Gettin’ Real……

Well…..here they are…..my first “Before” photos taken by my husband, Tim, on January 5, 2015.   This is where I am starting this time…..in these photos I weigh 143 pounds and have 23% body fat (and my numbers were even higher when I started my training for my first show in 2010).   To give you another perspective, at my leanest, I weighed 125 pounds and had 9% body fat on the day of my first bodybuilding competition in June 2010 (see photos from my 2nd blog post and my gallery below), and I only trained for 4 months (16 weeks).  It is just amazing to me what you can train your body to do in such a short amount of time—isn’t it? This time, I will be training for a total of 20 weeks. I am hoping to get even leaner than I did in 2010….we’ll see if that actually happens!  Go Lean or Go Home! Right?! Or is it “Go Big or Go Home?!  Hopefully, by June 13th, I will be LEAN with BIG muscles—that’s my goal anyway!

I have now completed my first week of training…..and I survived….but not without muscle soreness and constantly planning my food intake!  Actually, as far as my eating, my daily macros (the number of protein grams, carb grams, & fat grams I have to consume each day) were so high that it was difficult at times to hit my numbers especially since I am trying eat clean…..it’s really hard to eat that much “clean” food!  I definitely had to supplement with protein powder (and some not so clean fat) and will continue supplementing with protein powder throughout my training mainly because you can get in a lot of protein grams without a lot fat and carbs.  I really tried to enjoy my high macros this week, though, because things are going to change really soon….as in this coming week!  My trainer is cutting my numbers starting tomorrow (Monday, January 12).  A big part being successful with meals is being prepared.  I didn’t do a great job this week but hope to do better as the weeks progress.  One tool that is very helpful to me in tracking my food is an app called My Fitness Pal.  It is a great app to help you keep track of the food you eat at each meal.  You can also track your exercise.  I use it throughout the day.  By entering my food intake each time I eat, I know exactly what my macro totals are at any given time during the day.  Earlier this week, I just didn’t get the bigger portion of my food eaten earlier in the day.  I typically ate about five times per day.  It’s helpful to get the majority in before dinner time—I like the philosophy of having my big meal at lunch.  Personally, I sleep better when I eat a lighter dinner.  And, I don’t usually eat anything after dinner.  One other part of my training is increasing my water intake.  For the entire 20 weeks I will be drinking a gallon (128 oz.) of water each day—-this wasn’t too hard for me since I was already drinking 64 ounces a day.  Within a week, I think your body gets used to drinking that much, so you aren’t having to go to the ladies room as often.

As as far as my strength training, I had a good week.  I worked a different muscle group each day, and my workouts didn’t take more than 40-45 minutes.  By the end of the week, there wasn’t one muscle in my body that wasn’t sore!!  In my opinion, sore is a good thing! And, my sorest muscles were my calves.  My Thursday leg day workout ended with 3 sets of 25 reps of single leg calf raises—-I haven’t done any calf raises in a few years, so they were very sore and are still a little sore today!  I didn’t do any cardio this week, but I bet that will also change this week!

Anyway, enough blogging for today…..onward and upward! Good win last night WCU Cats!  Go NC State!!!  Beat Duke and Carolina in the same week!