Hi Friends!!
Hope this finds you all happy and healthy! Can you believe the holidays are right around the corner?! Boy they got here fast! There’s so much to catch y’all up on since we last talked.
Shane and I went to Florida to visit Universal Studios and Disney World (our FAVORITE place!) for a week and a half last month and had an AMAZING time. It was so nice to spend time together and enjoy ourselves. We had a blast! Work got super busy for me there for a few weeks, and oh, we’re still house hunting. Throw a few social and family events in there… The days turn into weeks and boom, here we are, halfway through November!
Luckily I’ve stayed on track with my diet and my workouts, and things have been business as usual on that end. We’re loving our gym here in Fort Worth, and have made it to Willow Bend for bootcamp a couple of times as well, so things are good! I’m so excited to announce though that we have a gameplan in place! My next show will be the NPC Southwest USA Championships April 16th here in Dallas. *inserthighpitchedsqueelhere* I am THRILLED to finally have a goal to work towards, and to get back up on that stage! Ideally the plan will be to do the show on the 16th, followed by another on April 30th, and depending on how things go, a final one on May 7th as well. I will NOT be taking any post show birthday trips to New Orleans or anywhere else this time!!! I would love to get Nationally Qualified (i.e., the next step towards getting an IFBB pro card) and then make it to nationals in the fall next year or spring 2017, depending on timing. A lot of this will depend on how well I do in the April shows, obviously. I’m just excited to see the results of my “offseason” work these past 8 months. I’ve put on substantial size—my weight is roughly 25 pounds more now than my stage weight from March. It’s hard to say how much of that is muscle, but we’re hoping for 7-10 pounds. That would be AMAZINNNNNGGGGG! My main goal is to be a better total package than the girl in the picture below. I just want to come in better and stronger than I did at my last show, which has been my only show in case y’all forgot!
Here’s the even more exciting part. My prep will start November 30th! Which, hello, that’s right after Thanksgiving! That would put me 20 weeks out from the show. Yes, it seems like a long time, but in reality it’s not. This will give us plenty of time to take things very slow and controlled. We don’t know how quickly or slowly I’m going to be able to cut. My prep was SUPER EASY (from a metabolic standpoint at least!) last time, but this time is a whole new ball game, and we don’t know how I’m going to react. I’m praying I don’t have to do oodles of fasted cardio though—please baby Jesus, not a ton of cardio….I will still have Christmas and New Year’s “off”, but I’m already mentally preparing to make the most of these next 20 weeks. Like I’ve told y’all before, when you look at it in terms of workouts, (20 arm workouts, 40 leg workouts, 20 rest days, 20 times to work shoulders) that’s changes your perception on things and you start to see that you really need every bit of those 20 weeks. This takes an incredible amount of discipline, dedication, and focus. Come back as a veteran now is already a little different, but in a good way. I can’t wait to compare progress pics from this prep with my last one.
The weekly training/ posing sessions with my coach will start back up in January, which will be awesome! I’ve already started looking at suits—I’ll need a new once since my back’s grown so much!—and I’m super excited that my shows will be local so my friends and family can come see what this incredible sport is all about.
I can’t wait to share this journey with all of you again! All of your likes, comments, texts, emails, and messages really helped motivate and encourage me every day of those 12 weeks. If I can inspire and motivate anyone on my journey, than that makes this all the sweeter.
Till next time!
-Mere