It’s been a very calm & smooth day.  I awoke at 6:30 & accomplished an amazing amount by 9am.  Michael went out to the gym & to run errands, so I had the run of the house & I took full advantage.

I am feeling good about my condition, although I hope I drop a good bit more water before tomorrow morning.  I am NOT going to try to carb up this time.  I am going to stick with high protein & ‘fat load’ a bit with nut butters & coconut oil & butter.  I am taking the herbal diuretics with every meal, along with senna & aloe as gentle laxatives to completely empty my colon.   The abs have got to be as flat as possible!

I looked up some of the bikini winners from the past couple of months, and was really surprised at the soft, even a bit fat, condition at some of the competitors.  The winners still looked pretty good, but definitely not muscular at all.  It will be so interesting to see what they do this weekend.  I am still betting on lean and somewhat muscular, but it may be a complete surprise.  It is still so new that there are not enough contests that have taken place yet to create a trend and a preferred ‘look’.

First thing this morning, I had a little bit of coffee/Teecino mix.  And I made a ‘diuretic’ green smoothie containing dandelion greens, celery, asparagus, parsley, a tiny Granny Smith apple, a kiwi, Vanilla Sun Warrior protein (1 ½ scoops), vanilla liquid stevia, & 1 Tbs of hemp seeds.  Actually not bad, although I was definitely not sure about putting the asparagus in it, but I didn’t taste it at all.

I am avoiding spirulina today and tomorrow.  I don’t know how much sodium is in it, but I am thinking that it may have a good bit because it is a sea algae, or at least has a lot of iodine.  Anyway, I don’t want to take a chance of it causing me to retain any water.

I made some incredibly decadent chocolate fudge again for the pre-stage sugar shock feed to go along with the red wine, which brings out the muscularity & vascularity when you take them in about 30 minutes before stepping onstage.  It is a concoction of raw cacao, cacao butter, coconut oil, carob, Celtic salt, pecans, Goji berries, & lots of honey.  MMMmmmmmm……….That will also probably be either the post contest pigout or breakfast Sunday morning, or BOTH!  J

There is a raw restaurant in Charleston called The Sprout, and I really hope we get to go check it out.  It is the only raw restaurant in South Carolina, and I have never had the opportunity to visit a raw restaurant. 

I am now writing this in the truck on the road on the way to Charleston.  We are on time, so far, and traffic is heavy but moving.   We have to wait until 3PM to check into our hotel, and I have my weigh-in and check-in for the contest between 5 & 7 PM.  The contest is at the Charleston Performing Arts Center, which is incredibly nice.  I competed in the 2003 NPC Figure Competition in the same venue, and it was great. 

We are planning to hit the beach for just a couple of hours before heading back home on Sunday.  I just love the ocean so much, so I really want to get my toes in the sand and play in the salt water.  I don’t need a tan—haha!   I look ridiculous in person now, with all the ProTan I have on.

I wonder how many other competitors who will be there this weekend are even vegan, much less ‘high raw vegan’ like myself?    But how will I ever know how well a high raw vegan athlete can do unless I compete in the mainstream competitions?  The natural contests are obviously the best place for me, but they definitely do not have the exposure and prestige of the NPC & IFBB.  Those athletes are the ones you see in all the big magazines, and are owned by none other than Joe Weider.  Admit it—you probably have at least one piece of Weider fitness equipment somewhere in your house right now!  He has sold more exercise equipment/’clothesracks’ than just about anyone else.  (Hopefully, as a Team Defiance Member, yours is not just gathering dust!)  

It’s like in the song “New York, New York”……If I can make it THERE, I’ll make it ANYWHERE……..So if I can make it in the NPC, I can make it anywhere.  And if not, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t because I don’t eat cooked food or meat, it’s simply because they were looking for something different than I presented.  But I hope that other athletes will be inspired to follow my lead and go in there and WIN!

I will update you as the contest progresses.  Stay tuned, and BE DEFIANT!

