SuperDuperQuickBlogPost

My life is absolutely crazy right now. Aside from the holiday hustle & bustle, we are constantly working on our house projects while the weather is still relatively mild, I had 3 good friends get engaged over the Christmas weekend, I'm an aunt for the 5th time on Christmas Eve, my sister gave birth to my beautiful niece Hailey Davis (maiden names are always the middle names in their family), and I have been working like a mad woman at my new job.

Exhausted.
My new job has been nutso. There are so many different facets to what needs to get done in this job, its amazing. Last week, I will admit, I had been working so hard and trying to get everything done that I completely went a full work day without food (don't ask) and I think I had to be told to go home no less than 3 times last week. This week is a bit better, starting to get more in the groove, however, I still have crazier weeks to come this January. But this week I have been better with my meal times.

Anyway, if you have emailed me, texted me, facebooked me, tweeted me, called me and I have not gotten back to you... I'm so sorry! Just give me a kind reminder and I will. :) Also sorry I haven't read any of your blogs! Work is really cramping my style right now.

Ouch.
I wasn't real excited about this. I mean, its hard to get excited about an injury but just wanted to show you all the severity of the injury as well as what I am doing to work on healing.

I was also not real excited about taking and showing these photos. But our bodies show the reality of our lives and choices and this is my reality of where I am in starting prep. I discussed my injury with my prep coach and he feels we have adequate time to work on healing and start prep. But that does mean diet needs to be clean right now, which is has been... but  for me right now it means that I just need to be on guard for other random foods around this time of year, instead of being lackadaisical about my nutrition. My FBM content is slightly lower than my last prep, I have about 2 lbs more muscle (which put me at 98.5 LBM, right where I wanted to be), and definitely have my work cut out for me.

At first, like I said I wasn't really excited about taking and showing these photos. But the more I look at them, the better I see myself. I think my mind has been skewed in how I see myself. I think NOT doing my competition in October was worse on my self-esteem than anything else. But at any rate, you can tell I've increased some muscle mass... although my frame shows the fat I've put on, it definitely holds differently. Still mostly in my love-handles and tum tum, but I can still see some V-Cut going on and feel stronger (aside from my low back).

See that horrible scoliosis looking gross spine curvature?! My body is trying desperately to take weight off my hip. These were taken last Tuesday (12/13). But I was walking everyday, like I was told to. And have been able to run a few times in this last week. I even did abs on Monday! I could still feel the strain in my back, so I only did a few sets and listened to my body. But yeah, can definitely tell a difference in my tummy an addition of muscle. :) Kind of excited to see what it looks like underneath!

Prep.
I'm officially in hard core prep on Monday. Meaning, no option of sleeping in versus am cardio. :) Again, I'm committing to the Emerald Cup in Seattle on April 21st and probably the Empire Classic on April 28th. Also considering the Bill Pearl Classic in Bend, OR on May 12th but we will see (pretty much only if this prep goes smoother than last time, boyfriends only stay with emotional wrecks for so long haha). Yep, still planning on Bikini... May try my hand at Figure at the Empire Classic, just for fun. I'll admit that while I want my body to look more like bikini.... I have a figure back. Its just the truth. I was a swimmer for years and just have a thicker back.

So anyway, since I have taken up 23 minutes of work time typing this up I had better get back at it (okay seriously, this is my only time to do this stuff!) and get some breakfast... Next week there will be progress pictures!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday and Take it easy out there on New Years people! ;)