Is That Your Final Answer?

Yes. No. Maybe. Aghhh! Ask anyone who I have come in contact with this week and they will probably tell you that I am the most indecisive person on earth. Well you know what, it's the damn truth. And you know what else, I'm allowed to be. I've gone from doing this competition to not doing it to do it to not and back and forth ten times more. Have mercy. It's been a cruel bout of whiplash for myself and all others involved- sorry to all those involved, love you guys for putting up with it!

I had gone through peak week without a glitch up until last night. I hit one of those mental points where I thought to myself, "okay, no matter what I do or how much I dehydrate myself, sit in the sauna or deplete my carbs until the night prior to the show, I will not look like I want to. Plain and simple. If I don't look how I want to then I don't want to do the show". The more I repeated this thought process in my head the more I went with it. Finally midnight rolled around and sometime around then I decided that I didn't want to do it. Final answer (hah. right.). I figured I would compete at an October show or better yet maybe just wait until spring. That way time was at my disposal and I could even make a few gains before cutting time. Now I'm getting frustrated that I wasted a week on steady state cardio, light leg workouts, NO CARBS and all of the other components of peak week. 

Today I went back to my usual clean diet that I've been training with starting with a bowl of oatmeal with almond butter this morning. Went to the gym, did HIIT, came home and had a protein smoothie and a handful of almonds. Steamed chicken and vegetables for lunch, an apple and almonds for a snack and orange roughy, sautéed onion and olives for dinner. All things not peak week friendly. After all, I decided I wasn't competing.

Today at some point I began realizing I needed to tell all of the people that have been supporting me through this that I wouldn't be competing anymore. Easier said than done my friends. You never know how much people truly do stand behind you and support you until it comes to a moment like this. I got responses like, "No Bailey, you are going to do it. Don't even think about where you will place. Stepping on that stage is an accomplishment in itself! I will be proud no matter what, and I know you will be too after :)" and "Don't worry about the other girls! You're doing this for yourself! Everyone will be so proud of you when you step up on that stage, including myself! :) I know how hard you have worked. I'll be here for you before and after :)". Man. These kids are persistent. After multiple responses like this I'm left feeling like a quitter. A big ole baby. Now I'm wanting to do it again. It's just like they said, and I've said in previous posts, I've worked hard for this and it's not about the other girls and regardless of what happens I will be okay because I have love and support behind me. Blast.

If you thought this post would have some sort of answer or closure then I am sorry, you are sadly mistaken. I will wake up tomorrow and see how I feel, how my body is reacting to my sub par peak week behaviors today. Maybe I'll go get my spray tan on and feel like I can conquer the world or maybe I will decide that waiting is best. Ultimately I know that whatever I choose will be the right choice because no matter what everything is going to be okay and this is not the end.

Let Peak Week Commence

Today was technically Day 2 of peak week but it was the first day that the "fun stuff" happened. For starters I tweaked my diet. I reduced my diet from around about 100g of carbs per day to 50 grams. That whole 50g came from 1/2 c oats and spinach, broccoli, kale, and green beans. My meals went as follows;

MEAL 1- 1/2c oats, 1 Tbsp almond butter, 3 egg whites & 1 whole egg
MEAL 2- Tilapia & green beans
MEAL 3- Chicken & broccoli
MEAL 4- Chicken & spinach
MEAL 5- Egg whites, spinach & onion
MEAL 6- Egg whites & kale

So far I don't feel deprived or weaker or anything. Then again my body is still running off of the carbs that I took in on Saturday & Sunday. Even my workout felt pretty strong. I don't expect this for the whole week though. In fact I predict that my workout tomorrow will be pretty strenuous. The purpose of depleting carbs early in the week and working out is to cause the muscles to work and deplete all of the glycogen they are storing. Then later on in the week when carbs are incorporated again they go straight to the muscles and not so much to the surrounding tissues. This is what gives the muscles the "full" look after the carb load. Tomorrow I will reduce my carbs yet again to just 1/4c oats in the morning. That puts me at about 30% of my usual intake.

My workout was just steady state cardio. 20 minutes on the stair master and 10 minutes walking at an incline. Followed by some stretching. Nothing too crazy. Tomorrow and Wednesday will be my last two lifting days precontest. And they will only be light upper body workouts. Other than that I am on a strictly steady state cardio workout agenda through Thursday. Friday will be an off day and then before I know it, it will be SATURDAY!

