Strawberry, Banana, Orange, Oh My!

I have officially found my new favorite flavor of Crystal Light. The unfortunate thing is that it doesn't come in the convenient individual packets, only the small containers that make 2 quarts worth. The other night when I was food shopping, I was desperate for a new flavor of CL and saw this one. My friend though it was a questionable combination, but when I'm dieting, pretty much anything tastes good. I took the plunge and bought it, and it's freaking awesome....hopefully they'll have the individual packets soon though because I keep over-flavoring my water. It's also pretty good when you mix a small amount of it with the Strawberry/Banana Chain'd Out....it cuts the sourness of Chain'd Out a little bit. I know, I know, I have this stuff down to a science here.

Anyway, workouts this week have been pretty damn good. Last night's leg workout was awesome. We did a pared down version of the "Extension Workout" (see, I'm slowly learning to decrease my volume here). This morning (at 4:30am, mind you) was a really good ham workout. But me and my fucking bright ideas....I decided to train on an empty stomach and then do my 55 minutes of cardio right after so that I wouldn't have to do it after work at like 8pm. Normally I like training on an empty stomach (even when I'm dieting), but by the time I got halfway through my cardio I thought I was either going to puke or pass out. And the drive home was a little scary because I knew something was wrong. But as soon as I got home at 7, I ate my first meal instead of waiting until 8:30 like usual and felt a little better. So, I've decided to suck it up and do my damn cardio AFTER work on my late nights because I refuse to have my first meal at 4am and try to stretch the remaining 4 meals throughout the rest of the day.

Just about halfway through the second week and I'm still feeling really good about this prep. I'm still excited; though, I have had some freaky contest dreams (which I don't usually have ever). I know that I just need to focus on myself and my own progress because I can't control who shows up or what kind of shape they're in. If I start worrying about who will show up, it'll be a miserable four months. I'm hoping that by keeping myself excited about it and enjoying the process, things will progress much more smoothly. In the meantime, I'm still trying to figure out what I want for my first cheat meal this weekend. Any suggestions?

One Week Down

Lost 3 pounds this week...down to 139.6. Feedback from Dave about my pictures was positive, and he added 10 minutes of cardio.

Overall, I'd say it was a good first week, despite a really crappy chest workout Friday night. I couldn't put up any weight last night, and forget about squeezing out an extra rep or two. Nope, that shit just came crashing down again. I'd start the set feeling strong, and then before I know it, I'm stuck at the bottom of the rep. I'd like to think that my body is still adjusting to training on lowered calories. But it can't be all that bad becuase I had a rediculously good back workout yesterday morning and was able to move pretty much the same weight that I usually do, and even a little bit more on some exercises. I trained with my girl, and we usually move almost the same weight, but I was hurting trying to keep up with her. Anyway, we pushed eachother and both had a great workout. This morning, I trained arms by myself and ultimately got in another good workout again. As has been the pattern, I started off strong with each set but quickly fell short as things progressed. The strength is still there, just not the endurance. After the workout, I posed again for about 15 minutes and ran through my routine a couple of times (if I don't, I'll freaking forget it because I'm a complete scatterbrained spaz). I still have to go back and do my cardio later on, so in the meantime, I'm thinking a nap sounds REAL good!

Put The Breaks On

Well, tonight I was smacked in the face with a reality I should have expected and prepared for. Lower the workout volume, dumbass! Yeah, I know I mentioned this in a previous post, so there's no excuse. I had planned on keeping the volume high like I usually do for as long as possible, but apparently "as long as possible" means five days into the diet. I started off with 10x10 side raises on the machine and then moved on to DB presses. Normally, 40's go up for 10 with no problem. HA! Not tonight. I struggled to get 8, and with no carbs, there is no squeezing out those final reps....the weight just comes crashing down. We went on to do 4 sets of bent over DB laterals, then 3 sets of a SS of reverse pec deck and rear delt pulls on the lat pull down machine (that's just the dumb name I gave them b/c I don't know what you'd really call them, but they work, so whatever). And since I'm a stubborn biatch, I just had to do more. So we did two sets of behind the neck presses on the smith machine SS'd with db laterals (top half only). We finished with a few sets of calves, which I HATE training. I am cursed with fucking cankles, and it's so gross.

After we trained, I posed for 15 minutes, and I have to say....it's really disgusting to practice posing when I'm still so out of shape. I know I need to do it, but I can't even take looking at myself (eating disorder/body dismorphia at it's best, people).

As far as my diet goes, right now I'm at 2pv/2pf days. Today was my second pv day, and I was freaking hungry! I thought I'd feel ok for at least the first couple weeks, but as I write this, I'm so hungry. All my meat sources were cut back by .5 ounces, and my eggs were cut back from 6 whites to 4. I know it doesn't sound like much, but I'd take an extra ounce of chicken two extra egg whites right now. I've officially dubbed this the "Melissa Sucks Diet." Honestly, though, I'm complaining, but I can't wait to see what the final result is.

Flip the Switch

It amazes me sometimes how I am able to do this. I've spent that past several weeks freaking out about whether or not I'd be able to get into a contest prep mentality. And now that it's here, I think I can safely say that I've never been so excited to be doing this. I'm looking forward to my workouts and not dreading the increasing cardio. I've worked with my coach before and have an idea of what to expect as far as the changes that will be made and how (shitty) I'll feel as the weeks go on. Of course, being the eternal pessimist that I am, I am fully expecting my attitude toward all this to change any day now. One thing that has helped is that there finally seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel with my current job stress.

