Hello! Welcome to my new journal. Some of you may remember me from Figure Athlete - I had a few journals over there starting with my first NPC Figure Competition through my first IFBB Pro Figure Competition. It has been quite the journey thus far and I am looking forward to what's ahead!

Right now my family and I have moved across the country (for the 5th time I think!) and we are getting settled back in our house in Washington State. I am anxious to compete again, but there are a few factors that will determine when that is - such as the schedule of my husband's training and next deployment, and our son's medical needs. He has Arthrogryposis and soon we will be going to Seattle Childrens to see a specialist. There's some surgeries we are looking into, so that may be in our future too.

Not to worry though -- our son is amazing and his condition certainly does not stop him from being a crazy toddler (just this morning he managed to get lotion from a pump bottle on the top of his head! lol) He is a sweet, joyful little boy and I will be talking about him in here from time to time I'm sure.

I will post more soon - recap what's been going on in my life and what is next!

Welcome!

So glad to see you keeping a journal on here! I am looking forward to following along. Love to hear how your son is doing :)

Welcome! Looking forward to following along.

Thank you ladies! I will post more soon when I have time to write!

I'll be following too! :)

10 weeks until the Kentucky Muscle Pro - I think I'm going to do it! There are a lot of details to work out, but I'm excited! That was my last show - last year. I came in the lightest and leanest I'd ever been (my avi pic) -- but I think I was a bit too small compared to the other girls. And since I was so lean and dry I needed more carbs and should have pumped up more. It's a learning experience every time! Good thing is I have done a lot of good work since then and I know I will look even better next time.

Right now I am doing an herbal cleanse/detox (involving herbs and juice fasting) - and after I will start my dieting and training. That gives me time to prepare my contest plan. One thing I will be including in this plan is a POST competiton plan - something I haven't had in the past and have learned is a necessity!

I'd be interested in hearing any noticed effects from running a detox before your actual diet starts. I always like to bump up my numbers for a brief period before starting a diet, a little trick I swiped from Dorian :)

S

What do you mean by bump up your numbers? As far as effects of the detox I'm already feeling that it 's doing good things and once I am done I will be absorbing nutrients much better so I would imagine it will only enhance my dieting and training efforts.

I just raise my cals and carbs for a bit, let my body get used to that level of intake, and then when I resume my previous "maintenance" numbers, I'll start tightening and have more room to 'play around' as far as dropping numbers when I absolutely have to later on.

S

Gotcha thanks!

I loved your priceless advices, but even more your positive attitude! I will follow you (again.. :)

Thank you Hagya Sophia! That's very kind of you to say. I will start writing longer posts soon. Right now I'm in a place of calm rest and healing. I know soon the inspiration will begin to flow and I will be typing up a storm! God has been so good to me and I have much to be thankful for!

Ok I am getting reved up to start kicking some butt again! My cleanse ended last night and today I broke my 5 day fast. I definitely cleared out my digestive system a lot and feel much better! I was smart and eased back into eating solid food today, didn't overeat, good stuff. So the plan now is give my body the weekend to readjust after fasting and Monday start my diet. I haven't done my diet yet, but here are some things I have learned that I will be incoorperating this time:

- Fasting is healthy and smart! I used LeanGains approach to intermittent fasting for my last show preps and had much success with it. I actually wrote a story about it and it's on his blog. I can't say that I have stuck to the same eating pattern off-season all the time, that is also one of my goals this time around. My IF/mealtiming approach this time will include one large meal at night and maybe 2 smaller snacks earlier, and of course supplementation including BCAAs throughout the fasting time and workout time. I will play around with it a bit and adjust it to fit my new schedule - but keeping in mind that it takes a little time for your hormones and everything to adjust to your eating pattern.

- Protein is awesome, but there is such thing as too much of a good thing. I have had some pretty awful digestion problems that have seemed to get worse with each prep (now I can't blame the diet entirely, I did discover I have a gluten-intolerance so my system is still healing from that) - Anyway, in the past I have been eating sometimes 250g of protein/day -- which for 5'1 Danielle is a bit overkill. And meat is the hardest thing to digest. Only recently has it occurred to me how much energy it takes to digest first of all, and meat being the hardest - could the excess meat be causing some of the fatigue that goes along with getting super lean? Yes you need protein to get lean, but for someone my size I can't imagine that eating say 120g/day would cause me to not get as lean.

