New- Advice Needed

[scgirl28]

Hi, I'm new! I've been reading this forum for a while and love all the great advice! I'm going to post my diet and workout and stats. I'm considering doing a var cycle and would like any advice you have.

Diet - I'm eating clean - organic as much as possible 6 meals
Carb Cycling with 2 high carb days, 3 no carb days and 2 lo carb days
Carbs come from greens, no pasta, long grain rice 1/wk
1 1/2 - 2 gallons water (distilled)/day

Currently 1500 cal/day 150-200g protein/day
no carb day 50 carbs from greens
lo carb day approx 100g carbs from fruit, greens, oats
hi carb day yams, greens, peanut butter long grain rice
Protein from whey, tuna (canned) chicken, white fish and fresh tuna

Workout (I've been working out regularly for a year and have increased weights the last 6 months, made good gains and need to cut)
Spinning or Running Treadmill (5-6mph) 3-4 times per week 50min

Lift (Trying to lift heavy)
5 days per week
Mon- legs
Tues - Bics, Tris, Abs
Wed - Shoulders, Abs
Thurs - Off
Fri - Back
Sat - Chest

Supplements - This is where I need some help
Pyruvate 3 times/day
L-glutamine 1 day (going to switch to powder and drink before and after workouts)
L-carnitine 2 day
cla + green tea 2 day
flax oil on no carb days
glocorell on high carb day
ala 1 day
5htp and niacin 2 day

So my supplements are getting out of hand!!
I'm getting sick just thinking about taking them.. should I stop some of them?? When should I take them? Best times of day pre/post wo?

I need to lose about 5-10 lbs. Currently 148 (5'9) I have good muscle tone but need more definition in my abs. I have that post baby belly. I'm considering entering into a figure/bikini competition in May if I can get leaner.

My biggest downfall is getting really hungry! If I just lift I can stick to my diet , on my cardio days I am starving!

I need help with my supplements, should I run the var, what can I do about being so hungry?

Does anyone want to makeover my training? or offer advice? Thanks in advance!


Stats -
Chest - 36
waist - 28
Hips - 35
thigh - 21.5
bic - 11
weight 148
ht 5'9

 

[superqt4u2nv]

Do you know what you body fat % is at? What are you looking to gain from the var cycle?

 

[scgirl28]

trainer thinks bodyfat is around 18%. This has not been tested and confirmed. I need to do that! I would like to add a little more lean mass, harden up and lose that last layer of fat on my abs (and ass!!). I'm thinking about competing in either fitness or bikini in may and I'm not sure that diet alone will get me there. I look healthy right now and you can tell I work out but I am not close to looking like I could compete. This would be my first contest so I'm not sure how far I can get in 3 months?

 

[superqt4u2nv]

trainer thinks bodyfat is around 18%. This has not been tested and confirmed. I need to do that! I would like to add a little more lean mass, harden up and lose that last layer of fat on my abs (and ass!!). I'm thinking about competing in either fitness or bikini in may and I'm not sure that diet alone will get me there. I look healthy right now and you can tell I work out but I am not close to looking like I could compete. This would be my first contest so I'm not sure how far I can get in 3 months?

In 3 months you can get very fair with the right training and diet. You listed what you're doing when but not the reps or exercises also a sample of dailly intake would be good to.

For example
meal 1
4 egg white
1/3 c oats

meal 2
1 oz almonds

etc...

Just a note but I would not work abs two days in a row like any other muscle they need rest.

If your doing a bikini contest IMHO you don't need var typically bikini contest they are not looking for a super muscular and hard look.

 

[scgirl28]

Thank you for the feedback!
Here's a look at Monday (No Carb Day)

Meal 1
1 egg
4 egg whites
LC Yogurt Smoothie

Meal 2
Whey Protein Shake - post workout

Meal 3
2 tbsp Nat Peanut Butter
2 chx breasts
2 c spinach 1 tbsp light oil/vin dressing

Meal 4
(Running around with kids)
Low Carb Bar 170 cal, 19 prot, 3 carbs

Meal 5
Tilapia grilled
brocolli steamed
1 c spinach fresh with ligh oil/vin dressing

meal 6
1/2 c cottage cheese with 1/4 cup pinapple (fresh)

2 gallons distilled water

Workout
Legs
Squats 25lbs 4sets x 12 reps
Leg extension 40lbsx12, 50x10, 60x10, 70x8
Leg Curls 40x12, 50x10, 60x10, 70x8
Lunges 25lbs 4sets x12reps
Leg Press 70lbsx12, 120x10, 160x8, 180x8

Then because I was feeling crazy I did a spinning class for 50min in the pm.

My legs were very sore!

Did Yoga on Tues.
bics and tris
treadmill 50 min 5.5-6mph

 

[Sassy69]

Welcome & congrats on your comp pursuit!

I just have a minute (at work) but had a couple questions / comments:

- what order do you do your carb cycle in --- you said - x days hi, x days no, x days low --- over a week - what days are what hi / lo / no carbs?

- No carb day -- seems like it needs more fats in it

- cardio -- if you are doing high impact - e.g. runnign for 50 min all the time - that can be catabolic (running vs. low impact or HIIT) and also if you are at 50 min now , you dont' really have a lot of room to go higher as you approach contest day.

 

[scgirl28]

I might need to modify this. I have a hard time with low carb days. No carbs are fine but once I get a little bit of carbs in me a start to really crave them!

