6-Pak Girl's 2009 Competition Season

[wil]

Great article.

(WOW - LOOK at THOSE ABS!!!)

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[A1food4U]

You continue to inspire us older folks. great article, way to go!!!!!

[lizzyb]

yeah.....tell me about it A1!! Look at you go girl!! Awesome and inspiring as usual!! Great interview too!!

[Italianangel]

Love the interview, you so rock but we have a big problem here............you are a fraud, you are not 50.......you are lying......your birth certificate is wrong - ITS FRAUD I SAY!!!!!

[6-Pak Girl]

Ha ha, is right! No matter how long I stay away, whenever I come back I feel the love. You guys are awesome. I need to catch up on reading everyone's journals. I'm vowing to do so this weekend.

In the meantime, here's what's happening with me:

I’m just three weeks away from completing my 12-week lean building program. I can’t wait to take measurements and figure out my muscle gains. All I know is that I’m starting to need new sports bras and t-shirts cuz my lats are getting HUGE! )

My biggest challenge is trusting the process. I’m working with a fantastic person (IMHO) so I trust him/the process as much as I possibly could. Still, the whole body dismorphia creeps in now and then, especially now that the scale has tipped over 120 lbs. Logically I know I should be going for 125 or even more ON STAGE but that probably realistically means 130 or so off season and that’s scary to me.

What happens is once my weight creeps to about 122 I sorta sabotage my efforts by skipping one of my meals or working a little harder on my cardio than I should be right now. I know I’m doing it, but it’s hard to stop. And yet, I want to grow more muscle and to do that I have to weigh more. Such a weird thing.

Anyway, my tentative plan is to finish this program and go on a 2 week rest. I’m starting to have lots of achy muscles and old injuries are flaring up. I’m also fatigued. This tells me I’m probably entering into the dreaded over training arena. After my two week rest I want to do another lean muscle building program. That’ll take me up to the Christmas holiday. I’ll break again so I can enjoy holiday goodies and then most likely after the first of the year go into contest prep. Mind you, this may all change after my end of August strategy meeting with my trainer. But for now, this is what I’m thinking.

So, since I last posted I was a guest on a radio show talking about women’s fitness and health. It was pretty fun BUT there was supposed to be 3 guests and the host but the other 2 guests backed out for whatever reasons so I was the only guest and had to fill 2 hours. Talk about a shocker. Thank God the host is very experienced and really put me at ease. Here’s the link:
It starts out a bit rough – you can tell I didn’t really know what to say but then I warmed up and got real chatty. What We're Thinking About - 2009-07-30

If that doesn't work, go to What We're Thinking About - Co-creator Radio Network and scroll down to July 30 Barbara Mencer. That's me!

[tooncesthecat]

Great interview! So cool to hear you carry the torch for fitness

[lizzyb]

Wow!......You truly are an inspiration 6-Pak Girl!! Great interview.......great content!!

[6-Pak Girl]

I’m VERY excited about my 2010 competition schedule. Here’s the plan:
• The Emerald Cup in Washington State in April
• Masters Nationals in Pittsburgh in July
• USA’s in Las Vegas also in July (if I’m not too burned out from Nationals )

Looks like this particular season could get very expensive since I’ll be travelling to all these shows. I’m starting to think about trying to get sponsors. I don’t know much about that – how to ask, who to ask. I have a couple of ideas and I have a sample letter from Linda's great figure e-book that I can tweak for my purposes. I’m also thinking about putting together a very simple website so I can showcase and thank my sponsors. I appreciate any and all advice about my sponsorship idea!

This week is a rest week. That’s right. I have to take the entire week off from the gym. I had plateaued on my last program – fighting constant fatigue and muscle strains seemingly every time I went to the gym. So I’ll take this week off. No weights. No cardio. No supplements. Then the following week I’ll work out maybe 3 or 4 days, very lightly and do some easy cardio. After that, I’ll begin another formal, hardcore program designed to help me build some more muscle. That’ll take me into December. I’ll probably just keep status quo through the holiday and into January and then start my lean down for the Emerald Cup the end of January.

Here’s hoping I can put on another 4-5 pounds of muscle before the end of the year!

[Italianangel]

omg you have to come do the cup in 2011, I am thinking of doing that one since I have to do the BCs again that year to work up again toward Nationals.
The gal who got 2nd at my show got her pro card last weekend at the north americans so that is 2 less hardcore competitors I have to compete against when my time comes!!!! yay! so for a warm up I was going to drive down to the cup and do Fitness and maybe figure too! Because I am canadian I cannot win or move on in this federation unless I can get a US addy which I may work on. Actually I think you can win but cannot move on in the higher tiers.........one gal I know went out and got 2nd and she is saying she could not win being canadian but maybe she thinks that because she made second or maybe they told her that but I am sure they told me we can come in first but cannot move on. aaaanyway, it would be great if you came out in 2011 and when you do next years show you will see its a huge, great show and worth the money as you get your money back just in the competitor bags!!! They run a good show and have been doing the cup as long as I have competed.....like since beyond 96. Its so well run, you will be amazed, and you go, register and only do the show once, no prejudge morning then night show crap, its all at night and I even drive home and get home by midnight or so.......I am about an hour away.
If you decide to visit Vancouver let me know and we can hook up for a coffee!!
Linda

[lizzyb]

Woot!! Sounds like you've got winter beat already!

[6-Pak Girl]

Wow - Linda that would be so amazing if we both did the Emerald Cup in 2011. Of course, let's just see how I do in 2010 first. LOL.

