Supplement Explanation

I get a lot of questions about my supplements because I take so many. So I figure I can break it down here:

L-Glutamine:
I take 5 grams of this before I workout, after I workout, and before I go to bed. This is to help me maintain the muscles I have. You don't want to lose it while you are doing cardio or resting. I'm also supposed to take 5 grams before cardio. But I haven't worked it in yet.

Creatine:
Currently I'm taking monohydrate creating which is in powder form. But I'm going to be switching to a krealkaline capsule form, which is per my nutritionist's request. Supposedly it is better to prevent bloating and upset stomach. I'm taking 5grams of this before working out.

Clomex:
This is a testosterone booster. Helps gain muscle. I'm taking 3 tablets before I workout.

Yohimbe Fuel:
I take one capsule with breakfast. This is a fat burner.

Beta-X with methoxy:
Also a fat burner and muscle builder. I take 3 tablets with breakfast.

Multivitamin:
I take one with lunch. I don't take it with breakfast because I drink coffee. Coffee already is like a diuretic and I don't want to just pee out all the nutrients I just took. So I wait until lunch.

Calcium:
I take this at lunch. Right now I take 750mg but I need to be taking 1200mg. I have been resistant because I still seem to eat plenty dairy. But I'll work it in over time.

Joint Doctor:
This is basically glucosamine. I take 4 capsules of the joint doctor at lunch. It is to help with your overall joint health which is important for lifting as heavy as I do. You know how sometimes you feel like a slight pop while working a specific muscle group? Well I do occasionally in my hip and shoulder. So this helps with that.

Probiotic:
I take one tablet before bed. This helps flush toxins out of your system and move the digestive tract.

ZMA:
This is zinc and magnesium. Specifically zinc is great for building muscle. I take 2 tablets before I go to bed. This also helps me sleep really well for some reason.

The above is my core supplement regime. All in all, I take 16 pills a day. You get used to it is all I can really say. Thankfully none taste bad. I hate taking pills and I've had to get over that! The glutamine and creatine are powders that don't taste like anything. Just gritty in your water.

In addition, I usually get 1-2 scoops of whey or soy protein into my diet each day. Usually in a meal like a protein shake or with my oatmeal. Whey is the best protein supplement. Also if you take some right after working out it is good to help your muscles recover. I actually put it in my coffee in the morning on the way to the gym and then drink some more on my drive to work. Helps you easily reach your protein goal for the day.

Thank God the Holidays are Over

I am so glad to be back ready for my normal schedule! I do so much better in routine mode!

I got the off-season diet from Amy. So here is the plan for the week on nutrition:

Pre-workout:
Coffee with myoplex lite vanilla
1 tsp glutamine
1 tsp creatine

Post workout:
1 tsp glutamine

Breakfast:
1/3 cup oats
1 scoop chocolate soy protein powder
1 tbsp peanut butter
1 multivitamin
3 clomex testosterone boosters
1 yohimbe fuel fat burner

Snack:
Lara Bar

Lunch:
turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with lettuce, tomato, and mustard
apple
4 joint doctors

Snack:
1 scoop vanilla whey protein
1/2 cup chai latte concentrate
1 cup skim milk

Dinner:
Amy's easy lasagna recipe
side salad with 2 tbsp low fat ranch

Snack:
skinny cow ice cream sandwich

Pre-bed:
1 tsp glutamine
2 ZMA tablets
1 probiotic

I have emailed Amy with a couple different questions but overall, I am really excited about the diet because there is still a lot of freedom on it. This is 1600 calories a day.

Also, I get one free day but really it is just a free meal. Amy says I can have 3 light beers and 3 pieces of pizza on my day off. Otherwise all other meals have to be just normal like any other day.

Working out: I already posted the new workout routine. I am really excited about it because it is really really hard. I am doing weights 5 days a week and focusing on every muscle group except for the chest. I'm a little worried about losing pec muscles but I am going to be doing the perfect pushup at night before bed (don't tell Amy! Yikes!)

Off Season Diet is In and Has Begun!

I got my package from Amy just before I left NY. It is not that surprising really. There are some really good recipes that I can't wait to try out. Obviously, this week is not really going to work to follow the off-season diet perfectly, as I am in New York! I will have to go shopping to start the plan for real, when I get home. But thankfully, here in NY, I have oats, tuna, apples, protein powder out the ass, and veggies. It isn't too hard to make sure I'm eating something on my diet when those foods are around. We went out for Italian last night and that really sucked. I had to order salmon which had a ton of butter, and then had a side salad with a little bit of olive oil. Otherwise, my travel day was ok because I had a protein bar on hand and rice cakes in my purse.

