One week after the contest.

Again, uncharted territory.  Sort of.

In 1999, the year I turned 40, I had decided to take the EAS supplement company's Body-For-Life Challenge.  The goal was to make a maximum body composition change in 12 weeks using a combination of diet, exercise, and of course, EAS supplements.  I read the book by Bill Phillips, I was working with a personal trainer, I was much newer at the gym.  Over the three months I did manage to make a significant change, but not enough to win whatever the big prize was that year.  They did send me a t-shirt for participating, which was nice of them, considering I spent close to $2,000 on their products.  (Which is why I recommend Phillips' book with caution - he does give good diet and exercise advice, but his bottom line is: he's selling supplements.)  I had 12% body fat and 127 pounds of lean body mass (as contrasted to the contest last weekend when I had achieved 5.75% body fat and 131 pounds of lean body mass).

(Yet more evidence that once upon a time I did have hair.  All over.  Starting weight was 152, finish was 143; contrast with my 138 contest weight last week.  See captions in photo section for more stats on these old photos.)

Shortly after the 1999 contest (for which there was no audience - we just took pictures and mailed them in) I developed another one of my sinus infections, not an unusual occurrence given my annual spring allergies.  This one, however, did not go away despite a couple rounds of antibiotics and started triggering severe asthma, a choking cough, and a few fear-filled midnight moments when I could not take in any air whatsoever.

On my 40th birthday I was hospitalized for asthmatic bronchitis.  I was so hoarse from coughing I could barely speak - not a good thing when one is a music teacher and must sing for a living.  It took my doctor and several specialists most of the rest of the school year to figure out that one of my sinuses was physically blocked by a de-mineralized turbinate (a structure in the nasal passage), that it could not drain and was impacted with infection, that a surgery was needed to fix the problem.

Fortunately that year I had a really fantastic student teacher and we used IMs daily (no voice for phone) to plan lessons in my absence.  I was out from April to June, waiting for the doctors to figure out the problem and to get enough voice back to teach again.  Energy was also a big deal, because until they did the surgery it was all I could do to get out of bed, shower and get dressed - it took about four hours.  Meanwhile the prednisone (a steroid) made me so hungry that I would eat about 4,000 calories a day (I knew this because I was still keeping track like I had during the EAS challenge).  All the weight that came off went right back on.  And pretty much stayed on, more or less, until this year.

So, now here I am once again, right after a major physical accomplishment.  My new goal is to put on muscle mass and maintain 7 - 8% bodyfat with a ceiling of 11% during the winter months.  But wow, I can't believe how quickly I've put on pounds in one week.  Almost 10.  Okay, so the first few days after the contest I did go a little nuts.  Oh, let's be honest, a lot nuts.  Whenever I make changes to my diet it always takes me a several days to make all the adjustments.  Partly because I don't want to waste food that's already been prepared in the fridge... and a shopping trip or two is generally involved as well.

Okay, so there's been some impulsive eating this week, and I have a wicked sweet tooth - which is why I have to be really careful with fruit, my favorite vice.  The past day or two have been better, but I still don't quite have a handle on the new food routine.

Today I think all the changes and the impact of what I've been doing for the last several months finally caught up with me.  Hubby left for work around 9, I got up, had breakfast, lay down and woke up again around 1.  Groggy foggy doggy until about 3:30.  I knew I was awake at last because I had enough energy to get caught in one of my negative mental loops (more on that in a separate entry) which meant I NEEDED to move - finally managed to drag my ass to the gym by 5:30 (it closes at 7 on the weekends).

It was a good workout; lifted heavy and got a good pump.  Calmed me right down - all that energy going into the negative earlier on was drained away and I felt much more emotionally balanced.  Unfortunately my circadian rhythm is all out of whack, I'm going to have to change it before school starts.  It's  past midnight as I type this sentence, I'll probably be wide awake until 2. 

So where am I going with all this information?  This was my first public competition, so this is also my first post-competition.  I don't think I'm going to have the same weight-gain issues as I did in '99 because I'm not ill (so that means still physically active) and I'm not on any medication that makes me want to eat inordinate amounts of food.  I am a little surprised though at how quickly I've put some of it back on, and some of the mood swings I'm still experiencing.  Probably my body's way of telling me it hasn't figured out what we're doing either.

Well, tomorrow (today now) is another day, another chance to sort through the food/exercise balance and get it closer to what it should be.