12 Days Until Tahoe Show!

I'm super excited for my next show! I look better than ever and have improved SO much since my first show it's crazy. I know I haven't posted in a while, but here I am :) I'm so much more lean than I have ever been ans it's crazy! I wish I knew EXACTLY what it is that has gotten me here. You know what I mean? Like I've tried everything! So many things, so I don't know if it was a certain combination of things I did or one specific thing. For instance: for my first prep, as a fat burner I used raspberry keytones, for this prep I used Liposide by Evogen which is a caffeine based pill. I took fish oil pills three times a day for all three preps. I did fasted cardio for five weeks this prep, none on my first and second. I did way more cardio this time around in general. It would just be great to know what to give the credit to for my fat loss lol. Oh well! In April I was 14% body fat, now I'm 11% and ridiculously vascular. I'm happy, 2014 has been an awesome year for me!

I've been doing show preps since February 1st of this year. So crazy! I took a couple weeks off after taking 6th at the NorCal Championships in Sacramento in June. I just ate clean and worked out normally with random cheat meals and maintain my physique until 5-6 weeks out from the Tahoe Show. Now I'm a little less than 2 weeks out and I just look great. It's awesome, I feel awesome, and I really don't know what I'm going to do mentally if I don't place in this show. seriously. WTF. I'm so sick of "losing" next to girls who don't even look like they spend any time in the gym. They just get on a treadmill and run until they're ridiculously skinny, put on a bikini, and call it day. Okay that's mean, but I'm venting. I just feel like the judges love the higher body fat girls in the amateur shows, but the pros are freaking 10% or less body fat. It's hard to keep up. Somehow I have stayed positive and I'm going to do MY best and kill it on stage. I know in my first show my hips and but were so much bigger than they are. It's crazy! I'm going to post my measurement changes and differences from April 12th show, to June 7th, to now. I'll do that in the post tomorrow! Minus all the water, this is what I'll look like on stage. And I'm happy with how I look. SO happy! :D

I've also improved my posing a little. I've learned to manipulate the stances to make my butt look better with different angles. One thing that I learned at the posing seminar at the NorCal show is to NEVER turn your back to the judges when walking (unless they tell you of course). So walk in sideways to hide that jiggle, and walk off sideways. Sounds so silly! lol My butt looks amazing, but it still jiggles when I walk. One sad thing about losing so many inches and so much body fat in this short amount of time is STRETCH MARKS!!! Ugh. So annoying. I'm not a self conscious person in the slightest, but man I'm noticing them more and more. I've been using the Frank body scrub along with Palmer's Cocoa Butter lotion for stretch marks hoping the combination of the two would fast track them away. I know I have to be patient... but be gone stretch marks! Haha anyway I've posted some new photos in the progress tab, check them out!

For the next two weeks, I'm going to continue carb cycling with a high carb day on Friday and moderate on Saturday, Monday-Thursday are low carb days. I still do the "eat a different meat every meal" thing to keep my meals interesting. It usually goes: morning carbs: oatmeal + 1/2 scoop protein, 2 hours later: 2-3 eggs, then chicken and bell peppers, then shrimp and broccoli, then swai fish and asparagus, then workout and shake, then dinner which is ground turkey and egg whites. On low carb days I have a rice cake with peanut butter on it before the chicken meal and before the shrimp meal. Low carb day is 60 carbs or less. I'm not going to switch it up on peak week, just going to do the same thing with asparagus to get rid of that water weight, take dandelion root, hit the sauna, and rock it! So no water depleting, no real sodium depleting since I don't use salt that much anyway, just what's in food. Can't wait, I'm excited! On a side note: I have not had a Quest Bar in like three weeks... so weird.

Thanks so much for reading! You rock! Feel free tom comment below :)

Mel

Rest Days and Tacos

Oh hey everyone! This has been a crazy, busy, tiring, ridiculous week. I've been training really hard and working hard on my nutrition and macros. I over study and analyze everything so I spend at least two hours a day studying nutrition, physiques, new workouts, and pretty much anything fitness related. I LOVE motivating people and encouraging them to feel beautiful. So I've been on Twitter and Instagram "inspiring" and empowering people. I feel like any kind of encouragement can at least boost some one's day. After all, it is great getting compliments.

This weeks forecast of workouts consisted of Tuesday: morning fasted cardio, night back and calves, Wednesday: Forced REST DAY (I was so sore, could not even move), Thursday: morning fasted cardio, night leg day, Friday: cardio and some shoulders, Today: more shoulders and triceps and HIIT. Taking a rest day on Wednesday pushed my triceps day to today so I just have to pair it with shoulders. Should be a fun time.

Last night I made some delicious chicken tacos and I'd like to share them with you. I've never used basil, but I've always ordered it at restaurants and it's always amazing whatever it's in. So I bought some while grocery shopping yesterday and decided to make some tacos.