I also began taking my Xpel (water pills) and drinking my 2 gallons of water. Today and tomorrow are both 2 gallon days. Then 1 gallon Wednesday. 1 quart Thursday. Then none Friday! I am pretty sure that all of my coworkers are ready for contest prep to be over so I can actually go 15 minutes without having to leave to pee.

Lastly, this morning was posing practice. Yikes. Posing. Is. Everything. Posing will make or break you in NPC world. You're poses and attitude are what can and will determine how well you place. I have not been proficient in practicing my posing. As in I haven't hardly practiced at all. So you could say I had a rude awakening this morning! That being said I ended up practicing for 30 minutes this morning and another hour tonight. I had Charlie horses out the ying yang but I feel like I made some mad progress! It was hard to loosen up at first and just go with it, walk with attitude and put on a big grin for pretend judges. It seemed so silly! BUT I found my ticket to loosening up. The song Porn Star Dancing was just the thing I needed playing in the background to get the little pep in my step that I needed! Hey, after all, I'm strutting my stuff in stripper heals anyways so why not practice to a song that fits the part? :p

Off to bed for me now! Work, core & cardio and posing tomorrow! Adios :)

-B

God Helps Those Who LOVE & Help Themselves

So yesterday I had a meltdown. The day started out fine, followed my same routine. Oats and egg whites, work, pre-prepped meals. I then headed back home to mom's for our hair appointments (lawd knows I wasn't going to get up on stage before taming my mane :p). Somewhere along the way I let my thoughts catch up with me, probably when I was on the just long enough car ride back to my hometown. That's where the day took a turn. I came to a few final realizations. I've been dodging these thoughts for a while so it's not like they just hit me and bam I had an epiphany.

I've realized that in the last 10 weeks I have slowly slipped into this unhappy, lost, confused mess. In the beginning of my contest prep I was so excited to tackle this new challenge. Little did I know it would entail more detailed work, expenses, planning and changes than I was prepared for. Not to mention the emotional downfalls. If you recall, I was mentioning how I have been having trouble sleeping recently. Looking back, ever since I started contest prep I haven't been able to sleep. I'm constantly stressing and thinking about what I could be doing different or if I should try different approaches to various things or if I should give a new supplement a try. My mind has been so wound up that I can't even sleep.

I haven't been loving myself through this whole process. In fact, it's more like I've been punishing myself. I deprive myself of what I want. Then on top of that I get upset when I don't see fast enough results and turn around and slip up on my diet or beat myself up even more. Slowly but surly I have been sucking myself into a dark hole of hate, disappointment and unhappiness.

 I've gotten my head too wrapped up in this competition. That's not to say that I don't want to ever compete or even do this show I've been training (up until now also known as torturing) myself for. I've learned a lot in this process. And I DO enjoy pushing myself. But I have learned that I need to really visualize patience. Not lose sight of why I honestly love fitness. Putting an expiration date on my progress was one of the biggest mistakes I've made. That is probably what caused the largest portion of my stress. My journey doesn't end on September 14th at my first competition. That is just a mile marker. A stepping stone in the grand scheme of things. The second biggest mistake I've made is comparing. Comparing my physical progress with other first time competitors. Comparing my training and diet outline with others. Comparing what works best for other competitors with what might work best for me. In all the comparing I've lost myself in a cluster of what will actually work best for me and what won't. My body isn't like all these other competitors and what works for them might not work out for me and my body won't respond in the same way that theirs do.

I'm unsure how I'm going to do this yet but I've decided that I need to incorporate ways to remind myself every day to love myself and be patient with myself and the process and lastly to not forget why I am passionate about fitness. My ultimate goal is to live a healthy and balanced lifestyle and to push myself to new limits. Balance and other lifestyle changes don't happen overnight so bear with me while I go under construction. That's all for now.

Xoxo
-B



I've learned that I need to do what I've

Where Did This Week Go & What is my Life About?!

Oh my goodness. I woke up on Sunday, blinked, and now I'm like what's up Friday? So that being said, good thing it's Thursday beacauseeeeeee that means... THURSDAY THOUGHTS! Woot woot :p

1. My new obsession is One Tree Hill. Errrmuhhhgerdddd. SO addicting. I'm not a huge TV junkie, and this isn't even a newer show but woah dang. I have been so caught up in it that I've been brought to tears at least five times. In the first season. Dear lord what is my life about.

