Monday, July 27, 2015

Today is the Day!

And so begins Week One of my 16-week bikini competition prep. Of course, I’ve already broken one of the rules of contest prep, and that’s the 7-8 hours of sleep a night. It may have been nervous excitement, but despite hitting the pillow at 9:45pm, I wasn’t able to fall asleep until somewhere between 1:30 and 2am and was up at 3:50am for my morning fasted cardio – thanks to my running partner Sara (follow her @SPragluski on Twitter, she’s the tits). Regardless, shit got done.

I’ve had two cups of coffee with sugar-free hazelnut creamer (also the tits), a breakfast of my trainer’s competition prep pancakes, and tons of ounces of water. It’s now 8:39am and yes. I’m already hungry. The struggle.

A big chunk of yesterday was spent with my amazingly supportive boyfriend prepping meals for the week. I’m missing a few end-of-the-week meals because I didn’t plan my shopping properly, but I’ll get that ironed out for next week. Hopefully. It also turns out that I bought too much chicken and steak because I got the number of ounces in a pound wrong (for the record: it’s 16 ounces, not 8). I need more veggies, some grapefruit, some tilapia and some more Tupperware containers. Right now I have a Cool Whip container in my fridge holding bland chicken and boiled potatoes. What a cruel disappointment for my brain and stomach.

So what was my Last Meal? How about my last day of food:

Breakfast (at 2:30pm following a “last night, best night”-style drinking sesh) was an omelette with peppers and onions. And American cheese and bacon and ketchup and salt and two slices of buttered white toast.

Dinner? A delicious pork chop with two helpings of rice and beans.

Dessert: a bowl of Friendly’s Vienna Mocha Chunk ice cream. Followed an hour later by a bowl of Friendly’s Vienna Mocha Chunk ice cream with chocolate syrup.

I regret nothing.
 
Later today it's Chest/Shoulders/Tris plus another 20 minutes of cardio. And possible another cup of coffee.

Body Check-In for this, the 28 day of July in the Year of our Lord 2015:

     Weight: 171.8 lbs
     Calf: 14”
     Thigh: 24.2”
     Hips: 42"
     Waist: 34”
     Bicep: 13”
     Chest: 39”

Here’s to seeing improvement and knowing this will all be worth it in the end.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

And So It Begins (Sort of) [UPDATE!]

It’s Week “Negative One” because it’s my run-through week. Today is Wednesday and my real start date isn’t until next Monday. So far, I’ve eaten pizza and cake (on Monday, for my boyfriend’s birthday) and I’ve forgotten Wednesday Meal 2 at home with no break to leave and get it. Yesterday I did a 15-rep squat set feeling good about myself only to have some dude come up to the rack next to me and curl the same weight I just finished squatting. Awesome.

Oh, and I got a throat biopsy yesterday, so I (not proudly) skipped my morning fasted interval workout because I felt like I’d been karate chopped in the neck. I’m aware that this is bad, but that’s why I chose a run-through week. Kind of like a dress rehearsal for the real thing, it lets me work out some kinks I may have. Kinks like having no self-control when it comes to eating. And kinks like I'm lazy.

I have to say, yesterday went well. I burned through my lift – abs and quads – and even though I’ve learned, thanks to our curling overachiever, that I don’t lift as impressive of weights as I thought I would, I know I pushed myself hard enough because I can’t laugh or walk today without pain. I also stuck to the eating plan, although I combined meals 5 and 6 right before bed. Probably not the greatest idea, but my thought process was that it would be better to eat the nutrition rather than skip it.*

Full disclosure: because no alcohol is to be imbibed during bikini prep, I used this week as a run-through due to the fact that I have my first-ever Foxwoods Casino showcase appearance. People often ask me how I can get up in front of a crowd for standup comedy. Well it’s because alcohol helps. I don’t drink often before getting up on stage, in fact I most often make a rule to go up sober, but on a big night like this, a drink or two takes the edge off. From here-on-out, though, it’s stage sobriety!

So this is it, my last two cheats: tonight’s drinks, and Sunday’s Last Meal of something deliciously carb-heavy followed by dessert. And then it’s 16 weeks of Game The Fuck On.

[Update: After speaking with Darcie, my dear friend and trainer from Live Long Training, this was bad. Meal 6 is optional only if I'm staying up late and should never be combined. I should have eaten Meal 5 and hit the pillow. See? Smart to do a run-through.]

Welcome One, Welcome All!

Welcome to Fit, Fab and Funny! I – your host – live in Massachusetts. I’m a comedian who daylights as a teacher. I love my life. I love my friends. I love my family. I love my careers. I love my boyfriend. I love my face. And I want to love my body. This is my journey.

I’ve always been an athlete. Note: I am not saying I was an exceptional athlete. I played collegiate volleyball, but if we’re being completely honest with each other, I played during practice and watched from the bench during games. I’ve run two marathons since graduating. Do not be overly impressed. One was done in 2008 and the other in 2013, neither of which made headlines. But regardless of these feats and of the fact that I live on the healthier side of life, I’ve never been confident in my body. On the contrary. I’ve been incredibly unconfident.

I believe it’s important to explain that my extreme low self-esteem led me to a dangerous place circa 2006. I’d lost about 45 pounds from my heaviest college weight. To accomplish this, I ate no more than 1,080 calories on a daily basis. I was 5’9” and could fit into my 5’2” roommate’s size 2 skirt. But this is the crazy part: even at that size, I still saw “fat” in the mirror. Since then, my weight has been steadily creeping back up the scale, causing stress and periodic panic attacks (I also have anxiety issues. Who knew.). Do not get me wrong – I know exactly why this is happening. I love food. I love to eat food. I love to eat a lot of food. I need to start eating the right food.

Cliché alert!! Through some struggle, self-reflection and discovery, I have much more confidence in myself and put less emphasis on my physical appearance as a determiner of my self-worth. It’s with this stability that I contacted a college friend of mine, now a personal trainer and bikini competitor (seriously, she’s the shit), for help with my next goal: an NPC sanctioned bikini competition. I want to lose weight, and more importantly, I want to do it in a healthy way.

This is where I’ll be documenting my journey from fabulous and funny to fit, fabulous and funny.