3 weeks left–No backing out

Weight this morning:  185. 

Eating is going great.  Lifting and cardio has been painful…but I get through it.  And then there is recovery.  I could use a few more hours of sleep at night.  Getting 6 or 7 hours of sleep for the last few weeks finally caught up to me yesterday.  Ironically…I hit a wall.  No energy.  No motivation.  If I didn’t have to eat and function around other people….I would have spent all day Sunday on the couch.  So the next three weeks…sleep, naps, vegging out and watching Jersey Shore on a Thursday night…are going to be a major priority.  As if anything in this world is more important than the Shore. 

I booked my tanning session.  The posing trunks arrived.  I bought extra sheets for the hotel.  I even filled out the MC sheet for all of my ‘thank yous’ to be announced when I walk on stage.  The more I check off the list…the more excitement I seem to have in getting ready for the show.  Oooh!  And I decided on what I want to eat after the show…or at least this is my plan…Mexican!  Chips, salsa, queso, flavor…maybe even a maragarita!  

The trainer and I snapped pics and worked on posing on Friday.  There are some I hit right away, but then there are others that small adjustments make a huge difference.  Practice?  Are we talking about practice here?  Practice?  Here are a couple of the pics:

 

At war with myself…

Registration mailed:  Check!

Polygraph Scheduled:  Check!

Posing Suit Ordered:  Check!

Hotel Booked:  Check!

A few things are now crossed off the list of To-Dos.  But there is so much more to keep in mind in the next few days and weeks.  If nothing else it has taken my mind off of training and eating. 

So let’s recap my day…

Woke up bright and early at 5:20am.  Cooked breakfast, triple-checked my bag and headed to the gym for an hour on the elliptical and some supersets of shoulders (front, side, rear raises…2x8/10).

Showered and at my desk around 8am.  Eating reheated egg whites, protein shake and 15 almonds while I check email and go over what I want to accomplish today.

By 8:15…my list of what I want to accomplish is far too much for one day.  My breakfast is gone.  The first cup of coffee can’t cool off fast enough.  And I look at the clock and begin playing my daily mind game of don’t eat the next meal until after 10am. 

Now it’s 9:30.  I have a meeting at 10.  Do I eat before the meeting?  What if I don’t get out of there until 11:30?  Would people notice if my blood sugar drops and I pass out?  It’s settled…go warm up the bag of broccoli. 

11:00am…Broccoli didn’t fill me up.  Meeting is over.  Now I inhale my 6oz of chicken.  Check in with the trainer for some motivation.  Trust the process!  Strong Mind Strong Body!  Look how far you’ve come in this process!  Whew!  I needed that.  And a second cup of coffee also helps.

Noon…next meal is the worst of the day.  Peanut butter and a protein shake.  It tastes great, but always makes me more hungry.  And then I notice the ‘irritability’ factor is soaring.  Anything could set me off this week.  I was ticked that the gym was out of kleenex this morning.  And then just now I am ticked at the song on the radio.  Not turn the channel ticked.  Like call the radio station and complain to the station manager about song choices.  Soundgarden…all the time?  I get it.  Black hole sun?  Move on dude! 

1:30.  I need a nap.

4:00.  Head to the gym to snap pictures with the trainer and work on posing (stay tuned, I’ll post those next).  We are 3 weeks out exactly.  The pics look great and major progress week over week.  Posing is still frustrating at this point.   

5:00.  Begin second workout for the day – back (lat pulldowns, bent over rows, shrugs).  Followed by 40 minutes of cardio on the bike.  Forty minutes feel like 40 hours.  I don’t mind cardio, but 1) I was starving and started to shake again, and 2) I was mentally not in the mood…there were other places I wanted to be or things I felt I needed to get done aside from cardio. 

6:30.  Cook dinner.  Clean up dishes from the day.  Laundry.  Check food supplies for the next few days.  I’m pretty well stocked, but would love to have enough food to last me the next 3 weeks.  Driving to the grocery store for lettuce or eggs is not fun. 

7:00pm.  Preseason football starts.  Not sure if sitting down to watch TV is the best idea.  I’ll be asleep in no time.

8:30pm.  Enough has happened lately that I feel the urge to update my blog…..

