Never did I think I'd be back to fretting about the damn scales! And here I am, a bundle of jangling nerve wires, wondering, hoping, praying even, that those bloody scales will go down....and more than just a bit!!!
Explanation. This week I've gone full force into a cutting cycle. That is, high cardio, low food and medium weights in order to gently extract the rather small layer of fat covering the muscles. The trainer I saw last week estimated my body fat to be around 3% at the moment so it's a bit of a science to get it moving while trying to leave all muscle intact. Sounds pretty low but I can tell you it has decided to have a party and meet up at my legs...how predictable.
So here's what happened. I dutifully started the two one-hour cardio sessions per day last Sunday but hadn't collected my two week menu plan. For three days I continued on my merry little way scoffing lentils, chicken, rice and veges to my hearts content! Even slipping in a few more spoonfuls because I cockily thought I deserved them due to the gruelling cardio regime. I heard my darling husband say something like, "Are you sure you should be 'upping' the carbs? I thought the cardio was to lower your weight". I recall replying something like, "Don't be ridiculous!! You can't do 2hrs of cardio a day on an empty stomach!! Of course I need more carbs".
WRONG!! Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!!!!!! So I found out!!
Happily I trotted on in my own little world...until Wednesday morning, when I received my two-week food instruction manual. And discovered, to my detriment, that I was supposed to have lowered my carbs...not bloody increased them!!!! Are you serious?????? "Oh well", I stupidly thought yet again, "It can't have hurt much! I'm running two hundred miles a day". WRONG AGAIN!!!! Come Friday-weigh-day, I had dropped a measly 100grams!! ONE HUNDRED BLOODY GRAMS!!!!!!
I honestly can't repeat my thought pattern as I stood on those @@###$ scales!!! I had prepared for that moment with the full and eager anticipation of a great result reflecting the 75km worth of running and walking I'd already achieved, along with a decently clean diet. I was suitably un-attired (TMI I know, but these things are important on weigh day!!), had finished early morning ablutions in order to decrease fluid weight, and I was initially smiling! Oh how my world changed in those few seconds!! You wanna talk food moods???? Oh crickey dicks!!! I was as sour as a mouldy old lemon with a face like a puckered cat's bum!! Pissed off can't even come close to how I felt at that precise moment and the grey cloud seemed to descend on my head and hover there for the rest of the day. Hopefully no one noticed but I'm not too sure!
On reflection, I can see my error very clearly and it was all about the food - as it seems to be when it comes to weight loss. This bodybuilding thing can sometimes defy common sense and I should have realised the curve ball would be coming sooner or later. It's here in the form of a diet completely devoid of any complex carbs, with 2hrs of cardio and 1hr of weights almost every day of the week for 2 weeks. I have now moved the official weigh-day to Wednesday and I'm completely shitting myself to be honest. I don't know how this carb-starved brain will cope with another bad result yet I can't feel the weight dropping off like I thought I would.
I'll give you a new daily scenario including the food simply because many people have been asking about it;
* 6am-7am - moderate incline walk on completely empty tummy - light sweat only
* breakfast shake
* midmorning tuna & salad
* weights session - moderate weight as no energy for much more
* lunch chicken & veg
* midafternoon raw veg & water protein shake
* early evening - 1hr jog with inclines thrown in as needed
* dinner fish & veg
* supper shake & peanut paste
It's very do-able but takes a little grit to get through the last hour of cardio. Thanks to a fabulous friend, I have a beautiful treadmill plonked in front of the tv so I can get these sessions out of the way while watching the stupid-box. The Olympics have been an added bonus!
Other than this, I've been struggling to fit in any posing or stretching and know I'll have to get them under control when I can. I had another posing session with Hector and we covered all of the poses in more detail. I'm happy with where I am for now but know I have a whole lot of improvements up my sleeve.
Bikini update. It's being made and I hope it'll be as lovely as I imagine. I won't spoil the surprise with colour or style just yet.
Another blurb about the scales. In my late teens and early twenties, I have to confess that I was completely and utterly screwed up when it came to body image. I fluctuated horribly with my weight and would grasp hold of anything with the words "diet" or "weight" attached to them. Every Monday felt like the start of a new week where I would try something zany and crazy in order to lose that weight. I did the whole grapefruit diet, the cabbage diet, the carrot diet - and more scary than all - I decided to do the whole "won't eat a thing" diet, which almost did my head in completely. I was down in the mid 40kg weight range at one stage and managed to balloon to the 90's. It was a horrible, terrible phase of my life and, if you are on the diet yo-yo, please get some help to get off it! It's not the weight that kills your life, it's the emotions that go with it - the shame, the guilt and the feeling of being so low all of the time. No one deserves to feel like that day in and out.
So I have to say that it took me 15 years of having a stable weight and attitude to food and diet before I attempted to do anything that would make me stray from my good patterns in the way that this bodybuilding has. I would never have attempted this sort of thing any earlier as I'm sure I would have become mentally caught up in the whole self-image, weight gaining/loss games that I happily left behind all of those years ago.
Rightio. Enough blabbing by me. Oh yes, because I'm really honest.....I have to say that the omission of lentils in my diet has done wonders for.....can't say it! Use your imagination.
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