Tonight, I started reading a blog. I was reading older posts from approx. December-February of last year.
This girl was a workout FREAK. She pushed herself HARD.
She had struggled with losing some weight through calorie counting(not healthy eating) and gained it all back the following summer. The posts that I started reading were her posts of getting back into shape and deciding to train for a competition.
She posted her food, workouts, etc. and energy seemed to be radiating from her blog. Somehow, she had been able to take some pictures of herself at her lowest point, decided to make the change for good, this time eating clean, healthy foods, and sticking to her goals. And that is exactly what she did. She felt AMAZING and had no idea food could have such a great effect on the body. She had found the key to success. Eating clean, natural foods was incredible! And all of this is documented.
This girl is my new inspiration. Check her out.
Before you start thinking I’m some conceited b*tch. The whole point of this, is that I read through my old posts and it made me wonder how I got to the point I’m at now. I LOVED everything I was doing. I still LOVE my workouts, but I’m not lovin’ my body. I took “progress” pictures tonight, and compared them to last year’s. The funny thing is that I happened to take them on the exact same date last year. It was the date I decided to turn things around, get motivated, stick to my goals, and see the results. I was seeing results after just 1 month of sticking to my goals. Lately, I’m lucky if I get through 2 weeks of sticking to my guns. Why? Cuz i burnt myself out. Yep, admitting it. Not with the workouts, because I just don’t think that’s possible, but with the dieting? You bet. The thing is, when people say sugar is addicting, it is something to be taken seriously. When eating clean for a good amount of time, you truly do NOT care for anything that has white sugar, and in fact, it makes you sick to think about. Well, at least for me it did. But, once it enters your life again, you have to re-cleanse your body of it. So far, I’ve failed at doing that because I haven’t been patient enough with myself.
Here are my thoughts about the past…ohh..3 1/2 months.
1. I’m doing less cardio than I was then. This is probably a good thing, because I was doing way too much before, but part of me wants to bring back the “freak” as my boxing instructor calls it. Don’t get me wrong, I still get in at least a strong half hour a day, and a few days a week its closer to an hour, and sometimes more, but I was doing no less than 1 hour a day before. And many times, it was close to 2 hours. Not recomended, but I actually liked it. I like to train like an athlete. If things were my way, I would train multiple times a day.
2. I’m trying to be too perfect. I’ve almost learned too much. I know exactly what I should be eating, and if I screw it up slightly, I beat myself up over it. Like, I ate an apple when I wasn’t supposed to? I must have no will power or drive. What a fail. Yeah, it’s that bad.
3. Reading through my old entries made me realize that I took all of the difficultness(is that even a word?) out of it. It was easy. I ate clean foods. That was my only goal, and that is what I did. I had a target calorie goal, but I was pretty lax on it. I usually ended up anywhere from 1700 to 2500 calories per day. Looking through my Sparkpeople account…I was eating basically only protein and carbs and getting about 12 g. of fat per day HA, which I now know is Tooooootally not good, but I didn’t know then. I lost weight and leaned out. It took me longer than a typical contest prep. diet would, but I had a good 6 months to do it, so who cares?!
4. I’ve become really resistant to keeping myself in line. May, June and July, my diet changed significantly, and I was starting to get lots of “advice”. I think by September I was exhausted, and apparently I haven’t gotten up the will power to just stop being a p*ss about it and really strap down and get to it. But my other problem is dieting philosophy. So much conflicting advice out there! I have gotten lots of it in the past few years. This is not to say that it was bad advice by any means. The advice was just coming from too many different people, and I didn’t know any better. This is why I read so much. Since I began working out in 2007, I have had more people tell me what I should/shouldn’t be doing than I’d care to count. Eat more protein, eat less protein, eat more complex carbs, eat less complex carbs and more veggies, eat less fruit, don’t eat fruit, don’t eat carbs and fat at the same time, eat whatever you want, eat whenever you want, eat 6 times a day, eat 3 times a day. SERIOUSLY! I finally got fed up with it and did my own scientific research, along with trying things for myself to see what worked/didn’t work. I directed questions to people that I felt had the right knowledge, but even that is something to be taken with a grain of salt. The thing is, THERE IS NO RIGHT WAY. I even read a comment from my old entries about my fruit consumption. Someone said that for a contest diet, I couldn’t have fruit at all. Well, I had fruit up until the 2 weeks before my show and it worked out for me. Some people can’t handle it, some people can.
My rules for my last prep were insanely simple:
1. Eat clean foods(nothing processed)
2. Try to eat every few hours (not gonna lie though, sometimes i ate only 3 big meals a day (insert GASP here)
3. Make sure to get enough protein in (160-180g)
4. Try not to eat TOO many carbs (Meaning stay under 300 g. Yes, that many. and most was from fruit.)
Get this….I used to eat fruit at night after dinner. Holy. effing. cow. Talk about rebellious.
Notice the trend? I had rules, but I wasn’t super strict on them. I gave myself a break. I don’t think I ate a single processed piece of food until April of this year. I started incorporating cheat meals, and that is when that “sugar addiction” came back into my life. It is a domino effect. It starts out small, and grows.(not sure how that describes a domino effect whatsoever, but you catch my drift ;-))
Still, though, things were fine, but once I didn’t have a competition looming, I gave myself a break. And the addiction grew…and here I am mid-December, still struggling. It bums me about because I know what I’m capable. I also think it is EXTREMELY ironic, because I know I don’t even LIKE this lifestyle. Eating healthy for a few days, then somehow I feel the desire for something completely unhealthy, and instead of resisting temptation, I give in. Who is this girl?!
Well, it’s not me. I’ve never been one to give in or give up. I don’t plan on staying this way either. I also realize that I sound like a broken record, but it’s because I refuse to give up.
I am 20 pounds up from my contest weight. That is enough for me. I am done. I am channeling the me from last December, and getting her back. As for competing? I’ll decide to compete when my body is ready. i am not going to prepare my body for competition any longer. It does NOT work for me. Last time, I had planned on a March show, but didn’t feel my body was ready, so I postponed it. I was competing according to MY BODY…not dietint according to a show. I am going back to my roots and I am going to prepare my body for ME. There is no time line, there is just daily work. When I feel that my body is ready, I will compete.
 (I should mention this, I fully plan on doing Jr. Nationals in June. I am qualified for it, and I want to do a national show this year. It is on my list of goals to accomplish. If i’m not on track by then, I am sending myself off to boot camp 😉 kidding………but seriously……….)
So what does that mean for February 6th? I’ll let you know February 5th. 🙂
If you’re still reading, stop being so obsessed with me! haha just kidding. I appreciate you taking the time to read all of this. I show the upsides of training/dieting and competing, but it is only fair to show the downsides.
This girl is coming back!!
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