Morning of the Show

Good morning, Dear Readers!

It is 5 am on the morning of the contest and I lie in bed awake. Since 3:30. I woke up in a major sweat - which is reasonable considering I had to sleep fully covered to try to protect my spray tan. A Mystic tan, this ain't. And following my severe sweating, it can hardly be called a tan at all. "Mess" comes to mind. I am told there will be people backstage to fix it. I sure hope so..... Surely I'm not the first person this has happened to.

Flashback to yesterday: It was a whirlwind! I started the day the same way all self-respecting women do: with a PROFESSIONAL hair-styling and a PROFESSIONAL make-up application. This was in preparation for my PROFESSIONAL photo shoot. Let me tell you, that alone makes me want to be a PROFESSIONAL movie star. Why have I not done that before? Oh yeah - I have to pay THEM. Fair enough.

The make-up artist also has a blog that can be followed at www.3vanities.blogspot.com. She and 2 others manage it and they blog about style and fashion tips for the non-celebrities out there. You know, the "commoners." So I immediately became a follower. She did a fantastic job, and when I become famous, I will hire her for my everyday makeup. That way The Enquirer will not have any unflattering photos to publish.

On to the photo shoot, where Sandra Lynch, http://www.sandralynchphotography.com/, was actively taking shots at a group of other competitors from the gym I attend. Sandy is awesome at capturing the ripples of each muscle, and I cannot wait to see the images we built together. I took some shots in my posing suit as well as a couple of other fun and sexy outfits. Each of the competitors helped each other with posing and fixing our outfits or moving hair out of the way. It was a very collaborative effort and I am happy to have shared it with those beautiful women (thank you, Heather, Ty, and Kay). It is easy to get used to star treatment! But where was my limo....?

I could have used a limo from there on out. From the photo shoot, I ran home to pack my bag for the road trip to Plano, which is a 30 minute drive according to Google Maps, but in reality, a 2.5 hour drive in traffic with highway closures. Figures.

En route to Plano, I drop by The Cake Ball Company (www.thecakeballcompany.com) to pick up my evening snack of, you guessed it, Cake Balls. Little doughy balls of deliciousness in a variety of cake flavors. I chose Wedding Cake, German Chocolate (my personal favorite), Strawberry, Brownie, Red Velvet, and Chocolate Toffee. Mind you, I'm sharing these with my trainer. And incidentally, we got to enjoy them last night. The sugar is necessary to fill the muscles and make them look "swole up" for the contest the following day. Let me tell you, I tried only a few of them and they were phenomenal. They ship around the country. I'm just saying.

I had to wait until AFTER weigh-in to have the cake balls because I wanted to be sure I stayed in the Lightweight category. Weigh-In consisted of a meeting for all the competitors, then measuring everyone to be sure we'd be placed properly. By weight for bodybuilders and by height for Fitness, Figure, and Bikini competitors. The Officials check all the ladies' suits to be sure they are "classy" enough, as if string bikinis sewn of velvet or spandex and loaded with sparkling crystals could be considered classy. But that's neither here nor there.

They measured the height of all Fitness, Figure, & Bikini ladies. That took care of about half the room. Then they called for the Male Bodybuilders. That took care of about 90% of the remaining people. Thus leaving about 6 Female Bodybuilders.

I managed to stay in my Lightweight class, weighing in at 119.6 with a cut-off of 124 being the max. CAKE BALL TIME!! There was only one other Lightweight competitor, so I guess that means I'm guaranteed a trophy of some sort. Either first or second place....Right? Right??? How embarrassing it will be if I don't place....

Time for me to start contest day, so I'll leave you with this to chew on:

The tanning experience is really the most eventful of the entire day and will receive a blog entry of its own. That's the only way I can give it its due respect. Yes. I'll call it "respect." Let's just say that if you go in as a modest person, you don't leave as one.

Welcome Back Carbs!

Today, I got the pleasure of reintroducing carbs to my diet. The purpose of doing losing the carbs, as you probably know, is to shed the last bit of fat that I can so that the muscles will show through easily. The hope is to achieve the "ripped" look.

I was surprised that I could go ahead and have carbs a few days prior to the contest. In fact, I had more carbs before 7:30 AM than I have in the past 7 days put together! The point of reintroducing them now is to let my muscles start to swell again and look full. Of course at the contest, I want to look as full as possible, but also as lean as possible.

On today's menu I got to enjoy oats and bananas and an apple! In fact, I discovered that putting instant espresso powder in my oats makes a very tasty meal, with a little pick-me-up too! Adding cinnamon (my favorite spice) gives it a little Mexican flavor, reminiscent of Mexican hot chocolate (but without the chocolate).

For my lunch, I had 4 ounces of 96% lean ground beef (seasoned with garlic powder and black pepper, and browned), and I actually mixed a chopped Granny Smith apple into it. Much to my surprise, I REALLY enjoyed the apple and beef together. I'm thinking that adding a little shredded fat free cheddar would make it even better! It's amazing what strange things you find yourself eating (and enjoying) when faced with so few options.

Tomorrow & Friday will be more of the same - which I am looking forward to. Saturday will include rice cakes and peanut butter & honey, as well as lean meat (of course) and protein bars and sweet potatoes.

I'm working on practicing posing these days. I have two routines to learn. The morning routine is without music and just takes me through a standard set of mandatory poses. The evening routine is to music of my choosing. It is less formal, not having mandatory poses, but more formal in the sense that my suit is flashier (with Swarovski crystals) and I get to wear lots of sparkly jewelry that is not allowed in the morning.

So far, my posing coach still makes adjustments to my poses, but there are fewer corrections than I started with! At least I'm making improvements, but I wouldn't say I feel totally comfortable with it yet either.

So what am I doing writing this now.....? I have some rehearsing to do!