Torn on competiting Bodybuilding, Physique, or even.. bikini

[buffgirl33]

as you can see by my profile pic in 2009 (OMG it was hard to get there!!!).. I do have some muscle.. I havent lifted very hard in several months due to having teeth fixed, and septum fixed.. (dr banned my from gym for 6 weeks!!) now i am super duper fat faty... so sad.. anyway I am soooo ready to compete again hopefully before JUNE.. Plans are to start hard and heavy in January when my husband leaves... I know how to diet etc.. but I need some type of edge.. stair climber is boring ashelll.. dont have money yet to pay for a cross fit class or something simular until Feb- March.. I live in the Dallas area...

any help ?? I was thinking doing diet like this to drop 20
1. cardio
2. amino and vitamins
3. cardio
4. shake
5. amino
6 cardio/ lift
small meal of white meat.. maybe some chicken (low fat)



just till i can get BACK to 135...

[Halo]

The pic looks great that must have been some work to get there! I'm sure your not as fat as you see yourself. I would bet you'll bounce back quickly after the rest from recouping post surgery. I would guess you know how your body reacts to diet better than any of us but if it was me I'd be eating more small meals to keep the metabolism kicking and maybe some ECA to bump it a little more.

[NutNut]

If you know how to diet why are you even considering that approach? The only real edge is knowledge and hard work. It's hard to know what to tell you without knowing what your diet/training looked like now/previously to see how you respond to various types of programs.

Halo meal frequency doesn't impact metabolism hence why IF type diets work.

[buffgirl33]

because it worked to get me to 129 in 2010 for my vacation.. I do the fish,, chicken and eggs.. but even then i have to restrict my caloric intake to about 500

[NutNut]

no adult needs to restrict cals to 500 to see progress, doing so chances are you are slowing your metabolism, meal freq may not impact it but extreme restriction will. It doesn't happen right away but it will after about 72 hours.

[chicken_hawk]

I believe you should have goal, but what is your current weight? I mean you need to keep life real and not kill yourself in the process. Even at 140# just your protein intake would put you at 560 cals if you did 1gr per pound. You should figure how much you need to lose and then only plan on losing 2-3lbs max per week. Then find a show that works from that target date.

With your physique I would say figure is the way to go, you are too muscley for bikini and womens bbing is all but dead in regional shows. I think you would do well in figure, however that is without seeing your hammies...nonetheless I think that is right where you belong.

Parting thoughts:
Cardio only once a day until about 4 weeks from show time and only if needed.
Keep cals at 1200 for a while, you will lose plenty of blubber at that number 40% PRO/30%C/30% Fat
Don't over do it...

All the best,
Hawk

[AllTheWay]

kudos for you to want to compete again! i suck at diet but nutnut knows what he is talking about!

good luck!

[buffgirl33]

thank you for your advice.. I know that once a day of cardio will not do it tried that route.. my legs are awesome.. where can i post a pic p.jpg

does this work?? pre carb

[SHINE]

thank you for your advice.. I know that once a day of cardio will not do it tried that route.. my legs are awesome.. where can i post a pic p.jpg

does this work?? pre carb

Get the thyroid hormonal issues balanced out and your body will respond completely different.

[Rottenrogue]

Arent you afraid of losing all your hard earned muscle eating that little? Good for you for wanting to do a show

[Rottenrogue]

I am afraid I would have a psychotic episode if I ate 500 calories a day

[chicken_hawk]

Thanks for posting a pic, I am PC challenged so I could not blow it up, but...while I am not you nor a women...I run in competitve circles and I am gonna stick with SHINE as I do not think 2XED cardio should be needed...only as a last resort and only at the end of prep for fine tuning, particularly if buns and legs look good.

Hawk

[NutNut]

I've never once used cardio 2x a day to put someone on stage. At the end of prep more cardio ain't going to help let alone be needed to get to condition, peak week isn't what some think it is. When you hit peak week you need to already be in condition I see more people blow it by ****ing that final week up than any other time by thinking they can make up for issues left un-addressed before that time.

