Hey y’all! Hope you all are enjoying the holidays as 2015 comes to an end! Can you believe it?! I hadn’t given an update in a while, so I wanted to catch you all up on what’s been happening in the world of @Lipglossandlifting since my last post.
We’ve picked our first show of the 2016 season! I am officially just over 15 weeks out from the NPC Southwest USA Championships to be held on April 16th here in Arlington. My contest prep has officially started, (as of November 30th), but it’s pretty loose for the next few weeks, at least for now. I just did my last check-in of the year with my coach, and he’s happy with how things are progressing. My upper body has leaned out a bit over the last few weeks—I’m down 3 pounds already! Ideally we’d love to see me lose 20 pounds throughout my prep. That would still be close to 10 pounds of muscle that I had put on in my offseason! Here are a few progress pictures for you:
I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t have anxiety already about this process. Yes it’s fun, yes, it’s rewarding, and yes it’s great to see the end results, but it’s also challenging, emotionally draining, exhausting, and really REALLY hard. This time I’m a little less (or a lot less naïve) and am coming into it knowing what to expect, knowing the hard parts, and being a lot more familiar with the process. That said though, I am just so excited to see what these next several weeks will bring. I just want to come in tighter, more conditioned, and more prepared than I did last time. I’m nervous because I have more fat to lose this time than I did last time, or at least I feel like I do because I’m so much bigger than I was at my show, honestly it’s probably less bodyfat overall. I’m still nervous about my legs—are they conditioned enough? Will it work? Will I get up there and look stupid because I have a killer upper body, arms, and back, but my leg muscles hardly show? From a diet standpoint, I feel prepared and like it’s not a big deal. It’s really not. My schedule is also a lot more flexible now so I am even more able to easily get my fasted cardio in. I also learned my lesson and don’t want to REBOUND after the show. I’m pretty much going to stay on my diet after the first show, because ideally we’d like to do 1-2 more right after the one on the 16th. I won’t be taking any weekend trips or vacations in the next couple of months after the show that will get me off plan. That was my biggest mistake last season.
I’m looking forward to the anticipation (which builds every week!), the suit selection, the training and posing sessions, and friendships that are bound to blossom out of this next contest prep. You can bet I’ll be a lot more consistent with updates and posts now that the train has left the station!
Thank you all again for being part of this journey— I’m so blessed to have such a great support group around me that encourages and motivates me. Hope you all have a very Happy New Year!
Till next time,
-Mere