So, now that the diet is here, I've changed up my training split a little bit to accomodate my new work schedule and also try to make the most of my energy during my workouts. Split now looks like this:

Sunday: Arms
Monday: Quads
Tuesday AM: Hams
Wednesday: Shoulders
Thursday: Cardio only
Friday: Chest (blech)
Saturday: Back

I'm thinking that somewhere at about 10 or 8 weeks out I will probably combine quads and hams into one workout to allow for another rest day. This will depend entirely on how much cardio I'm doing at that point though. For now, this is where it's at.

Game On

Official starting weight: 142.6. Yesterday, I got things going with an awesome back workout. I only threw in a few different things, but DAMN my back is sore today. I love it. There's no better way to start things off than with a workout like I had yesterday. 40 minutes on the stepmill yesterday afternoon, and that was a wrap. This morning was arms, which also went well. I felt strong and got a great pump. I finished things off with about 15 minutes of posing. For now, my plan is to start with 15-20 minutes 3 times per week until I get with a good coach. Once I get better with my posing, I'll start to add it in more frequently...there's no point in practicing too much if I don't know what the F I'm doing. I'm heading in to work for a couple hours (yes, AGAIN), and then it's back to do cardio this afternoon. I'm happy that I'm starting things in a pretty good place mentally, but as anyone who's dieted knows, that will start to change daily. For now, I'm just trying to take it one day at a time and not get ahead of myself.

Coming Unraveled

So, umm, yeah, this whole posting more often thing clearly didn't happen this week. My worst fear about switching units at my job became a reality this week....things got so out of hand at work that it impacted my workout, both menatlly and time-wise. All my workouts have managed to get done, but there was no rhyme or reason to my schedule. For the past 3 weeks, I've put in over 50 hours at work each week, and if it keeps up like this, it's going to be a looooong miserable prep. I guess I shouldn't complain because I know there are people out there who have no work right now, so I should be grateful.

On a funny, not directly related to training, note, I had to dig out my old suit to wear to court this morning. Let's just say, I bought this suit six years ago after I got my Masters and started going on my first job interviews. I was also about 25 pounds lighter. The skirt fit ok but was tighter than I remembered around my ass and quads. The funny part was the jacket....FAT GUY IN A LITTLE COAT! I had to jam my snausage-arms into the sleeves, and I thought my shoulders and back were going to bust open the back seam, a la the Hulk. And you can forget about buttoning the jacket, the new twins were having none of that.

Well, it's hard to believe that tomorrow is officially my last day of the offseason. I know most people start their prep on a Sunday, but I have this rediculous supersticion about starting it on Saturday. I don't know where it came from or why I continue to do it that way, but it's always how I've done it. So, I decided to *cough cough* take the day off from work tomorrow and train in the late morning and then go out to lunch with a friend, where I'll have my last cheat meal.

Holy hell I don't know why I have so much anxiety about starting this prep. I think I just have such high expectations for myself, and I'm not all that sure that I'll meet them. And next time I post, I'll be officially into prep. It's so weird because I go back and read old posts and it felt like this time would never come. Now it's here, and I'm being a crazy idiot. Fuck, if I'm having a mini meltdown now that I'm only just starting prep, imagine what's going to happen the day after the show...I think I might spontaneously combust.

I Think I'm Developing a Sleeping Disorder

Can't sleep, again! Only now it's 1:30am and I have to be up in just a few hours...FUCK! I don't know why I can't sleep becuase I was exhausted at like 10 last night and fell right to sleep but woke up with my mind racing. I can't believe I'm freaking out about starting this diet. What if I don't have the time to get all my workouts/cardio in? What if I can't make it through mentally? Things just got flipped around at work and I was unexpectedly part of that change. My entire caseload got switched, along with my schedule....great, the week before I'm supposed to start my diet. And then what if this fat doesn't start coming off? I was looking at pictures of me from last year's figure shows, and I can't believe how small and NOT muscular I look! What if I look like that again this year? All this hard work for NO progress? I know I'm going to get my ass handed to me at Nationals and was originally planning on doing it for shits and giggles. But now I wonder if I'll even have any business getting on stage for the Easterns. Then there's the whole posing thing. Basically, I suck at it right now. So not only will I look like a skinny, wet rag on stage but my posing will be equally crappy. No wonder I can't sleep right now....

Well, guess I might as well talk about last night's workout. We did arms and decided to switch things around. Usually we superset a bi and tri exercise, doing about 4 exercises for each. Instead, we did two sets of supersetting bi exercises followed by two sets of supersetting tri exercises. First was 5 sets of standing EZ bar curls supersetted with incline db curls. Then we did 4 sets of machine preacher curls supersetted with standing hammer curls. I couldn't believe how freaking fried my arms were. For tris, we started with 5 sets of skull crushers supersetted with one arm cable pressdowns and then did 4 sets of EZ bar cable press downs and one-arm overheard DB extensions. Son of a bitch my bi's were already sore by the time we got done with tris and my tri's are now equally sore. Tomorrow's legs, which is also contributing to my sleeplessness....I dread every leg workout and how much pain my hamstring could potentially cause. Ugh, and I'm still wide awake at the end of all this....guess I'll go back to watching bad middle-of-the-night TV.