TLC: Trust, Love, Consistency

I’m doing OK
*phew*

Jon didn’t like my skins or my posing and decided to rope the lovely Nick Jones in to give me the once over. I’m so glad he did, as Jon doesn’t give much away on the phone, leaving me slightly batty.

I did a absolute killer back and glute workout, with the intensity I’d been missing for over a week. I don’t know if it was the thermofuel or that I was trying to train extra hard so that Nick wouldn’t tell JD I’m a slacker, but I was wrecked by the end.

After my workout Nick got me to pose. I was absolutely beat, shaking and could hardly stand on my heels. Despite this, Nick seemed to think my fat loss is on track and that I could step up for the WNBF, 2 weeks earlier if I wanted. A huge wave of anxiety disappeared instantly.

We also changed all my poses, which will infuriate my posing coach no end. Nick and I had the same opinion on my legs position in my bicep poses and are going legs crossed, which I’ve alway preffered. I’ve really got to try and relax my hands more and ‘hips to the side- shoulders wide’. Those boys are giving me a shoulder complex!

For the next 4 weeks Nick wants me to do 3 rounds of symmetry and 3 rounds of compulsories every day. I’m thinking I’ll video the last round and do it without mirrors so I can see how I’m going. Other than that, I’ve been instructed to stay the course.

I’m back to being excited.

This week my weight has gone up, skins have gone down and my posing is slowly getting better.
I’m a little scared, but in JD we trust. Tomorrow is our weekly meeting. I really feel like I should be doing more, but I’ll have to wait and see.

Today I started my new job. I guess I’m no longer a full time body builder. The upside is I can afford more supps and chicken. The new job should leave me less grumpy than the old one. They’re a really lovely crowd and I’m working with some former clients/contractees which is nice. I always feel weird explaining I’m a figure athlete. So many people have weird ideas about bb.

It’s way past my bedtime and I must finish some freelance work.
Goodnight

As in, if you rattled my brain this would be what would fall out:

Last night I went to bed sick of this whole competing process. I hunkered down and said to the boy ‘only 33 more sleeps and it’s over’. I then slept really badly, my last meal not digesting and my brain turning over and over. However, I’d done one really clever thing before I went to bed. I’d left my blinds just slightly open. I awoke at 6.30am and the sun had started to come out. By 6.55 when Kevin let out his wake-up yap at my window there was glorious golden stream of light coming in. I had my supps, drank my tea and made S’s latte, emptied the dishwasher and grabbed the dog and iPod to do cardio. That’s when I realised all my wishes had come true. 3 months ago when I started my am cardio and it was cold and wet I’d wished for the last 30 days to be beautiful spring weather. The last 2 days we’ve had the most glorious walks. Today I walked up into Brownhill Conservation Park and let Kev run off lead for a bit, much to the telling off of the ranger.

I listened to two very fortuitous (is that the word?) podcasts. The first ‘Feeding Motivation‘ by Gill at Zencast which talked about deciding and feeding areas of right effort and was a generally great reminder of mindfulness practice. This was a great way to walk and had me really noticing the how all my body felt (not just the sore bits). I realised I was feeling strong and healthy and thankful for the opportunity to be out and about.

The second podcast I put on was for my home stretch. I chose The Daily Boost from Motivation to Move. The episode (can’t find which one- sorry) spoke all about consistency. How determination can get you started with anything, but it’s the consistency which really gets you achieving. I thought to myself, how true. I’ve consistently showed up for my cardio every morning, consistency in the diet JD has given me has given me great energy and sense of wellbeing,  consistency is what’s going to get me my next job. I can be as determined as I want, but without the consistency to back it up I’m just starting over again everyday.

It was nice to walk in the door after my walk, and instead of feeling behind, just take the time to do 1 thing at a time and take notice of what I was doing. My breakfast was more delicious (zucchini, watercress and mixed herb fritatta), I finally noticed the subtle sweetness in my Oolong tea that the package mentioned and I’d got the same amount done in the same amount of time that it would have taken but felt better about doing it. (GAWD! you’d think I’d remember this for more than 2 days!!!).

Other cool things:
The herb box and pre-prep: Yesterday I went the markets for some fish and other veg supplies and picked up some cheap herbs from the asian herb lady (Adelaidians will know where I mean). When I got home I had the smarts to wash and rinse each lot and, rather than my usual slide them into ziplocs, I got a 4 section divided container and placed each bunch with their stems removed in a section with a little kitchen paper. This morning I had the most delicious blend of watercress, a pinch of basil, parsley (from my garden), and coriander all mixed into my egg whites. At lunch I’ll be able to grab a handful of each and sprinkle it through my salad and on my fish. I’m in flavour country!