M- no carb/legs
T- Hi Carb/Bics & Tris/Cardio
W - No carb/Shoulders & Abs/(Some weeks I'll do Thurs cardio so Thurs is off)
Thurs - Lo Carb/No Weights/Yoga & Cardio
Fri - No Carb/Back/Cardio
Sat - High Carb/Chest/Spinning
Sun - Low Carb/Rest

I'm worried about the cardio too. I just started thinking about the comp. I have been training for over a year and getting good results so trainer suggested the competition. I worked hard to get up to 50 min and feel like I'm in good shape ! I don't get winded and really love running for stress release!! I guess people worry about this all the time. I feel like if I stop the cardio I'll get really big

I also wonder if I should put my legs on a hi carb day but when I do legs I am HUNGRY. No carbs is easier than lo carbs for me.

Thanks!

 

[Sassy69]

If you are just matchign your carbs to the days you train, then I'd put the heavy training days on the high carb days. But the real value of doing a carb cycle for fat loss is to do in an order such that you supply your body w/ a certain level of carbs -- e.g.
- Day 1 = "hi day"
- Day 2 = med carb intake - your body is still operating like its getting the high carb day amount
- Day 3 = med carb day -- your body is startign to notice its getting a smaller amount of carbs but hasn't started to slow metabolism down yet
- Day 4 = low carb day (low / no carb) - you start to feel tired but you are burning up all the days' food-based carb for energy, and then also turning to stored bodyfat to burn for energy. But your actual burn rat (metabolism) hasb't slowed but its about to
- Day 5 = Day 1 -- refeed back to high carbs before your body slows metabolism down to match the lower carb intake level it noticed it was getting.


You can make it a 4 day cycle or 3 day cycle, but the point is to take advantage of the fact that your body takes a few days to respond to a change in diet (i.e slowing metabolism), drop your total carb calories so the incoming cals are lower but the burn rate is still high. Then just before the metabolism gets slowed down, you do bump the carb intake back up and get your energy levels pumped back up. Its good however to match your greater energy-demanding training days (e.g. legs) to the high carb days. It sucks like nothign on the planet to do a heavy training session on the last day of the carb cycle when you have no energy to run on and you're already so low that you are moody as well.

This is generally a tool I save until I am around 6-8 weeks prior to competition because you can't really build muscle on this diet, but it allows you to lose bodyfat while better preserving muscle. For many girls, they didn't have a lot of muscle to start with and then when they start cutting down to be around 10% bodyfat on stage, they lose more of the muscle they did have and may actually just look skinny on stage. So use the early part of the pre cycle to refine the muscle mass you have or build whatever you can before you need to start cutting to meet a competition date. Depends on you - but unless you have a solid several years of mass building already, I would save the serious cutting activities until the last 8 weeks or so. At 18% bf you don't have all that much to lose. But mostly it can be very hard to be on an aggressive cutting schedule for 4 months -- your body can just plain old burn out. Same comment w/ the cardio - your body adapts to anything you do regularly and for long periods of time. So therefor the 'cutting' value is no longer there - there is no change stimulus that your body has to kick up to respond to -- it is now content and you are conditioned for this. At 50 min already, you don't have a lot of room to increase cardio to get into that aggressive cutting phase and it may also be cutting into the last bit of time you have left for mass buildign prior to going into the aggressive cutting phase.

And here's one of the hardest things regarding competition prep -- if you are afraid to change something "because I might get fat" -- that defeats the purpose of a targeted competition prep -- you will go thru many changes during prep - but just like if you maybe don't have enough muscle mass and need to spend say 4-6 months bulking but you don't want to "get fat" while you are doing that -- "bulking" and "I dont want to get fat" are two directly opposing goals and you can't do both at the same time. What is your goal? Is it to build enough muscle in order to go into your competition cutting phase for your target show, or is it to generally be "not fat"? Here's where if your goal is to "do a show" -- you either do the show or you don't. There are several phases of contest prep where you are trying to do something that is part of the progress to get you to look a certain way on stage on competition day, and your comfort or self-image on any day other than competition day is really irrelevant. Its just one of the phases you have to pass thru to be prepared for competiton day.

Another example of that is when girls spend a whole lot of time preparing to go on stage - they spend 4 months busting their butts dieting, trainign, cardio and are worried sick if they will be lean enough for show day. They are down to the last few weeks, and then show day - and they LOVE their bodies - finally fit in that tiny little $800 sequinned posing suit to stand on stage, can fit into those size 2 jeans for the first time in their lives, love it! Then within a week after comptition day, they start to blow up and gain 20 lb in 2 weeks. And then they feel like shit, feel fat, feel like a complete failure, get depressed, eat more shit becaues they are depressed and it just gets worse and worse and turns into the biggest mindfuck you've ever experienced.

... that's just managign another phase of competition prep --- you can't expect to maintain the extreme state of leanness & dryness that your body is in on competition day - it took you 4 months of targeted diet, trainng, cardio and then a 1-2 weeks of short-term water & carb manipulation to get that last bit of water out of your system to look tight on stage, and when its over, you have to let your body rebound back to somethign that is "normal" for it. Its just a physical thing you have to expect --- its called Post Competition Syndrome - it doesn't have to be a miserable experience- but it happens and you have to be prepared for it as a part of competition.

Anyway - sorry went off on a tangent (check the "So you want to compete?" sticky for an article about Post Comeptition Syndrome and lots of other great stuff), but when you decide to prep for a competition - it is a 24/7 thing that will overtake your life and you wont' always be happy or comfortable w/ your body -- but that's all completely irrelevant if your goal is to look a certain way on competition day. Whether or not you are "fat" or whatever you feel about yourself on a day to day basis is irrelevant and just somethign you have to live with while you get to the goal, and then you have to let your body rebound afterwards. Unless you are specifically dieting down slowly to a maintainable level / look, anything extreme you put your body through will result in a rebound.

 

[*Bunny*]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand covered....


welcome & positive vibes to you with the show girl!

 

[scgirl28]

wow - thank you for the great reply! It was exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you for taking the time to answer me. If I get brave enough I'll start a log!