First Fitness Competition Recap! :)

Sorry for the delay on my recap!!! I've been waiting to get some pictures to share along with my blog!! :) I'm still waiting...so I think I'll just go ahead an post before too much time goes by!

Well deserved treat
at our favorite restaurant!

Now that I've been able to add cottage cheese and greek yogurt back into my diet, and replaced fish with chicken, I'm a SUPER happy camper....and it's SO NICE to not have to hold my breath while peeing anymore! HAHA (if you've ever eaten large amounts of asparagus, you'll know what I mean!)....I've had a couple weeks on a more lax diet, but still super clean. No need to get those sugar cravings back after taking so long to kick them to the curb! I had a giant AUCE sushi meal after my competition, and headed to the grocery store after to get more clean food and start prepping for the following week! One free meal was certainly enough for me! Now, I'm three weeks out POSSIBLY, from my next competition. I haven't signed up yet, but I'm 99.99% sure I'm going to go ahead with it! If money wasn't a factor, I would be going full steam ahead! I loved the experience and I'm DEFINITELY hooked.

Peak Week went really well for me, but I THINK it could have gone better. Now to figure out how to change it up for the next one!!! I did two days of low carb, with High Water intake, Followed by two days of high carb paired with low water intake before the competition. The day of, I really didn't have any water...I didn't want to have to pee once I had my suit and tan all done anyway! HAHA On the day of the competition, water depleted and all, I was 110lbs...Monday morning after water and cheats I was 111.8 and now, a week later I was 113, now this morning back to 11.8. I'm pretty happy with the minimal rebound! I thought it would be much worse! This is what makes me thing I could have done better with my depletion. I figured I would lose a lot more than two lbs of water??! Who knows I guess! :)

The entire week was SO BUSY! Getting the last workouts in, posing practice, fitting cardio in between hair, nails, and tan...and all those things you need to do, but have to wait till the last minute to do it, like hair, makeup and touch ups! It kinda leaves you in limbo, like the calm before the storm, and there isn't anything you can do to make it easier! My husband was out of town for work so I was doing all this with a 10mth old in tow, which is always fun!!! I was SO LUCKY to have a good friend arrive on the Thursday from my hometown to watch the competition! She was SO HELPFUL watching Haley while I had my tanning appts and athletes meeting, practiced my posing, etc! THANKYOU CHANTALE!!!!

Athlete's meeting, number 76!! Woop Woop

Hair and Makeup Complete!

My biggest stress was the tan! ARGH I'm not looking forward to doing this part again! I had to get one tan on Friday, and another on Saturday! After the Saturday tan, I wasn't allowed to shower again, and I was TOTALLY stressed out about messing it up, getting it wet, etc. The following morning my husband and I were up at 4am putting the dream tan (kinda like thick tan color paint) on top...deciding whether to wear the suit, and cover it in saran wrap, putting on the tan and waiting for the suit till later...etc seemed like the biggest decision ever! I decided to wear my suit, and won't do that again! I don't think!?? LOL We just finished on time for my hair and makeup artist to arrive. (she did an AMAZING JOB, I was SO happy with her work https://www.facebook.com/ArtistryByBobi  No time to eat..ARGH again! HAHA, Should have woke earlier!

I got to the show, what I thought was early, but the rooms provided to prepare were already PACKED! The girls were awesome though, and made room for me immediately. I was still stressed about my tan, and that went tenfold when I put the muscle sheen on! It seemed to smudge my tan so I stopped after one leg and was worried that it would show when I was on stage but it didn't! Thank goodness!! I don't think I'd use the muscle sheen again, but we'll see I guess! I expected to feel like I was sitting backstage for hours, twiddling my thumbs waiting to get on stage but that was SO NOT the case! The organization was impeccable and since I was in two categories (bikini model and fitness model) I was basically called up to get in lineups backstage within 30 minutes of arriving!!!  We were standing in our lineups for a long time in our heels though. Now that I know how long we were waiting in line, I'd leave the shoes off for a while! Once I was off stage from the first category, I got straight into lineups for the next category! It was total amazing craziness!! HAHA I was running back and forth to my change room to stuff sweet potatoes down the shoot when I could, but I'll have to have a better plan in place next time for meals so my muscles are looking as full as possible! I don't know if this is why so many fitness competitors bring junk food to snack on as their carbs, but it makes total sense to me now!! There just wasn't time to have carb meals at this event. I would have been much better off to grab a couple handfuls of ju-jubes and enjoy them while standing in line rather than stuffing my face! HAHA

My mirror Buddies

First Time on Stage

In regard to the competition, it went awesome! I felt fairly relaxed until I had to walk pass that curtain, at which point I started shaking like a leaf!! (apparently that wasn't visible from the audience either, but I find that hard to believe) There were 12 girls in fitness class and 14 in bikini so we got a LOT of time on stage :) After all the concern of not achieving the amount of muscle I had wanted, I ended up placing second in the fitness model category which was awesome!!!!! The stage was smaller than I expected so I had to do a lot of improvisation at the last minute, but everything worked out in the long run, and I had a blast!!! I wasn't thinking straight when I went up for bikini, and rather than relaxing, I was flexed the whole time, which I think hurt my placing! I ended up with 7th place in Bikini Model.

