Bikini competition journal 2 weeks out - "Let me just lay here for a few more seconds ... or maybe hours"

Hey peeps!

Oh my gosh, time is flying by and I can't believe that my show is in two weeks. There are days where it felt so unbelievable far away. And now I'm nearly there. Things finally are all coming together now.

What happened the past weeks? First, we changed my diet. I'm very carb-sensitive, so we decided to cut out carbs completely. Now I'm on a ketogenic diet until the end. Meaning, just around 35g of carbs per day for me. I'm doing quite well with that. First week of keto was hard, but my body responds very well now. The change in diet makes my body inefficient again, which is a huge plus in order to keep losing body fat.

Past week was a pretty rough week for me. As you may know, we are on Youtube. Last Sunday we made a video for you about a full body workout (you can watch it down below).

On this day I had 3 workout sessions (2x weight lifting; 1x cardio), which was really exhausting for me. On Monday my whole body started to feel weird. I had some kind of pressure on both of my ears and extreme circulation problems.

What most likely happened was that my central nervous system was just overloaded. I trained too often and too hard and my body isn't able to recover as quickly as I want to, due to the long diet. Therefore, I made one day a complete no-gym day (which I didn't had for over 2 months) with a re-feed. My energy is back and I'm ready to smash the last couple of days!

What I learned so far? Listen to your body. No, I mean not just listen, but listen AND act. I didn't listen to what my body was telling me and I had to pay the price. It's so easy for me to overdo it, because I always want to give everything I possibly can. That's not how it works, it's more like fine tuning. You have to find the balance.

I can really feel the long diet now. My energy levels are lower and I'm tired more often. After over 14 weeks of restricted dieting that's totally normal. But this is also one of the hardest things for me: being in this weakened state. Normally I'm strong and always full of energy. Now I have to convince my body to go to the toilet if I have to pee.

Overall I'm feeling okay. I'm not too moody and if so, I try to explain why and how I'm feeling. This helps me and my husband a lot. ;)

I'm proud of myself. Doesn't matter what will happen at the show, which place I will reach. I got this far, I never was in a better shape in my whole life and I know my body much better than before. I'm proud of how I handled the diet, I've never cheated, I sticked to it. Plus, I'm so proud of my husband and our marriage. Whatever is on my mind I can talk to him and he'll always tries to understand my often weird thoughts. We will always have each other's backs.

To be honest with you, show day isn't really that important to me. I never was that typical girly girl, so I don't need that "glam up"-stuff. Of course, it's part of the game, but I just try to be myself there. More important to me is the process of growth I had during this prep. But I will go deeper into that topic in 2 weeks, when my prep is over.

I will present my bikini in the next couple of days, so stay tuned! Follow us on Instagram, if you want to see it and for the latest updates. Last week I also bought my tanning products from ProTan. I'm so excited to see myself with a tan, because I'm very pale naturally.

Before I forget it: I will also do an "After the prep"-series with information about reverse dieting, how my workouts are structured after the prep, how I'm feeling in general and how my plans for the future look like. If you're interested to see a video from the "After-competition-cheat", let me know in the comments down below.

Here are the typical stats for you.

Diet consists of

1500 kcal
130g protein
about 35g-40g carbs (net carbs if you're in the US)
80g fat

Typical meal plan

I'm so deep in the mindset, I have no problems avoiding temptations. You could eat a whole snickers bar in front of me and I would not bat an eye.

Now here's my competition prep meal plan on a ketogenic vegetarian diet:

Meal #1 (Pre workout): 20 kcal; 0.3gC/0gF/4.7gP

5g BCAAs; 20 kcal

Meal #2 (Post workout): 104 kcal; 2.2gC/1.9gF/19.1gP

25g whey protein powder vanilla; 104 kcal

Meal #3 (12pm): 389 kcal; 7gC/25gF/37gP

2 portobello mushroom caps (around 150g); 21 kcal
4 egg whites; 68 kcal
1 whole egg; 66 kcal
60g mozzarella; 148 kcal
50g avocado; 80 kcal
10g reduced sugar/salt ketchup; 6kcal

Meal #4 (3pm): 306 kcal; 11gC/14gF/32gP

25g whey protein powder vanilla; 104 kcal
2 whole eggs; 166 kcal
5g raw cocoa; 20 kcal
50g frozen blueberries; 20 kcal

Meal #5 (6pm): 463 kcal; 9gC/28gF/39gP

50g fresh leaf spinach; 15 kcal
3 whole eggs; 198 kcal
75g quark; 44 kcal
150g mushrooms; 24 kcal
50g beansprouts; 24 kcal
50g greek salad cheese; 135kcal
75g sauerkraut; 17 kcal
25g spring onions; 6 kcal

Meal #6 (9pm): 115 kcal; 10gC/6gF/4gP

20g whole chia seeds; 84 kcal
50ml Alpro coconut milk; 10 kcal
50g frozen blueberries; 20 kcal

Training split

Training split has slightly changed, because I need more time to recover. Depending on how the weightlifting went that day, I'm doing steady state or HIIT cardio.

Monday: 45 min Active recovery/LISS cardio
Tuesday: 60 min cardio
Wednesday: Legs (high volume)
Thursday: Arms/Shoulders (high volume); Abs + 30min cardio
Friday: Back (high weight)+ 30min cardio
Saturday: Legs (high weight)
Sunday: Arms/Chest (high weight); Abs + 30min cardio

If I feel that I need more rest, I will incorporate more LISS cardio sessions in place of a weightlifting session or a whole rest day. There's no need to be completely fucked up just because it's the last weeks of a prep.

Supplementation

Supplementation stays the same, but I added BCAAs, because I train fasted:

5g BCAAs in the morning before training
Vitamin C (twice a day)
Vitamin D3 (5000 IUs per day)
Creatine (5g per day)
Whey protein powder as needed
Magnesium (1g per day)
Fish oil capsules (2g per day)

Pics

What I'm looking forward to? To actually enjoy eating again, and not just to function. :)

Support me by using the Hashtag #SupportSarah2017 on Instagram and Twitter. Thanks!

See you next time.

Until then, train hard and eat right!

Cheers, Sarah