Spontaneous cheat meal

Ali and I saw our coach on Monday for our weekly skins and it was a rather bizarre appt of highs and lows for me! Before taking my measurements we ran through our compulsory poses in front of Jon’s bathroom mirror (best natural light!) and were pleased that I had visible progress going on- the tan helped a lot there!

I dropped another 2ml however, not from the areas which are really lagging behind which are my triceps and quads. The triceps was no surprise for me, Ive always disliked my arms and although the bicep is quite lean now the tri is holding on! The quad however is a nasty surprise, I started the game with relatively lean legs so assumed that this would be a strong point for me. But alas turns out I’m not a special exception and am struggling to lean down the legs just like every other woman- darn estrogen! I was hoping to get them all the way down to 5-6ml but they have not really budged in the last 5-6 weeks!

So I have no patience at all right now for that question that always pops up around the traps- how do I lose fat from my tummy? Or, I just want to tighten up this area *point to offending part of self* Sorry, its out of your hands! although there’s always lypo.. ;)

We made quite a few little changes to my meal plan for this week- more food and calories but less of the things I usually look forward to. Nothing really bothers me at this late stage though, we’re almost done and I’m ready to do whatever it takes to finish this well. I thought my steady state cardio might increase but instead I’m doing a couple of high intensity sessions again this week.  Variety is good. My last session I hogged 3 cardio machines at our local gym and did three rounds of five minutes on each- the time flew! Running is not even that hard when you don’t have as much fat flying haha. I remember when my butt and lovehandles used to ‘bounce’- ouch! 

So there I was thinking how much work I had ahead of me when at the very end of the appt, coach says- when was your last off plan meal? I thought he was doing a ‘compliance check’ as we’d cut those out weeks ago but he said, “have one more this weekend”. *stunned face* really? At 3 weeks out? Didn’t see that coming! Lol. I see it as a nice reward for being on track cos that’s how my prep has been- coach plans the timing, ie to make small drops as steadily as possible and then I work the plan. If I do as Im told, there’s no worries, no fear, no guilt. 

Its funny, you might think someone in my position would be fairly desperate for a cheat meal at this point, but I’m not and when you weren’t hoping or expecting to have one til post comp its kind of like getting a present for no reason!  People assume that I must be feeling so deprived cos I can’t eat cake or even something as ‘normal’ as a toasted sandwich but honestly… I’ve worked through that- if I was still feeling deprived after this long on a meal plan I would seriously rethink whether its worth living life so miserably!  As far as I’ve come with my relationship with food - I’ve also accepted that I may not be as ‘popular’ now if I don’t  join in, say yes to everything and get extremely excited about junk food. Lol! But I’m simply a much happier person without that addiction and emotional attachment to food and the longer you strive to be consistent in your lifestyle changes you’ll be amazed that it ever had such power over you… l don’t preach that food is fuel and that’s it but rather if you learn to use food wisely, you can turn a negative into a positive mindset where you can love and enjoy food for what it is (rather than have a love/hate relationship with it!) Where cheat meals used to be a source of anxiety followed by guilt for me, I’m hoping its now going to be a case of setting my taste buds on fire followed by being full and satisfied- big difference hey?

Wanting to implement the changes to the meal plan meant grocery shopping for more supplies after work and gym last night- didn’t get home and start cooking dinner and prepping new meals for the next day until 8:30pm. Got in bed by 10:30pm (late for me) and managed to fall asleep quick so would have had just under 7 hours sleep before up again for cardio. I find I feel best with 7-8 hours consistently.

So I’m really enjoying prep but more than just a big long dieting exercise it is kind of  like a healthy lifestyle “to the extreme” that one must try to keep up with. When you really get down to the business end there’s no exceptions, days off or time to pause. If you don’t feel 100%, are tired, unmotivated, feeling a bit flat, whatever- suck it up cos it doesn’t matter!  (gotta love this in a sick kind of way, but only temporarily!) So what I’m dreaming about post comp are things involving more flexibility and balance in my daily/weekly routine:

• Having more energy and enjoying training sessions more, being able to rest when I need to
• Being able to leave the house without meticulous meal planning and worrying about Tupperware, refrigeration or what the time is 
• Not having to do as much food prep, getting more creative in the kitchen with healthy recipes 
• Not having to get up really early every morning for cardio, being able to spread sessions out more and with more variety.