Competition Prep – 3 Weeks to Go

When you are training for a bodybuilding competition the closer you get to your show date the crazier things get.  Your carbs and calories are cut, your workouts and water intake doubles and somewhere in between you have to practice posing.   Also, if you’re me, you have to come up with an entirely new costume because why make life easy?

Here are some updates:

Costume

I’ve been placing orders on Halloween.com and Etsy online stores and surfing the web for just the right gold boots.  See the ones I got were thigh-high boots and (sadly) I just can’t pull them off.  Maybe if I was 5’10” instead of 5’2″ it would have worked out, but for now I’m scrambling to find the perfect knee high boots.  I’d love to tell you what my costume is going to be, but where’s the fun in that?

Family Feud

The is a truism that goes something like this:  “When Mom is on a diet, everyone is on a diet.”  Ask me if my family likes being on a diet.  No; they do not.  Does it matter that my kids just joined me for a cheat meal at Chili’s two weeks ago after my competition?  Apparently not.  My son asks me every day when we can go to a restaurant or we can make homemade tacos or kettle popcorn.  He offered that I could make those foods for him and then eat my salad.

He eats pizza and I eat from my Tupperware

I’ve explained to him that there are many merits to delayed gratification and that he could eat all these things in a mere three weeks.  I also reminded him that our refrigerator is stocked with ice cream and our pantry has chips that he can eat, so it’s not like he’s totally deprived.  My daughter put it better though.  “Henry, if you knew you could eat ice cream but not until next week would you like it if we all sat in front of you eating ice cream while you at broccoli, or would you want us to wait a week so we could all have ice cream together?”  That seemed to resonate with him because his requests have reduced to every other day know.  Baby steps.

The Last 10 Pounds

If you have ever been on a diet you know that losing the last 10 pounds is the hardest.  Sometimes it literally feels like you have to beat it off with a stick.  For a bikini competition you want to look as tight as possible.  The quick test for this is to walk towards the back of the stage.  If your muscles are tight enough there should be no jiggles.  I’m 43.  Gravity is clasping my a$$ and thighs for dear life, so trying to make them jiggle-free is a challenge.  This gets fixed through very strict adherence to diet and exercise. 

Sometimes it’s really hard to step on the scale, knowing that I did everything “right” the day before (ate clean, drank my water, followed the exercise plan) and notice a weight gain of half a pound.  This is the @#$% that drives me crazy.  Of course it also helps that I’m a personal trainer and know that it’s just water weight and that you can lose 5 lbs. of fat, gain 5 lbs. of muscle and weigh EXACTLY the same but look better, but honestly sometimes I just want the darn number to go down like it’s supposed to.   This isn’t my first rodeo, so I know to trust the process and my body and it will all work out.  It also helps me relate better to my clients when they are feeling frustrated with a plateau because I can tell them with near certainty that the results will come as long as they apply consistent effort.

That said, I still wish there was a magic fit girl pill.  *Sigh*

Diet and Exercise

I eat all day long.  I can easily eat six to seven times per day – full meals with protein, carbs, fats and vegetables.  But now I’m reduced to a mere five (5) meals and it’s driving me bonkers.  I don’t know how I ever just ate three meals a day and was ok with it.

Food in my fridge

My exercises are all about the booty.  I can’t even tell you how many squats, lunges and variations of same I do each day.  (Well, actually I can tell you because I have an Excel spreadsheet labelling each exercise and number of reps to be done that I check off after completion, but that’s far to anal to discuss here.)

Anyway, there’s a reason why the average marathon (running 26.2 miles in about 4 1/2 hours) has 20,000 participants and bodybuilding (dieting and exercising hardcore for three months before a competition) has about 200 participants:  hardcore dieting is less pleasant than running!  But on the upside I get to wear a sparkly purple bikini and have a totally valid reason to wear gold boots and a costume in the middle of July.  #ILoveBodybuilding

Logistics

We have our house sitter and dog sitter set.  Yay!  My registration forms are filled out and fees paid.  Awesome.  It’s probably too early to start packing…I’m totally starting to pack.  I’m making up checklists (of course) and figuring out my travel food.

My family is getting excited to go on vacation too.  My kids have never been outside America before, so they are pretty psyched to get passports.  My husband hasn’t been to Costa Rica in years, so he’s looking forward to going too.  I’m lucky that my family is supportive and I’m happy to be treating them to a vacation.  They probably need a cheat meal as much as me, lol!

Working out with my kids

That’s it for me.  Hope you are working on your own fitness goals!

Lisa 🙂

Train With Me- Now Accepting New Clients

If you are interested in signing up for my online personal training programs, click here to order now: SLI Method.

Local to Austin and want to train with me in person?  Email me at sheslosingit.net@gmail.com.

Lisa Traugott is a Mom’s Choice Award winning writer, fitness blogger, wife and mom of two….and Original Cast Member of AMERICAN GRIT, starring John Cena, on FOX!!!

ShesLosingIt.com (c) 2012-2017 Lisa Traugott. All rights reserved. No portion of this blog, including any text, photographs, video, and artwork, may be reproduced or copied without written permission.

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *