Monday, April 28, 2014

Life on the other side

It is now just over 2 weeks since I finished my second ever figure competition. Life is slowly returning to normal.

The first 3 or so days after my second competition I felt as if I were a 4 year old child rolling carelessly down a sunny grassy hill. It started out as good fun, then would end in sickness. I reintroduced so many "off limits" foods that I was not used to and I ended up feeling like vomit by the end of each day. I kept trying to start my days off well, and they did end up being fairly decent, it was just that my body not used to all the different foods. A lot of it had to do with my mental state. For 14 weeks, I had not been able to eat simple foods like cereal, sandwiches, fruit, dairy or eat the foods I felt like eating when I felt like eating them. I hardly even wanted a lot of the foods I was eating, but because they were off limits for so long I felt that I had to reintroduce them and remind myself of why I wanted them. It ended up being that I didn't have the same palate for certain foods and they didn't taste as wonderful as I had remembered or they didn't have the same satisfaction as before or they didn't seem to be worth the added calories. But again, because they were off limits, I wanted to see what it was I had been thinking I was missing. I finally started feeling a bit better by the beginning of the second week. I had a basic reverse diet I reconstructed based on how unsuccessful I was at the reverse diet during the first post-competition week. I stuck to it about 75% of the time....most days. A lot of it had to do with the sugars I reintroduced, they are the devil!!! My blood sugar, which was basically stable for the whole competition prep, was fluctuating similar to a roller coaster, up and down and twisting around. As good as sugar tastes, it is a quick satisfaction resulting in a negative plunge in mental, emotional and physical state. Sugar makes me tired, and I want to have energy for my day and my workouts without the aid and necessity of caffeine or preworkouts.

Moving forward I have decided to take my "off season" to maintain the muscle that I have, possibly working on developing a few lagging muscle grounds and evening out the symmetry in my current muscle. I am going to bring my calories up to about 1800 (depending on what muscle group I am working on for the day) so that I can maintain muscle. I am still going to follow a preplanned diet, I feel so much more in control when my meals are planned out for the week and all I have to do is eat as scheduled and not think about what I should be eating throughout the day. I have a lot of the clean foods that I enjoy in my meal plans like salads, protein pancakes, clean treats. I am going to keep my weight lifting  pretty similar; 5 days of split body, cardio will be 3-4x a week mixed up between HIIT and steady state since I am still trying to keep my body-fat low. There are a few shows this fall that I am considering doing which would require me to start a competition prep diet again sometime in June, so I am going to use May to regain focus and eat a few strategically planned treats. I actually already have a new competition prep diet plan and workout routine developed to try for the next time!


What I've learned about myself and life during this process:
1. I can do a figure competition
2. I am insulin sensitive, too many carbs (or sugar) and my body responds poorly
3. Everything you put into your body affects you sooner or later, some things have a quick appeal followed by a negative affect even days later.
4. Food is just fuel, I have so much more energy when I choose good fuel.
5. I don't hate cardio as much as I thought I did.
6. Patience. I am really bad at waiting. I am the super opposite of a procrastinator. If there is something to do, I want to do it right away to get it over with and not think anymore about it. Having to wait to eat until certain times, or wait to get workouts in was a real test of my patients.
7. I pushed passed so many emotional and physical barriers I didn't even think I could, determining that my threshold needs to be pushed every so often.
8. Finding balance, with everything in your life, is key. Once you establish it, maintaining it is essential.


What I will do differently next time
1. I will start my diet a few weeks earlier to allow myself to get leaner then I did this past prep.
2. I will not do a carb cycle during the middle of my prep diet
3. I will put in more "off limit" foods in my prep diet; like steak and fruit
4. I will do more running for cardio
5. I will adjust my workouts throughout the process to focus on more fat burning toward the end and worry less about muscle loss.
6. I will fluctuate my calorie intake to fuel my workouts as needed.
7. I will practice posing a whole heck of a lot more. Just from looking at pictures of me on stage, I could tell my posing wasn't as strong as other girls and that is a big part of your score.