Later…headed out to meet friends for a glass of refreshing ice water or perhaps coffee if I decide to splurge.  Let’s not get too crazy.  My body is so worn out that the other night I drank a pot of coffee around 9pm….and was asleep 2 hours later….it doesn’t even phase me anymore.   

Less than 4 weeks out…

Starting weight = 185.  Down 3 pounds from the previous week or 47 pounds since the start of this process.
I realized this morning that I was less than 4 weeks away from the show.  And then this afternoon I looked at a calendar and counted the days left…26 days!  So I started this process 20 weeks ago…the final 4 weeks suddenly seem short and sweet! 
A week ago I was given a carb loading meal…4 pieces of pizza with veggies.  My body was pretty depleted.  I didn’t know how it would react to the pizza.  All this time I convinced myself that pizza was bad…now I was being forced to eat it.  Um..ok!

I ate half of that!  All prescribed by the trainer.  And if you want to see a picture of one very happy man…(my cheeks hurt from smiling so much!):

Now I just need to get a handle on the constant feeling of being hungry.  I’ve tried all the tricks…gum, water, ice, coffee.  And none of those seem to be working lately.  It’s pretty pathetic, but on the days when I couldn’t take it…I’d have to eat some walnuts just to keep sanity in check.  Perhaps it’s the loss of the gluten free bread.  Or perhaps the increased cardio is causing the hunger.  Either way, this last week was a struggle!  The weekend helped a lot.  I was able to relax and unwind a little.  We were in Chicago and I was still able to fit in the workouts and eat on my plan 99% of the time.  Fine…I’ll be honest…there was a small bite of key lime pie on Saturday night.  Darn you blog…you make it impossible to tell lies! 
Moving forward…no more bites of pie for me! I’ll stick to my packs of gum…note to reader…go buy the Extra Apple Pie gum. It is scrumtrulescent!
We took a water taxi from the Shedd Aquarium to Navy Pier.  It was a great day to be on the water!

Friday we went to a ball game at Wrigley.  I researched ahead of time and found the vendors that served grilled chicken.  It is possible to eat healthy at a ballpark.  The gal behind the counter gave me a puzzled look when I took the buns off the grilled chicken sandwich….as if I’d waste calories on a stale bun!

I have plenty to keep track of over the next few weeks.  I’ll need an hour or two each night to plan for the next day.  No more slip ups or forgetting work clothes when I go to the gym.  Everything needs to be under control.  This process definitely requires discipline on my part.  I can follow meal plans pretty well.  I’ve always enjoyed going to the gym…lifting weights or doing cardio.  But to mold the two areas into my daily routine for the last 20 weeks has been a challenge.  Here is my #1 piece of advice on how to be successful…find a friend.  Use them when you need them the most…to talk, to complain, to bounce ideas off, to help push you when you don’t want to go to the gym, to challenge you to add more weight, to remind you to eat, to research TSA guidelines for traveling with food, to download menus at restaurants to ensure you can eat there, to provide accolades when you are down on yourself, and even to share shaving tips . 

Progress pics (5 weeks out)

I weighed in on Friday morning and saw no change from Monday…188.  I knew the scale was no longer a valid source for seeing progress.  All reliance is now on the trainer and the pics to tell what areas are changing.  I was eating a few slices of Ezekial bread for the last 2 weeks.  We dropped those on Wednesday and I figured that would give me an extra push to look extra dry.  Next week there will be only some minor changes…it seems like the slightest change makes a huge difference.  Sticking to the plans and getting in my food has become easier than ever.  I am able to take vacations, go out at night with friends, and even sit through a movie where popcorn and butter is in the air and not even think about grabbing a handful.  Such a good feeling of normalcy! 

So the pics turned out pretty well.  I still see areas I want to improve.  I keep going back to my posts in April when I snapped the ‘before’ pics and compare to where I am now.  Crazy!  I don’t even recognize that guy anymore. 

Five more weeks…only five more weeks!

Week 6…

Starting weight = 188.  A one pound gain from the previous week.  It didn’t matter to me.  I woke up and saw major progress in the mirror. 

