’s REALLY tough, and it’s taking a toll on me.  That coupled with the stress of my jobs (I deal in retail with STUPID tourists, I swear, the questions I get…) I know I"m not doing the best I can.

So I’m kind of on a working vacation right  now.  I’m in Gatlinburg, TN with the Army doing our two-week summer camp.  This means I have a lot of extra time and I’ll be able to not only work out twice a day like I couldn’t before, but I’ll get to sleep like I need to!  I got here at 2 AM, woke up at 6 and couldn’t sleep, but this afternoon I took a really hard nap for over 2 hours and I’m still wiped out, so I have a good feeling about tonight.

Yesterday I bought and cooked a butt-load of fish and chicken and asparagus and it was a huge pain.  I packed all my food with me for the ten days I’ll be gone (minus the eggs, but I can get those later) but I get here and I’m really grateful to have gotten the last fridge, but it’s TINY, so all my food doesn’t fit!  So I’ve got one of my cooler bags packed with ice cubes from the vending machine and praying that the fish doesn’t thaw before I can eat enough out of the fridge to put it in there!  No microwave either, I keep having to go down to the front desk and asking them to microwave my meals for me.  Maybe they’ll finally get tired of it and send me one. I’m finally seeing some results and I’m so excited about that!  I can see my definition finally, and I have a feeling I was right about my body responding quickly: I feel like I put on muscle easily, and now I see that with the right diet, I can take it off quickly, too!

I"m getting lots of support from my comrades in my unit, my brother and my husband, but it’s hard not to be able to talk about it a lot to my family because they don’t approve of me walking on stage in front of people due to modesty reasons. IT’s something I’m dealing with, being a Christian and not wanting people to look at me lewdly - I just want to show off my muscles and hard work and bring God the glory for the body he gave me, for the temple he has in me to live in. Paul says in the Bible that he beats his body, to bring it into submission - this could be considered that, and God praises determination, dedication, hard work and says that a worker is worthy of his wages and especially that our bodies are a temple for God.  I feel like when people are fat and they are gluttonous (which is a sin) and don’t take care of themselves, they are not honoring God with their bodies.  I want to honor God with my body - not only health-wise, but by inspiring others to take their health in their own hands, to push myself beyond my own pre-conceived limits of dedication, saying "no" and overcoming the mental challenge of competing.  I can look at food now and not have any cravings, at all!  I look at fudge, cookies, pizza, shoot, even Dairy Queen Blizzards and think only about how bad it is, think it’s gross and not be tempted by it.  I am eating cold fish, sparagus, chicken, even oatmeal and not having a problem with it.  For the first time food isn’t about taste.  Sometimes I want to gag, but I know at the end of this, God will have worked a marvelous wonder in me to make me a better person.  So that’s how I’m looking at all this!

Well, this Sunday I finally made a decision, took the plunge…and hired Mike Davies to do my contest prep workout and diet.  He said he’d try to get my diet to me this Sunday and I can’t wait!  Really, the sooner it gets here the better, because the sooner I can start it!

Life has been crazy.  Joe (my husband) started a new job at Target, making half of what he used to make, but he really actually likes it better and now he has time to work on his degree.  I’m working crazy hours at all my jobs.  30 hours a week at Smoothie King, 10-15 at Vitamin Shoppe and Monday afternoons I teach lessons.  My stress level has gone up (unfortunately) working at the King and the last two days has been really rough.  I work with a bunch of 15 year olds who don’t know the meaning of "pro-active" and being manager, I’m tired of playing babysitter and CONSTANTLY telling them what to do.  Today I was by myself for the first two hours, usually fine because we’re dead, but that second hour, without warning, and entire baseball team and their families all came in.  There were 14 people in there and each of them ordered no less than 4 smoothies a piece!  I was by myself and at one point it really got to me and I just broke down and cried in front of all of them.  I felt so silly, but honestly, I couldn’t handle it all by myself and there was no end in sight.  When they were gone and it was all over, the adrenaline left my body and I was left totally exhausted.  Most of the rest of my day was a fog; I didn’t want to talk to anyone or deal with customers and their stupid questions (i.e. "do you just have a regular smoothie?"  What the crap is THAT?!).

On a positive note, I feel like I"ve made some real progress in the gym.  Today was overkill.  I knew I shouldn’t have gone this morning - I didn’t really want to work my back and shoulders, and my middle delts were still sore from two days ago.  I did super-slow super sets (7 counts up, 7 counts down lat raises and upright rows) and I’ve been doing cardio every day, incroporating more sprints into my workouts.  I see a lot more definition than I’ve seen before. While my weight is still about the same, my bodyfat (according to the scale) seems about the same, I know I’ve lost the rest of the cruise water weight and I feel like my muscles are growing - my shoulders are huge! I love it!  I can’t wait till I get more definition in my abs and the cellulite dissapears on my hams and glutes.  Back to today, I had no desire to be in the gym, zero energy, zero enthusiasm.  Funny enough, I had more energy when I left work, so I did 45 minutes of cardio afterwards.

I WILL be a figure competitor and I will look darn good doing it!

So forget about that trainer - he wasn’t very personable and I don’t appreciate people who don’t take the time to really get to know me because they’re too busy for their own good and then call me a liar.

Last week I went on a cruise vacation - the vacation was extremely needed, however, the 11 lb. weight gain was not.  I knew something like that would happen.  I tried to keep my food choices as healthy as possible, but towards the end of the cruise, I just gave in and wanted to try stuff and ended up overeating to the point of pain.  REALLY stupid, I know.  What bothers me is how long it’s taking the weight to come off!  I’ve been taking the Vitamin Shoppe diuretic, eating clean and I’ve dropped my calories back down, so far I’m at 127.6 today, down from 133 on Monday, when I went on the cruise I was 122.  Frustrating.  Any ideas on what to do?

I’ve figured out there is probably no way to do the Dexter Jackson classic.  Not enough time to drop my bodyfat, especially with my limited knowledge.  I feel like I’m in decent shape (except for the extra weight I put on) and if I could just get the body fat off, my muscles would show through like no other - I’m so proud of them!  I’ve been eating a lot of fruit (It’s healthy, cheap and in season), is that bad?  My carbs are still under 200, with about 40 grams of fiber per day and 1.5g per pound of bw of protein a day.  I’m drinking a lot of water too, shooting for 1 gallon a day.  I get up at 5 AM to workout and three days a week I work two jobs so I’m on my feet for 12 hours or so, so I’m sure that contributes to it.  I’m trying to lower my stress (with all the jobs and my husband having lost his, it’s hard) and I’m getting a massage tomorrow (got one on the cruise too!).  Any ideas?!?

THank you everyone for your encouragement!  I WILL compete, it’s just a matter of when.