Nicole Snell’s Training Blog

As I write this I feel completely overwhelmed.  I know I only have 4 more weeks until Peak week and 5 weeks to my show, but my cutting diet continues to get stricter and stricter.  I feel out of control…like everything I love and enjoy is being ripped away from me, and I’m not seeing results fast enough to really feel it’s worth it.  i know it is worth it, but I just feel a cloud of despair washing over me.

Here’s what the next week of cutting will bring me:

-1000 calories/day
-Oatmeal in the AM only
-Veggie carbs ONLY for the rest of the day
-Increased cardio time from 30min to 40min.
-Keep lifts the same.

So, you can see where I am afraid.  During week 4 I went from eating 1600 calories a day to eating 1250/day and that worked out ok for me, but cutting down to 1000 is really worrying me.  I’ve seen some definite weight loss over the last week, my muscles have become more compact and my upper body is becoming much more ripped and vascular.  It’s no wonder that the lower body is just taking longer, but I do see the quad cuts and ham/glute tie in coming along even though these cuts aren’t being captured by my camera…damn flash!

So i just have to stick with this for a bit longer and really dig deep into myself and  carry this out til the last.  I know I can do this…its all mental.  The body only does what the mind tells it to do.  I cannot fail.  So I will work my hardest and do my best as I do in every aspect of my life.  This is the most challenging thing I’ve ever done as it takes 100% of my time, focus, energy and is 24 hours a day.  Your love, prayers and thoughts are needed now more than ever!

Week 3 of cutting is over and I have a harder & tighter physique, new muscle, and strength gains.  Today I noticed a leanness to my legs that I haven’t noticed before, and my quad cuts are becoming more noticeable.  My traps and my chest are also becoming more striated and the vascularity in my arms has also increased. The scale hasn’t moved, though and so next week begins the next phase of my cut.

Week 4 will drop my cals down as close to 1250/day as I am able without passing out in the middle of the day.  The training will stay the same, and I start Jet Fuel fat burner.  Since it’s taken about 3 weeks for my body to begin changing from the time I started cutting, this week I should see some DEFINITE changes.  Everything is getting ramped up so that I can eat into the contest instead of starving into it.

Eye of the Tiger, baby! 5 weeks to peak week and 6 weeks to show!

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
John Wooden

What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?
Robert Schuller

I’m so incredibly happy right now!  I just got back from the gym doing my shoulder workout:

Friday, October 19, 2007-SHOULDERS
10min treadmill warmup

Shoulder Press Machine #1 (the machine I like had someone on it)
1 x 12 x 40 (warm up set)
1 x 10 x 50
Shoulder Press Machine #2 (my regular one to finish)
2 x 8 x 55 (each side)
DB Shoulder Press
1 x 10 x 35
2 x 8 x 35
IsoLateral Shoulder Press
3 x 10 x 35
Shrugs
3 x 12 x 250
Cable Upright Row
3 x 10 x 57.5
Rear Delts
1 x 10 x 90
2 x 8 x 95

And guess what?  2 guys asked me if I was a professional athlete because they said I looked totally cut up and vascular, and the chick at the front desk said it looked like I was slimming down. This is such great news because I am on Week 3 of cutting, my trainer just dropped my cals to 1600 a day and I still haven’t been feeling like I’m losing any bodyfat.  But to have 3 completely unbiased observers make comments on my physique improvements means that my body is changing and I’m just not seeing it.

PLUS…while working out in the weight room I checked myself out in the mirror as I was walking to the fountain and noticed the cuts in the tops of my quads…and I’ve NEVER noticed that before!  Usually I can only see my cuts when I’m flexing hard, but to see them just while walking is awesome!  Plus my back seems to be coming in VERY nicely.

My trouble seems to be my Side Poses, mainly my Right side pose.  For some reason I just can’t seem to get it right.  Hopefully after watching the show tomorrow I’ll get some pointers and be able to perfect it in time for my show.

I meet with my trainer/brother tomorrow to evaluate my progress at the end of Week 3 of cutting and see what else he wants me to do in order to be ready in time for my show.  I’m just visualizing getting up on that stage and having the best body and being the most prepared.  I don’t want to stand next to a gal and think, "wow if I had just done a little more cardio I could have looked like her".  I want to think, "damn, I worked my ass off and I look better than her because I put my nose to the grindstone and sucked it up and trained my ass off to look like this".  If I lose I want it to be because someone else just happens to look better in their body than I look in mine, not because my body isn’t the 100% best it can be for me.  As long as I know I did my best and I come into the show as lean and muscular as I can, then that’s all that matters.

