Peak Week Re-Cap

It occurred to me that I never mentioned peak week in my last blog entry so I figured I’d give a little re-cap this morning since I don’t feel like doing any actual job-related work these days. When your employer takes away the one thing that keeps you functioning on a daily basis (my under-desk space heater) you lose all motivation to do anything other than intense daily job searching. But that’s a whole other story entirely…

Anyway, peak week actually breezed by with little difficulty this time around. Remembering how adding-in a few extra carbs for the last show actually seemed to help things for me, I decided to give myself a little extra slack this time around. Basically, if I was dying for something more after dinner, rather than going to bed starving and risking being up all night with cramps I allowed myself something small to hold me over. Monday I stuck to plan, Tuesday I had some celery sticks with PB2 post-dinner, Wednesday I increased my breakfast oats from ¼ to ½ cup, Thursday I had the increased oats plus the celery and PB2 dessert, and Friday I had my usual carb-load of the increased oats, extra serving of sweet potato with dinner, and banana with almond butter for dessert. This plan equated to 100 grams or less of carbs Monday through Thursday and 136 grams on Friday. Surprisingly, I think I actually could have increased them even more. Energy-wise I was able to function reasonably well all week but my abs didn’t seem to peak quite as nicely Saturday morning as they did back in July. I’m thinking maybe next week when I’m peaking again I’ll change things up slightly and increase carbs a bit more on both Thursday and Friday and see how it goes. I haven’t yet seen any of the professional stage pics but when I look at backstage pics of me and some of the other contestants, my abs look a little deflated. On the other hand, they came in quite nicely Sunday morning after my chicken pad thai and wine J

I think I said this last time but my non-dairy experiment has not seemed to do me any favors. I plan to continue with it for this next show but likely won’t bother next year. Also, I have been extra strict on myself for the past month cutting out foods like salmon, steak and whole eggs in an effort to cut back on fats. This probably did help my improved glute look but didn’t do anything to help my abs. On top of this, I had also reduced my fat servings from my typical 3 to 2. This week I’m sticking with the 2 fat servings but am allowing back in salmon and red meat. Clearly I have not yet found my glute-abs happy medium LOL!

Again, energy-wise I did okay this time around. My workout on Tuesday (legs) wasn’t very good but I think it was a combination of a) diet b) it being legs and still struggling with the shin splints and c) way too many people wanting to chat and thus interrupt what would have been a focused workout. On Wednesday I picked up an iced coffee on my way to the gym and despite the carb deprivation, pounded out a killer circuit routine. That’s totally what I will be doing next week since I always cut out my pre-workout drink for sodium purposes. I didn’t sleep well Wednesday night and it was likely a result of the coffee so late in the day but I actually slept really well every other night that week; even Friday when I am usually up several times due to pre-show nerves.

I think that about covers the week in general. It’s almost 11:00 … time for meal #3. The spinach salad with chicken, string beans, cukes and almonds just sounds soooooo appetizing, NOT! Haha Anyway, here’s to surviving the next two weeks without getting sick, further injured, or any more disgruntled about the Maine Event results. Every show is different in its own ways and at least I can say that I have placed in every class I’ve ever entered! ‘Til next time gym rats, happy gymming!