- More attention to the digestion -- Adding to the protein issue, fasting has definitely shown me how much energy digesting takes up, and fasting in the morning and afternoon when I need the most energy makes sense. And when I start eating for the day I think I will be sure to begin with things that are more easily digestible like fruits and veggies, maybe eggs - then move on to the meat at dinner. - Similar to the Pulse Feast program on here.

Supplementation this time I will be trying a new stack - Bitter Orange, Caffiene and St Johns Wort - my accupuncturist actually told me about this one. It's supposed to be very effective to incease fat-loss - similar to the Ephedra Caffiene Aspirin but without some of the negative side-effects. (ECA sure works great, but can also give you unwanted anxiety!- not so good for some of us who tent to be a bit high strung already :) -- SO for this new stack I'm actually going to try using a green tea form of caffiene first, as it's not as harsh as caffiene pills.
In addition to that, BCAAs, L-glutamine postworkout, L-tyrosine in the morning, 5-HTP in evening, an herbal blend for adrenal support that seems to work well for me, fish oil, multi

I have struggled with my body going wackado ever since my son was born. When I was preping for the Arnold Amateur last year I was diagnosed with the gluten problem and hypothyroidism. SO I was put on thyroid meds. From Feb 2010 until the beginning of this month - Aug 2011 I did not have a period and my hormones were bottoming out - to the point that labs showed that my pituitary gland wasn't functioning. I tried everything I could think of - supplementation, then prescribed hormone replacement therapy, accupuncture -- nothing was doing the trick. With the lack of hormones, I was really struggling with depression, anxiety, food issues, water retention (I would gain 8lbs in one day if I had a cheat meal!)- you name it it was awful. Finally after going to an endocrinologist who told me I needed to stop the progesterone to get an accurate lab reading - I thought the only thing that has been consistant this whole time is my thyroid medication (which was the naturethroid, not synthroid) -- SO I stopped all hormones, including the thyroid. Sure enough, 3 weeks later I rejoined the female race and got a period! Finally I'm feeling much better!

So with all of that I want to do my best to stay as healthy, happy and balanced as I can. It's very easy to fall back into depression with the stress of contest prep so I'm hoping the St Johns Wort, L-tyrosine, 5-HTP and herbs will help keep me happy - and the fish oil, which helps with that too :)

I'm feeling really good about this approach. Say a prayer that things fall into place so I can do this show!

Mealplan finished, shopping done, ready to start tomorrow! The time is here :)

One day completed. Followed my new mealplan, worked out like a crazy woman (leg day), took my little guy to the park, dinner with the family - it was a great day! I think I am really going to like the way I have my mealplan set up. It will take a few weeks to really see how it works for me, but come dinner time it was really nice to have a good size meal to enjoy.
Tomorrow's chest/core/abs and cardio

Wed we are going to the Seattle Children's Hospital for the Arthrogryposis Clinic. I'm so excited we got in at the last minute! We will be able to see all these specialists all in one day and network with other families. It should be awesome!

Hello! Sure - I did the colon cleanse from blessedherbs - you can google it and find their site. It's very effective, and I don't think I need to say any more than that :)

So one full week down - and I'm down 4lbs! Wahoo! I reduced my carbs for a few days and then went right into keto. And holy moley - my body sure loves running on fat! Between the intermittent fasting, no carbs and high fat, I managed to get into ketosis in about 48 hours with no negative side effects! I'm sure probably half of the weight I lost was water, but hey that's gotta go too.
I'm going with a cyclic keto approach. That worked well for me in the past, so no sense in reinventing the wheel - just a few tweeks here and there as I have gotten to know my body better. In the past I thought this type of diet may have been the cause of my hormonal problems, but now I know it was that darn thyroid medication!

Also I signed with a management company this week. I'm excited! I have a good feeling about this. They should be able to help me get sponsors and more work in the fitness industry. I'm also starting to do online coaching which is pretty cool. I'm only taking on a few clients, and I have a couple getting started right now! I want to be able to give them the time and attention they need, and I don't have a ton of time anyway, so just a few is perfect. And it's really nice now because I am able to do it because I love it, not because I need the money.

