There's a Reason It's Called "Contest Prep"

 I took a break after the last show and just did a maintenance diet. The upside was I got to eat a lot more food. The downside is that to put on muscle you have to put on weight...and that can be kind of tough to deal with mentally. Even being smaller than I've ever been, it's hard to see that number going back up on the scale. But I think the mental toughness and discipline is a huge part of why I enjoy competitions.

And now it's the start of round 3!

Along with discipline, advance planning is critical to achieving my goal. It's not like I have all this extra time during the day so I have to plan ahead. I've been working 10 hour days at work, plus doing more from home, and then somewhere in there I have to squish in a 1.5 hour commute, walking the dog, doing housework, and, oh yes, the whole prep thing: cardio, weights, and food.

"You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win." ~ Zig Ziglar

Each week my trainer sends me my diet and training plan. Depending on how my workweek is looking, I lay out which training session I'm going to do on which day. I know what exercises I'm going to do when I get to the gym, and I keep my gym bag packed with my journal and gloves.

My Fridge

But most important is the food. You'll hear that getting the body you want is 80% nutrition, 10% training, and 10% genetics. And in most cases (at least in my town) you can't just swing by a drive-thru on your way home to get 5 egg whites, green veggies, and sliced yams. I'm so busy at work I'm not really familiar with the concept of a lunch break...I'm eating very quickly and on the go pretty much all day long.

So I plan and I prep. I'll usually spend about 1.5 hours on Sunday cooking almost all of my proteins for the week, baking yams, slicing veggies, weighing (food scale is my friend), and packaging it all up so it's ready to go and I can just throw one of each into my cooler in the morning. You can see my lovely fridge to the left there.  I like the Gladware for my salads and to heat my fish (cold chicken I can do but cold fish is not going to happen). Ziploc baggies take up a lot less space so I use those for anything I can eat cold.

Breakfast in a Box

Speaking of mornings, breakfast is my favorite meal of the day...and technically I get two breakfasts! I like hot oatmeal and hot egg whites - often mixed together as a pancake - and that does take some time to cook. So to speed things up I keep all my breakfast supplies in one crate in the pantry, so all I need to grab are the egg whites from the fridge. Oatmeal, measuring cup, cinnamon, Pam spray, and a pill box with all my morning supplements - all ready to go. Once a week I refill my supplement box so I don't have to open 10 different bottles each morning. This simple crate saves me SO much time and stress - even when I'm not doing prep.

And with that, I think I'm going to go prep for sleep. :)