Bouncing Back from Bronchitis...

Howdy! It's been a while since I've posted so I thought I'd give an update. It's hard to post often since I don't have access to the internet at home and I usually don't have time between work, gym, and cooking. I am now 4 1/2 weeks out from the competition and at 6 weeks out I was doing great and really making some good changes at the gym with my weight and had started to focus on the places that I really needed to fine tune like my shoulders and back. I was also on the line about how to progress my meal plan and trying to decide whether to stay with what I had or to move on to the carb cycling meal plan.
Then, last Saturday, August 17th, I started feeling bad. I felt like I had smoked a pack of cigarettes. It was deep in my lungs.. later that day I got a bad headache and that night I got the fever. The next day I was in bed all day then stayed home from work on Monday. This was not good. I needed to go to the gym. I tried to stay on my meal plan as much as possible, Sunday and Tuesday were the only days I was not straight on it. Tuesday I went to the doctor and was told I had bronchitis. Good thing was that I got some antibiotics and could tell I was improving within a day of having them in my system. I did not like being down, it hurt my motivation and confidence but I didn't fight it. I knew that if I wanted to get better as fast as my body could, I had to chill and rest. I definantely got caught up on the latest movies! This Means War with Resse Witherspoon is a good one! And for some reason I was craving some good westerns and watched Open Range which is another good one!
Saturday I made it to the gym even though I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to do. I decided to have my husband take some pictures of me to send to my trainer so she could point me in the right direction. Thank goodness she was able to respond quickly because I was going to the grocery store afterwards and needed to know what I needed to get to prepare for the week. Her response was to start the phase 3 carb cycling meal plan and phase 2 workouts. So I did a 20 minute circut to get my blood flowing and muscles pumped before I had my pictures taken and then I did 30 minutes on the eliptical climber at a light-moderate pace. It felt good to do something but it also hurt my lungs. I'm glad I didn't push it. I went to the grocery store and got all of my food for the new meal plan. I was excited and ready for something different. Before I got sick when I was looking at the carb cycling meal plan I really didn't want to try it because it looked like a lot of work... a lot more than I was already doing because it listed something different for each day. I'm glad I'm doing it now because it give me variety. It's a lot more work to prepare and mentally think about it because it's not only 7 different days of food but between 3 and 5 different meals a day. I am still supplementing with protein drinks.
I'm a day and a half into the new meal plan and workout and I have to say that I'm liking it and I'm pretty darn sore! Yesterday I had grapefruit in my breakfast and for lunch I had romaine lettuce, a tomato, 8 oz of white albacore tuna fish and sugar free balsamic vinaigrette dressing (YUM). It was very filling because you can have as much lettuce as you'd like and 8 oz of tuna is a lot. This was such a good meal all the way around!



Along with getting back on track after being sick and getting started on the new phases of my meal plan and workouts, I'm also getting prepared for the presentation details part of the competition. I ordered and received my competition tan that I will use. Well, I'm going to do a test run on it this coming Labor Day weekend to get a feel for how to do it and make sure the color and the product itself works okay on my skin. I've ordered a posing DVD to help guide and instruct me on my posing. I think the posing is one of the top most important things to have nailed down for a competition and I have to say that I am lacking on that part. I have watched several DVD's that have small posing parts but aren't real in depth and my husband and I have practiced one time in my heels at the gym. I really need to spend a lot of time on this from here on out so I'm anxious to get my new DVD this week. It has a lot of excellent reviews so I'm hopeful that it will hold up to them. I will get my husband to trim my hair about 2 weeks out, I have my days off from work approved, I'm growing my nails out so I don't have to get the acrylic or solar put on them, and I got my polygraph exam scheduled for the day before the show!

During all of this I have said that is a very difficult challenge but felt led by God to do this. I still feel the same way and very strongly of it. This IS the most difficult thing that I have ever worked on, attempted, or tried BUT knowing that it is something that God is leading me to do and having my husband's FULL support, I continue on. Last week when I was at home sick, my confidence was down and I questioned whether God had changed his plans for me in this. . . as I questioned that and read the bible trying to get closer to Him and to know Him better, He answered me by telling me that He doesn't change his plans. He doesn't change his mind and He wouldn't lead me where I can't go, He is ALWAYS with me! I realized that I CAN still do this, I will just have to really put my ALL into the next 4 1/2 weeks until September 29th and I can get up on that stage and celebrate and show off my hard work!