List:
Whole Grain tortillas
Chicken breast
Chopped tomatoes
Chopped Onions
2 basil leaves
Salt, pepper, Mrs. Dash seasoning (I also used onion powder and garlic salt)

I'm a huge fan of skillet medleys, AKA chop everything up, throw it in a skillet, throw it in a bowl, and enjoy! So this recipe is quite easy and will take no longer than ten minutes. For my side vegetable, I steamed some seasoned baby carrots. AMAZING. The sweet and "salty" mix was a great contrast to the tacos, you HAVE to try it.

Cut all vegetables, sautee onions into a skillet with olive oil, once medium done, add the tomatoes (you can choose to keep tomatoes raw but I don't enjoy raw tomatoes), then add the basil. Once onions are cooked to desired (I like mine completely cooked as I hate raw onions), put vegetable mixture to the side. I used the mini fajita tortillas, I put them in the toaster to make a taco shell, put the cooked chicken in, and then the vegetables. The basil adds its own flavor so you won't need to top it with any kind of seasoning, cheese, or any other garnishes, unless you want to of course. I also had 1/4 cups of brown rice. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

Mel

Bikini For Competition

Okay so in my search for the oh so exciting, cute, sexy, wonderful bikini for my show (yes show, not competition because I will be showing off this body baby!), I have come to the conclusion that buying a bikini when I am perfectly capable of making my own is a complete joke. WTF, $200+ for a swim suit with fake rhinestones on them? Some of them have real ones, but still. No, just no. I went to college for design at The Academy of Art University in San Francisco and have also been sewing consistently since sixth grade. I've made prom dresses, I think I can handle a bikini. I think even with no experience, you could make your own bikini. It's ridiculously easy and I'm trying to wrap my head around where these companies get off charging so much. There must be some secret magic thread they use or something lol. Not bashing them of course. The bikinis are beautiful and great and I completely understand that they have to turn a profit, so go them! I have just decided that I shall make my own.

My boyfriend tells me "red, red, you're a red!" Well I wanted pink! I love pink, give me pink! Hot pink! lol So now red is in the back of my mind so here's the red one. It's not done, still have to figure out the top and how to bedazzle it. I pretty much have it figured out though. I think I'm still going to make a pink one though, just so I have two choices. Why not? It's so easy to make :)




I wish you guys could see it more, I'll take more pics in the day time when there's better lighting. I tried it on and practiced posing in it and it looks awesome! I want to make the back a little smaller though, show off the booty a little more. I'll add a little more scrunch in the butt. Yay! So exciting! I'll try to post a video of me practicing posing and my progress and stuff soon. Until then, thanks for reading!

Mel

Competition Update

So I've been working out well of course, eating well of course, but I'm new to the whole competition thing. So I have been researching OVER-researching to be exact lol. Literally spending every extra minute watch bikini and figure shows, watching poses, studying poses, getting bikini ideas, it's crazy. I just want to smack myself and just go with the flow. For me though, I am an over planner and I think ahead for everything so I can't really help it. Plus, it's not really a horrible thing, so whatever. I got my shoes in the mail last week! I have been practicing walking everyday. I'm telling you, it is a workout itself. It's tiring, especially for my feet. The shoes aren't that comfortable and they are very ugly too. That's good though so the judges will be looking at my body instead if my fabulous shoes.

Here are my lovely legs! I'm proud of them, I'd just like to see the hamstrings a little more and I'd be ecstatic. More photos to come! Omg I'm so mad because this water is just making me bloated every single day so taking pictures is just out of the question except right in the morning when I wake up. Who wants to take pictures when they first wake up?! lol Time to break out those water pills. 

Last Wednesday I got the shading and color on my tattoo. It's all done now, yay! I love it so much. It's my favorite piece of art on me done my Joel Bones of Gold Rush Tattoo in Costa Mesa, CA. The day before the tattoo I worked out obliques/abs. Bad idea. "Yes, yes carve into my sore ab muscles, it feels SO good!" Needless to say, it was painful lying on my side with my arm up for 2.5 hours lol. Totally worth it though! 

As far as food goes, I've been doing good keeping my calories up. Hitting 1800 is like celebration time! lol Crazy, I know. I've been eating every two hours pretty much and I have had to switch some things around and add some high protein foods. I'm trying to be in the range of 120-150g of protein per day, 200+ carbs, and 50-60 fat (essential, healthy fats). It's been improving every day so that's good! My diet as a whole is completely clean and I drink 1.5-2 gallons of water a day. 

I pretty much put spinach in everything and have added egg whites to dinner or night meals as well. Any way to get up that protein! I take protein shakes (Beverly International, Chocolate 80% Whey/ 20% Casein) twice a day, one a couple of hours after breakfast with a banana and the other after my workout at night. The middle photo is a recipe I found with whole grain pasta, spinach, broccoli, plain Greek yogurt, salt, pepper, and onions. YUM! It looks gross but it's good lol try it! Inspired by this (http://www.ezrapoundcake.com/archives/13338) recipe, I didn't have anything on the list except the yogurt and pasta so it looks nothing like that beutiful masterpiece lol. 

Alright, shower time. Thanks for reading guys! Feel free to comment, follow me on Twitter, all that great stuff!

Mel