Boo to day 2!

Oh man day 2, you really sucked! I was so over the top fatigued, major brain fog, super cranky. I decided to do a small carb nite, a practice run of the carb nite plan for day before my photoshoot/comp. I am glad I did as I discovered a few things but on the flip side I am really ticked off!

My carb nite went like this -

• non fat latte
• 2 ripe bananas
• 1/3 bag marshmallows
• homemade bacon cheeseburger
• mashed sweet potatoes with butter & brown sugar
• 7oz cheesecake

This totaled about 250gr of carbs, 400 less than I ate last carb nite. First thing I noticed was extreme bloating, painful even! I am not sure exactly what caused it but sweet potato is the only thing I haven't had in months, it just seems weird that would be the item to cause bloating. It went down after about 30-45 min thank goodness! I also found it hard to eat the cheesecake, I mean what?! I had planned on eating 4 mini cheesecakes but ended up only eating 2 and even sharing those 2 with Pixie.

Woke up this morning up 2lbs instead of my normal .5-1lb increase from a carb nite, and I was not lean and tight like normal after a carb nite. I feel like man that was a total waste! Up more weight, not lean and tight, and still no bump in energy. GRRRRRR! On the other hand now I know doing a small "cleaner" carb nite does not work for me, and it's better I found out now rather than waking up the morning of my photoshoot or competition and seeing what I saw in the mirror this morning. Maybe when I am a little leaner a CN like this would work but frankly I don't want to take any chances. I will stick to my 600gr carb dirty dirty carb nites from now on, those are what gets me results so that is what I am going to do. As they say don't fix what ain't broke.

Day 1 is done

Relearning some discipline is not easy. I've enjoyed the freedom that following CNS offered. Having results without having to think too much about what or how much I was eating, just making sure I was getting enough of protein and fat. This week is all about weighing and measuring everything! It definitely caused some mental mind games yesterday. I was hungry all. day. long. Even though I ate more meals and I am pretty sure didn't eat less food overall, it was more the whole oh this is all that you get until your next meal thing happening. Crazy how things like that can really mess with you.

Then of course there is the water issue. I know from last year that water loading doesn't work, at least not loading with as much water as I was. This time I am only drinking 6 liters but since water is not my favorite beverage I really have to get creative. I tried making flavored water with lemons limes and mint but ick. There is just enough flavor to make me gag. So I set up a reward system. Every liter of water I could have a cup of coffee. I got all 6 liters in and only needed 3 reward cups!

Today is going to be kind of busy. I know the distraction will be good to keep me from being hungry, water intake is my biggest worry. Then again I am going in for my biweekly massage and that tends to always make me very thirsty so maybe it won't be an issue after all.

All I know is I am very glad that day 1 is over and that it should be easier from here on out.

Peak week trial run

33 days until the Vancouver Natural! 7 days from my first photoshoot, 6 days from my first Comic Con! So much excitement I can barely contain myself. Or well I might have trouble if I wasn't so damn exhausted. I seriously detest PMS week, not because I am cranky or might have cravings, nope, it's because that's when I simply can't control my adrenal fatigue symptoms and always seems to fall on the busiest of weeks for me making life miserable. On the plus side this type of fatigue only lasts 1-3 days so it's not to terribly limiting but I do usually find I need to take that time off from the gym so I can function normally in day to day activities.

To really impact that though, I am doing a trial run of my "peak week" plan. Now peaking for bikini really doesn't mean much of anything. I remove a few food items from my meal plan and increase water intake for several days then start to slowly drop it down a bit until show (or in this case photoshoot) day. I did decrease the calories a bit as well as I will not do cardio during peak week. I discovered during my last prep the combo or waterloading and cardio did not work for me. Knowing what does and doesn't work is always  trial and error so it's beneficial to have this test run for the photoshoot and then I can make tweaks as needed for my actual "peak week". My carb nite will change a bit as well this week, much cleaner and lower intake of carbs. I've had great success with the higher carb intake carb nites so I am really interested to see how this one will turn out!

Speaking of carb nite, my last one was crazy! I ate over 4000 calories and hit 645gr of carbs! Now I did over do it by 3 bites of a cookie, which left me tossing some cookies a few hours later. Luckily it wasn't too bad and I was fine after. I did suffer one hell of a carb hangover and I blame myself for not drinking enough water. I strive for 6 liters during carb nite but I am fairly certain I only drank 3 liters, definitely not enough. My carbs looked like this (minus the banana I started with and um well I ate the candy corn too fast to take a pic lol). Oh and I was only up less than a 1lb again!

Now since I am doing this whole peak week trial thing I did decide to do some food prep. The only thing I didn't prep were my eggs because well I like those cooked fresh. It took me about 2 hours total, thanks to my awesome George Foreman grill! I drafted up my plan this morning and it looks good, I am eating more meals than normal but I think it will be fine since the meals are smaller for this week. Now I just have to be disciplined on drinking my water and all should be fine! Speaking of water, time to chug a lug another liter *groan* And here is a look at what my food prep looked like, which is never complete without my Harley bug perching on my shoulders :)

Ish is getting real!

