16 Weeks and Counting...36 Weeks of Living

    This is the final weekend, 16 weeks from now I will be standing on the Arnold Amateur Stage, this is a huge honour and my biggest show to date. If you would have asked me a year ago where  I thought I would be or what fitness goals I would be working towards now I would never in a million years dreamt this. The past year has been surreal to me, I feel so blessed and excited for this new journey. So the "No Cheating" begins tomorrow and I am excited to see what improvements I can bring to this upcoming show.

  Speaking of "No Cheating" I am asked quite often how I handle the dieting, I no longer believe in an "Off Season".  I used too, which followed with gaining a ton of weight and being very unhappy with myself. I had dedicated months to dieting only to spend the following post show months eating as much as I could get my hands on because I was "Off Season". That mentality took away any joy I had from competing, that was the main reason I had decided not to do it again, I did not want to fall into the trap of losing and gaining.

 So I do not diet anymore, not to say that show prep time I don't get more stringent with my food choices but I have decided to be a healthy example to those around me and to my daughter year round. I want to look good, have energy, and be healthy, this is my lifestyle. I choose to live this way on a day to day basis, I eat the same things I eat during show prep, and believe it or not I actually really like them. I have been able to maintain a small weight gain after Nationals and I do not feel deprived in anyway.

I believe in my lifestyle which does consist of eating out of plastic boxes, prepping my food each night, insane amounts of chicken,  broccoli, egg whites, and of course my beloved Pnt Butter. That also being said when I do not have a show in the forecast I do enjoy my dark chocolate, aged White Cheddar (Balderson to be exact) and a great glass of wine, but not every night. I choose to eat cleaner because I at the end of every day I love how I feel and look.

I love training, it is not something I do just for a show, it is not a chore to me, it has been part of who I am since I was 16, if I don't train I get extremely grumpy. When I am upset, or in a mood, the gym is my place to get away to be with my thoughts, my second home, and has become my drug of choice I guess you could say.

 I also take my supplements that I know are 100% true to label and give me the results I need. So in the next 16 weeks things my diet will get tighter, my training will pick up, and my supplements will increase but keeping things on track those other 36 weeks enables me to not have to suffer anymore.