Well off to bed - tomorrow Bear finally starts PT! It's taken a while to get the insurance and referrals all situated after moving. It's nice that's all done!

I'd be interested to see what your eating looks like. I really like IF.

So they put you on thyroid meds even though your thyroid levels were fine?

No at the time my T3 was low and T4 a little low - TSH was normal. But at the same time I was diagnosed with the gluten intolerance which can go hand in hand with low thyroid - and while all this was going on I had just started my prep for the Arnold, I was about 2 weeks in and had dropped like 10lbs in 2 weeks so I think my body was probably in a more temporary/conditional state of low thyroid. I've been gluten free ever since - and eating gluten may have contributed to the problem too.

I will be seeing my dr at the end of this month so I will have my labs done again to check my hormones and everything. It will be interesting to see what they say!

So my prep is going really well so far! I'm actually upping my calories because I am losing too fast. Between my cleanse and week 1, I've lost 9.5lbs! Which is of course awesome, but I need to slow it down a bit and allow my body to adjust. The past 2 days I've not had good sleep (my little one's been waking up!!) and so between that and the weight loss I've been feeling it. Not too bad, but enough to show me that if I keep going at this rate I'm really going to be tired! So with that I will be having a carb day this weekend, and increasing my daily calories a little bit.

How did they test for gluten intolerance??

I only ask because I've always suspected it in myself, but just stay away from it 90% of the time. I have a thyroid problem too..only it's the autoimmune variety.

yay for MORE FOOD!! :)

They did the blood test - it tests for antibodies I believe, gladians or something like that, and it will only show a positive if you have had enough damage to your small intestine - so there are a lot of false negatives that happen. Next test after that is a biopsy - which I didn't have done, just the blood, which came back a weak positive.
Sorry you have thyroid problems too - no fun!

So today I finally went to a chiropractor. I fell in feb of 2010 and haven't been the same since - neck, shoulder, hip, ribs all out of whack. Anyway, this guy is great, put me back together and said I'll have to come back one more time, on Tue and then after that I should be good for about 3 months! BUT I can't workout until after I see him again! All I can do is brisk walking, so that's what I'm going to do. It will be interesting to see how my weight loss goes without working out. I'm sticking to my diet of course, but hey maybe this little experiment will show me that I don't need to do so much cardio! lol that would be nice :)

Following my instructions, and I haven't worked out since my adjustment, just brisk walking with some incline...I'm definitely itching to really workout!! I go back on Tuesday and get adjusted again, so at the very least I'll be able to train 24 hours after that.

Did a carb day today...I am bloated and stuffed! lol Not too bad, just haven't felt this full in a while. I am looking forward to being back on my keto diet tomorrow. I think I will go 2 weeks before another carb day, depending on my progress.

So what's everyone's take on salt during prep? I haven't done anything with it yet - In the past I have completely eliminated it at about 6-8 weeks out, which makes the water weight drop off quick for me -- but then after the show I've had a terrible time with water retention and it takes me a long time to get back to a good balance. I know some people say they keep it in and stick to a certain amount. Then there's sodium loading for peak week, which I've never done. Any thoughts? Suggestions?

Ok I see the chiro tomorrow - pray I can workout on wed - I can't wait to get back to it! But I am going to be smart, my body has been out of alignment for like 2 years! I need to take it easy as it gets used to being in alignment - so I'm going to take this next week or two and just do real deep tissue functional training - especially for upper body. After that I'll start incoorperating some more fun workouts.

Loving my diet :) I can actually feel my body shifting into ketosis, I should be back in it by the morning. My energy starts going up, and I have this specific feeling that's kinds like when you are fasting and you get really mentally sharp. I'm excited to see how I progress this week. It would be fun to have a carb day on Sat - but since I may only get to start lifting on Wed, that's not enough time to deplete my muscles - so I'll go til the next Sat. I'm thinking of this time right now as just focusing on losing fat - I have great muscle tone and this time "resting" will probably do a lot of good.

You are on a roll! Very inspiring to see how you are managing your prep, while taking care of your family and starting a training business!

I know that there are some great things in store for you!