Due to overtraining I had to take 10 days completely off of training and then trained just lightly 3 days last week. I'm better now and started a new program (muscle building) today. Yay! I'm excited to see how much muscle I can grow between now and the holidays.

I'm really doing something different for me. I'm training just one body part per day (legs twice per week) for 6 days on then one rest day. Cardio is 15 min @ 5 days. My diet is also different. For instance, usually I have egg whites and oatmeal with a little PB. Now, I'm having extra lean ground sirloin with my egg whites and oatmeal. My tummy wasn't too happy with that this morning but I suppose I'll get use to it.

I trained chest today and I did 5 exercises, just 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps with way heavy weights. Again, that's a bit different for me. The last exercise I did 7 sets at a fast tempo. This is Hany Rambod's FST program. Pretty cool. Let's see how it works!

[Italianangel]

Its my goal to do that one, I still need to confirm a few things with the rules re Canadians but I aim to do it, and the figure too.
so put it on your list, I know if you go next year you will be impressed with the way its run, its all at night on Friday, so short and sweet and easy and the competitor bags are worth more than you pay for entry! If you stay all weekend, is a huge expo, its very very cool.
You'll be BACK - as arny says.
Linda

[6-Pak Girl]

I’m back from my business trip to Denver. I’ve decided that I’m not meant to travel much when I’m on a program – whether it’s an on or off season program! Of course that’s not realistic but boy is it a challenge. It’s so hard to find the right food to eat. You’d think it’s be easy to find grilled chicken and baked potato (I know better than to try to find yams in restaurants) but what ends up happening is that everything has salt on it and a lot of it has been marinated in some sort of butter or oil based marinade. Yuck! I just want pure, simple, clean food. Is that too much to ask? Apparently it is.

Then there’s flying. You know how it is. I need to eat every 2 to 3 hours. That means waiting in airports and flying on planes can be challenging depending on how long the wait/flight and what time I need to eat. And if there’s a delay, yikes! I’m in trouble. What tricks have you guys used with traveling and eating??

At least I was able to get in most of my workouts. The hotel gym wasn’t awful. It wasn’t great but it was adequate for biceps, triceps and cardio. I had to adapt my normal leg workout and focus on dumbbell squats and lunges. Got some core and ab work in as well.

The good news is I don’t travel again until later in October and then it’s just a couple of overnight trips. That shouldn’t be too painful (she said hopefully). )

I met with Kim yesterday to mark my progress on my off season program. He’s very pleased. He started the conversation by telling me I have curves! LOL. My lower body is exploding right now – yippee!! This is super exciting to me because legs are typically the slowest growing of all my muscle groups. The new training routine is absolutely what I needed and I’m excited to see the end result in another 10 weeks. In the meantime, we’re upping my protein a bit to support my new muscle growth and keeping all else the same.

More later – time for me to have a protein shake before bed.

[6-Pak Girl]

I’m half way through my 12-week muscle building program. The place I’m seeing the biggest gains is my legs – mostly in the quad sweep. I’ve been working legs twice a week so I guess it’s no surprise it’s starting to show (although I AM surprised because I've been working on my legs for years and they don't grow).

I’m struggling a bit with achy joints – my elbows and my knees. (Okay, I'm struggling alot. They really hurt.) I think the hack squat is the culprit for my knees so I’m edging my toes higher on the platform. I just started taking a joint support supplement. I’ll give it a couple weeks and see how my joints are doing. If they are still a mess I’ll need to lighten up on the weight I’m lifting. It’s pretty heavy and I’d like to keep lifting heavy, but it could be I need a rest/change.

Steak is on my weekly meal plan 3x per week now which is great news. For some reason white fish for dinner just isn’t doing it for me right now so if I can eat steak 3 dinners per week that means I only have to eat white fish 4 dinners per week. That’s not too bad. )

I was in Silicon Valley on business a week ago and keeping on my nutrition plan continues to be a challenge. I brought a couple meals with me on the plane since my flight was short and I figured the food wouldn’t spoil. I also brought my whey protein with me and a meal replacement shake for emergencies. When I got to my hotel I immediately went in search of bottled water. The hotel (a Hilton) didn’t have a convenience/gift store so I walked to the Hyatt and bought four 1-litre bottles of Fiji water for $15.00. Yikes! Later I realized the fitness center had one of those 5 gallon water dispensers and realized I could’ve probably just purchased two litres of water and refilled them there. Another challenge was room service for breakfast. I wrote on the order form that I’d like 5 egg whites, scrambled, and a bowl of oatmeal. They delivered it promptly in the morning as requested and as I signed the bill, I realized they had charged me $33. Geez. Clearly I need to figure out something or I’m gonna go broke!

Some competitor friends suggested I try bringing a cooler of my own food on the plane, packed with hard plastic blue ice thingys to keep the food cool. Others suggested I bring the cooler with food and, once past security, to place ice from the food stands in ziplock bags in the cooler. Definitely worth trying one or both of these ideas. I’m going to New Mexico this week so I’ll let you know how this goes.

If any of my dear friends on this forum have any suggestions for staying on your nutrition plan while travelling, please let me know - I'm all ears!

[Italianangel]

sounds like you are juggling things well........

[gYmgIrL]

wow! sounds like it's expensive to eat healthy while you're travelling! will you have access to microwaves and things? I'm not sure what you could do but I cant wait to find out! heehee