TLC: Trust, Love, Consistency

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

I’m feeling so pumped to get into the gym.
I know I said I wasn’t gonna hit the gym until Monday, but after yesterday off and seeing my progress pics, along with a solid night’s sleep I’m literally watching the clock for my lunch break. IT"S BACK DAY, yum! I know if I go now the gym will be packed. Can I really wait another half hour!!?

I’m also a little excited because I’m meeting with my suit maker tomorrow. Eeek! It’s really happening… I’m gonna compete!

A big thanks as always to V for her wonderful advice and to everyone who’s dropped by and like my abs. I actually haven’t done any ab work in 3 months, just pilates…. go figure.

Just back from my posing lesson, it was a lot less scary than I imagined. Though I’m not sure I’m going to remember it all.  Wobbly on my feet was certainly the best way to describe me. My heels felt very different on hard wood floors than they do on our loungeroom carpet.

My favourite part was when I was told "you just put your arms like this; then do the lat thing". Erm… the lat thing is what you’re supposed to be showing me! Apparently I did ok on the lat thing and my abs are going to be my feature in my routine. Who’d have thought I’d have abs, but there they were smiling back at me.

I’ve been instructed to go through the poses along with my All Female Classic DVD and do all the turns and stuff until I know them inside out. I also need to find somewhere non carpeted to practice which is either my tiny kitchen or the garage. Garage would be fine in summer, but it’s mid-winter here!

Every time I meet with a new person about my figure conquest I have this secret self destructive desire that they’ll tell me I can’t do it. Every time, they only have encouraging words. Most of the time I entirely believe in myself. When I’m talking to the boy or my Dad about it I’m almost cocky in my optimism, after all what do they know about figures. For my reckoning I’ve cleared my last ‘expert’ until I step on stage.

I’m feeling more, and less, like a poser every day.

After all my complaining yesterday about my shocking workouts, I am taking V’s advice and calling in rest. No weights until Monday and I’m really going to force myself to only do my morning dog walk. Problem is, it’s sunny and not windy, perfect bike riding weather.

In reality I haven’t had a rest week in at least 13 weeks. My body always starts beating me up at this time. The timing isn’t awesome but if I come back super energised then I’ll be able to pound out some really awesome training next week and I’ll be in a much happier space. Right now I’m forcing myself through all this and it’s no fun.

Dog walking+super doses of glutamine+ 9hrs sleep x 4 days= a new me

Also, I meet with Mareike my posing coach, today for the first time. I’m a little scared.

My last few workout with Joe, my trainer, have left me feeling a little lack-luster. We trained shoulders last night and i just couldn’t get my head into the right space, again. I love training shoulders and left feeling disappointed. I think I like setting my own pace in the gym and working through the weight and reps that I know I can do. On the other hand I love having someone there to help me get out that last 2 reps that I just can’t do myself. I’ve got about 3 more sessions with Joe paid for and I’ll feel guilty if I don’t keep training with him up until my comp, but I just don’t see the benefits right now. All this being said, I’ve had generally unfocussed and weak workouts for about a week now, hopefully it’s just a monthly problem and I’ll be firing again next week. I sure hope so, I can’t handle feeling weak for much longer. On a contradictory note, I’ve also been thinking it’s time to start chatting with more of my co-gym rats. We’ve all trained together for ages and I’m always to shy to say hello.

I’m on day 2/3 of the no caffeine, no chilli, no AS (in addition to my other no wheat, no dairy) and I’ve failed on the no AS and no chilli fronts. When no chilli means, no paprika or chilli I’m just stuffed. Lemon juice, salt and smoked paprika are my staple chicken seasonings. I’m going to have to check how much paprika counts. The no AS (artificle sweetner) is something I would have thought would be a breeze; and it would be, if it weren’t for Xtend. I tried taking BCAA capsules instead but the Xtend has all sorts of other goodies which are just to nice to avoid. Again I’ll be querying this one.

On the no coffee front, I think this was an excellent idea. At 6am I thought it was a lousy idea, but I have slept really well the last few days and anxiety levels are right down. I think I was getting really used to the caffeine and thermofuel wasn’t as fun as it was when I started. Hopefully this means when I’m back on it in a month it will all be magic again. In the meantime my new pre-workout stack is BCAAs, glutamine (must buy more), tyrosine capsules, acytle L-carnatine and creatine. Without a scoop of Xtend in this mix it’s truely gag worthy. I’m also trying to get back on the green tea and have just started taking spuralina powder.

This morning’s workout was only so-so as I didn’t really get enough sleep last night; quality- excellent, quantity-poor. It took me the whole workout to figure out why I wasn’t on the game, so sleep is back on my priority list. After my workout I picked up some berocca high performance, which is what I’ve been using as my multi-vitamin. In all the fandangle of my other sups I’d run out and forgotten about it. The combo of a berocca and a pot of green tea was just what i needed to get my energy back and I’m very glad I didn’t cave on the coffee.

