Children of the Corn High School & 2 weeks out

Today we're in Illinois, not really sure where though! Somewhere outside of Rockford, Illinois.

Wow, I'm really bad about posting! You know, I think about little things all day long that I want to blog about then I get out my computer and forget it all, haha. It's been hard lately because there hasn't been great cell service or internet. Needless to say, I still have a lot of catching up to do on what I've been up to the past 7 weeks, yikes.

In a nutshell:

We had a month of move-ins at Denison University. I had the opportunity to go train with my coach, Mike Davies, about twice a week. He really, really kicked my butt and completely changed my training style, for the better. I went into move-ins on May 20th at ~174lbs. I worked really hard, doing non-fasted morning cardio 6 days/week and weights and cardio in the evening. I tried my hardest to resist the temptations of the food on the food truck (pb&j,pancakes, lasagna, etc) but I slipped more than I'd like to admit. Although I saw some changes while I was there, I was still kind of dissappointed in my progress.

When I went home after 4 weeks of being with the Bluecoats, I was home and ready to work super hard. I guess just from being able to take time to sit and relax and de-stress, I lost 10lbs that first week home!! It was kind of scary, but also a relief. That brought me down to 160 lbs.

The first week was very rough, I was completely out of energy and it was hard to push myself during my workouts. That week I had started fasted cardio in the morning so my body was pretty shocked. I was home in Austin for 2 weeks, then got my wisdom teeth out. For 2 days I "ate" only greek yogurt and protein, haha. I'm not going to lie, that was kind of nice until about the 9th one. I had another week before I was going back on tour so I decided to surprise my family and go home for a week! They were very surprised. I pushed myself to stay on track despite all the sweets around my family's house, their meals and going out to eat a lot with my family. I got all my workouts in and only slipped into sweetsland the first night I was home. I felt really guilty about it but really pushed hard in my workouts.

So, now I've been back on tour for a week and I am 2 weeks away from competition. It's been hard finding a place to workout, running in the heat, and once again, avoiding all the temptations of the food truck. I'm down to about 155lbs though, so that's about a 20lb loss overall.... which I really can't even wrap around my head!! All I have to do is get through another 6 days though and then I'll be home, then on my way to Vegas for the show.

I am hoping so hard that I can keep focused during this last week on tour. I know that the circumstances that I have been under this spring and summer are not in any way conducive to a productive contest prep. That really shows in the fact that I "started" prep at 18 weeks out but have only seen progress in the last 7 weeks. I really wish I could see what it would be like if I had been able to truly prep in a scheduled environment, without all the traveling, for 18 weeks. I mean, I lost 20 lbs in 7 weeks, while living like a carnie, the stress of avoiding foods and being pressured to eat bad food and drink alcohol all the time, living on a bus, having no control over access to food or a kitchen or a store or a gym and walking everywhere I go. That's pretty insane. If I had been at home, with a consistent workout schedule, a consistent work schedule, availability of store, food and gym and less stress (and my bed), what could my progress have been? Oh well, who knows now!! All I can do is keep forging forward.

I think I look absolutely fantastic. I am so in love with my body and my athleticism right now. Before this training, I literally could not run for more than 5 minutes. Now I run 4 miles two times a week!! It's just amazing to me how the body can adjust. My taste has changed and I really don't crave sweets or bad foods. The food I"m eating for contest prep doesn't TASTE fantastic right now because I can't cook it the way I want to (no kitchen or seasonings) or season it the way I want to (no salt) but I know it's really good FOR me. People say all the time that they're glad that they're not eating what I have to eat. Well, I actually really enjoy eating these foods when I can prepare them correctly. In fact, if I weren't on contest prep then I'd probably be eating about the same things.

Back to what I was saying.... I am in love with how I look. I feel confident and back to my old self. I didn't think I was fat before but that wasn't me. I lived 24 years of my life at 145lbs and then went up to 175lbs for a few years. I get that I wasn't fat and that I still looked pretty good, but I was very uncomfortable with a body that I wasn't used to having. I hope people can understand that. Now that I am back to my "normal" size, I feel much more comfortable and confident in my own skin... not whoever that person was the past few years. That larger person also symbolized a lot of bad things that happened in my life and I'm happy to have to shed the weight and the other baggage from my life. I feel much lighter and happier as a result.

The reason I began saying that I"m happy with the way I look and feel is because I absolutely don't think that I will be lean enough to make a good placing at contest. As much as my competitive side wants to do really well and place high, I'm also going to be quite ok if I don't place high because I am so happy with how my body feels that it doesn't matter what judging they give me. This is the place that I wanted to be, for me. I just masked that depression of hating how I felt and looked, with a contest. People are understanding of that, they're not understanding of you being sad, that's a no-no in this society. One of the reasons I wanted to do a contest so bad was to drop weight and get to a certain place, so that I could be back to where I was and then be able to move forward from there. Sometimes it takes something to drastic to get to where you want to be, and that's had to happen for me to get there. Now that I'm here, I'm super excited about the contest but I'm super excited for it to be over so that I can have fun with food and really be this happier person. I'm giddy about eating clean and healthy and being locally grown, organic fruits and vegetables. I'm really excited about cooking and continuing to make good choices and feel clean and fresh and happy inside (my stomach). I'm excited about this lifestyle and continuing to be active, and you know what, I"m probably going to still be carrying my own food around, and that's ok by me. The fact of the matter is that I don't want to put junk in my body. That's all America has around, is junk. If I get hungry and I didn't bring my food with me, well then I'm screwed unless I want to pack in some processed white bread, 2 week old vegetables, sodium-filled, diseased, fried chicken and some sugar filled coke.

Agh, ok I have to pee (2 gallons of water a day!)

Bye bye