chicken and sweet potatoe...foe or friend?

Well, today sees my first day of water loading and depleting. This is not fun. In fact it kinda sucks. I knew this would be a 6 day process of large intakes of water down to no water - but no one told me about the eating plan that goes with it! Well, thats if u can call it an 'eating' plan.
Here is how my next 6 days are looking for food:
Meal 1: 120g chicken and 100g sweet potatoe/or brocolli
meal 2: 120g chicken and 100g sweet potatoe/or brocolli
meal 3: 120g chicken and 100g sweet potatoe/or brocolli
meal 4: 120g chicken and 100g sweet potatoe/or brocolli
meal 5: 120g chicken and 100g sweet potatoe/or brocolli
meal 6: 120g chicken and 100g sweet potatoe/or brocolli

i AM NOT EVEN JOKING. I wish to god i was actually. Come day 6 i will be one large eating, talking, moving piece of chicken and sweet potatoe.
Along with this i have 6litres of water day one and it just keeps dropping until on day 6 i have no water. You may be all wondering what the point of this is. Im kinda wondering that too - BUT there is a reason. This is what i will have to do the week before comp to completely drain my body of any fluids so i am what they call 'dry' on stage and my muscles (hopefully) will be more prominant. Im doing a test run now to see how my body responds to this so that come comp time there are no surprises.
The one really good thing about this is that I will really appreciate my comp diet in 6 days time!
So whilst u all out there are eating chocolate bunnies, hot x buns (jess!)and seafood dinners - spare a little thought for the crazy girl doing her comp prep. *sigh*.

Last night i thought i would attempt to make a soup out of chicken, sweet potatoe, plain water, herbs and garlic. It smelt really good, and then i blended it all up to have this morning. Just to give you an indication of just how bad it tasted, i gave it to one of my labrador x kelpie's and she wouldn't eat it. She sniffed it, looked up at me as if to say 'you gotta be kiddin me' and walked off. Needless to say that batch of 'soup' went down the drain along with my last piece of sanity.
Ok well im off to attempt a legs workout on no carbs, wish me luck!
Happy Easter everyone!
xxoo

The numbers are falling...

Well the start of my second week and i have just had measurements. My bodyfat % is down to 23% yaaaa (have to hit 10% for stage though)and my weight is down 1.5kgs. All good and very pleased but would have been pissed off with any other result after consuming kilos of chicken, fish, brocolli and beans this last week! Have not had my mls tested yet because corina is waiting on her digital calipers. This will give me an indication of where exactly i am dropping fat from on my body not just a generic number. This is important because my exercise will need to change acccording to these results.
Training is going good, lifting heavy and quick! These are 49 set workouts and they are intense to say the least! I have noticed with a bit of carb depletion that i struggle already but i will just have to adapt to this as my carbs will contine to drop (insert very unhappy face here).
Had a few little panics over the weekend. What if i can't get to 10%? What if i don't have the muscle gain that i need? What if i don't make it to the stage? What if what if what if?????! I was beginning to drive myself insane until a particularly sane husband of mine told me to 'knock it off'. I can always rely on michael to put me back in my place lol! His exact words were...
"You can only do what you can do. If you don't compete in July, then compete in September instead.".
Well duh!
He is right on though. All this pressure is silly because all i can do is follow the plan, listen to michael, glenn and corina and do my very best. If it is not good enough come july - there is nothing i can do about it, ill just have to compete later.
SO, with renewed strength i start week 2 of my comp prep...14 more to go...
Oh and i know i promised update pics but the bloomin camera has decided to pack it in. Kind of ok about that one!! Michael has taken pics on his phone which he, corina and i will refer to for progress and muscle symmetary. The pics horrified me although michael said any pics always have that affect on me! But even though im showing some good upper body muscle and im quite lean, my lower body is my tough part. It is where i naturally hold my fat and will be the area that decides to shift at the very end. Aghh that is so frustrating!
So this week i am doing a trial water load and deplete so that come the week before comp i know how my body responds. Im off to see corina today to get the plan for this and will start tomorrow. Bring on the loo trips *sigh*!
Ok well that is about it for now, I hope you are all training hard and being mindful with your food!
Til next time...
xxoo