Reading the results from last year’s SA INBA show I noticed that there is an award for ‘most potential’. Normally I squirm at such things, but I really want this one. This is my goal. My body is looking awesome, but I just don’t know where my left delt is going to come from. So my plan is to step on stage absolutely smokin’ and get that award….. That or they need a new category for most deformed!

Tonight, it’s back to Dr Frank for more crunching, poking and worried looks. He does claim to have a plan for my left delt, but (un)fortunately he only works on a whole body basis (kinda why I chose him). I donated blood at the Red Cross yesterday in an effort to find out my blood type. I won’t know this until next week and then he’s going to start blood typing my diet. I’m not sure how I feel about this, but anything is worth a shot and my body is my science experiment.

Are you having a good day or a bad one? How about your workout? Are people hassling you at work?Too much to get done?

How you perceive all of the above has much more importance than what’s happened. If you got all that crazy work done, or even planned how you’re going to get through it then why isn’t this a good day? If you even made it to the gym, you did better than a lot of people. If you resisted the urge to crawl under your desk, well done!

So, if you’re having a bad day, what are the good bits?

If you’re having a good day, stay focused, stay strong and create your future.

Me? I’m flat out, but I had a lovely 45min walk with the hound this morning and I’ve got Pilates at lunchtime and the best shoulder workout of my life this evening.

Last night I was in the foulest mood. My ankle was absolutely killing me and I couldn’t walk on it without my boot on. Boy’s first opinion when he picked me up from work was that I need an X-ray, but at that point I wasn’t feeling too bad. An hour later he’d got to me and I was starting to loose it. What IF my ankle was broken? I was starting to feel like such a failure. I yelled at the hound, who was just trying to be caring. I yelled at the boy, who was cooking me a tasty, clean meal. I hung my head and shoveled my dinner and grumbled off to bed.

Lying there feeling foul, I wanted chocolate. I NEEDED chocolate. F-it if I was going to have stuffed ankle then I could eat chocolate. There MUST be chocolate somewhere in my house. Wow! I’m not much of a chocolate person, but this was getting crazy. Then I remembered the free samples Well Naturally sent me. It included 1 bar of sugar free 70% cocoa dark chocolate. I crawled from bed (literally) to the other end of the house and broke of 1 square. Hmmm orange flavoured chocolate, oh well. Then I read the back of the packet. Yeeehah! I could have had the whole bar and still been within my calories (macros were out). I broke of another 2 more squares, to make half a bar (100 calories) and crawled back into bed. You know what? I felt so much better! I know chocolate doesn’t buy happiness, but right then I was so pleased to have my dark chocolate, my electric blanket and not to have blown my calories I slept like a baby.

Good news is that I woke up this morning and almost all the swelling on my ankle had gone down. I’d love to say it was the chocolate, but bed rest and glutamine are more likely responsible. Boy poked at it again and there was almost no pain so his orders (he’s a Nurse Practitioner) were to keep it strapped, elevated and iced for the rest of the day; and to not run any marathons. The poor hound was a little upset by the whole thing, especially when he got locked in time-out (the laundry) for bugging me about his walk. The upside of it all was that I was in bed by 9.30pm and got over 9 hours sleep which is a record for me.

I woke up this morning to a jaw dropping surprise on the scales (TTOM is now over and done with). I’m down over a kg in a week (I even ate some rice last night, go figure). I didn’t feel like questioning my scales too hard so didn’t go back to check my hydration levels but am glad my scales are catching up with my mirror and belt!

If I’m not too sore by the end of the day I’m going to see if I can get my bi-tri-ab workout done tonight. I’ll have to do something horrible like rowing for my warm-up. Then I’m faced with a monster busy weekend in which I’ve promised Joe I’ll fit a leg workout.

Don’t remind me about the half a block of 70% chocolate with a hint of Valencia Orange Oil sitting in my gym crate.

Found this great article on achieving goals and thought I’d share the key points:
So many of these things are ringing true to me.

There are 7 lessons from my story that I want to share with you because even if you have a different personal history than I do, these 7 lessons are the keys to achieving any previously elusive fitness goal for the first time and I think they apply to everyone.

1. Set the big goal and go for it. If your goal doesn’t excite you and scare you at the same time, your goal is too small. If you don’t feel fear or uncertainty, you’re inside your comfort zone. Puny goals aren’t motivating. Sometimes it takes a competition or a big challenge of some kind to get your blood boiling.

2. Align your values with your goals. I understood my values and made a decision to be congruent with who I really was and who I wanted to be. When you know your values, get your priorities straight and align your goals with your values, then doing what it takes is easy.

3. Do the math. Stop looking for magic. A lean body does not come from any particular type of exercise or foods per se, it’s the calories burned vs calories consumed that determines fat loss or fat gain. You might do better by decreasing the calories consumed, whereas I depended more on increasing the calories burned, but either way, it’s still a math equation. Deny it at your own risk.

4. Get social support. Support and encouragement from your friends can help get you through anything. Real time accountability to a training partner or trainer can make all the difference.