38 days to show time. It's crunch time, which really just means taking out some of the fattier meats from my plan. Bye bye bacon, you were a good friend and I will miss you but never fear we will see each other again! So what does my diet look like right now? Basically whole eggs, egg whites, chicken breast, ground turkey, protein powder(s), coconut oil, olive oil, MCT oil, almonds, avocado, blueberries, bananas, and unlimited veggies. I am also having a carb nite every 5-7 days depending on how I feel, if I am feeling super depleted day 4 I carb up on day 5, if I can hang until day 7 then that's what I do. My last 2 carb nites looked like this

Now pic 2 only shows dinner, previous to this I had movie theater popcorn, soda, twizzlers, sour patch kids, and a soft pretzel. After this I had several fruity pebbles treats and a donut.




After 3 weeks back on carb nite after that not so fun trip into carb backloading, I went from this to that

Over 2" gone and looking leaner and tighter. I compared my 4 week out pics from last comp season to this one and I am amazed at the difference. While my upper body is leaning out quickly, because I am not losing my muscle mass I look much fuller! That and the lack of that damn glute underbutt line is making my physique look so much more improved. I am really enjoying this prep, I don't feel hungry, I don't feel deprived, and I have no desire to cheat. Of course the weekly carb loads help take care of those cravings and cheat feelings since I get to indulge in pretty much whatever I want. My next carb nite I am aiming for over 500 gr of carbs which will be my highest carb count to date. Food on my list include 2 ripe bananas, candy corn, tapioca pudding, 6 belgian waffles with syrup, froyo, and 1-2 cherry fruit pies, oh and some Berger's cookies a friend sent so I might actually hit 600gr of carbs LOL Perhaps if I am feeling generous I will post my last comp 4 week out pics compared to this comp 4 week out pics. 

Say what? Rewind, back up, start again!

First things first, I really fraking hated doing the CBL/CNS hybrid which really just turned into straight up CBL. When I say hate I mean with a firey burning passion. I felt like crap, I had no benefits of ketosis so eating ultra low carb during the day was just worthless. I was not recovering well from my workouts despite the 3-4 times a week of carb backloads. My energy was shot and I just felt blah. I took several days off from the backloads and then Friday night ate a huge ass bacon double cheeseburger from jack in the box. I got instantly hot and had to ride with my window down in 35 degree temps. Yep, smoking hot. I hadn't planned on that cheat meal since Sunday I knew I'd be eating like a pig at a Superbowl party. Whatevs my body obviously needed it so I went with it. Then Saturday I had this insane craving for a box of chocolates. Like I would have cried if I didn't get it right then and there. Bless my husband for getting it for me. I ate it all. And then had a blast eating at the party the next day.  --Yea just look at that burger OMG so worth it ;p

Monday however I was pissed at myself for eating like that all weekend. I knew I was going to do another reorientation phase and get back on CNS so I didn't stay mad at myself very long. Surprise I had my energy back, I felt better, my brain was clear, and I was recovering just fine from my workouts. Yesterday created my first love/hate relationship with CNS. I felt the signs of ketosis, I felt the symptoms of being glycogen depleted. It was AWESOME! It also sucked when I was near death and about to bonk hard on my HIITs. I decreased my protein intake and upped my fat intake for the day, it seemed to be what my body was really needed. I kept the fat clean, pretty much stuck with coconut oil. I woke up this morning feeling well rested, which never happens, full of energy and just generally fantastic. We shall see how the rest of the day goes as I have team posing, plyos and some shake ya booty steady state cardio on my plate.

Oh and tomorrow? Carb nite, The Walking Dead, and our 2nd son's 16th birthday. Yea that's gonna be an epic fking carb nite. So far the plan is get up and do my HIITs first thing, then late afternoon hit the gym to work back and bi's, pwo will be my usual shake, but to start off the carb nite I'll have sweetarts (1st ingredient is dextrose, winning!) and sour patch kids. After that the husband and I will head to the mall to enjoy a huge soft pretzel and latte (or breve in my case mmmm love those!). After that we will head home and pick up a couple of take n' bake pizzas from papa murphys for dinner. Now here is where it really starts to get awesome, dinner of course being the pizza, then dessert will be red velvet cake and ice cream while we watch The Walking Dead. Originally I was going to make this kick ass zombie cake but that was thwarted thanks to Party City being closed down, jerks. Bedtime snack will be 2 Reese's hearts for Nate, and 1 Reese's egg for me as well as a donut or some other danish/pastry. I am so excited I could pee myself right now. Just holding out for this carb nite feels like it is killing me because I am so depleted now even my brain is starting to act stupid. Only at night so I guess I can deal with that. Anyways, that's where I am, had a successful re-reorientation, feeling totally ketogenic and glycogen depleted, seriously craving my carb nite.