You know those days when you start your day and all you want to do is crawl back into bed.. well that’s exactly what I did today. I should have known this wasn’t my day when I went to take a pic of my Breakfast yogurt mess and was greeted with the message ‘Charge Battery.’ I actually woke up just feeling completely ill. I had to go to class because we have quizzes & participation points everyday and I already missed one class for Fitness America. I ended up calling in sick from work, came home, and went back to bed. I woke up about 4.5 hours later.
Truth is, my stomach’s still a complete mess. Again, I have no one to blame but myself, but that doesn’t make it any less fun. So my message to everyone training for their first fitness/figure/bodybuilding competitions: listen to incredibly knowledgeable people that warn you not to eat all those fun things you’ve been looking forward to right away, because you will regret it, and it is sooo not worth the brief moment of enjoying that scoop of ice cream, or 2 or 5.
I think I am just very sensitive to carbs. I had never truly dieted before this process and had never played with low-carb, carb-cycling etc. As it turns out, my body responded very well to carb-cycling, and I was loosing body fat and weight quite readily. In fact, I lost it almost too fast and ended up having to try to maintain at a low level for a few weeks leading up to my show. Knowing this, it should have occurred to me that when I introduced those foods back in, that’d I’d have an equally strong reaction. But of course I’m no expert, this is just my opinion of what’s going on.
So I’m starting from scratch. For the rest of the week I’m going to eat very mildly, similar to my higher-carb days pre-comp, then slowly reintroduce foods. Hopefully that will do the trick.
Food Philosophy: Fitness vs. “Ideal”
I’d been wanting to post about this for a while, and I guess this is as good of a time as any. The thing is, I don’t want there to be a misunderstanding between how I actually eat and my ideal nutrition philosophy. There is a gap between those two things because right now I am eating for a goal beyond just fueling my daily activity. While training for fitness competitions, whether it be building, early comp-prep or cutting, you are eating very specifically in order to achieve a very specific goal and sometimes a very specific look. However, the building and early comp-prep phases allow more than enough wiggle-room to enjoy a wonderful variety of foods while eating very healthfully. Cutting gets a little crazy and restrictive, but that’s only for a very limited amount of time.
With that being said, I do keep track of everything I eat (through MyFoodDiary) and weigh most of my food. However, both things are done more for the purposes of making sure I’m hitting the right macro levels each day and getting enough protein, than for a calorie counting reasons. I don’t count calories, I count macros.
So that’s what I do.. now for what I think. I really like the idea of intuitive eating. I strongly believe that when you eat healthy and fuel your body in a balanced manner that your body will tell you what it needs and wants. I truly think this is possible for anyone, whether or not you’ve struggled with your relationship with food in the past. For anyone who doesn’t believe that, spend some time perusing the healthy living blogs written by some of the most inspiring & strong woman out there!
“Dessert”
I did get one photo, of my last meal of the day. I wasn’t able to eat much up until this point, so nothing was missed. On the menu tonight was the other half of my Kabocha, which I drizzled with Walden Farm SF Maple Syrup and Cinnamon then microwaved for 3 minutes. So yummy!
Happy Links
Workouts to Printout: from FitSugar
Hump-day tomorrow, hope you have a great one!
Fun Links
Just got to work and the first thing I saw was the photo of your dessert. It looks divine! Good thing I’m going food shopping tonight.
Hope you feel better soon & thanks for the link to MyFoodDiary! Will check it out.
Oh my word! That Kabocha looks fantastic! (And, now I know what one looks like! HA!)
Great post! I like how you point out the separation between the two diets. I also like the idea of intuitive eating as well. You do have to be very aware of your own body though. So many people aren’t. I’m not always perfect at it, but I do try to eat for refueling. However, I do enjoy food, and there are things I won’t give up. Alas, this is why I’ll never truly have 6-pack abs!
Funny how fast the weight comes back. It took me 4 shows to figure that out. I’m still not 100% there
Thanks for the workout link!
Ahhh. Your mention of dessert makes me think of how I begged my teen daughter to bake me cookies last evening.
She refused. I was mad about it. But now I glad.
P.S. Can I borrow your abs?
If you happen to be in the greater-Phoenix area I’d be happy to come make you dessert
.. & thanks, sadly they don’t look quite the same 1.5 weeks later haha
Thanks for stopping by my blog!
Yeah, isn’t it sad about the tree?? I hate it. Oh well, more incentive to move!
Your kabocha looks fantastic, great dessert choice!
aw, I hope you feel better. That is crazy how the body responds to something like that. My ex-bfs mom dieted for her contest for 3 months, and when she ate something with butter? she was sick for a few days!
Ah! I just noticed your twitter, and its a small world you tweet her as well!
Do you tweet? What’s your user name?
Walden Farms sugar free pancake syrup is my guilty frankenfood pleasure. Ah, nothing as comforting as the old fashioned taste of cellulose gum.