Countdown Part 2: 5 Weeks to Go

Not sure how 8 weeks got away from me! Clearly I've been horrible about providing regular updates. Unfortunately, I haven't been seeing frequent week-to-week changes like I used to during my last few contest preps. With my new diet plan, I'm focused on carb cycling, which is a slower, healthier and much less grueling process. I get to eat more and do less cardio, but the downside is very slow progress. But slow and steady wins the race, right?

To recap, I started my new plan in January and really felt like I was battling the same 1 to 2 pounds for the past 12 weeks. I still can't seem to break past 137 lbs. My metabolism doesn't want to cooperate since I basically destroyed it over the past two years by bringing my calories down too low and doing crazy amounts of daily cardio. You can see the progress I'm making in these pics:

April 2013

May 2014

Diet
Fast forward to today, I'm carb cycling 175g and 135g, three days low, four days high. It's nice to have some flexibility with my food choices. I don't feel deprived at all food-wise and I'm kicking ass in the gym.

Workouts
My weight training has also changed a bit. I used to work one bodypart a day, 6 days a week, 5-6 exercises per bodypart for 3 sets of 10. Now I either workout 3 days on, 1 day off or 5 days on, 2 days off. My workout days are: legs/calves, back/bi's and chest/delts/tri's, 2-3 exercises per bodypart, 5 sets -- two warm-up sets (12-15 reps) and three working sets (5-8 reps). Talk about a change in intensity!!! I leg pressed 250 pounds for 3 sets of 8 this morning!! Hmm, I think we might be onto something. In terms of cardio, I only have four days of cardio, two HIIT sessions of 20 min. and two steady-state cardio sessions of 30 min.

Goals
Originally I was working towards a May 10 show. Sadly, I'm not ready and won't be participating in that one. But my sites are now focused on June 7 in Elmwood Park, NJ. My goal is to compete at 130 lbs., which means I have 30 days (or 36 days) to lose 8 lbs. at a minimum. I was competing at 125 lbs., but I do think I packed on some muscle. I'm pretty sure I'd be okay at 128 to 130 lbs.

With all this change, I splurged and got a new posing bikini, shown in the photo to the right. What do you think?

Aside from some achilles tendonitis and my shoulder acting up, I'm feeling healthy and have actually been enjoying my contest prep. It's really been a physical and psychological journey. At the end of the day, it's all a giant science experiment!