2x a day cardio on 500 calories....sounds like a recipe for sub-optimal performance and therefore sub-optimal results.

[sassy69]

500 cals is going to cost you a lot of lean muscle mass and 2x cardio/day on that is going to cost even more, then you'll burn out because your body is telling you to go **** yourself and then you crash and then eventually rebound because life sucks balls. So I'm gathering from your post that you're currently 155. What is your height?

I get it sucks to be flabby from enforced no-gym time. I've passed thru some down times following competition where I rebounded or life got in the way and I gained 30 lb. Been there & done that more times than I care to think about over the last 12 yrs. I can also tell you that doing extreme anything is not maintainable and is not the best way to go about if you are looking to get to a maintainable end. The whole point is to get your body to an optimal burn rate to allow slow but steady progress towards your goal, not extremes that are going to guarantee rebounds or shut down.

You didn't mention what your diet is like right now - granted its hard to keep a clean diet over the holidays but that's over now. A sudden change from whatever you're doing now to near no cals is going to be a big shock to your body as well. IMO just start by cleaning up your diet. If you know how to diet, use that knowledge. What is your target competition weight? I have no idea because I don't know what your stats are. Is 135 your happy weight to start prep at or is it near competition weight? 20 lb, tho it sounds daunting, is not that big a deal when you have time and are consistent in what you are going to do. If you just take a standard 16 week contest prep approach, you can make that change using that focus & mentality to make slow progress w/o giving up muscle. Starving yourself is going to cost you muscle. You already admitted that you haven't trained heavy in several months, so if you starve off 20 lb of weight, you're going to give up even more muscle. You look good in your pic, but you are not huge so IMO you don't have a lot of muscle to throw away, so don't.

Get your diet cleaned up and consistent. I'm guessing because I don't know your height / weight / bodyfat right now - but something like 1200-1500 cals (and don't focus on the starvation end of that range) and apply some carb cycling along w/ good quality lifting and maybe 20 min cardio consistently / day. Increase to 30 min / day. The goal is to set up a good and consistent burn rate to get things going in the right direction in a consistent and maintainable way.

[AllTheWay]

I get it sucks to be flabby from enforced no-gym time. I've passed thru some down times following competition where I rebounded or life got in the way and I gained 30 lb. Been there & done that more times than I care to think about over the last 12 yrs. I can also tell you that doing extreme anything is not maintainable and is not the best way to go about if you are looking to get to a maintainable end. The whole point is to get your body to an optimal burn rate to allow slow but steady progress towards your goal, not extremes that are going to guarantee rebounds or shut down.

i think this is by far the most important thing that any woman should come to the realization of and come to terms with. certainly it is "easy" to starve off 20# but what are you losing? muscle!! even if you are doing your cardio, your body is going to break down the muscle and save the fat. yep, one can go from a size 12 to a size 7 and still be pretty much the same body fat. years ago before my first moncher i went on the starvation ephedra diet and went from a size 14 to a size 7. the first time ever i had been in a size 7. the problem was that i looked exactly the same shape wise just a smaller version of it. i still had flabby thighs and a big ass and saddlebags. i remember looking at pics and thinking to myself that i was going to have to starve some more to get that off. then i got pregnant and just got fat

when i started back in the gym two years ago i started doing the whole starve thing and fat burners. luckily i joined a bodybuilding site and started figuring out that starving wasnt going to get me anywhere except once again a smaller version of a fat ass! it took me over a year to work my diet out and i did it slowly. i cut out one bad thing at a time. now even though i want to lose another 2-3% bodyfat, i have slowly gotten my body to 15% where i can keep it pretty easy! my diet isnt the greatest but it is good enough that i can pretty much eat decent an maintian where i am at right now!

so all that to say, do as sassy suggests and start eating clean and dont starve yourself. you will find that you can get to a level that you can easily keep all year long for as long as you like without starving yourself.