Zucchini: Yesterday’s post is a prelude to my ode to zucchini. Maybe it’s the sunshine, but zucchini is making me happy. They’re not quite in season here yet (trucked in from QLD- my bad), but are already dirt cheap. They’re my new favourite breakfast vegetable. I grated a whole one and fried it up with a little of my flavour mix (pre-chopped spring onion and capsicum) then poured it into my egg white and herb mix and back into the pan to make the most delicious fritatta.

I’ve felt the urge to get back into sketch journaling again. I’m hoping this will help me find my creative mojo a bit more and a little peace and quiet in my comp addled mind.

Weird things:
Figure competing is a weird sport. I was chatting to the boy in bed the other night about my lack of mojo; the Austin Powers kind, not the aforementioned kind, and best explained it as the following. I feel a strange sense of conflict with my body image. By all normal sense of normality (huh?) I’ve got a lean, hot body. The boy tries to tell me this everyday and I know this is true. However, I don’t have a body which is yet ready to step on stage and be competitive. My goal is to have this competitive body, which in a sense means I need to be dissatisfied with the body I have. Am I? At many stages I’ve looked in the mirror and said this is where I want to be after I’m done. Boy pointed out that if this wasn’t for a competition goal then this would be the thought process of eating dissorder. Scary, but hopefully not the case. I think last night’s countdown wasn’t anything more than 33 days and I can appreciate what I’ve achieved. Typing this I realise that there’s nothing from appreciating what I’ve achieved already. I then worry about my motivation. THIS is where consistency takes over from determination……… and my whole post is wrapped up nicely!
Thanks blog.

Started this morning doing my intervals on the beach at Brighton. The wind was fierce so reaching the heart-rate goals JD set was easy. It was nice to have a change of scenery from the local block or treadmill. Afterwards we went for breakfast at a cafe on Jetty Rd, as we do every saturday morning. I’ve been eating breaky before we go out so that I get in exactly what JD prescribes but this week I hadn’t done my cardio so I packed a scoop of whey into my shaker and left the rest up to the cafe gods. I ordered a double serve of spinach and 2 poached eggs. I was counting on the eggs to be their usual non-runny mediocre selves but they were quite soft which meant it was tricky to do 1 whole, 1 white. They were really great and didn’t put any butter on my spinach and mixed heaps of tasty parsley through instead for flavour. WINNER!

Got home and got S to do skinfolds measurements for me. Compared with the skinfolds and measurements Joe did for me at the begining of the month I’m a little unsure about the accuracy of the skinfolds as they are LOW (I got a few 1’s and 2’s) so I’ll have to wait until JD sends me instructions to do the measurements his way. Tape measurements are all down too, some areas I’ve dropped 3-4cm, no wonder everything’s not fitting right even though the scales haven’t moved in weeks. WINNER!

I’ve discovered that skate makes for a tasty alternative to chicken when cooked as fajita filling with onions, coriander and cumin and mixed with spring onions (scallions) and coriander leaves (cilantro). Shame I don’t get to eat either rice, beans or tortillas on my current diet. It was nice with salsa, salad and avocado though. Who’d though stingray would taste good!? WINNER

It was Super Saturday at Aussie Muscle so I scored all my supps at 10% discount, plus a good deal on Gen-Tec Glutamine Creatine combo. Plus compliments from the lovely Sean on my shoulders, arms and traps. Like everyone else says, "You’ll do awesome…. if you can lean-out in time" (That phrase is doing my head in!!!!) WINNER-I think?

I took more progress photos this week too. They really highlight the crappiness of my posing, my non-existant boobs and my shrinking legs and butt. I’m not sure whether I’m going to keep uploading photos. I might just post them all retrospectively after the comp.

I’m feeling a bit fluey today so I’m glad I got some new glutamine. Oooh it’s 5 O’clock time for a lemon, poppyseed and zucchini muffin(ish) and my fish caps. Recipe tomorrow.

I just completed a nice long posing session. I put on the 2007 INBA all female DVD and posed along to all the madatories and then set my iPod to repeat and worked through my routine 10 or so times. I never understood when competitors said they were sore from posing practice, but let me tell you, I was getting sore. The first half of my routine is looking really good but I just haven’t got a good feel for what I’m doing in the second half. Luckily I’ve booked an extra session with Mareike so I can sure things up a bit more.

Yesterday was my first day in the gym with my new program from JD. I looked at it with contempt, a glute and ham day without any deadlfiing or squatting is foreign to me. But let me tell you, it got the job done. The workout also started with a back focus. It called for assisted chins, but when I walked into the gym (different gym from usual) and looked at the machine, it beckoned me to try a BW chin. No worries. I knocked out 4 in a row! Before my accident I could only do 2, hence there was a bit of a grin and a happy dance performed, much to the amusement of my fellow trainees. Today the whole back of me, shoulders to calves is telling me I worked hard. What was really nice was that I even had time for a sauna and steam afterwards.

