A Perfect Example of How Too LIttle Food Makes You Way Too Lippy

Disclaimer: This blog is all about competition prep. If you aren’t interested in this topic, for the love of Pete close it down and get on with your life.

Holy hell – 5 sleeps and it’s here!! Finally here!! Can hardly believe that it’s arrived and I’m so incredibly excited. Bullet point time!! Here’s what I am most excited about;

• Embarking on a holiday with my beautiful little family – we are staying on for a week in a unit on the beach at Coolangatta – enough said!! Woohoo!!
• Having my most favourite friends in the world (excluding one that can’t make it ..sob sob) there with me during the comp; Michelle, Candice, Racheal, Kieran…Ingrid, Renata, Ji and Stoj – couldn’t ask for a better support crew – I know I’m incredibly lucky, and I try never to forget it.
• Competing is pretty darn good fun. Especially at this point because I have absolutely nothing in the world to lose and anything to gain. I have never competed in anything international and never really thought I would so that’s exciting in itself.
• I would be lying through my hungry teeth if I didn’t say that the post-comp dinner is something to be well and truly excited about. I have studied restaurants, menus and distances for me to waddle back to our unit. It’s all under control and I have great expectations that it will taste excellent. When people say comments like, “Oh but your poor little tummy will be so sore after so long of being on a diet”, it reinforces to me that this person knows me not at all. I have a guts of caste iron. I can cope with pretty much anything. Once, on the way back from Brisbane, I thought it a good idea to cook one of the sachet rice things and eat half the rice on the way to the airport then tuck the rest into my hot little handbag. I ate the other half during the flight home and by the time we landed in Darwin, I had clearly given myself a touch of food-poisoning (very easy to do with cold rice I found out later). I was literally writhing in pain in the car and felt queasier than I had ever felt before (excluding early years alcohol indulgence episodes). It took the whole 3 hour car trip home to come right and, by the time we pulled into the driveway I was all ready to eat again. And eat I did! Rob was impressed. Being the opposite it would have put him off food for at least the rest of the day.

So that’s the nutshell of excitement I have going on. It actually keeps me awake at night and I got up at 5.30am the other morning and had a swim to calm myself down.

The other big thing I am seriously looking forward to is being off competition prep. As previously harped on about, I have been on this train since April. I am over it. Seriously over it. I want to eat with my family and indulge in scrumptious foods and forget about the content. I want to plan my training and smack out some new goals without any pressure at all to perform. I have written and scribbled and planned and strategized all of the things I want to achieve next and I’m rip snortin ready to get cracking!!

So let’s talk the last couple of weeks. As I said to a friend of mine the other day – hunger and fatigue have led me to the truth-tree and I must speak what hangs on my mind. But first off, a reflection of what’s happened to my body.

• I arrived home from Hobart quite happy with my condition but very perturbed about my inability to drop that last 1.2kg. I sat on 58.2 for so long that I even went and got a new scale battery in case the damn thing was playing up. It wasn’t.
   
  I felt that my food was lower that I wanted it, my training was high but very half-arsed due to lack of food. I was not a happy camper and did not think I could make another 3 weeks in that condition. I told Ingrid and we put our heads together and she came up with a plan that I had freedom to tweak.
   
  We added carbs. We changed training splits to something truly radical. I decided on HIITS every 2^nd day and not a minute more than 25m. No steady state. No cardio sneaking into other training. Nothing fasted. Just honest sessions fuelled by more food. Prior to leaving Hobart I had a disproportionately large dinner after the comp – plenty of cheese and some bread to boot! Heaven. We also added in another day of food-relaxation and some red meat and fruit along with rest time.
   
  I came home and upped those carbs. Relished in the new tastes and thrived on having something sweet. I worked really hard in my training with the extra food – it was infinitely easier than the laborious sessions I had been doing. On a specific night I had a generous re-feed. Very generous. No penance cardio!!! Just the scheduled sessions of 25m every second day.
   
  Wait for this. Wait for it. This morning I weighed in at 54.5kg. Only 3.7kg down in 2 weeks. Who does that? How does that happen? How do you increase food, decrease training and drop fat like a mad-woman!! I am simply amazed at myself. Amazed at the changes. Amazed at how shredded I feel. And my mirror and training sessions would indicate I haven’t dropped muscle size to any great degree. I am lifting weights that I lifted prior to the final 12 weeks.
   
  Massive, massive learning curve.
   