Here's to a successful off season

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Team Danielle

Here it is. The final page of the first chapter of my newest project. Its actually a little bitter sweet. I have absolutely developed so much more physical, mental and emotional strength then I thought I was capable of having. They truly are right when they say "willpower is like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets".

I'm so glad to say that my second ever figure competition was 100 times better than my first attempt. I had so much more confidence knowing a little bit more what to expect and having my amazing support system there to cheer me on. I was more excited to see my family for the first time in months, the show was just something that was able to bring us together.

Peak Week #2: After having such a unkind first figure competition, I wanted to give myself a little bit of slack and try and enjoy the last little bit of my figure debut season. My workouts were long, but instead of doing the structured workouts I had planned out for myself, I did whatever my little heart desired! It was awesome to go back to enjoying exercise, the way I have for the last 14 years. I knew there wasn't much I could change with my physique in a week so I decided to use this week to trial a different approach to the diet of peak week. I progressively got lower in carbs for my depletion instead of staying low in carbs for the whole week. I definitely liked this approach much better than the previous week. I also think that I started "carbing up" too soon. My body responds quickly to carbs and since I already had good size on my muscle I don't think I need to fill out that much.

I finished peak week strong. That was what I was more anxious about, was messing up my peak week as I had done the week before and going into my show over thinking what I had done and with such little confidence. I had made the trip up to my dads house on Wednesday to spend some time with him and to get the trip out of the way earlier in the week. Thursday I did some baking, ironically enough when I bake my mind wonders away from eating. I like trying new recipes and developing my own. Of course all of these goodies were clean, but still they were off limits for now. But Thursday was also the first day of carbing up. I am so sensitive when it comes to carbs. The whole start of peak week, when you go low in carbs, I feel great! My body moves well and I don't feel bogged down. As soon as I started adding carbs, I started feeling like scum. Its the surge of glucose running through the body that makes me feel skirmish. Its so strange to me, most people love this part! They get to have solid carb sources that are supposed to provide great energy and mental clarity. But with not being able to workout for the 2 days prior to show (so that your body has time to recover and you don't look swollen on stage) all these extra carbs were just circulating through my body with such fire and with no escape. My body responds to an increase in insulin poorly. The more carbs I eat the hungrier I get. I got through Thursday and made it through Friday decently as well. I started losing my mind just before my family got there Friday evening. I was staying at the hotel near where the show was taking place and I was starting to get anxious. Not necessarily anxious about the show, I knew my family was proud of me and that was most important, but I was getting anxious about all the steps I had to take to get ready the following day. As soon as my family got there, the skies opened up and the world was clear again. One of the voids in my life had been filled and the other void (food) was shortly going to be filled as well. All was well. As I got closer to the end of the week, I slowly stopped having so many cravings. It was like I knew soon enough I would be "allowed" to eat whatever I wanted, but now I actually didn't really want them anymore. I think it was more of the  "you can't eat this" mentality throughout the last 14 weeks that made me really want anything. I was actually just excited to go back to eating enough calories so that my workouts weren't so weak.

I got to the day of the show feeling the best I had in weeks. I actually slept through the night and woke up refreshed. I had breakfast in bed, my eggwhites and oat pancake with peanut butter and jelly!! Started getting ready and headed to the place they were holding the show. Everything about the day went really smooth, unlike the previous week. I got my last coat of spray paint put on, suited up and put my barbie face on. The rest of my family showed up and then it was show time.The show started at 2 and there was no 5 hour break in between prejudging and the night show which made all the difference in the world. My husband helped me get ready back stage, once you glue that bottom part of your suit on, bending over really isn't an option so it was awesome to have him there to hand me things. I went on stage with such confidence. I knew there were big differences between myself and the other girls I was on stage with, but they weren't bad differences. I had the size, which I've known I've had this whole time, and they had the cuts. Last weekend the judges were looking for cuts, but this weekend I overheard a coach tell her girls that these judges were looking for size so I thought I had a chance. I didn't feel bloated or over-carbed, I felt the tightest I have so far. I spent way more time on stage this weekend then I did last weekend, which made me feel like the experience was worth it. I did 2 different categories and so I was on stage for about 6 minutes. Which to many might not seem like a long time, but remember while on stage you have to squeeze and flex every muscle in your body and suck in your belly and smile. To hold those positions for minutes.....exhausting. By the end of the day my lower back was cramped, but it was all worth it. The evening went smooth and I was able to visit with my family throughout the event. I finished 3rd (out of 4) but had learned so much about this sport and about myself that placement didn't matter. It was the experience that nobody would ever be able to take away that mattered. Also, how can you be disappointed when you have a huge cheering squad who all had "Team Danielle" t-shirts that my mother and aunt made (oh, and those birthday party whistle things blowing around).

Through out the week I started developing the plan for my next season. I have learned so much through this experience, and surprised myself here at the end with such desire to continue with it! Even my originally unsure grandmother gave me the thumbs up to keep at it!

So my first real meal post competition: Salad bar, baby back ribs and a toll house cookie pie with vanilla ice cream. I felt absolutely so wrong sitting down to a meal at a restaurant. I have grown so accustomed to this new lifestyle. I knew that I needed to give my body a treat, and since I had been dreaming so frequently for the last 14 weeks of these guilty pleasures I know I needed to let myself have them. I actually didn't really want the dessert, my family was so great and brought me all kinds of sweet treats already, but again I had been dreaming so frequently of such indulgences I thought I should at least let myself see if it was all I remembered. And it wasn't. To my complete shock, sugar wasn't as appealing to my taste buds as much anymore. Now, don't get me wrong, I ate the whole dessert, but it didn't have the satisfaction I thought it would. It was then that I realized, I don't really need these things in my life as often as I had before. I was perfectly content with my clean treats. Now here is the problem. In my opinion, sugar is a socially acceptable drug. As soon as my body had a dose of full on white sugar the insulin spiked and with that follows a drop. Once the insulin drops your body wants more sugar to keep that "high" feeling and the cycle begins. I had a few of my families treats on the hour ride back to my dads house from the show. I knew right then that I had to shower and then go to bed when we got home to avoid eating all of the sweets! My willpower is so much stronger and I know that I will be able to avoid these sugar surges. The feeling is not appealing, especially when you've learned how "clean" you feel when you stick to good healthy food sources.

It is 4 a.m. and I have been up since 3 a.m. working on this post. With all the extra energy I stored up last night from a full dinner and desserts I am ready to hit the gym. This is when I wish I was back home so I could go to my gym, 24/7 FitClub, and hit the treadmill and weights at this time of day. It has been about 5 days since I did a real workout, feels like forever!!  I just looked up the hours to the YMCA here in Malone NY, where my dad lives, and they open at 8. I'm gonna try and get some more sleep, but guess where I"ll be at 8 o'clock this morning!


Sunday, April 6, 2014

Knocked down but not out

I can think of 101 sob story reasons as to why my first figure competition was a bust. But none of them matter. I participated in a bodybuilding competition and that's something no one can ever take away.

To be completely honest, I basically gave up about 2 weeks prior to the show. I was overtraining and over thinking. I hit my 'crash and burn' and didn't recover enough to make the needed effort to get where I needed to be. I coasted to the finish line, which I have remember doing before in other challenges because it was easier then dealing with it. I had mentally put too much on my plate. I was trying to perfect the plan for our peak week; the diet, the workouts, the every little detail involved. I wanted to make sure the previous 12 weeks of work that we put into our prep weren't messed up with a poorly planned peak week. I wanted to make sure that the 3 of us were going to shine.

The first speed bump we hit was when we got the phone call Thursday evening at around 5 that our show had been cancelled. Wait, what do you mean the show has been cancelled. I just spent the last 13 weeks getting ready to step on stage in an itty bitty bikini and your going to cancel the event!!! Not enough people were participating they said. Well with a quick 'you suck' to them, we scurried to figure out what we were going to do. We lucked out. There was another show the same day in Rochester. Great, sign us up. Check. Ummm, what about hair and makeup. Are you kidding, what salon is really going to have an opening for the 3 of us to have hair and make up done by 9:30 on Saturday with less than 2 days notice? Welp, found one. Ok lastly we need to find someone to spray tan us. Easy, we knew a girl who could do it. Booked the appointments. By Thursday evening at 8, just 3 hours after we learned our original show had been cancelled, we were entirely set for a completely different show.  Sweet, we're ready to go.

