Post-contest Thoughts–Part One
***I have so much I want to say, both to commemorate the weekend, and also to help me recall details so that I can learn from my experiences and can do better next time. I apologize in advance for talking about some touchy subjects with this post, but these contests are so intensely body-focused, that something as small as a teaspoon of sodium can mean the difference between winning and losing.
(I wrote this part in the car on the way home last night. I will put more up as I get the time!)
Part One:
My first contest in five years is in the books. I did not place as well as I hoped, coming in fourth place. I was in it to win it! But the competition was far more intense than I anticipated, which was a good thing! And the show was one of the most professional, well-run, organized shows that I have ever participated in. The promoters were top-notch, very kind, super-professional, & really had the best interest of the athletes at heart. I can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed this weekend. It was a wonderful experience overall. I made many new friends among the wonderful girls who were competing, which I usually do. The fitness competitors are not at all catty to each other. There is an unspoken respect for each others’ hard work & how hard the diet is, being carb-depleted, dehydrated, tired & stressed. Everyone is so helpful & supportive.
I was really wanting to win my class to prove a raw vegan could win, but I ran up against some seriously impressive competition, plus I didn’t hit the timing on my diet exactly right. I peaked too early, looking great on Friday night, but woke up Saturday morning bloated & smooth in the abs. The judging was very fair, & if I had been judging me, I would have marked me down for my condition, too. I think if I could have had a bowel evacuation Saturday morning, I would have been OK (or at least a lot better), but I was too nervous & locked up to go to the bathroom at all. That has always been a major problem for me, & it showed up again. (Sorry for a not-so-lovely subject, but having empty bowels is of paramount importance for a bodybuilding contest!) After the morning show, I came back to the hotel room and ate a salad, and then my digestive system ‘unlocked’ and I lost more than an inch from my waist in just a couple of hours! It IS that big of a difference!
I have to admit, I did have a case of nerves Friday night & Saturday morning. I don’t think I slept at all Friday night. I kept going over the contest in my head & visualizing my posing & routines. I stressed out way too much over it, & it hurt me. That just shows I wasn’t fully prepared, especially for my posing. If I had been confident in what I was going to do, then I wouldn’t have been lying there stressing over it & trying to pound it in to my brain. Instead, I would have been sleeping. I was told by a mentor of mine that stress can cause your body to retain water, & I definitely believe that now. And not sleeping for two days definitely leads to stress, & then to water retention—& then to the digestive system locking up, at least for me.
The protocol I was following was written by someone who is following the meat-based Standard Bodybuilding Diet (SBD), & since I couldn’t find any raw vegan guidance that was as structured as this program, I used the same protocol & just figured out raw foods to substitute for the foods suggested in the program. The meal suggested for the night before the contest was steak with a little Heinz 57 sauce & sweet potatoes. The sweet potato part was no problem, but I was hard-pressed to figure out what to substitute for the steak & Heinz 57. I was very worried about sodium & water retention but decided to trust what they were saying. The premise is that when you are carb & water-depleted, when you take in the protein, fat, carbs & sodium, the glycogen-depleted muscles will suck up all the water from under the skin & you will fill out the muscles while at the same time appearing very hard & ‘dry’. My best guess was a nut loaf, since nuts are high in both protein & fat, like steak, & I figured adding Nama Shoyu would be a good substitute for the Heinz 57.
I was feeling so good Friday night. I had eaten exactly as I planned, & followed my protocol to the ‘T’. After my night meal of a nut loaf & mashed sweet potatoes, a couple of hours later I really started to harden up & looked very, very lean. My abs & serratus were very sharp & when I was practicing posing I was really pleased with what I was seeing. I was expecting to wake up the next morning with the excess water under my skin sucked into my muscles, but it just didn’t happen like it was supposed to. Instead, I seemed to have a ‘rebound effect’ and looked like a bloated whale!
Every body is different, & everyone responds differently to nutrients in foods. I just think that I don’t do so well with sodium, although I am not positive that is what led to my poor condition Saturday morning. More experimentation will show me the truth. I definitely learned this week that I am addicted to the taste of salt. Not having Celtic salt in my food was a real issue for me. It tasted so bad to me without it, & I didn’t want to eat it. I really missed the taste of the salt. That’s not a good thing at all. I now know I need to work on releasing my sodium addiction. I am using Celtic salt, which is as good for you as salt can be, but it is still salt. And just the fact that I can’t seem to live without it shows that it may be something that my body is treating as a toxin & I withdraw from it when I am without it. Salt was the big thing that I couldn’t wait to eat again after the contest. I wasn’t craving sugar or sweets, or anything like that, but I wanted some salt.
I definitely dehydrated myself well for the contest. I almost never drink any plain water anyway, so not drinking water was easy for me. But the problem was how to avoid water the day before the competition, when every food that I eat is about 85 to 90% water, being raw, & I do use water, coconut water or fresh-squeezed juice in my green smoothies. I decided the answer to that was dehydrated foods, & I think that was the right answer.
I am so tired right now. I am unbelievably sore! The hardest thing is to stand up on stage & hold a pose while all the other girls are doing their individual walks. When we are doing the quarter turns, we only have to hold our pose for 30 to 60 seconds, & then when we switch poses we get a rest. But when we are in our ‘relaxed pose’ standing in line, you can’t ‘relax’ because the judges could be looking at you at any time, comparing you to the girl who is walking, or even just seeing you in the background while the individual walks are going on. And you need to look great at all times! I woke up this morning, & I am so sore that it hurts to breathe. Tensing & flexing those muscles for that long is amazingly difficult & painful. I had the ‘misfortune’ to be the first number in my flight of contestants, so my walk was first, & then I had to hold my pose without a break while all the other girls walked. That’s something you just don’t practice. I had practice posing sessions that lasted nearly an hour, but I could relax between poses. On stage, I was holding the relaxed pose for about 15 minutes, straight. Ouch.
I feel so blessed that my parents were able to come to the contest. My mother is my inspiration & the reason I became so passionate about natural health in the first place, as you all know. And having her in the audience was very, very special to me. The emcee for the evening was so wonderful, & he added a note to my bio that he read while I was on stage that I was dedicating this contest to my mother & that she was my motivation & inspiration. And he even had her stand up & wave to the audience! And having my father there with me doing my Harlem Globetrotters basketball routine was awesome as well. He was always my biggest fan when I was playing basketball. Basketball has always been a special bond between us.
My morning swimsuit round definitely didn’t go as well as I wanted. When I looked at the pictures Michael was taking, I could see that I didn’t hit my lat spreads well at all from the back. My front & side poses looked good, though. My front pose with lat spread has really become much better. I am pleased & will continue to build on that. Having the digital pictures was great, as I was able to adjust my pose. My night show poses were so much better, so I learned from my mistakes. That’s the point—learn from what doesn’t go well & grow as a competitor & person.
Even I have to admit that I totally kicked butt on my costume round! I had absolutely nobody in the audience that was there for me during the morning show except Michael, but by the time I was finished with my routine, I had the whole audience cheering for me, especially when I finished my routine by spinning the ball on my finger in true Harlem Globetrotters’ style! I wasn’t going to attempt that, but backstage I was doing it so well, & I knew I had blown my placing in the swimsuit round anyway, so I figured “what the heck!” Let’s go for broke. If I drop it, I drop it. Who cares? I not only didn’t drop it, I frickin’ NAILED it! It was so much fun! And I did even better in the evening show. Many people, including some of the judges, said that I had the best routine of the whole show. They liked that I actually USED the ball in the routine & showed some true skill instead of just trying to be ‘cutesy’.
Part Two to come soon!
Be Defiant!
Christy
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