Hello 2015!!

I hope everyone had a FABULOUS holiday season! I had a really nice time at home with my family,  not to mention a few much-needed days off from work! I got some fun new toys from Santa, which I will get into later on. I wanted to do a year-end post to help ring in 2015 and reflect upon 2014. It was a whirlwind year for me-from moving home, to starting two (!) new jobs, to moving into the city....plus two competitions and lots of training ups and downs! This year FLEW by, I can't believe it's already almost New Year's Eve! First, I'm going to do a quick reflection on my past year:

Although I technically moved back home to Framingham, MA in December 2013, I still consider it part of this "year in review". I left New Jersey after 6 months to come back home and started a part-time job as a Fitness Specialist for LifeStart Wellness Network, a corporate health and wellness company. I had been trying to get a job like this since I graduated college, so I was pretty excited about it. 2014 started out a little rough, I was still getting used to a new schedule and big changes. Once I got in my groove, everything turned around. I was eating well and following my training plan. I felt great and looked great! I trained for a competition in April, in Ithaca, NY. Although I didn't do as well as I hoped to, I hit a squat and deadlift PR and placed first in my division. After that competition, I started online training with John Gaglione and had a huge improvement overall in all my lifts. I joined the 1st Phorm Athlete Search and "met" (on social media) so many inspiring people through that that have helped motivate me and have supported me. I moved out of my parent's house to Somerville in September and, a week later, started my current job as a full-time Fitness Specialist for FitCorp. This is where I was met with a lot of challenges. Again, I had to adjust to a new schedule and to living in the city. The biggest adjustment was giving up the freedom of having a car and learning to depend on trains and buses. My training and my health suffered. But, I continued to train and never missed a workout through this time which is something I'm very proud of. My next competition was just a few weeks ago at the beginning of December in Long Island. I hit squat and bench PRs, but again was not happy with my performance. I know I have to make a lot of changes in 2015, and I've never been more motivated to do so.

So, what's the plan for 2015?

First things first, I need to get healthy. This means going to a doctor and assessing my hernia situation. In the meantime, I'm going to continue training and working on my weak spots. I obviously can't lift heavy (UGH), so I'm going to be focusing on lighter weights, higher reps. I've actually already been doing this since the competition, and so far it's going well! I'm not going to let this medical issue prevent me from training-instead I'm going to find ways to work around it and make sure I don't lose too much. As far as my training goals and competitive future, I'm not making any plans to compete again until I feel ready. I don't want to leave a meet anymore feeling like I could have done better. I've set goals for myself and once I hit them I'll feel ready to compete again. I'm hoping that will be sometime in the summer or fall. There's no reason for me to rush into JUST to compete. I'd rather prepare long and well than feel shitty about my performance.

Since I'm not going to be stressing about training for a competition, I'm going to focus almost entirely on my diet. Since I moved to the city, I have REALLY been slacking in this area. It's just straight-up laziness-no point in sugarcoating it. It's hard to go grocery shopping without a car, and most nights I just don't feel like cooking anything (plus its hard when you go from having mom and dad cooking your dinner to having to cook it yourself). I'm going to work on making a real lifestyle change in the new year. I can do extreme dieting for when I need to cut down, but none of those actually stick. Last year I did IIFYM and it worked really well for me. I fell off the IIFYM wagon after my competition in April and never really got back on. For Christmas, I received a Nutribullet and a spiralizer and I can't wait to start using them! I'm hoping this makes it easier to prepare healthy food ahead of time and make me more inclined to eat it! I'm also planning on using the slow-cooker more. My roommate has one but I've never used it. I've already started looking up recipes and have a bunch lined up for the new year.

Speaking of nutrition, a few months ago I signed up for the pre-sale of the Precision Nutrition course for March. I've officially decided that I am going to do it, so starting in March I'll be studying nutrition and actually learning about it! This is going to be great not only for my career, but also for my personal health and wellness. I can't wait. PN is the best nutrition certification out there. I did a ton of research when trying to pick a nutrition certification to do. I've heard so many great things about PN and heard one of the founders speak at the Cressey seminar in September. I also know a few people who have it and they agree that PN is the, bar none, the best one to get. I'm very excited to start it!!