I almost skipped the whole session because I was feeling so flat. My chiro/natro, upon examining me, told me I wasn’t getting enough sleep, and he was right. I’d bounced out of bed at 5.30am that morning feeling wide awake (no cardio was even scheduled so it was a waste of sleep time) and couldn’t get back to sleep. After my chiro visit though, I felt so flat, I was ready to drive straight home but couldn’t get in contact with the boy to see if he needed a ride so I figured I’d just try. Lucky I did, I think weights went up on everything. I came home and cooked an amazing fish stew and fell into bed salty (over salted dinner) and tired.

The fish stew was awesome so here’s the recipe:
2 serves

110g skate, cubed
4 big green prawns (shrimp)
1/2 onion, finely sliced
1 clove garlic
1/4 red capsicum (bell pepper), finely diced
125g tinned tomatoes, diced
a pinch of smoked paprika
a pinch of ground fennel seed
a pinch of saffron
2/3 cup, canned, cannellini beans
1/2 cup fish stock
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
cooking oil spray

Lightly spray a non-stick skillet/wok and saute the onion for 5-8 minutes or until soft. Add in the garlic and capsicum and saute for a further 2 minutes. Add a drizzle of stock if your pan is getting too dry.
Add in the tomatoes and spices and simmer until reduced 2/3 and a thick paste is formed.
Stir in the fish stock.
Add in the seafood and beans and simmer, covered, for 5 minutes.
Stir through the fish sauce and basil and season to taste.

Serve with the mandatory green beans and broccoli. Sprinkle with a little Parmesan cheese if you’re braver than me.

In other exciting news, we got a new microwave today. Meaning I may not die from eating the melted glad wrap that was getting deposited on my raw food WFT!? The new one claims to defrost chicken boobs super quick and be able to roast meats. We’ll see.

Finally, after a lot of fiddling around I’ve managed to catch up with JD from pepared to win, who will be helping me to look awesome on stage. Nick was getting way to busy and couldn’t make the time for me unfortunately. JD’s tone was a lot more serious than Nick’s and he instilled the required fear and seriousness into me. I’d been slipping enough on my diet over the last few weeks for me not be making progress. It was a tight diet by normal standards but not really for 7 weeks out from a comp. I went to bed fearing the worst, waiting for my diet and exercise plan to come through.

This morning’s been a pensive one, I was waiting for ‘the email’ and also for my delivery from bb.com with my Xtend (I’m an addict). The email came and it was all pretty straight forward. Much, much less cardio than I was doing (poor hound) and the weights program will need to be printed and carried with me as it’s a strange mix of things. Lots of shoulders and glutes.  I’m still making sense of it all, but as expected feel a huge sense of relief.

Now it’s time to give it 100%, no more BLT (bight, lick, taste).

It’s been a while between posts. Probably because I quit my job and now have much less time on my hands to sit and surf the internet all day. As my new coach says, I’m a full-time body builder. I do keep telling him I looking for work. I’ll keep telling myself that too. I’m really exhausted most of the time though.

So, yes, I have exciting news. I am now being looked after by Nick Jones from Prepaired2win. I met up with him this morning and he had a look at what I was doing so far and thinks I’m doing well on paper. Friday, he wants to poke, prod and pose me to see where I’m really at. I’m a little scared, after all, he is several times world champion. He seemed to think everything I had set up should see me succeed but I really need the 2nd opinion and his experience. If I don’t have to think about being a bb all day maybe I’ll have time to look for work.

I got the first half of my posing routine last week, and it’s awesome, but not easy. I’ve been practicing hard to make it look half decent. I get my other half and the verdict on whether it’s all gonna suck, tomorrow.

This week I switched to a 3 day split to try and give myself a bit more rest and cardio time, but realised half way through both workouts I prefer my 5 day split. I can be much more focused. Nick entirely agreed with me and will be doing something along those lines for me. He even promised me a rest day (the kind without cardio), but we’ll see what he makes of my physique before I get my hopes up too high.

After many a saga, I’ve finally finalised the material for my bikini. I put it in the post today. It’s not the sexy glittery raspberry velvet I had originally hoped, and is much girlier than I am, but I think I’m happy with it. D’oh, forgot to keep a swatch to match makeup and accessories to!

I uploaded last week’s progress photos the other day, so you can all wonder over to my bodyspace and see those. I look flatter (more carbs) but I think the legs are coming out. It’ll be so much nicer to have someone else worry about these things.

The older I get, the more I realise, the less I know.