2nd Place!! With Papa and Baby Haley, Love you guys!

What's next....well, that's for another post because this one has been getting a little longer than I like!!! I'll be writing up my goals for the summer and fall soon, and will definitely be sharing with you all!

Thankyou again for all the support, I couldn't have stayed as focused without feeling accountable to all of you! ;) YOU ROCK!!!!

7 Weeks out, and Prep for Photoshoot next week!

This week, I did low carb Monday-Saturday and included a high carb and higher calorie day on Sunday. Last week pictures were looking so flat that I was hoping the carb load on Sunday would make for better pics this week, and it appears it worked!! I am much happier with these pics...progress is still humming along! I'm still panicked that I won't get lean enough on time, but I'm continuing to go strong! My knees have been treating me pretty good this week during cardio, and long as I keep it really low impact, so I'll continue with that next week too! I've been working so hard in the gym, I've had a couple of "why am I doing this again?" moments...but there have been more good days than bad! I'm determined to stay motivated!

My plan for this week is the same as I've been doing the last couple of weeks! I'm going to be eating low carb till Saturday where I will start to introduce carbs back into my diet. This will HOPEFULLY fill out my muscles nicely by the time I have the photoshoot on Sunday. The beginning of the week, I'll be ingesting AT LEAST a gallon of water/day. Come saturday I'll be just drinking what I need, and after dinner on Saturday I'll just be sipping water when really needed! After tomorrow I won't be working legs for the rest of the week, it's said to retain water when you work legs...(I'll go easy on myself when we are doing legs at FEM Camp) I'm going to be going lighter on the weights, higher reps. Taking a bit of a break you could say.

There's lots to do this week!! I have to start making a diet plan so that I can prep all my food for the trip by Thursday. (I booked a hotel with a kitchen, so that's eased my mind a little about prep!) I have to pick out some outfits for the shoot, get a manicure and pedicure, figure out what I want to do with my hair, etc...I have no idea what I want to do there, I'm a ponytail girl! I have a spray tanned booked in Toronto to hopefully make those muscles pop a bit more too...not to mention hide my cellulite ;) I'm pretty darned EXCITED about FEM CAMP!! I wish it was closer to competition time so my body would have looked better, but what can ya do!!! I'm ACTUALLY getting to meet a few people there, that I have only chatted with so far through my page. They have helped me so much along the way! I can't wait! Oh, and I guess Monica Brant is kinda a big deal too ;) ;)

Anyway, I will be kinda MIA over the weekend, but will be taking LOTS of pictures to post when I get back!!! Wish my husband luck with the baby by himself for 4 days!!!! AHHHHHH LOL

14 Weeks out!!!

I missed progress pics last week since I was so sick and didn't work out. I'm was feeling MUCH better this week, and I was working REALLY hard at the gym!! I'm noticing that I have to focus a lot more on my triceps. My diet this past week was 1900 Calories and a 40/40/20 Macro Split. I've noticed just looking in the mirror at the gym that I'm looking better, but these pics don't really reflect that?? I seem to have lost all definition in my abs (could be as simple as what I ate yesterday I guess) And I had to take the pics by myself this morning because my photographer is out of town ;) Did a lot of running back and forth from the camera to my spot trying to get the positioning as close to the last pics as possible!!

I spent a lot of time this week emailing Hair/MakeUp for quotes, and shopping around for tanning! I think I've settled on using Cherry Dolls for my Tan (they seem to be the most hassle free) and I'm pretty sure I've pick my hair and makeup professional as well :) I was originally planning on doing all this stuff myself, but I see myself being SO NERVOUS that I want to have as little to worry about as possible.  For future competitions (if there's a future competition) I will be more comfortable trying to do these things on my own!

I haven't been practicing posing, but I HAVE been walking all over the place in my heels just getting used to them!! They are slowly but surely getting more comfortable! THANK GOODNESS!!! HAHA I have a couple of workshops coming up, and hopefully I'll get tips there to REALLY start practicing my posing routine!

I have to get even MORE focused on the food intake this week. I'm going to do 1800 Cals a day and stick with my 40/40/20. I just realized that I do have a photoshoot the first week of April, so I should be counting that as my focus for now!!! This means, I have half the time I thought I did!! HAHA I want to look a little more "Natural" for the photoshoot though, so it should be good timing!!

Until Next week's Progress Pics!!! Have a great Week!!!