  Ok – so here’s the last thing. While on comp prep I have become quite sensitive to the various strategies and positions on the crux of female prep – dropping weight while maintaining health and muscle. I have just given you my very honest experience. I can say that I experienced the gut-wrenching pressure of the scale weight looming at me every week. The feeling of not achieving what I set out to and paying the consequences by competing in a category that I did not want to compete in. Twice. Sure it all worked out in the end, but my mind didn’t register the bigger picture, just the weight snapshot and it sucked. Truly sucked.
   
  Now I can say that fat-loss is almost too easy this week and I’m adding more grams of carbs in an effort to keep it on. It’s so much more fun on this end of the stick!!
   
  But while riding this wave, I have come to detest the self-righteousness of some opinions. I believe the condition of my body means my sensitiveness to certain things is heightened. I admit this is one of them, but it has played on my mind so much that I am going to blurt it out.. in my way… bullet points; 

• The way you start out thinking you’ll prep may not be the way you end up actually prepping. Grand ideas of eating text-book foods and never over-doing the exercise, not even considering a fasted-cardio session or multiple gym visits in a day – whatever!!! When you are committed to a goal and you’ve been single-focused for around 4.5 months, you’ll find yourself open to ideas that once you would have balked at. Get over yourself, do some research and decide whether it’s worthy of a try or not – but don’t reject it purely based on stubborn self-righteousness. And there’s only one thing worse than a prepper with that attitude and that’s a non-prepper who chimes in with their own self-righteous angle on what another is doing in a terribly judgemental way. Rack off.
• The list of ‘naughty foods’ just grows doesn’t it! Clean and dirty. Good and bad. Ok and naughty. For fucks sake people, if a bit of chewy and a fake sugar or 6 gets people through a lean day, button up and let them have it. If an opinion is wanted it will surely be asked for. But seriously…. Those of us who wouldn’t give up our Extra without a fight to the death, we don’t give a flying rats crap whether you think it’s going to undo the last 18 months of hard work (as if?!!!! Simply ridiculous!!) or not. We can research for ourselves and that looming stick of judgement just spurs me to chew louder. Or I might ask you just how clean your protein powder is. Or remark on your many pictures of supposedly “naughty” foods and how you constantly justify your choices.
• I never once pretended to be a poster-child for health and fitness. And I'm certainly glad I haven't plastered Facebook with my one-eyed views on food because I can tell you that I've changed. My view and opinions are based on my experiences and those of my trusted friends. I won't bore you with the details because I might change again in the future. That's what I call being human.
• Again – in my humble opinion, the judgement of food has gotten way, way out of control.

 I am lucky to have a coach who listens to me. We don’t always agree. But she listens and she cares and she is very willing to make changes based on my responses. I love that about her. She doesn’t judge me. She saw me chewing my Extra like a heifer in Hobart and not once did she call me up on it. Not once. Why? Because I’m me. I’m Kirsten. I don’t comp prep like you. I don’t want to. I have different thresholds and my body reacts differently to yours. I don’t care for your opinions at this stage because I’ve already invested 18 months with someone who knows their shizzle. I am also intelligent and can research my own facts and, based on what I find, I either make change or I don’t. And that’s just how I like it.

 Wow. I think I need a regular input of “naughty" food to help me calm the heck down!”

Less Than 2 Weeks To Go!!

We have exactly 13 days to go after tonight. 13 sleeps and it will be World Championship day. I feel strangely calm and feel like I have nothing to lose, all to gain. That’s exactly the way I like feeling. I am the first to admit that I do not handle pressure to succeed very well. I much rather like to turn up as an unknown quantity and either do well or not .. and leave in the silent way I arrive. I am not one of those that hungers for attention, strives for good selfies, or seeks out sponsorship. I’m not opposed to any of those things but my reasons for competing are not directly related to any of them.

But that’s where the self-righteousness ends. Right there. Because pretty much everything about competition prep is selfish, self-absorbed and all-consuming. Time to spill the beans on pre-comp between Darwin and Hobart. As per usual – I think in bullet-points so I’ll write in bullet-points – for some reason it centres me (yep – even I think that’s freakin weird!!).

