6 Days Left before the Fitness America Pageant Weekend.

It’s Tuesday, and I’m really on the final countdown now with only 6 days left to dial it all in. My nutrition is bang on, my training is slightly insane, I do have to admit, but I am full steam ahead in terms of energy and outlook. Last week was pretty rocky, as it always is 2 weeks out, but I made it through the worst of it, and now I am able to see results about every 8 hours. The diet really works. I am reminded again that physique athletes are really competitive dieters. Not that we are doing anything particularly crazy, (at least not in comparison to the general public). We don’t starve ourselves on green juices, or eat only grapefruits, or even limit ourselves to chalky shakes and diet bars…it’s just a matter of tweaking our macronutrients and cycling our work-outs with our meals to bring about the most noticeable physiological changes in the shortest amount of time. For me, cutting out my carbohydrates, except for the low calorie dense carbs like most salad vegetables, allows me to tighten up considerably. Again, it’s not how I would choose to eat year-round, but to get stage-ready, it works like a charm.
Yesterday was day one of my full ketogenic diet, and I started the day with a black coffee, a teaspoon of honey and a square of 90% dark Lindt chocolate. I revved up my metabolism at Active Performance with a 28 minute metabolic workout, and then started cycling my meals. I am eating mostly protein and saturated fats at this point and am hungry most of the time, but only slightly hungry. The fat and protein really stabilize my blood sugar, so my appetite is more balanced, less aggressive. I did a mid-day Bikram yoga class, and then finished the day at AP again with a heavy shoulder and core workout. I am still pretty full in terms of muscle glycogen at this stage, and the pump was pretty amazing! I hope that I will be able to keep more fullness in the upper body for this last show, so I may go on a 2 day carb load…I’ll know by Thursday night better what is going on. Today I started the day with a very low carb protein shake, and then headed into Montreal to do a double Bikram session: first a morning beginner’s class followed by a noon advanced class…that’s about 3.5 hours of hot yoga, and I was pretty spent at the end of it. I was in a pinch leaving the house this morning, so I ended up eating one of those canned “protein puddings” that was in my WBFF goodie bag. It was actually pretty good, at least as far as packaged puddings go. I also had some raw almonds, and another double espresso. That was it for my nutrition until I got back home, and I whipped up some poached chicken and a radish/celery salad for my pre-leg workout meal. Now I’m back off to AP to finish off today’s training with a great leg workout, the last leg day before stepping on stage, and I’m feeling pretty good about my progress so far…Progress pics will be coming up tomorrow or Thursday…
Have a great night everyone!