And of course I slipped right into the path I was so aggressively trying to avoid. I didn't feel confident in the plan I had developed so I veered off path the last day and it cost me. The other ladies stuck to the plan and it worked for them in a way that didn't work for me. I woke up yesterday morning (day of the show) bloated and unconfident. From the first blink of the day I was running the schedule for the day and everything we had to do through my head; when we had to get our suits on, when we had to eat, when we had to pump up, what our routines needed to consist of. We started our day at the salon for hair and makeup. I tried to relax and enjoy the experience with these lovely ladies that have trusted me the last 13 weeks to get them to this day. They knew I was over thinking everything as we were sitting there, they figured me out within the last few months :) From the moment we finished our beautification it was a scramble to get our suits on and to the venue in time only to arrive with 5 minutes to spare for our 10 o'clock meeting which we ended up sitting around for until 11 o'clock. That was the first hit to my psyche. We had to eat at a certain time. Was the meeting going to take so long that we weren't going to have the time to eat and finish getting ready? We still had to figure out our routines. Stop thinking about it Danielle!! Nope. So we got on stage for the first part, prejudging, all suited up, canola oil spray attached, sugared up and pumped up. I felt like a mess. Still bloated and without having a mirror in front of me not 100% sure my poses were right. First part we knew how to do pretty well. It went quick so it was a little anticlimactic. 5 minutes on stage was all it took for the judges to get a good idea of who was going to be the top place finisher. Ok, with prejudging done whats one to do for 5 hours until the night show starts. This was the dumbest part of my day, waiting around with nothing to do and no idea what to expect for the evening for such a long time. This is where it was completely lost. I have no patience. Anyone who knows me knows that. I knew I didn't do well it in the first part of the day, so I kind of gave in to my emotions. I was ready to be done with the day and head home. What was the point. This wasn't what I was expecting was all I kept thinking. I don't know if I actually expected anything in particular, but what happened wasn't the excitement I had anticipated. I became cranky closer to show time. With no instruction on how the second half was going to happen, before I knew it we were walking across stage and I had no idea what I was doing. We had practiced our routines for weeks ahead of time but when our original show got cancelled we had to learn a new walk for this new show. My body was moving, but not to the motions I had in my head. I still don't remember what poses I hit, I just remember walking on stage. I don't think I was really that nervous, I just was so unconfident that I think I blacked out to try not to think about how uncomfortable I felt with the physique that I was presenting. The second half of the show went just as quick as the first and then it was more waiting around for everyone else to go before we got to awards. From start to finish our day was about 14 hours long and all I could think about was showering and getting out of that suit. And that's what I did. Show finished around 9, I had my suit off by 8:55, I couldn't even wait for everyone else to be done. Home by 9:30 to shower and scrub tanner and elmers spray glue off of random parts of my body. Feeling shot down, I was in bed by 10:30.

Some main points I learned about participating in a figure competition:
1. When in doubt, do less. I was trying the whole day to make sure we were eating enough at the right times and following a certain schedule. I learned that most girls don't do much of the eating stuff on competition day and timing didn't make too much of a difference.
2. When you spray glue your suit to your bottom so it doesn't ride up your bum when you are walking on stage, you find creative ways to use the toilet.
3. You will smell like barn. Since you are not supposed to wear deodorant with the spray tan, unless you like the green armpit look, you tend to have some body odor. Add in the spray tan smell itself and the canola oil spray so you shine on stage and its a hot mess of stench.
4. Most of the girls are nice. You always hear of other competitors being jerks and sabotaging each other. It was hardly the case. We made a couple friends and they were super nice and really helped us get through the day.
5. All the other girls are also slightly nervous. Everyone has a first time, but each time you are trying to do more, be better and achieve higher.
6. Leave modesty at the door. I had one of the girls up my bum putting glue to make sure my suit was where it needed to be. I saw other competitors having people rub them with oil in ALL places.
7. Everyone has a different approach to creating their physique. The only way to know what will work for you is trial and error.

So with all that being said, sorry Gram, I'm going to keep working at it until I figure it out.