• I finished the Darwin competition knowing I had another 5 weeks’ worth of dieting. That truly and honestly wreaked absolute havoc with my mind. I have been dieting for 20 weeks and another 5 seemed like a mountain almost too high to manage. The night of the comp I had a nice piece of fudge cake followed by a lovely dinner and then straight back into my meagre rations. I also jumped straight back into a HIIT on the Monday morning and the meal the night before fuelled me all the way.
• Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday post-Darwin worked out just tickety-boo.
• Friday did not. Friday my mind and body went down the gurgler. The feeling of immense and utter tiredness came over me and drenched every fibre of my body. I felt like I couldn’t move a finger without it being a total body-drag – like I was trawling through sand with every move. On top of that I was trying to do intense HIITS, heavy training sessions and continuing to work shift work with nightshifts and all. Especially exciting about the nightshifts was that, on the first day, I had to make my rations last me through the day and night without succumbing to more food. This is just not the time to add food!!
   
  By the middle of the next week I was feeling immensely sorry for myself, not the least excited about the Hobart competition and ready to quit. Yep. To quit. Get that. 20 weeks of dieting, 18 months of solidly consistent training and I was ready to quit just 4 days out. How does that happen? Still wondering myself. But I did want to. But I didn’t. I’ll give myself credit that, when the going gets tough, I put my head down and do what needs to be done. I might entertain the quitting thought – but physically I just carry on carrying on and I do what’s next on the list. And that’s how last week played out.
• Unfortunately the stress clearly had a major impact on my poor hormones that all went into a buzz and I believe my cortisol was raised majorly. Cortisol inhibits fat loss. I wasn’t losing fat. I was holding onto it for dear life. Minimal food, maximum exercise and not a gram was budging. I knew it too – I could see in the mirror and feel in my bones. The result – I wasn’t going to make weight for my chosen division. Bum and shit!!!! The harder I pushed, the worse it got. I knew deep in my heart that I wasn’t going to make weight so Plan B was put into place – entering a division with the big girls in the NABBA federation. And it was so.
• I made my way to Melbourne without incident.  Well…maybe one minor one that I should definitely expand on;
   
  I booked a cabin in a tourist park close to the Melb airport. It had a full kitchen and I had decided to do a little prep while there. Before cooking my delicious post-comp steak, I decided to slap on another coat of tan. For the uninitiated this entails nuding up and literally  painting on a brown liquid that serves as an undercoat for the heavy comp day tan.
   
  So I did that. You know.. nuded up … and covered myself in the brown gunk. It takes a good  5 mins to dry before you can safely cover up so I paraded around in my little cabin, free as a bird!! While in my moments of ‘freedom’ – I decided to cook my eye fillet. Element on, heated up nicely, steak added – and then we got a little bit of smoke. Just a bit. But a bit was all it took to set off the rotten fire alarm!! Shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I grabbed a tea-towel and waved it furiously in the direction of the roof-mounted alarm. It stopped..thank god.
   
  But then it started again!!! Damn!!! I was stuck between the need to wave the stupid tea-towel and the self-preservation instinct to put some clothes on!!!! I knew the minute I dropped the towel, the alarm would go off – but then what if they heard it already and someone knocked on the door??!!! I couldn’t answer it in the buff!!! I reached out and grabbed my purple onesie, all the while waving the tea-towel at the roof. And then I heard the sirens!!! LOUD AND WAILING!! OMFG!!! I was so incredibly certain they were coming for me!! I waved the tea-towel at about 217km/h and prayed that the knock wouldn’t come. It didn’t. They went past. Reprieve.
   
  Moral: never cook steaks nude. Just don’t. 

• Ok – so fast forward to Hobart. I loved Hobart. I loved the competition even though I knew I was up against ladies much bigger than me. I stepped onto that stage and I really did give it all I had. I came away with a third placing and that made me extremely happy.

So where am I now?

• Right here, right now I’m in a very happy place. I’m heading to the Gold Coast and I have a lot of work to do between now and then. My goal is to shred. S.H.R.E.D.!!! Ingrid and I have come up with a plan that I’m not going to share – it’s a great plan and here I am at Day 6 with all of the signs that this plan is very sound!! I can tell you that it involves more food, extremely specific training, and a whack of instinct about changes to be made along the way.
• My confidence in achieving my goal is at an all-time high. My energy in my workouts hasn’t been so evident for weeks.
• On a practical note, I’m throwing down the water yet my skin is as dry as a bone. Why? I’m dropping water as quick as I’m downing it – surely there is a lesson to be learned there? My skin is paper thin – no fat, no water trapped between skin and muscle. I’m leaning out even more yet I’m eating more – why? It’s a mixture of our secret plan and also the relaxed feeling I have. Means the hormones that inhibit fat loss are tucked away again. I’m really, really happy about that.

