I am nervous and excited. I spent a lot of time building muscle, which I did not have a lot of. I gained about 7 lbs of pure muscle though!! Now I am working on shedding body fat while keeping my muscle. I have an amazing coach, Joe Franco at Team Franco Bodybuilding. I am also working with IFPA Figure Pro, Theresa Evans, for posing lessons. I have my song picked out, my suit blinged up, competition heels, fake eyelashes, jewelry, cheap duvet cover to bring to hotel to sleep in after the spray tan, bikini bite to hold suit in place, and dark sweatsuit to wear over it. I still need to either pick out make-up of decide to get it done professionally.
At this point, my coach is making changes to my macros and my cardio each week. Basically my carbs get cut a tiny bit and my cardio increased a tiny bit. The point is to lose fat and not muscle. It is important to feed muscle.
My coach doesn't give his clients a 'cookie cutter' diet. Thinking you have to just eat fish and oatmeal is so old school. He gives me macro numbers to hit, and I choose the foods that work best for me. This is important because each person reacts differently to different foods. Throughout my prep, I used a huge variety of foods to hit my macros. Now as it gets closer, I am limiting myself to the foods that give me energy and do not cause any bloating. At this stage, my meals are most often made up of the following:
Shake: Shakeology. I have been experimenting with various shakes over the years and started Shakeology over the summer. Nothing compares to it and I even became a Beach Body coach myself in November. I have all four flavors. Vegan and regular.. and switch around. I use almond or coconut milk since skim milk bloats me. Soon, I will just mix with water though.
Carbs: Full discloser, I am gluten intolerant. I mostly use berries, oats, sweet potatoes, squash, rice cakes and apples. I sometimes use quinoa but that is also protein as well. And for an easy to transport me, I use brown rice wraps... but rarely do that. I eat TONS of veggies too, but the carbs in veggies are pretty low. Apples and rice cakes will be taken out soon though.
Protein: Throughout my prep I had a very large variety, but at this point I am down to the protein from my Shakeology, baked chicken, egg whites, and the occasional no-salt-added tuna. I cut out lentils and beans this week since they make me hold a little water weight. That is fine any other time, but not this close to the stage.
Fats: I used almonds and chia seeds for most of my prep, as well as some coconut, flax and olive oil. Mostly due to variety/boredom, I am now have avocado, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds for my fats. Eventually it will just be the avocado. After my show, I will bring back nut and seed butters ;-)
Other: Quest Bars and About Time Whey as needed to get to macros. PB2 to get the flavor of peanut butter in my shakes when the craving for it hits.
As soon as the show is over, I will go back to my usual wide variety of foods. These are just the foods that I find do not bloat me.
I plan to blog a lot more in the coming weeks that take me to the show. This is my first time and it has been the most amazing experience to far. I have learned so much about myself, worked so hard, met some incredible people, and I haven't even stepped on stage yet!
I hope you follow me on this journey. I post quite a bit on my Facebook page too. www.facebook.com/sherryfitness