I’ve been reading the forums over at Lindy Olsen’s website, which are inhabited by Australia’s finest and friendliest figure athletes, and I’ve come to the conclusion both of the above statements describe my contest prep.

So far I’ve been preparing pretty much on my own and at first anxiety drove me almost mad, and I was often changing tack. Luckily I’m not entirely stupid and realised this was getting me nowhere. So from the reaches of my intelligence I’ve been working on a process of Review, Plan, Do. Recording as many stats as possible daily, reviewing them weekly and getting on with each planned meal and workout whether I feel like it or not.

I’ve learnt a lot of things about my body. How much sleep, water, fiborous carbs, greens, caffeine and other sups my body needs and how it responds to each. I’ve been using this information to make adjustments each week and it’s taken the anxiety out of my prep. I am doing the best that I know how to do and am almost always pleased with the results.

However, this can be looked at in a 2nd way. After all I’ve never competed in a Figure competition before. I’m like the small business person who buys Photoshop and call themselves a designer. 90% of the time I look at the results of these self-guided efforts and as a professional designer it makes me shudder. So my deepest apologies to any of you who are reading and shuddering. I have the deepest respect for your profession.

Back in May I looked into getting an online coach to help me through the process. I then started to get murmurs about the instability of my job. Good coaches don’t come cheap and I made the ignorant decision to go it alone. As documented here, I ran myself into the ground a bit but then figured out a balance which would make me a healthier happier athlete. I actually quit my job last week, as it was leading me to a not very healthy state of mind. You only get to live every minute once in your life and I was wishing for 8.5hrs of them to pass. Time machines don’t exist in either sense though, if I could go back and hire a coach (now fully booked) I would.

I have been able to stay objective. I think it’s the lighting in my bathroom, it’s like a free fake-tan, shows my lumps and bumps nicely. I’m thankful for this, as I’ve realised figure prep is not maths! Trusting my optimistic eyes is weird though as I don’t really know what to expect, week to week. I know if I’m seeing changes, my muscles are still a size I’m happy with but I’ve started to realise I’m a pilot coming into land without any instruments . Flying up here in the clouds is fine but I could stick the landing safely, land in the paddock before the runway, or go shooting right off the end of the runway.

I make it sound like I’m stressing about this. I’m more resigned to my situation and committed to forge forward. I’m having a fantastic time with my training and love waking up every morning feeling lean and muscular. I have confidence in my diet and my training. However, 9 weeks out I’m on the hunt for something to use as my speedometer coming into land.

… ramble, ramble

In trying to fit almost 3 hours worth of extra stuff into my day (posing, cardio, weights) I’ve been looking at rejigging my schedule. One of my ideas was to get back to cycling to work. After all, it’s the fastest way to get to work and it ticks the cardio box nicely. I stopped cycling a few weeks back as I was feeling way to carb depleted to handle it.
This morning I made adjustments to my breakfast to include some oats, ameranth and buckwheat porridge to power the bike. Breaky was still 300 calories-ish but just different macros. Sucked down my new pre-workout combo of BCAAs, l-tryosine, creatine, glutamine & alca and off I went.

I intentionally took it pretty easy and averaged about 22km/h (about a 15% reduction on my usual speed). Made it to the gym in one piece and pushed through my chest workout in an acceptable but not awesome style. I’d left my Xtend in the bottle on my bike, locked downstairs, outside the gym so made do with water. Exactly 59 minutes into my workout  (and my second to last set) all sense of strength was zapped. Finished up, showered and changed and downed my Xtend as quick as possible to see if I could reverse the zombie’s curse.

The first hour of work was a write off, even after having my post-workout meal of chicken, veg and pearl barley. Then I realised, woah am I thirsty. I must have downed 1 litre of water in half an hour. Magic, the zombies curse lifted.

At lunchtime I decided I’d better make sure I could get back home again, as I don’t have time to get the train tonight, so I ducked across to the supermarket and bought a big bag of frozen brocolli and cauliflower to add to my snack (kangaroo pattie). Yuck, there is NO FLAVOUR in supermarket frozen veg, but hopefully the extra greens should keep me rolling through to the afternoon a bit more evenly.At first I was stressing it was outside of my scheduled meals, but then I came to my senses and realised half a bag of broccoli is 50calories of fibre, hardly a determent!

So next time I’m feeling like death:
water
green veg
take a nap (not an option at work)
glutamine

I’m slowly learning from this science experiment!

In other exciting news, I did a quick and probably inaccurate self caliper measurement and wound up with 13.5%. Tomorrow, Joe will do proper measurements for me but things are looking up. May even increase calories slightly.

It’s Thursday, which means progress photos.
I’m pretty happy with how things are coming along. You can see the rest of my photos on my bodyspace, but here’s one my boy couldn’t resist.