Post Competition Training - Charity Cardio Camp

Since I have been off the competition, my diet went a little nuts. I made smart choices for most of my major meals, however I also overindulged in desserts; mostly chocolate.

I took the week after my competition off and only did light cardio. Now I am strength training 2-3 days a week and doing cardio 2-4 days a week. With the holidays coming through I need to stay lean.

To celebrate being done and thank all my supporters, I am hosting a

2011 Charity Cardio Camp

One day when I was going to the gym, I saw a line of women forming around a building. I thought maybe they were waiting for a sample sale. On my way out of the gym, the line had doubled and inside the building I could see piles of lettuce, rice, and canned foods. This year, the Food Bank is losing $161,000 in federal funding, the equivalent of 483,000 meals. The food we raise will feed families in our neighborhood through 2012. There are hungry people around us, we just don't see them.

What is the Charity?: the San Francisco Food Bank: Click to Learn More or Donate.

What is our goal?: $5000 and 500 lbs of food.

When is CCC?: Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 8 am till 9 am.
November 28th till December 21st.
Weather permitting. Follow me @LindaNiazi for updates on class.

Where is CCC?: We meet at BodyLab at 2529 Van Ness Avenue at Union Street.

Who can participate in CCC?: Anyone who is physically capable.
It is a group exercise class so use your judgement. If you have any injuries, cardiovascular problems, or high blood pressure, please check with your primary care physician.

How to participate in the Charity Cardio Camp?: It is a free boot camp with the goal of raising food and money for families in our neighborhood. Although it is free, I am asking participants to bring a donation to each class; either a can of food or an email receipt for a cash donation.

What will the boot camp consist of?: A warm up, light run, body weigh exercises, and some high intensity training. As we get closer to Christmas, the workouts will get harder.

If you cannot make the classes, please consider donating anyway. This year, keep the weight off while feeding families in our neighborhood.

The End

The competition was not what I expected, heard about or read about. I didn't do well, and I was upset for a while, but not for the reasons you would think. It took some time for me to gather my thoughts and get back to normal, but here is what happened.

The first 30 days of training was great. I had 4 balanced meals a day, strength training 4 days a week and cardio 1 to 2 days a week. It was hard for me to resist desserts in the beginning, but I was happy and felt the healthiest in my life.

As I got closer to the competition, the regiments got more extreme and the number of supplements I had to take increased dramatically. Since I wanted to do the competition, "naturally" I only took what I could buy from the grocery store. I started to feel less and less like myself as the calorie intake dropped, my protein intake doubled and my fats were cut out to give me a "dry" look. I was still strength training 4 days a week, but I started adding in cardio 6 days a week in the morning. I was irritable and weak but the supplements kept me from sleeping.

4 weeks before the competition I developed a severe allergic reaction to an unknown source, that put me out for a full week. Although I was able to continue training, my skin still itched severely and I had to take Benadryl throughout the day.

I started to lose my ability to make rational judgements and decisions. For example, although I lost over 10 lbs, I felt fat. When I would walk into the gym in the morning my friends would ask to see my abs, and I would grimly tell them, "not today, I am bloated", even though I had nothing to eat since 5 pm the night before and had not touched dairy, real sugar or gluten in weeks. My abs looked great, and I wish I had taken more pictures but I just didn't feel like it. I would see a little softness in my muscle tone and start to cry.

I needed a lot of guidance at this point. I had no idea what I was doing or what I actually looked like. I didn't know what to expect at the show. It didn't help that two of my coaches were telling me to follow two completely different diets. That was my biggest mistake, listening to two people at once. I was scared to go up on stage and look like a fool so I trusted whoever was closest to me at the time. Another huge mistake was starting the diet with one coach and ending with another.

Two days before the show, I changed my original plan to go up on Thursday. I decided to drive up Friday night instead, which is where things started to go really wrong. Turns out I was supposed to check in before 9 pm on Friday and I missed the deadline. It was ok because in the morning I just needed to show up 30 minutes early and check in with the body builders.

In addition to a stressful check in, I missed my tanning. My coaches told me the final tan is done right before you step on stage. Turns out this show was different, the tanning was at the hotel on Friday and last minute touch ups were also at the hotel on Saturday morning. I tried to squeeze in a last minute appointment but they were too backed up. The shuffling back and forth cost me time and stress. Lucky for me, my two best friends were there to keep me calm. They did my hair and makeup and pulled out some last minute tricks to make me look darker. However, all the time I spent trying to get an appointment made me late for my last minute check in.