And lastly, I’m sleeping well. I haven’t slept well for the past month and this last week I’ve slept like a little baby.

 Speaking of – I’m heading there now and will check in again soon.

The Day My Bum Wasn't Smiling...

The night before we had made a plan!! Don’t they get it? We had made A PLAN!!!! He was going to hold the stretchy-band-harness and I was going to run flat-out in another direction and work up the world’s biggest sweat in an effort to use up as much energy as humanly possible in the shortest time possible. That’s how I roll! But you have to understand – when I get to this point in prep, PLANS are really, really, really important! They cannot be broken. End of.

So when an emergency called in the morning and it became quickly apparent that Rob was not going to be around the place to assist, I got ‘the panicks’. The world started to turn and tilt and I had to find a way to get all back on track. IDEA!!!! The kids can hold the harness – one on each side!! You little ripper!! See – even with less food than normal I can still come up with the goods!! A real Ideas Girl!!

So at about 5.30pm, the three kids and I went down to the local school oval and I slapped on that harness with great enthusiasm. I attached it with a metal clip to a very firm stretchy band. (Very firm. Too firm.) I then connected the two oldest kids to each end of the stretchy band. Well….actually I didn’t attach them and therein lies the big problem. I just got them to hold on to a handle each and pull like crazy backwards. They were delighted with their new jobs and the giggles were loud and long through ten solid sprints. It couldn’t have worked better if planned!!! I was making absolutely no progress whatsoever yet my legs and arms were pumping as hard as possible. Complete HIIT success!!!

After ten good ones, I took off around the school and filled in some time with box jumps, pushups and other horrible nasties!! Ten minutes later and I was ready for my final set of ten sprints. “Come on kids!! Let’s hit the harness” I yelled. They happily grabbed the handles and we were off yet again. This time they were able to actually lie on the ground while I ran nowhere – it was gold!! We were all having fun and they were laughing as much as I was sweating!!

And then it happened. The world went very dark very quickly. Was it a horse hoof? Was it a hammer? Just what was it that hit the left side of my bum cheek that took me from full sprint to lying on the grass with my eyes feeling like they were going to pop out of my head. Tears stung my eyes like needles and I felt like my arse was truly on fire! ON FIRE!!!! Burning and stinging like a thousand bees had hit the jackpot! (and remember my encounter with 27 paper wasps at Kakadu – I know about stings!!).

I turned around and saw the culprit. Culprits. They were lying on the ground behind me, sans handles, looking terrified. I wanted to ease their little minds and make them feel better… but the pain was just too fierce and, instead of being a beautiful Mummy and saying something nice … I said a great big fat swear word. A really nasty one. One that I expelled in an effort to ease my aching arse. It felt good to say but didn’t help my ailing bum one iota.

So I lay on the grass and cried. The kids cried too. We all cried together. And then I got up and demanded that they take those handles and hold on for their lives. I had 6 more sprints to complete before that HIIT was over and this not the time in my regime to finish early. We all cried the whole way through and I knew my boy was very affected because he went and sat on the top of the goalpost for a while afterward. That’s what he does when he’s very happy or very sad.

I drove home on one cheek. As I arrived and made a beeline for the freezer ice pack, I was accosted by someone from the heart foundation collecting money. I very abruptly cut him off and said, “No thank you!!” as I strode to the front door. He kept coming and mumbled something about being from the Heart Foundation. Could he not see the pain in my eyes?!!!! “I said NO THANK YOU!!” He scooted away and my daughter said, “Mum!! He was from the Heart Foundation!!” I replied, “I couldn’t care less if he was the Queen of bloody England!!! My bum is going to fall off if I don’t get ice on it!!”

Ice packs – 20m on, 20m off, 20m on – all evening. A few more self-pity tears and a bruise that looked like a yellow/green/blue rainbow and I just thanked the universe that more damage hadn’t been done. The metal clasp of the band had hit my meaty cheek. If it had hit my tail-bone or spine, I’m uncertain what would have happened.

It only took a few hours to really have a good laugh about it. And reassure my kids that they did absolutely nothing wrong. That it was my fault for setting it all up that way.

What I can affirm is that Dream Tan covers everything. EVERYTHING!!!

Pre and Post Comp - Still Going!!

It’s got to be time to report on my month.