2. Today I dropped $50 bucks on stripper heels. What is my life about? Granted they are for the bikini competition but still. If you asked me a year ago if I saw that in my future I would have said hell to the no!

3. Also, today, I shaved my arms. SO weird. What is my life about? I did it as part of the competition prep but I'll be honest and tell you that it may be one of my least favorite things. Not because of how it looks, I think it makes my arms looks pretty sleek and a bit more defined. What I'm more concerned about is when the hair grows back. Will it be thicker? Darker? Pokey? I suppose I'll cross that bridge when I come to it! Meanwhile I'll just feel like I'm playing the part of Silence of the Lambs living in someone else's skin suit.

As for a recap of the other "ness" that went down earlier this week, Monday I was fortunate enough to have the day off work and Bayli and I made a day trip to Lake Erie with her family. After lots of begging and pleading, the sun decided to finally come out and make an appearance.

And as for What I Ate Wednesday..

Breakfast was a stack of delicious protein pancakes topped with almond buttaaa :)

It may sound crazy but this was my mid morning snack, chicken, avocado and veggies!

Lunch was a can of tuna mashed up with avocado, red onion and tomato. SO GOOD.

Afternoon snack was flounder, carrots and almonds. I topped it with orange ginger seasoning and cinnamon. It was a very pleasant surprise and semi sweet tasting :)

Dinner hit the spot, Green beans, almonds, cauliflower and tilapia. Om nom nom :)

Well I am beat now. HIIT cardio earlier today and a crazy lift this evening. New PR of 380 on the leg press! Yeeee :) I'm ready for these gams to be toned and tight right MEOW! One Tree Hill is calling my name.. tehehe. Tootles!

Not all roads lead to rome, but if you're lucky...

They can lead you somewhere even better. I decided today will be a post of my fitness (or not so fit-ness) journey. It's been a long road and it's nowhere near over yet! Thank goodness. Nutrition and fitness kind of saved me in a way. It allowed me to see my true passion in life and taught me a better lifestyle. My junior year in high school landed me into multiple doctors visits with an auto immune disorder. Unfortunately its much easier to just say you have an auto immune disorder than actually figuring out you have one. It was a long six months but finally we figured it out, and so it began. I changed my lifestyle. My habits. My diet. Everything. It was hard, depressing at times. Heck, I still have my moments where I feel like I'm hitting bottom. But this lifestyle is one I wouldn't trade for any other in the world. Anyhow, below is a little timeline of my journey.. :)

Junior year when everything was pretty normal. Ate what I wanted, no fitness agenda, basically just did my thing and was happy.

And so begins the weight gain after junior year.. my diet was changed at this point and I was back and forth on steroids for inflammation. I always felt deprived. You try telling a teenager she can't have pizza, burgers, or pasta anymore and see what happens. Or keep reading and I can show you.

At this point I realized the change taking place and my weight gain so I then went into crash diet mode through my senior year. I lost 15-20 pounds that year. (none of which stayed off).

I absolutely loathe the way I look in the pictures above. I hate what my mindset was at this point in my life. I look weak, scrawny,  and I sure as hell wasn't happy.

 

Following graduation I got my mind in a healthier place and started to gain some necessary weight back.

Here I was just beginning the process of a break up. I channeled my energy to Zumba. Zumba was a life saver. I started doing pilates too. I loved them both and my body did too. I finally had everything right how I'd been wanting it, my happy medium. Then I moved out. Began drinking more often. The drinking led to snacking, you know how it goes. The pounds started piling back on.

 

Needless to say I was becoming fat and unhappy -__-

 





I finally met this gem and things have never been the same :) This is when I really started turning things around. Trading the booze for weights, paying closer attention to what I was putting in my body and stepping up the intensity of my cardio.

 

 



The most recent picture above is the one on the left (approx. 2 months ago). The one on the right is from November of last year. I've still been making progress since then so stay tuned for those pics. I've got to keep you wondering a little bit about what's changed in the past month! ;p

 



Through this whole time (high school days until now) I was still going to the gym 2-3 times a week. Goes to show that weight loss is 70% diet, 30% exercise and 100% dedication.