Another Good Week Down

It's officially been a month of good workouts and feeling back to my normal self again. While I have my typical disgust with my offseason look, I have to say, that in the grand scheme of what my goals are for the year, I'm very happy with where I'm at overall. As of today, my weight's 148.8, and I've been putting on about a pound each week, give or take a couple tenths of a pound here or there. I'm pretty sure I got up to 152 last year, but that's not where I started my contest prep. I'd have to look back to make sure, but I think that somewhere around 6 or 9 weeks before my diet started, I cut my calories back to a decent maintenance level, and wound up starting prep around 145ish pounds. There's no doubt that today's 148 looks different (AKA better) than it did a year ago. But I was so effing stubborn last year about taking pictures because I hated what I looked like, so I don't have anything to make a comparison. I can say that I'm actually outgrowing my bras....I know, who'd have thought? But it's not because the girls are growing, it's actually because my back is finally growing. While I shudder at the thought of having to drop a ton of cash on some new Vickis, this certainly isn't a bad problem for a bodybuilder to have. I imagine that, at the pace I'm going, I'll probably wind up around 152 or so by the time my prep starts.

I'm finally getting excited at the thought of competing this year...like genuinely excited. I get those little butterflies in my stomach thinking about prep and being able to find out on a weekly basis what kind of improvements were made over the last several months. I think that I'll be able to reach my goal of getting to 120 this year, which puts me right in the middle of the middleweight class (none of that sucking down to make weight, well at least for this year anyway). As I've said before, my "long" short-term goal is 125--the top end of middleweight.

One of the things that has helped me get back this spark is that I'm really working hard on accepting the fact that some people who I had hoped would be my biggest supporters have turned out to be my biggest critics, and in more ways than just this sport. Fortunately for me, it's opened my eyes to see and really appreciate the support I do get from the few close people in my life.