Hi friends! I’m now 10 days away from my competition… the finish line is in sight! My coach gave me all my instructions for the rest of this week and next week (“peak week”). My calories have dropped again just slightly so I can come in as lean and tight as possible. But we’re still talking 1800 here, so I am not complaining at all!
Breakfast was a big bowl of oatmeal… as always! I have every combination under the sun, and I love them all. This one is chocolate zucchini with blueberries, banana, & peanut butter. It’s sort of like “PB&J” oats. As far as the zucchini is concerned, I just grate raw zucchini into the oats and cook it all together… I can’t even tell it’s there, but it adds volume (and a serving of veggies!) to my bowl.
I had my usual morning routine of 30 minutes cardio, an hour of posing practice, and my 50 minute upper body circuit. This pretty much takes me until “snack time” (I eat every 3-4 hours), and I’m glad of it, because I’m starving by this point! Even though my calories have dropped a bit, I still keep my breakfast and snack higher in calories and carbs because this is when I’m the most active. I had 2 peanut butter brownies (like my sweet potato brownies, but with powdered peanut butter instead of cocoa powder, so yummy!) with a chocolate protein frosting and more peanut butter. With it I had a green smoothie (spinach, fresh mint, frozen pineapple & papaya, spirulina, vanilla protein powder, almond milk & fresh coconut water) and some fresh papaya.
Lunch was a bowl of ground turkey, brown rice, roasted pumpkin, and green beans. I drizzled tahini and grated some fresh lemon zest over the top. This is a fairly lean meal, but oh so satisfying.
I try to keep my afternoons pretty quiet… I rest, hang out with Mark if he’s home, catch up on emails… anything where I can be sitting down! Once in a blue moon I’ll photo shoot a recipe to blog for you guys, ha ha… like yesterday’s raspberry papaya smoothie. And then, lucky me, I get to have it for my snack!
It’s really not enough, though, so I added on this pumpkin oat cookie with a LOT of sunbutter and cacao nibs. Sometimes I see the “prep food” that other competitors are eating… and it seems dry and boring to me. I honestly don’t think I could have made it this far if I’d have had to eat nothing but plain oatmeal & egg whites for 12 weeks. Yummy food is so important!
This simple dinner really hit the spot, and it was super quick to make, too. I grilled some halibut with herbed salt & lemon, and alongside we had roasted potatoes & steamed zucchini. I added some nutritional yeast to the zucchini to give it a cheese-y taste.
My calories didn’t allow anything sweet for me after dinner tonight, but that’s ok… I’d had my smoothie & cookie earlier in the day, and those peanut butter brownies…mmm. But truly, I don’t crave sweets as much as I used to! I wonder if I’ll be able to say this on October 22…
Happy Hump Day, friends!