Pre Comp

I have to be honest – this was the toughest, most draining pre-comp phase that I can remember. Thank god I had Ingrid there to take care of me and tailor make my prep to suit - I would have been lost without her to call on. As for the causes, there are quite easily explained once I take the time to reflect;

·        For the entire month pre-comp, I was on a work course that I thoroughly enjoyed. However it meant a change from my usual duties and a whole lot more focus needed to sit in the classroom each day. Also plenty of study, homework and assessments which all took their toll on my energy.

·        I was away from home for the whole month pre-comp and I thought that would be easier than it actually was. I relied on only having myself to worry about however I neglected to take into account just how much I love being around my mad little family. I pined terribly for them and felt quite lost on my own away from home.

·        During the comp prep, Rob applied for and got a new job in Darwin. While we are absolutely thrilled about the upcoming move, it threw us into a flurry of excitement and change with house arrangements, school moves and all of the other things that go with a change in location.

·        We immediately put an offer on a new house. Need I say more? Stress central!

·        Organising the renting out of our Katherine home. (Which went as smooth as silk -what a blessing!)

·        Then the last issue of trying to find me a suitable role in Darwin as well – and I’m a tad on the picky side about that!! At this rate I might end up on my own in Katherine, sponging for a room to rent!

Somehow, around all of this, I made it my priority to cook and chop all food for the week each Sunday. Without this I think I would have had immense trouble staying on track. Does this mean I would have eaten differently? I don’t think so… I get way too focused for that. But I probably would have under-eaten and the food timing would have been all out of whack with too many evening meals and not enough during the day (a very common problem for many I suspect). As it was, I had all of my meals stacked and labelled for the entire week so it was merely a matter of stacking my 6-pack lunchbox and spending the day on task without having to stress about them. I can’t recommend this approach more and believe this is the key to pre-comp success.

Comp Day

In stark contrast to the above, I don’t think we’ve had a less-stressed competition day. It was absolutely brilliant!! I got up at about 5.30am due to my intense excitement at having runny eggs, peanut butter and toast for breakfast – holy hell that was delicious and rich!!! Every sticky mouthful was like pure gold and I unashamedly licked the plate clean!!

From there I went back to bed with a short black and watched some tv before eventually getting up and working on my hair. I decided to do my own this comp in order to save some $$. After hair came Dream Tan application time. Rob is the master of this and he did a fabulous job while I watched some more tv – spoilt much!!

Shortly after the best make up artist in Darwin (biased!!) came over and worked her magic. As soon as she left I downed some rice cakes, chicken and more peanut butter!!

Then it was time to hit the venue. It was a completely different setting this time at the Marrara Sports Centre and I actually really liked it. There was so much going on with the Sports Expo and the lighting was very different than I was used to. Normally I am on a stage with show lighting where I can’t see the audience. This time it was clear and bright and I could see all faces as clear as day – meaning I could see those faces I love so much very clearly. My babies, my husband, some of my dearest friends and many gorgeously friendly faces from home. I loved that!

Nothing much to report about comp day other than I had an absolute ball. The key for me was popping my phone on airplane mode and just relaxing into music while getting ready. Last comp I received and answered messages the whole time and, while they were beautiful messages, it was off-putting and distracting because I wanted to answer everyone immediately. This time I put it all ‘on ice’ and it worked beautifully.

I can’t comment on my performance as I’m terribly critical of myself and can see so many areas to improve on. Some things I did quite well, other things need some immediate attention.

Of course my highlight was winning the Nabba division and then winning the Overall Ms NT title. I was absolutely thrilled!!! Couldn’t have been happier!

Post Comp

I was absolutely dreading the time between comps. To the point of considering not doing a second show. I remember the last ‘between comps’ period and how I felt like I was dragging a ten-tonne truck behind me everywhere. With all that we have going on in our work and personal life, I just couldn’t contemplate the thought of feeling so drained again.

I’m ecstatic to report that I have never felt better!! I am so full of energy it’s dangerous!! I’m fully focused, very intense and firmly sighted on the National Championships in Hobart on October 12. I will admit I’m anxious about it because I feel that I somewhat bombed last time I went to the Nationals. I don’t want to feel that way again – surely that is a natural feeling??

So I’m straight back into training. Heavy as I can taking into account that food is down so weights will also be down. It’s not time to start breaking personal records! Cardio is up and I do a high energy ‘something’ every couple of days. I'm alternating between sprints, weights and swims. I still have some leaning out to do for this comp and I’m quite fine with that. I have worked so hard for so long that a few weeks of lowered food and higher cardio is A.O.K. with me.

Not much else to report for now but will keep you posted.