My other big goal for the new year is to do better with this blog! I've been slacking on updating it and I think it's because I've just been bored of it. There's only so much I can say about my training each week before it becomes repetitive! So I'm going to start adding other things to this. I'll probably post about food and share the recipes I'm trying out. Since I am TRX certified, I think I'm also going to start a weekly feature "TRX Exercise of the Week". Would people be interested in that?? If anyone has any other ideas of things you would like to see on here, please let me know! I'm very open to suggestions :) I'll still be writing about my workouts and such, but with other things thrown in there to mix it up!

So that's my plan. I'm looking forward to this year and I think it will be one of my best years yet. I've never been in a better place personally, socially, and mentally. I'm so happy and things can only go up from here. I can't wait until I start feeling better and (hopefully) looking better! I'm kicking off 2015 down on Cape Cod with my family, my aunt, uncle, and cousins, and my amazing boyfriend. I can't wait! I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year. Here's to the future!!

Gaglione Strength Clash for Cash Recap

This weekend I competed in the 6th full power meet, Gaglione Strength's Christmas Clash for Cash in Long Island. This was the first meet I went to completely by myself, and also the first meet that I had my coach there with me. While I overall didn't do as well as I wanted to, I won the 114 division (and had actual competition this time, 2 other 114s!) and also received the "Soaring Eagle Award", which really meant a lot to me (more on this later).

As you can probably tell from my lack of blog posts, the prep and training for this meet was the hardest I've ever gone through. I went through some major life changes right around the start of this training cycle, which I've written about in previous posts. I wasn't always focused on my training and a lot of the time I just got it done to do it. My diet was completely out of control-moving to the city and out of my parents house meant a lot of nights of "I'll just eat whatever I have" and throwing shit together. I rarely cooked actual meals and I was ordering out a lot. I gained about 8 pounds, which made this weight cut incredibly hard. Yes, some of that weight was lean mass and yes I do feel like I have put on muscle but still. I felt awful for most of this cycle and as a result had more bad workouts than good. My back was at its worst and I had some health issues that made me lose a week or so right in the middle of my program. I couldn't afford to make it up, I just had to skip those weeks and move on. Did I go into this meet feeling confident? Somewhat. I was confident in my squat and bench, but had zero confidence in my deadlift. I've written before that I never allow myself to miss deadlifts in competition.....well this time I did and it made me feel absolutely awful.

The Weight Cut
I compete in the 114 weight class, but my "regular" weight during training usually sits somewhere between 116-118. I usually only have to drop 2-4 pounds to make weight. Since I knew I was up higher (in the 120-122 range) at the start of this training cycle, I decided to start dieting down about 6 weeks out. This basically meant cleaning up my diet and stopped drinking alcohol. Around Halloween I had some stomach issues and could only eat bland foods for about a week. If you don't know, bland foods is just a fancy phrase for empty carbs. I was bloated, weak, and felt awful. As soon as I felt better, I got back to dieting and cutting. After 4 weeks, I had only lost 3 pounds and was stuck at around 119. I thought I wasn't going to make weight and I was so confused as to why I wasn't losing anything. I did everything the same as I have in the past-being aware of macros, avoiding processed foods, preparing all my meals...not to mention spending a shitload of money on food twice a week. I basically had to skip Thanksgiving, which was the hardest part of this prep. One week out, I was still at 118. I decided to do water loading as well as cut all carbs and dairy the week of my meet. I used Caitlyn Trout's water loading protocol via an article she wrote which can be found here. Basically all I ate all week were eggs, chicken, and broccoli. Luckily it paid off and I weighed in at a light 113 pounds. HOWEVER-lesson learned. As soon as Christmas is over (come on, give me a break I missed Thanksgiving) I'm going to keep my diet clean as much as I possibly can to avoid having to do this again. Definitely the hardest weight cut I've ever done and yes, I do think it affected my performance.

