Quarter Turns and Rhinestones

It's the final week before the competition, which means lots of changes!

While the 'offseason' diet is pretty doable, the final week diet is going to be rough. No carbs other than green veggies...no oatmeal...I know I'm going to miss my oatmeal. But it's okay because time is flying by quickly which means I'll be able to have my morning oatmeal again in a week. The other hard part will be cutting back on water. It's pretty easy to drink 1-2 gallons of water a day when you're working out and dieting. Now I'll have to consciously track my water and keep it under a gallon.

I want to give a shout out to Martha and Val, who are also competing, and Joni, our wonderful trainer, without whom I never would have made it this far. These women are amazing!!!

Today after F4L bootcamp, Martha, Val and I had posing practice with Joni. You wouldn't think posing would be so hard but you have to flex all the right muscles and HOLD...a nice long isometric contraction. And then you have to do all your quarter turns and flex, flex, flex while making it look completely effortless. And oh yeah, SMILE!

I'm afraid I'll be sticking my tongue out on stage from concentrating so hard. I used to do that in  dance recitals.

Here's a photo from today's practice. I'm the one in red.

Obviously you can tell we need more bling bling.

So this afternoon I broke out the E6000 glue, bent nose pliers, and a package of flatback rhinestones and got to work.

My suit already had stones but more sparkles never hurt anyone. I got it from Diva Exchange because I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a suit for my first competition. So it's taken a little bit of work to customize it but that's also been part of the fun!

Who knew fitness could be so crafty? I want to put rhinestones on everything now. I'm sure Brandon's going to like what I did to his motorcycle helmet when he gets home.

Here's a preview of my suit. I won't unveil the whole thing until the show. I think it's going to look really good with my oompa loompa spray tan. Orange and blue are complementary colors after all.

Well it's time to fire up the bbq and grill six pounds of chicken.

Don't go too crazy with the Hallowe'en candy tomorrow!