The stress eventually affected how my body looked. Normally, you consume high carb foods before you step on stage. Because my stress levels were elevated, my body was not able to absorb the glucose the way it was suppose to so I looked "flat", which means my muscles never plumped up.

When I got to the show, I felt so out of place. Everyone was ripped and tan. The men had no necks and the women were so dark that even with my naturally olive skin tone and a few base coats, I looked like Snow White. One guy was so bulky, when he sat on a solid wood table, it split in half; no one was shocked. I had a very hard time telling who was competing in bikini and who was a figure girl. No one talked to me and everyone seemed to know each other. The longer I waited the more I shook. To calm my nerves I offered to redo a girl's extensions to pass the time, she was the only one who acknowledged me.

Since I was last to check in, I was the last girl on stage. I'll admit, as scared and broken as I was inside, I looked cool and calm on stage. Walking in heels came naturally, I exuded confidence, didn't double guess myself, and I took my time. All the other girls were flashing smiles at the judges, but I was so miserable I couldn't even fake a grin. Later I was told, people thought I was trying to be sexy by starring down the judges. Not so much. I knew I lost before I got on stage, which is never a good way to start a competition.

Even if I arrived early, tanned, ate enough carbs and showed up relaxed, I still did not have the muscle tone these girls did because I chose to train "naturally". This was not a competition for me.

As soon as the pre-judging was over, I rushed out of there. I didn't even want to go to the final judging. I went to cheesecake factory with my big hair, fake eyelashes, and caked on makeup. I ordered a salad and two slices of cake and asked them to bring them all out at once. I didn't finish it, but I felt so much better after I had eaten a real meal.

The reason I was so upset is because, going into this, I thought this was a chance to test my physical ability to shape my body. I knew body builders took steroids to look like machines, but in my naivete, I never imagined people would take drugs to win a "bikini" competition. It wasn't until I was 30 days out that my coaches started suggesting I take things to have a fighting chance. If they had told me from the start I never would have signed up. I don't like to quit, and I really believed I could win on my own if I lifted enough weight, ate at the same times each day, and followed the same protocol as other champions. I literally worked my butt off and didn't stand a chance. I am not saying everyone does steroids, but I was in the wrong competition. There are many other divisions that test for muscle enhancers, this one did not.

The other reason I was upset was because I dieted for 3 months and at the last minute 1 major mistake threw me off the entire competition. If I had gone up on Thursday, instead of Friday, I would have had the time to register, tan, and arrive poised. It was a silly mistake that could have been avoided.

I don't know if I will ever compete again. What I liked was the hard deadline to drop body fat and gain muscle; the fear of appearing in front of hundreds in a bikini kept me focused. However, it is very political and who wins is subjective. It's not like they take your body fat and judge you on that. If you look at the top 5 contestants in Oxygen Magazine or Fitness Rx, they all look like winners to me. It is very difficult to know that you could starve and over train yourself for months only to go home empty handed, and even the winners don't get much more than a trophy and sometimes a couple grand. I didn't feel healthy, I wasn't listening to my body, and my friends didn't like me. I personally don't get it, but I can see it's appeal to those who compete. What I do know is the last month, I was not myself and I am still recovering.

2 Days to Go - Smoke and Mirrors

I cannot begin to tell you how difficult this month has been. The closer I got to the competition, the crazier everything became. For starters, all three of my coaches had a different ideas on how I should look, what I should eat, and types of exercises. I read as many forums as humanly possible, took the advice of all three, and listened to what my body needed.

I had a couple breakdowns. One time, I started balling for no reason on my way home from dinner. I'm not talking about quiet tears, gently strolling down my face; I mean baby in a landing airplane wails. I don't know why I said "one time" because this actually happened several times. I want to appologize to Ali, Glen, Maria, Larissa, and anyone else I terrorized.

Three weeks out, I got sever allergic reaction. I am not sure to what, but it could have been the tanning, dieting, or over training. My body likes to be all natural and isn't used to the abuse I was putting it through. After seeing a doctor, who seemed more concerned than myself, I was forced to take 6 days of rest. I was on several strong antihistamines and some oral corticosteroids. I couldn't workout because any time my body heated up I would break into a full blown rash. Anything I ate would also cause my body to break out, so when I did manage to eat, it was only in very small amounts. Showering and changing was unbearable; anything that touched my skin would also cause it to swell up. For 6 days, I couldn't eat, move, work, or stay awake. How is that for your body trying to tell you something?

