In my last post I proposed a theory that all the recent hype about “metabolic capacity” is really just a bunch of bodybuilders mislabeling work capacity. Reverse dieting –gradually increasing your caloric intake over time — is effective because as … Continue reading
I’ve mentioned before that I do not think physique competitors are accurate in calling themselves athletes. I say this because athletes train for optimal human performance, while physique competitors train for optimal human appearance. Looking good on stage very often necessitates … Continue reading
Hey y’all. This post is sort of a grab-bag of things I’ve been thinking about, so bear with me.
First off, you may remember that I decided to make my own posing suit (the sparkly bikini that figure girls wear on stage) instead of purchasing one. My reasoning for this was mostly due to budget limitations. My mom taught me how to sew when I was little, and I have done a few small projects, including making clothing for myself, in the past. How difficult could it be to make a itsy bitsy bikini?
Well, it hasn’t been easy, but I did manage to finish the top this week. I only had to re-seam the bottom edges like 3 times, ha!
You can’t really see it in the photo, but this fabric gives off a green & blue shimmer that is really prettyPr
The suit bottoms will be much more touch-n-go, since they need to fit my big ol’ butt that will probably change size and shape from now until I actually wear this thing. Figuring out how to size them down is going to be challenging, but I bought extra fabric, so if all else fails, I can always just start from scratch!
If you are interested in making your own posing suit, I highly recommend checking out Jodi Lane’s youtube channel. She sells patterns for suits and has great instructional videos and information. She sells completed suits as well.
I have been playing around with my food a lot recently & trying new recipes, especially variations on my protein pancake recipe, since I eat those every morning. These lemon ricotta crepes are my favorite so far. Check em out!
Ingredients
Directions
I posted Layne Norton’s video blog on Metabolic Damage in my Cutting The Fat post earlier this month. This week he posted a follow-up video about reverse dieting that is really awesome and worth watching. I’m already getting super excited about my plans post-competition (yay for building my metabolism and getting stronger again!). I was also SOOO HAPPY to hear Layne say “You don’t need a coach to compete”. Doing this all on my own has me a little worried that I’m missing a huge part of the prep experience. It’s refreshing to hear someone who knows the industry well and coaches a lot of successful competitors recognize that DIY-ing it isn’t a waste of time.
It’s that time again! I’m officially10 weeks out now from my first competition (which I may or may not do depending on how I feel / if i can get time off from rotations). Weight loss progress is right on target – I’m 140 today, which is down 3 lbs from 2 weeks ago, and it looks like it was all fat, because my back looks pretty awesome!
I still have a lot of work to do on my posing, especially tweaking my poses to take emphasis off of my Left-Right asymmetry. Looking at these photos, I still wish my lats were bigger & delts rounder, but keep in mind that these photos are taken first thing in the morning, without any kind of pump. Of course, as nice as my upper body is coming along, there is still fat to lose from the badonk and thighs (story of my life!). Also I still have no calves, despite a bajillion sets of calf work in the last few months. 😦
Overall, however, I feel optimistic about my progress. The best part is I haven’t had to add any extra cardio (I do a few hill sprints 1-2x a week) and I’m still eating about 1800 cals a day on average (sometimes more). This rate of weight loss is totally sustainable for the time being, and should bring me into stage condition by the time I need to be there. So hooray for that!
I’ve become a bit bored with my program as of late, so I did some tweaking to make it more interesting. I’ve dropped cleans for the time being, since I’m so terrible at them I can’t even clean as much as I bench (yeah, weak…), which kind of defeats the purpose of doing them as the main lift on a “strength” day. Instead, I will be working on front squats. I’m also adding more unilateral hamstring and delt work to try to fix the asymmetry I talked about earlier. I’ll try to upload more training videos in the next few weeks to give y’all a better idea of what I’m up to.
Lastly, If you’re not already following me on facebook, click the link on the sidebar to like my page and get more frequent updates!
Later Gators!
The one thing that initially held me back from seriously contemplating competing was reading about the crazy diets some female physique competitors claim to follow. There are a plethora of stories out there about women hiring coaches who have them … Continue reading
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