Weight 114 lbs.
7 WEEKS out from show #2 (7/2016): Weight 127 lbs.
I expect to come into my upcoming show with 7-8 more lbs. of lean mass and less body fat than my first show in 2014: more muscle with much improved conditioning and better posing, ha!
It's important to take progress pictures regularly throughout your journey because although not much seems to change from day to day, when you look back over time, you will see that little by little, a little became a lot (or a lottle)!
Today, I took a look back at my progress pictures and was shocked and surprised to see that I have much better muscle development and conditioning at 7 WEEKS out from my upcoming show in comparison to 6 DAYS out from my very first show! I'm so very pleased with the incredible coaching guidance of Brian Melancon with C620 Nutrition (www.c620nutrition.com). We've been working together since February 2015 and I look forward to our future together in this sport and to continued improvement with his guidance. I'm so thankful he recommended a long improvement season between my first and second show because truly, the real work is done in the "off-season". This difference reflects the importance of a quality off-season, which we prefer to call improvement season. During this time, Brian reverse dieted me up in calories and recalibrated my metabolism, so to speak, in order to optimize my metabolism and improve nutrient partitioning. This allowed me to gain substantially more quality lean mass while keeping fat gain to a minimum. We are now reaping the rewards of a long, disciplined improvement season. This is why it's important to take time to improve and grow in this sport. It's a marathon of a sport and it requires and builds patience, but the patience always pays off. Bodybuilding is a sport measured in years, not months, weeks or days. Below is one of my favorite quotes that captures the essence of bodybuilding and it can be applied to ANY goal in life...always persist with patience and keep hammering away...
"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it, but all that had gone before."
Jacob A. Riis
NEVER GIVE UP!