Well, we’re into single digit weeks folks until my competition date!  How time flies… Sorry  I haven’t been here much but have had a crazy couple of weeks with work, trying to fit in work outs, my regular eating schedule and staying motivated at the same time. On top of that, a tremendous heat wave struck NY which made me super tired and lacking in energy but… all in all things are going well and I’m slowly making progress!  I’ve gone through so many mood swings, my body has been craving carbs like crazy – luckily today is refeed day and I’m trying to pace myself, and eat healthy, wholesome carbs, with the exception of my fat free frozen yogurt and my fast carb post work out snack (caramel rice cakes today, yum!). My weight has fluctuated enormously – two days ago I was 136.8, today I’m 132.4. Go figure. I don’t freak out anymore so much about the number, as long as I feel tight and I can feel that my body is slowly changing shape and that’s what counts. Additionally, I’m trying not to get discouraged or impatient every day I look at myself in the mirror – realizing I’m not going to see huge changes from day to day, maybe not even week to week, as I have been used to seeing when I had more weight to lose.

One thing I’m focusing on and trying not to do is COMPARING MYSELF TO OTHERS. This can be a very damaging attitude, because I need to stay in touch with my own body, learning to read the signals it’s giving me and living in tune with what will give me results. Someone once told me there are a million ways to do the dishes – and this is true in the fitness world to. What works for someone, may not work equally great for someone else, and I need to be willing to experiment with many scenarios before finding the most effective and efficient way for me to achieve the results I desire.  Sometimes I get side tracked and overwhelmed by focusing too much on others and what they are doing. I MUST stop this! I know I’m doing something right, because I’m seeing results and I’m feeling great, so I need to just continue on my path. This doesn’t mean I’m not open to suggestions of course, and that is where my coach Pauline fits in. What I like about her is that she doesn’t tell me “do this, do that” but rather, ‘let’s try this’ and perhaps attempt to go that route if this is how things have been developing, etc. until together we experience what works best.  She always highlights that every body and person is different, but ultimately I trust her because there is something to be said for years of experience working out as hard as she does, and of course I respect her tremendously by just looking at her and her body and what she has accomplished. I am attracted to extreme characters, of which she definitely is one!

So what is my upcoming week looking like? Well, first I’m seeing my stage coach, Janet Marsico, on Wednesday to practice my t-walk. I must admit I haven’t been practicing as much as I should, and I want to feel confident on stage about the routine so I can focus more on posing, smiling and engaging the audience and judges. The worst thing is when you see robotic behavior on stage, and no charisma – not going to be me, that’s for sure!  Janet is actually going to be one of the judges, and so at least I will know one person! 🙂

Friday I am meeting with the woman who is designing my suit – I think I want a turqoise sequenced /shiny material bikini, so she will show me some samples and of course take a look at my figure and hopefully I will have something in a month’s time.

In addition to meeting all the fabulous people who will help me, I am going to continue to stay disciplined at the gym, going hard with heavier weights and really buckle up.  Thank God my shoulder is feeling much better and at the gym today I did chest and triceps, and the shoulder wasn’t given me any grief, when doing flyes or heavy DB presses. Yay!! Next weekend will be 8 weeks out and I’m going to really tighten up my diet. Not that there is really much to ‘tighten’ up, but at least I don’t feel deprived with my weekly re-feeds. They are amazing – I can get shredded WHILE building muscle, yes!!

Here’s one of the exercises I did at the gym today – abs again! This exercise can be made more difficult with placing the bar bell behind the head – that’s a tough one! In addition to these, I did hanging abs (straight legs up to chest hanging from a bar, also side to side for obliques) and butt lifts with ball, flat DB chest press, DB flyes and cable flyes and triceps – dips with 45 lb weight, overhead tricep extension and skullcrushers, as well as push ups on the bosu ball. I haven’t been able to do push ups for the longest time because of my shoulder injury so doing them today with no pain was… nothing short of magical!