Saturday, October 25, 2008

This is Gonna Be Hard!!!

This is going to be much harder than I thought. A few weeks ago when I was food-deprived, the thought of "bulking up" sounded really great. The problem is not that it is hard to eat 2500-3000 calories a day, the hard part is the mental adjustment to allowing myself to put on weight (some of it fat, no way around it) and feeling okay about it. It's very hard to go from the competition day physique back to my normal body.

When my head is straight, it boggles my mind, that I feel "big" at maybe 12% body fat. It's crazy! But after being so incredibly lean, if only for a day, it makes me feel fat. And this is the game that is going on in my head. I know that in order for me to be competitive in this "sport" I have to gain lean mass, I have to be bigger.

I also know that it will be easy for me to shred back down when it comes time to compete. Since I love cardio as I do, twice daily sessions will not phase me. The dieting part of that kind of sucks, but it's short-lived so that's okay. I am just not sure how much this whole "bulking" business is going to mess with my head.

I was talking to a woman in the gym this morning who competes in figure and she said the post-competition bloating can last for about a month before your body gets back to normal. It was actually a relief to hear that the bloating I'm having is normal.

My water intake is back to my usualy 1.5 gallons a day. I'm trying to watch my sodium intake, but not be too anal about it. Back to my good friend, Mrs. Dash. I did try to let loose a little earlier in the week with a little McCormick's taco seasoning on my ground turkey and I retained water for the next two days afterwards. Talk about feeling like crap! After that little experience I decided to keep my sodium intake down. No need to add fuel to the fire at this point.

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