Competition Time

My competition day is here! I am happy to be at the end, while I love the preparation and anticipation, it is a lot of work, stress, and time. Like any goal in life that is important, the work achieving it is long, arduous and stressful.

These pictures were taken on Thursday, two days prior to the show. I started my dehydration process, but the days where my body will really make dramatic changes are Friday afternoon and Saturday as everything tightens up.

I am pleased that I weigh one pound more (Friday) than I did last year at the same time, I felt I was too lean and looked it. The guidelines in Physique do not call for super ripped, super lean like Bodybuilding, although there will certainly be competitors there who are. it will be interesting to see if they are the ones who place (meaning the judges won't follow the guidelines established by the NPC), or the less ripped ones will. Only time will tell!

I never lost all the fat in my face as I usually do, don't get me wrong  it's still very lean but not gaunt as it was in the past. And my glutes, they still have ample padding, which is another odd thing. 

I took Thursday and Friday off to pack, shop, cook, and rest. When you are heading into the show it is exhausting. You have reached saturation point, you are tired, truly fatigued, hungry, thirsty, and in need of coffee. Tuesday at work I had a caffeine withdrawal headache all day, so I took 400 mg of caffeine the following days to ease that. I am looking forward to a really hot, black cup of coffee on Sunday morning. I will get up before anyone else and have my coffee and some sourdough toast with melted sharp cheddar cheese. Or maybe cheesecake.

Cooper is home for the weekend, so he and David have boys-night Friday while I am in my hotel with Sakura. Then on Sunday, Mother's Day I will be home with the family again.

Friday afternoon I will be heading to the hotel and will get my spray tan, this is what makes all of the definition show in the muscles. Then Sakura and I will hang out and just talk and rest. Resting is important for a few days leading up as it reduces cortisol levels.

Thursday and Friday there was no training allowed (rest is needed) so I went into the gym at opening each day and practiced posing and my routine. It's amazing how tired all that flexing makes you!

Below is a video of my posing on Thursday. The body fat is in check, low yet not too low, I am not hard enough yet but the dehydration will take care of that, but I think I am on track.

 

Thursday I did a little baking. I made my traditional cheesecake that I eat Friday night and Saturday morning and I made some Paleo brownies. David tried them and said they were good, not super chocolaty and lighter, more cake like than usual. The flour is replaced with blanched almond flour and the sugar is replaced with fresh dates. 

I dropped some brownies and cheesecake off for Roy about 12:30 on Friday and went home to finish packing and rest a bit before I head out.

Roy is coming to pre-judging to see me, so is one guy from work. David will be coming to finals and several of the guys from the gym will be there too.

No matter what happens, what the outcome is, I saw a quote today that sums it all up:

You see, I am already a champion.