11 Weeks to Go Until Contest Time

I had a slight monkey wrench thrown into this week. I went home early from work on Friday because I felt so sick. My head felt like it was in a fish bowl, and it was a struggle to keep my eyes open and focus. I was supposed to do my stairmaster intervals at lunch. I battled to stay on track with my diet and headed home to bed. I slept for two hours on top of sleeping 10 hours that night.

Guilt set in Sat. morning and I willed myself onto the treadmill to get my 5th cardio workout of the week. The rest of Saturday was mostly spent on the couch watching movies with the kids, dozing in and out most of the day.

I did get to meet up with Jodi on Sat. morning. Feeling like crap started messing with my mind and I was convinced I hadn't made any progress. I was pleasantly surprised to learn my bodyfat was down 0.7% to 19.7% and my weight was up to 137.4 lbs. Jodi was fine with the weight gain since my fat was down. Hopefully it's muscle given the ridiculous weight I've been lifting. The four sets to failure definitely makes a difference in terms of workout intensity.

Diet Changes
Jodi wants me taking a pre- and post-workout protein shake. I began taking half a scoop of Beverly International Muscle Builder before and after. This has really upset my stomach. Since it's fairly low in carbs (3g), I also have to add either 1/2 cup of blueberries or 3 strawberries to my post-workout drink. The sugar in the fruit will help get the protein to my muscles faster.

The other change in diet is taking out the peanut butter at breakfast and replacing it with 12 almonds.

As a reminder, here is what my diet currently looks like:

Breakfast -- 5 egg whites, 1/2 cup oatmeal, 12 almonds
AM snack -- 1 scoop protein powder
Lunch -- 4oz. chicken, 1/2 cup brown rice, 1 cup broccoli (or other green veggie)
PM snack -- 1 scoop protein powder
Dinner -- 4 oz. chicken, 2 1/2 cups veggies
Evening snack -- 1 scoop protein powder, 12 almonds

Workout
Weight training stays the same -- 4 exercises per bodyfat, 4 sets to failure as heavy as I can go.

Cardio is now 5x per week for 40min. with stairmaster intervals every other day.

Cheat Meal
I may feel like crap, but there was no way I was missing my cheat meal! I headed to Smashburger for the "New Jersey" (I highly recommend it -- fried onions, blue cheese, bacon), sweet potato fries and their Haagen-Daz Oreo milkshake. Then I chased it with some leftover ice cream cake from my daughter's birthday last weekend. It's been torture watching everyone eat it every night. It's a Baskin Robbins, chocolate cake on the bottom with vanilla ice cream on top. It was delish!

In three short weeks, Jodi will begin judging my diet and workout changes by looking at me in a bikini, which means I need to start tanning. I'm so pasty, it's not even funny. I'll try to get an updated pic next week when I'm feeling better. I'm almost completely back to normal -- thank goodness!!!

I bought a Groupon for Snap Fitness, which is open 24 hours a day. So I'm going to try and get over there to switch things up. Any insight into Snap? 

Until next week...