The Meet
Let's start out by saying I had very high goals for myself for this meet and I hold myself to a very high standard. My goals were 200 squat, 105 bench, and 250 deadlift and AT LEAST a 500 total. I went 5/9 with 180-95-195 and a 470 total. Squat and bench were meet PRs, but my deadlift was absolutely embarrassing. The week of the meet my left hip flexors seized up to the point where I couldn't even walk. I had an emergency chiropractic session before I left on Thursday to release them, which did help a lot. Then sitting in a car for SEVEN hours (seriously, LI traffic can suck it) made them tense up again but after stretching and rolling they felt better. I felt pretty good after rehydrating and eating on Friday. The morning of the meet I felt normal again, just a little nervous as always. My squats felt pretty good during warm-ups and I crushed my 170 opener. I took 180 next and got a little stuck at the top but pushed through to get it. I've hit 190 in the gym, so I assumed that's what I would be going for next (coach was calling all my weights, which was awesome. I didn't have to worry about it), but I took 185 as my third, got stuck halfway up and couldn't push through. Miss. I was upset, but 180 is a 5lb meet PR. Not a huge PR but still a PR! Bench came next, which also felt great during warmups. I took 90 as my opener-already a 5lb meet PR-and got it easy. 95 was next. I didn't set-up correctly and ended up touching too high on my chest then not being able to push it all t he way up. I missed it, so had to take it as my third attempt. Luckily I got it, for a 10lb meet PR. While this is still a really awesome accomplishment, I really wanted 105 or at least 100 on bench. I was feeling a little upset over this but had to push it out of my mind to focus on deadlift. In training, my deadlift has not been going well. I had a lot of back issues that have been fixed, but I lost a lot of strength due to that. I haven't been able to hit anything over 185 in training since the summer. So I wasn't expecting a miracle, but I was hoping that meet adrenaline paired with my own personal desire would help a little. Warm-ups actually felt pretty good. I could feel my hip flexors a little as I got heavier but I just ignored that. I was taking 195 as my opener-a weight I hadn't hit in months. Missed it. I was in shock. I couldn't believe I had missed my OPENER. How embarrassing. I came back and easily hit it as my second attempt, but at this point I now needed 225 to total 500. We decided to go for it. The bar didn't move at all. I was upset, embarrassed, shocked-I was ending with a 470 total, down 25 pounds from my last total (which was 495) and equal to a total I hit over a year ago. I should be improving, not moving backwards! John knew I was clearly upset and said to just focus on the accomplishments. I had 2 meet PRs, which is great. I knew deadlifts weren't going to be good. I just expected more from myself. The Soaring Eagle award was a surprise-so much so that I almost cried when John announced that I had won it! It really put things into perspective for me. Yes, I had a lot of rough patches while training for this meet, but I still showed up and worked my hardest. There will be others and I will do better in the future. Now I'm more motivated than ever to hit-and surpass-my goals. Videos if bench and deadlift are below, unfortunately I don't have any squat videos :(

The Future
Before I plan on doing any more events, I need to see a doctor about the hernia in my stomach. After bench was done, it was killing me on Saturday. Maybe this had something to do with my dismal deadlifting performance, maybe it didn't, but I need to figure out what's going on with that. I was planning on doing the Ithaca meet in March, but I might not be able to now. I would really like to do a local meet. I've never done a meet in Boston, I always travel to them. I do think this affects my performance because traveling is very taxing on the body. I also want people to be there for me. This may sound stupid but having no one at the meet with me was tough. I made friends, of course, but its not the same as having your loved ones there supporting you. When I travel, its hard for them to come. I'm lucky enough that my parents have been to a couple, but no one came with  me this time and I was pretty lonely. Doing a local meet would mean my family and friends could be there to support me. I think that would also help them better understand why I love doing this. I'm also hoping to reach out to a few people in Boston to see about training with them-even once a month would help. The environment in which you train really makes a difference. I've noticed this both times I've trained at Cortland. Having someone there to push you helps so much and I don't have that. I train by myself and as much as I love being an independent woman in the gym, it really sucks sometimes! So if anyone in the Boston area is reading this....I'm on the hunt for a training partner! :)

I've set new goals for myself, and I can't wait to get back into training. I'm more determined than ever to get to where I want to be. Shoutout to John Gaglione for everything you've done for me so far and for being there for me this past weekend! Congrats on another successful event! Can't wait for the next one!!

Stay STRONG and Stay FIERCE!!