5. Be consistent. Nothing will ever work if you don’t work at it every day. Sporadic efforts don’t just produce sporadic results, sometimes they produce zero results.

6. Persist through difficulty and self doubt. If you think it’s going to be smooth sailing all the way with no ups and downs, you’re fooling yourself.. For every sunny day, there’s going to be a storm. If you can’t weather the storms, you’ll never reach new shores.

7. Redeem yourself. Non-achievers sit on the couch and wallow in past failures. Winners use past failures as motivational rocket fuel. It always feels good to achieve a goal, but nothing feels as good as achieving a goal with redemption.

I’m still a little sniffly from my cold but managed a massive chest workout yesterday. The focus Joe had me at on back day totally followed through and now I’m sore right through my upper body. My cripple side even feel strong and sore. I love it when I know I’ve got my training right.

I’ve spent the day reading the contest prep forum and am now shitting myself over whether I’m going to be ready in time. I can’t find anywhere what BF a chick should be aiming for, but I’m thinking I want 9.5%. I’m considering doing the WNBF show 2 weeks beforehand and want to step up somewhere in the 10’s for that. Which gives me 13 weeks to loose just under 8% or 7kg of fat (534g/week or 4118cals/week).
I’m a little nervous about lowering my calories too drastically because I’ve spent the last 5 months eating 1700 calories and not really loosing any weight. I’ve upped to 1800-2000 for the last week and my weight is the lowest it’s been without being on a nasty low-carb bender and is still falling. I want to do this competing, but I want to do it and feel strong and happy too. About this time last year I embarked on a cut with daily bike riding, weight training, and 1600 cals and it did nothing but leave me tired, grumpy, sick and no skinnier. That’s the last thing I want. Weird thing was my post-workout nutrition was spot on then and everything. I’m blaming my solid diet of broccoli as a sole carb source other than my pwo-carbs. I don’t remember ever carbing up either….. Time to carb up actually.
So far what has worked:
Morning walks fuelled by creatine, glutamine and BCAA’s and an over energetic Border Collie with a passion for steep hills. I need to start wearing my HRM and logging calories for these walks but last time I did I was coming in at about 150 cals a walk.
Cut out almost all high intensity cardio, resulting in more energy and strength in my weights sessions and therefor better recovery for my shoulder problem. I’ve ridden my bike to work twice and both times taken the train home because I’ve been too exhausted and want to/use the excuse that… I need to look after myself and not overtrain. Keeping tabs on myself and how I’m really feeling (and why) seems to make my mood more stable and drive more consistant. I really want to maintain this.
Started eating carbs. Mmmm all carbs except rice rock my world. Rice and me will have to wait until post-comp to figure out our differences. I’ve been keeping my carbs at an equal ratio to my protien and it’s been great for my energy levels. I am willing to sacrifice every gram of fat (minus my beloved fish caps) to keep this awesome balance.
The plan for next week:
Reduce calorie intake to 1650 (creates a 300 cal deficit by diet)
Do 1 HIIT session when this cold is gone- 21 minutes: 1 minutes jog, 30 seconds sprints (est burn:400cals)
Do 5-6 weight sessions (talking to Joe about program on Saturday). Not counting calories in weights session to goals
Daily hill walking with the hound: minimum of 6 days for min. 25 minutes (est burn: 150 cal/session)
Sleep for 7 hours each night
Bike to and from work once (maybe on arms day). (-350cals)
Find time to meditate!!!!
Finish all freelance work and teaching stuff so I don’t have to worry about it after work.
Carb up in the next 2 days.
Estimated results:
900 cals from walks + 400 cals from HIIT+350 bike=1650 deficit from cardio
6 days at 300 defecit (1 day for re-feed)= 1800 cal deficit from diet.
Total deficit= 3450cals= 450g

I suspect I’ll loose a bit more than that because I’m burning about 100cals in my weight sessions and a small amount in pilates.

Report back in 2 weeks with results. I’ll then be at 1! weeks from WNBF and 13 from the INBA shows. If it all goes to shit, panic and get back on the game over diet!

Time to order some more Xtend (I mean, work).

Last night I had my second session with Joe my trainer and we decided for the next three weeks we’ll concentrate on my back. I’ve never felt I’ve been able to get a full contraction on most of my lifts for my back, plus a stronger back will help stablise my shoulder and therefor allow me to improve my chest and delt lifting to fix the imbalance in my left side. This is my logic anyway. Joe seemed to agree.

I don’t think I’ve trained back with such intensity. I was entirely doped up on stimulants and cold and flu meds but I really powered through the session with more focus and strength than I’ve ever felt. Joe reckons I’m being silly worrying about my back, but I want it to be amazing. I left my training feeling like I could conquer the world (too many stimulants?!). I followed up this morning with a nice long hill walk with my border collie training buddy and rounded everything out with a massive chest workout. Even after 2 sessions with Joe I’m already finding I’m able to concentrate on isolating and contracting my muscles better and am training with much more focus.

Slap me, I’m feeling way to excited and confident.