Two weeks out, I binge ate. Let me explain what happened; I sat down and started with a protein bar, then I ate another one. I was still hungry, so I shoved half a rice cake into a jar of almond butter and ate the entire dripping thing. I did the same thing to the other half. I finished off an entire bag of nuts. I ate my husbands left overs from the night before. I defrosted a few meatballs, a spinach triangle, maybe two, and ate them all with hot sauce. I saw a box of Honey Nut Cheerios and ate that by the fist full. There might have been a few other victims in this massacre, but I plead not guilty. It happens to most on their first competition. Your body is so deprived, you lose control. I probably did more good by giving in, but I could have prevented it. I have been depriving my self since August, my body forced me to take a rest and eat. If I ever do this competition again, I will make sure to incorporate small cheats once a week up until a couple of weeks out.

That night, I did a full hour of cardio and the next morning I went on my favorite 7 mile run. I looked and weighed exactly the same 2 days later. So for any of you who fall off the wagon and are consumed with guilt, let it go. The guilt will do more harm than good. Accept the situation for what it was, give your body the workout it deserves, and get right back on.
That chapter of my life seems to be eons away. I have spent the last week preparing for my show. Every competitor has a different plan at this point, and it depends on their genetics, current body fat, discipline, and training. I don't plan on sharing my secrets right now, because (a) it is specific to me, so I don't want you trying this at home and (b) I don't want other competitors borrowing my tricks.

One thing I can say is that in the last 2 months I have dropped over 15 lbs. A solid 5 to 8 of them I will put right back on after the show because it was simply water weight. This is my smoke and mirrors phase, as Maria likes to call it. Let me outline my week to you, and why I needed to take the entire week of work.

Monday - I spent the morning performing an hour of cardio to burn off any glycogen I was still storing. I went home to eat, sleep and shower, and then I went right back to the gym for a total body workout. I shook the entire time and cried while I did pull ups; just a small example of how crazy I've been.

Tuesday -With still no carbs in my system, I went on a 90-minute run. After a shower and a very, very, tiny meal, I layed in bed for a couple hours. When I got up I had to go get my wax from Sydney's Salon, on Union. I like to go there because they are incredibly thorough with everything they do. Afterwards, was my nail appointment; every detail matters when on stage, down to my long and shiny nails. It's a miracle I have not torn them off yet.

Wednesday - Even less carbs in my system and barely any food, I do 45 minutes of very light cardio. I feel like a robot at this point; just going through the motions and completely numb. I can barely move the rest of the day so I distract myself with cheesy movies, like Zookeeper and Monte Carlo, I love Selena Gomez.

Later that afternoon, I got my pedicure, to match my suit. I also had to make an emergency run to Apple. In the 10 years that I have owned a cell phone, I have never broken one, dropped it in water, scratched it or damaged it in any other way. This last month, I turned my phone into a weapon by dropping it so many times every part of it became shattered glass. The moment I showed the Apple guy my phone, his eyes popped open, he grabbed a bag to throw my phone into and demanded I go wash off any shards still on my hands. I got a brand new phone for free.

Thursday - I feel useless. It took every ounce of energy to shower and eat my tiny excuse of a meal. Today I get my first spray tan. If you've never been spray tanned, like myself, you might be uncomfortable stripping down to your birthday suit, putting on a shower cap, stepping on sticky shoes, and finally stand like a human canvas while a stranger with a hose sprays you from head to toe with paint. I was terrified of this whole experience, but lucky for me, the famous Glow Queen, Sinead from Couture Glow, personally sprayed me. She explained the entire process and made me feel beautiful and comfortable.

Like an artist, Sinead payed attention to every detail, highlighting my strengths, and making sure her work was perfect before letting me step out. As for the infamous orange glow, I did not see a single sign of it. I look like I spent 2 weeks in Hawaii, and it took less than 20 minutes, with no damage to my skin. I honestly don't know how I got so lucky to have such amazing people holding my hand through this entire process.

Friday - I need to pack and head to Sacramento. I am almost done and I cannot wait to be on stage. I'm not scared, just relieved this is almost over. I feel like I lost myself a bit in this competition and I cannot wait to be myself again. Oh, and eat three pieces of chocolate cake. Mmmmh, cake. Ali is trying to talk me into making a healthier choice for my post-comp meal, tough luck; this picture is what gets me going in the morning.

See you all Saturday!