This is the greatest experience of m life!

It’s amazing, but I seem to be gaining strength as I’m cutting.  My cals are down to 1600/day and my cardio is up to 7x a week and yet I am able to lift more when I’m at the gym.  I wonder if this is normal or if I’m just weird.  I look at myself and don’t look like I’m losing any weight and yet my sister looks at me and thinks that I’m looking "harder and more compact".  Maybe I’m gaining mass still…while losing body fat.  That would explain why the scale weight hasn’t gone down.  I can’t complain that I’m getting stronger…I just want the bodyfat to come down.  And it’s mostly in my glutes and thighs that need to slim down (isn’t that always the case with us women?)

My back pose is looking freaking awesome, but I"m still struggling with my side "model turn" pose.  I’ve got to kick my hip out just enough but still have enough bend/flex in the front leg to pop out the quads.  I’m just gonna keep working on it.  I

I am 6wks out from my first competition and I’m so frustrated. For the last week, the scale hasn’t moved….not even 1 freaking ounce. My diet is spot on, I don’t cheat and I hit the weights heavy and hard 5 days a week and I complete 7 30min cardio sessions religiously.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and I feel that I am gaining definition and that I am harder than before, but other times I feel like I’m not making any progress at all. I don’t want to lose my muscle and look emaciated, but I HAVE to get my Body Fat down to 10% or so. How much less can I eat and how much more cardio can I do without risking catabolizing my muscle?

Another thing that has been pissing me off is that my Body Fat scale is VERY inaccurate. I need to get the caliber testing or hydrostatic weighing so that I can get an accurate measure. It’s just extremely disheartening to be working so hard and to not see the results that I am striving for.

I’m going to keep training like a champ, eating like a champ and running like a champ. I can do this. I didn’t train this hard for this long to give up now.

EYE OF THE TIGER!!!

Wow- I like to run
Current mood: ecstatic
Category:  Blogging

I was never a runner. Sure, I ran track as a sprinter, but that’s different than running 6miles straight. A year ago, heck 6 months ago, you couldn’t have paid me to run. I hated to run. I could walk for miles no problem but don’t you dare ask me to run.

I’m not sure what happened. Maybe once I got past a certain threshold my body switched modes and said, hey we actually like to run. Maybe I just got over my own inhibitions about running. Maybe I liked it all along and just talked myself out of liking it. Whatever the reason is, I’m a total running junkie now. Just call me a Road Whore, a Pavement Pounder, a Street Sprinter, a Lane Lunger. I LOVE to RUN!

I’m doing Cardio 5 days a week now as I train for my show and on Wednesdays and Saturdays I have to do 30min of cardio in the AM and PM. But you won’t catch me on the treadmill in the gym or on a stair machine. You’ll see me on the street with my tennies, my shuffle and my dri-fit just running. I used to have a set path that I would run, but now I just run where I want. I have to go for 30min low intensity so I just run randomly, turning down one street, backtracking to another and I just go indiscriminately with no set plan of where I’ll turn next. It’s freeing and exhilarating and so zen-like. I go into a zone and I don’t come out until my time is up.

There’s nothing quite like waking up, throwing on my running clothes, strapping on my heartrate watch, plugging into my shuffle, stepping outside my door and feeling the cool air hit my face as I set my pace and slip into running mode. The smell of the fresh breeze, the feeling of cool air filling my lungs as I take each deep breath, the sound of my shoes on the pavement, the crisp chill that covers my arms and face as the warm sweat I’m generating turns into steam that rises ghostlike from my body with the rising sun filling my pores with life….

Yes, I do enjoy running.  Maybe after my show I’ll do a marathon next.

I started my cut today:

1800 cals/day

Lifting 5x week

7 cardio sessions a week (30min)- Off training days = 2x cardio that day (AM & PM)

Eliminate dairy and wheat

Watch Sodium

Begin Gluatmine Supps and continue Omegas, L-Arginine, Daily Multi Vitamin

I’m lifting heavy and hard and I’m going to drop this Body Fat to reveal all my hard earned muscle!!  Oh yeah!