So, this week I'm doing my best to eat good but really I won't fully start my off season meals until next week. As I've said many times before - if I can just maintain the weight I'm at through the holidays, I will be ecstatic. Today I weigh 131, and that would be perfect if I could stay there throughout next week. Then that will kick off the first of the year in the best spot to do this off season diet to the fullest!

On another note - the new workout plan is killer. I was about to die doing hams and glutes yesterday. Today my arm workout was just ok. But when I was doing tricep kickbacks, I could totally tell that my muscles and veins are popping out of my arms! AWESOME!

Oh - I took progress picks before I left. Will have to upload them. They already look better than the few I took just about 4 weeks ago.

No sign yet....

No sign of my off-season diet yet. I have been going back in forth with Amy and she emailed me late Monday to tell me she was putting my package in the mail Tuesday. I would have thought it would be here by now considering it is only traveling from Dallas. I am really hoping it comes today because I am leaving for NY on Monday! If I don't get it I will have to wait another whole week to start my off-season training. Which may not be a bad thing because then I'll be back at work and it is actually really easy for me to stick to my diet at work now.

I do however know the whole new workout routine she is putting me on. The best way I can explain it is like doing all supersets. She wants me to work 2-3 different parts a day. Each part gets 4 different exercises. But say you are working back and calves - you do one back exercise as hard as you can do, then move right to calves for one exercise - no rest in between these 2 sets. Also, she only wants me to do 4 days a week of 35 minutes of cardio. This makes me super happy because I HATE cardio. The pre-contest will be super hard for me because of this fact. I guess once I get on the machine I am ok but I just get so damn bored.

So, the new routine is as follows:

Monday - Hams, Glutes, Abs
Tuesday - Calves, Arms
Wednesday - Abs, Traps, Delts
Thursday - Cardio only
Friday - Back, Calves
Saturday - Quads, Abs

Very different from what I'm currently doing which is a very good thing!

THIS is my Nutritionist!

I have to post some pictures of Amy so that people will know who I'm working with. I just LOVE her body!!

Some people think I am a total freak for admiring this body type. But I just LOVE Amy's arms and abs. She is my nutritionist people!!! Also, she is only like 5'1" or something. So she is not a tall girl. I hope I can be as buff as her one day!!!!

Off-Season Diet Coming Soon

I sent in all my paperwork with Amy today to get her working on my off-season diet. I had to tell her what I do and don't like as far as foods go (which I like most everything). I also had to give her a 3 day rundown of what I will typically eat. I gave her two week days and then a weekend day to show her what I would be doing good and when I'm cheating.

So I am super excited to find out how much stuff will change!

My prediction is that I have to start eating before and after I workout because I'm not really doing that right now. I also think that she is going to make me quit my "cheat day" and make it a "cheat meal". Big difference because I probably can't drink alcohol anymore. Oh well, I'm alright with it because I want to do whatever it takes to be in the contest.

Amy's flat rate for helping me in off-season is $400. She will get me an off-season plan and help me up to 8 months. I don't plan on having her help me that long. I want her to help me until May and then have her build me the actual competition diet.

A lot of people think of off-season as the easier part of training. But it really is not. See, when you start the competition diet, your main goal is to loose as much fat as you can. I want to get down to 10% body fat to compete. Well, your body is going to want to hold onto that fat, so it will likely shed some muscle in the process. Therefore, the ultimate goal in off-season is to build as much muscle as you possibly can! You need to get really buff because you aren't going to be able to build much more muscle in pre-contest phase. So the off-season diet is actually very very important.

So I'm super stoked. As soon as I hear what my plan is I will post about it. I'm sure it will be an interesting journey. I also have to take pictures every 2 weeks for Amy, so I will be posting progress pics much more often.

Meal Plan 38 Weeks out From Contest

Because I am still not on the official off-season diet, I'm trying to just eat as clean as I can this week:

Breakfast:
1/2 cup oats with 1/2 cup pumpkin

Snack 1:
1/2 cup oats with 1/2 cup egg beaters, 2 tbsp pumpkin

Lunch:
Clean Minestrone Soup
(I made a ton of this a while back and froze it. It's just a bunch of veggies and broth and some turkey breast tenderloin)

Snack 2:
3 caramel rice cakes with 1 tbsp natural peanut butter

Dinner:
1/2 cup whole wheat pasta
Turkey meat balls
Asparagus
mushrooms
spinach
Mushrooms

Stats - 38 Weeks out from Contest

It sure does feel good to weigh in the morning after a cheat day and have good numbers!!! There is something about drinking beer that really makes your body fat look really good! I don't understand it at all because you would think that alcohol dehydrates you, not makes you more hydrated therefore making the scale think you have more water and less fat in you.... it is really weird so I wish someone could figure it out for me!

I'll weigh in tomorrow just to double check the numbers...but I believe these are actually not too far off from what I would expect them to be on a regular day:

Weight: 130.0 lbs
Body Fat: 21.0%
Water: 57.7%
Lean Body Mass: 97.6 lbs
Physique Rating: 6
BMR: 1393
Metabolic Age: 13
Visceral Fat: 2

Not too shabby.... if I lose more body fat this week then I think my physique rating will change. Because I believe if you have less than 21% body fat and still the lean body mass that I have, the scale says you are an athlete status. So we will see next week when I check in!!!

I am anxiously awaiting Amy to put together my off season diet. I need to build as much muscle as I can so that when I go on contest diet I can just worry about losing the fat. I'll post what I'm eating this week today or tomorrow, but I'm hoping soon I won't be having to think about it anymore and just eating what Amy tells me to! She emailed me the other day but she was more wondering about how I'm getting my body fat numbers. I think she will want me to get a trainer at the gym to double check them so that she knows exactly where I'm starting from.

New Friends!

It is currently 7:37 am and I am having one of the best mornings ever!

I went to the gym for cardio this morning. I did the treadmill for 50 minutes and the stair climber for 15. Pretty good, but I could have done better. I've just been feeling sick this week and not totally into it. I was hoping to find some motivation.....

Well afterwards I was in the locker room and I mixed my glutamine up and started chugging. This girl says to me "it's all about the protein shakes, huh?" and I said "well actually it is glutamine." And then she was like "oh! well what is your overall goal?" So I told her that I want to do a figure competition. She got all excited and told me she just did her very first figure competition 2 months ago, and got 3rd place. Now, I've seen this girl at the gym before and she looks good. I'm not even surprised that she did one... but what was so cool is that we launched off into an entire conversation about this and that about competing. I told her I don't know where to begin and she said stop sweating it and just do it because it is going to be a disaster the first time (because you don't have a clue what you are doing anyway!). Then her friend comes up and they both start talking about how they are doing one in April! They said I should do it with them and get it over with so that I have a better chance of placing in August.

Anyway, we had this great conversation and I feel so good this morning. They both gave me their names (Tiffany and Louanna), and said that they would help me with anything that I need. It was really refreshing to meet people at my very own gym that know what I'm going through. They were so reassuring too - they told me to just focus on eating clean and that I look great right now, so don't worry about losing the fat. What is really surprising is that they said the hardest part is building and maintaining the muscle mass I have - I would have thought burning the fat would be the hardest! AND, they said they don't have coaches! They just do their homework - said they can't afford fancy trainers and all that so I should not worry. And ALSO - Louanna said she won 3rd place in her very first contest! I can not believe that.

One thing they did convince me of is that my final goal should be 10% body fat. Most figure competitors get down to that. So that is my new goal. I'm super excited about this competition. After having such a crappy feeling week, this was exactly what I needed to get motivated!!!!

YAY YAY!!!

Progress Pics

I took these pics on Saturday the 28th to send to Amy. I haven't heard back from her yet.

The pictures are not the best quality but you can definitely see a difference from the ones I took at the first of the month. It is amazing how your body can transform in such short time.

I always look so much wider than I feel when I take these pictures. But I think these actually look pretty darn good compared to 6 pounds ago. You can see my abs coming in, and see how buff my legs are. Unfortunately it is not as easy to see the definition in my arms and back. So I guess I'll have to keep working to lose fat in those areas.

What is super cool is see the last picture on the right? Look at my hand. There is a big 'ol vein popping out. That vein goes up my forearm but you can't see it in that picture. I am super excited to loose so much fat that veins will start popping out, so this is cool. I can't wait until you can see that in my stomach or the upper part of my arms. I know I sound like a freak to most people but I thin, it is super cool.