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.