Christy

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Wow, sorry I have been so long between posts lately.   I am really trying to get more sleep, especially because I have been reading up on how important sleep is to building muscle.  Getting home after 9:30 every night and then trying to get in bed at a decent hour is tough.  I am usually up by 6am or so, and if not, Jukebox will make SURE that I am!   He starts ‘Wowing’ ,wanting his fish, very, very early.  so to get 8 hours sleep, I need to be in bed by 10PM.  It never happens.  It’s after 11PM now.  Sigh.

I have decided to go for it and do a big competition next weekend, Memorial Day Weekend, in Charleston, SC.   I am competing in the NPC JR USA Championships, and I am entering the new ‘Bikini’ division.  The guidelines as to what the judges will be looking for in our physiques is completely nebulous–clear as mud.   It says, balance and symmetry, facial beauty, poise and stage presence.  Uh…OK.  Do they want cut or soft?  Ripped or just defined?  Striated and veinous or smooth?  Who knows?   

But I love competing, and here is my logical thought process: 

The NPC is the amateur division of the big professional bodybuilding and fitness league, the IFBB.  It’s the one in all the magazines, through Weider Enterprises.  Believe me, there is no drug testing in this league!  It is SO not natural, and doesn’t pretend to be natural.  So my thought is, since the Figure women in the IFBB are very big and muscular, almost indistinguishable from the bodybuilders, then the new Bikini division is meant to be more mainstream.  Which is what Figure was supposed to be.  But the same judges judge the entire show, from the biggest male bodybuilders right down to the Figure girls, and I assume they will be judging Bikini as well.  They are human.  They are trained to look for muscularity in the bodybuilders, and I have seen time and time again that they just can’t shift gears out of the muscle mindset when judging Figure.  So I think they will still be rewarding muscle in the Bikini division, just not as much muscle as the Figure division.  So I am thinking that I should come in very lean and showing muscle.  A natural Figure competitor should theoretically do well in Bikini in the NPC. 

But they may just be looking for T&A with the soft, skinny-obese model look in the fashion magazines.  Who knows?  I doubt it, but everyone is coming in blind.  So it will be a great trip, a wonderful experience, and a great vacation.  Michael is taking our little fishing boat, the ‘Once Bitten’, and we are going to fish the Intercoastal Waterway the two days after the competition.  Charleston is so gorgeous and charming.  It’s a great opportunity to go and have some fun, plus I love having the goal to work toward.

That is important to me–to have a goal.  If I was just going to the gym every day, with no goal, I tend to get complacent, not work as hard, or even blow it off.  Like yesterday, I felt very tired and drained.  I wanted to take a nap instead of work out, especially because it was chest day and I just don’t like working chest very much.  But my goal was forefront in my mind, and I challenged myself  by thinking that some other competitor is working harder than I am, so I jumped right in and had a great workout.   I started with pushups alternated with plyometric jumps on a bench, and my legs are sore from that today.  So I accomplished alot with the workout, and I probably wouldn’t have even done it without a goal–my big ‘WHY’.

What’s your WHY?  And if you don’t have one, find one.  Set a goal, and then ask yourself WHY is this goal important?  And keep asking until you get to the real root of WHY the goal is important.  And then you have something that can ignite a burning desire.

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Side note:  I found the perfect shirt for me the other day!  It’s a black tank top, with a white pirate skull and crossbones, and it says “Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History”  Whoo-hooo!  Defiance, itself!  I love it. 

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Meals:  I am already into contest prep this time, having started this past weekend.   I started earlier, feeling that I didn’t allow enough time for the last contest.  I just love how I feel on the precontest plan, although it is difficult logistically.  I am focusing on high protein, while trying to keep the fats low, and avoiding as much natural sugars as possible–keeping it low carb by eating vegetables and greens instead of fruit.   I do miss my fruit.  That is tough!

I am writing a recipe book that will detail the exact foods I am eating to achieve the rapid bodyfat and water retention loss for the contest, as well as awesome muscle-building foods for the ‘off-season’ where a competitor like myself concentrates on gaining muscle by taking in a lot of good quality calories and nutrition.  I will let you know when it is ready.  I hope to have it out soon, and am working on it every day. 

As always, Be Defiant!  Misbehave, and make some history today!

Christy
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