Brocolli brain

Well im almost a week into my comp prep. Im starting to feel the phrase 'what the
f&%$ am i doing?' starting to dissapate...but not quickly enough! I now know why only a handful of people ever compete in this sport - because it is friggin HARD. But nothing is ever worth doing if it is easy.
So, that being said I am getting into the swing of my training and my eating. Hmmm now my eating, hence the title of this blog, involves brocolli. Alot of brocolli. At almost every meal. B.R.O.C.O.L.L.I. If i gave blood tomorrow im sure it would come out green. Now don't get me wrong, i actually like brocolli. well i did. But it is a very hard veg to make interesting - if any of you have any ideas please let me know!
I had a moan to corina about it via Michael and her response was 'oh and your not even eating it at every meal...yet!'. Is it just me or is she getting some sort of sadistic kick out of this?!
I said to Fiona on the phone this morning (Fi is also competing with myself and corina in July)that we will have such a new found appreciation for normal healthy food after this 15 weeks, and i think this is something that I am going to be able to utilize with clients also.
Training is great though. I love lifting heavy, and the structure of the training means I get a real sweat going. The cardio is strange for me because it is all low intensity steady state stuff. Im used to banging out 5 and 10km runs at least 5 times a week, but now it is 45mins walk in the AM and 30 mins walk in the PM, 5 days per week. Any higher intensity will just eat into my muscle - not something i want to do whilst trying to build muscle. So i am just trying to enjoy ambling with my dogs of an afternoon in the park! Not too much to complain about in this weather.
So there you have it - 1 week down and im still alive - sore but alive!
Next week I will be posting photos and updating you guys on my measurements...so in the meantime train hard everyone and see u in the gym!
xxoo

Day 1... *sigh*

Welcome to my new blog site everyone! This is where i will be marking my journey to the figure comp stage. So what exactly is a figure comp? Well maybe i will start with what it ISN'T. Tt is not bodybuilding. It is not muscle bound women that look like they have been injected with roids. It isn't easy!
So what is it? It is women of all ages dieting and training to get their body as lean as possible so that muscle definition, striation, and some seperation can be seen. It is a sport. It is damn tough.
Not ever content with not having a challenge (!!) I have decided to jump head first into competing in July this year. Yikes. Thanks to Glenn and Corina at ASN for taking me under their wing and mentoring me through this. Maybe I won't be thanking them in a few weeks time...!


So here are a few stats (and i will be posting progress pics also) I am 5'4 (160cm) and i weigh 63kgs and my body fat percentage is 25%. So i fall into all the normal categories. In order to compete in July i need to be around 55kgs and 10% body fat.
I will be training in 2 phases. The first phase is the next 3-4 weeks and then the 2nd phase is 12 weeks out from comp. This first phase sees me training 5 days a week on around 1400 cals. 1.5hrs of weights and cardio in the morning and 30 mins of cardio in the arvo. Totally do-able.It is classified as a bulking phase or the building of lean muscle mass. However, It is the second phase that is freakin me out a little already - but more on that later!

My meals look something like this:
Meal 1: protein shake, 1 banana and 30g oats
meal 2: 1 egg and 3 whites, 120g chicken and 100g brocolli
meal 3: 75g sweet potatoe, chicken and asparagus
meal 4: chicken and brocolli
meal 5: lean protein and veg
meal 6: protein shake

Hmmmm...pretty bland huh?! Its day 1 and im already daydreaming of apples and mangoes!! hhaah oh dear!
Fortunately i am not doing this alone. Corina will also be competing in July as will one of our clients from the studio so we have a little support system going.

Im very excited about seeing results and believe this is key to maintaining motivation. So skin folds and girths are done every week - weight is not important but naturally will start to come down as my body fat does.

So there you have it - day one nearly done and dusted and im one step closer to the stage...mmmmmmm apples......;-)

xxoo