So 6 weeks to go.  Not a lot of time and I needed to start getting ready for the show.  This week I’ve found the entry form and read it a hundred times, researched hotels within a couple of miles from the venue, and started reading other blogs to gain insight into what occurs before and after the show.  Lots of good information and a bit overwhelming at the same time.  Five more weeks seems like so far away, but there is so much to keep track of and to plan in advance.  I’m still considering hiring a personal assistant just to keep me in check.  There have been far too many days where I forgot work clothes or had to run home because I left broccoli in the freezer.  This week has also been a drain on my body physically.  I received a new workout plan to start last week.  It’s not a major change, but my cardio was decreased and the lifting was broken into two session (morning and evening).  So rather than 90 minutes of cardio in the morning and an evening lifting routine…I now do 2-3 exercises in the morning with 30-40 minutes of cardio and then 3-4 exercises in the evening with 30-40 minutes of cardio.  The biggest impact was sore muscles morning and night.  It’s a new workout so I knew the strain would come, but my evening lifts are definitely impacted by whatever I trained that morning.  Not that I minded…feeling muscle strain is like crack to me.  If I don’t feel it, then I’m obviously not pushing myself.  The other change was going from a 6 day split to a 7 day split.  So no more Sunday mornings relaxing with a cup of coffee on the couch.  If I want breakfast on Sunday I have to crawl fall out of bed and crank out 4 rounds of abs. 

Along with the changes to my workout and the prep for the show, we started talking about my next offseason.  How many carbs?  How would we stagger the carbs?  What about cardio?  These were the discussions me and the trainer discussed.  My friends and family had other questions…what will be your first meal after the show?  Will I stay on the strict eating plan or cheat regularly?  Soda?  Beer?  Junk food?  Fast food?  They half expect me to do the show and then stop completely.  Not gonna happen!  I crave some of those things occasionally, but seeing progress through pics and the scale has made it hard to think about putting weight back on.  Even discussing the amount of carbs with the trainer was depressing.  Could I handle adding 15-20 pounds?  It’s tough mentally to go from the highest high to the lowest low.  Weighing 235 was depressing…but I’ve trusted the trainer all along.  If I do gain weight…it’ll come from eating clean.  Yes, the occasional cheat meal will be there, but nothing crazy.  So stay tuned for next offseason!  I need to focus on the next 5 weeks…

I have progress pics on Friday.  It’s been almost 3 weeks since the last time we did this.  So I’m looking forward to it.  There has been some serious progress aside from the scale and I hope I wake up on Friday as dry as I have been this week.   

7 more weeks…

Well after a brief hiatus with other commitments, I am finally back to updating my posts.  As the title implies, I will start the countdown again.  I weighed in on Monday morning as usual:

Weight = 187. 

So no change from the previous weeks.  I figured as much.  There had been plenty of distractions and my eating was completely side-swiped for the past two weekends.  First, WC competed in his competition in Springfield, Missouri.  I made the trek for the show and was impressed by how well he looked and how well he executed his poses.  I met him in between pre-judging and the night show.  He looked like crap.  His body looked great…but he looked miserable.  Cramps…dry mouth…pro-tan smeared all over him.  He didn’t look happy.  A few hours later I met him before the night show and you could tell he was ready for the whole thing to be over.  I chalked it up to a ‘one and done.’  He tried it…it was fun…but he was ready to move on to the rest of his life.  Boy was I wrong…he got on stage for his routine and turned into someone else.  The crowd cheered, his music blared, and you could see he was enjoying every second of it.  He ended up not placing, but the seed was planted for many more competitions and weeks of prep to come. 

The second interference was a trip to Las Vegas for a conference.  My suitcase consisted of a few articles of clothing and a whole lot of protein (whey, peanut butter, tuna, almonds).  I didn’t stray off the eating plan.  Even found a gym at the hotel to get my cardio and weights in as prescribed.  So while I didn’t spend any money on booze…I had to spend a fortune on room service and my dinners.  For example…4 eggs from room service = $30.  Ridiculous!  I did find a great steakhouse and ended up eating there every night.  They were super flexible in accommodating my restrictions…no butter, no salt, easy on the olive oil…and please for the love of God remove the basket of carbs you just placed on the table before I inhale them.  The food was prepared exactly as I wanted…so it was too easy to just go back to the same spot each night.  Here is a pic of my dinner for the 3 nights I was there (8oz top sirloin and asparagus)…

  

With WC preparing for his show and my absence from the gym, I haven’t taken progress pics in 3 weeks.  However, there was one taken at the pool in Vegas….

So to recap…the past two weeks have been chaotic.  This week isn’t much better, but I am more focused on these next few weeks than I have been in a long time.