GTC Fitness

Competing was such an eye opening experience, it showed me a much more in depth look at what the competition life is like. It’s such a different training style and lifestyle, it’s something that requires a significant amount of determination and mental strength. But it’s also something that’s so fulfilling because after grueling for so long, once you’re finally on stage, your just so proud and happy to have stuck it out no matter the outcome!

And because of that, I’m definitely going to do it again. I am currently pretty undersized for classic physique but that’s no problem. My goal is to add 10-15 pounds to my upper body over the next couple of years and that will help me really stand a chance.

So follow along on my journey and let’s reach our goals together 💪🏾💪🏾

My first ever competition and boy what a journey it was from start to finish! There were 500+ competitors at this one and I’m happy to say I was able to medal twice! 4th in Men’s Classic Physique Open Class C and 5th in True Novice! This was definitely a competitive one with many great athletes out there!

But I’d say I did pretty well for being self trained and natural! I didn’t do as well in Men’s physique and my posing for that was definitely a big part of it! I focused much more on posing practice for classic. But hey, I used this comp really as a test to see if
1) I can start out on a difficult goal and finish, which I did 2) to see if I would even like competing and how much I would enjoy it and 3) if I did enjoy it, to figure out which division I would enjoy the most!

Being on stage was such a fun experience and I figured out that I want to continue pursuing classic physique. I enjoyed it much more then physique and I get to show off my legs and have more individuality with it! The main thing I need to work on to really stand a chance is to add some size to my upper body, then I think I’ll be truly competitive.

That being said the only thing that really made me waiver was the week leading up to peak week, it was HELL for me and it was probably the lowest mentally I’ve been in years. But I’m glad I pushed through and didn’t give up because the results truly paid off.

Shoutout to .mealey .mealey for the tips and advice to help me stay on track when I needed, they are amazing people!

A big THANK YOU to everyone for their support ❤️

PEAK WEEK

We are 3 days out, and I’m EXCITED! Peak week was definitely a struggle, my energy at an all time low, last week mentally was probably the lowest I’ve been in years, and my clients definitely noticed. It was ass for sure.

I tried not to, but I’m glad .mealey advised me to take at least most of the week off aand that’s helped me a lot!

and .mealey are heaven sent for helping me with posing today, giving me tips and pointers that were very needed. They are some great people!

I’m very happy with how my cut has been, I’m 5% body fat and trying not go much lower since it’s really not healthy to go lower than that, you start really cutting into the vital fat you need.

No matter what happens, I’m just happy I set out and committed to this and saw it all the way through. It’s rewarding to even make it to stage.

P.S. my face in the second pic is a vibe and you know it…

Last weeks progress!

Taking it week by week, remember no matter what your fitness level is, it all starts by taking it one day at a time! You can’t rush your body or your goals. Consistency and time will get you where you want to be!

Setbacks are a part of the journey…

This approach applies for any part of your life. The more you get hung up on how you may have failed at something, the more you are going to be stuck in a cycle of self deprecation. The more you’re going to lose trust in yourself. Next time something happens, try and take a step outside of the situation and start asking yourself questions.

“How can I learn from this?”

“How will this help me grow?”

“Will this setback effect my life long term”

Tell your self

“It’s okay not to be pleasant all the time. Everyone has a bad day sometime.”

“All I can do is my best”

This especially applies to your fitness and wellness journey. Pursuing your body goals is not a straight path, it’s a rollercoaster, you are going to have ups and downs. It’s all about whether you keep moving forward. Feeling weak one workout? That’s okay, you’re not going to have a strong day everyday, maybe you have some built up CNS fatigue, rest. Slipped up on your diet? That’s okay, live your life, just try and get consistent with it the next day, don’t get hung up on it. It takes more than 1 day or 2 days of messing up to gain even 1lb of fat. You’d have to eat 3500 calories ABOVE your maintenance to even gain 1 lb. That means if you’re maintenance is 2000 calories a day, you’d have to eat 5500 in one day. That’s hard to do even for me…

There is no such thing as the best diet out there.

Remember that every body is different, has different metabolic and nutritional needs. If your goal is fat loss, then the simplest way to start is by asking yourself, how do I get into a healthy caloric deficit?? And by healthy I mean, you shouldn’t immediately cut your food intake down. If you’re already eating less than 1200 calories then you’ll actually have to reverse diet to a healthy level before you see any good results.

NOONE SHOULD BE BELOW 1200 calories. NOONE!

The less calories you eat, the more your body tries to conserve energy and burn less calories overall, so when you’re at such a low level you’re not gonna see much results.

A healthy deficit starts with you already eating enough so that you’re not malnourished.

There are so many studies being done right now comparing diets and really there isn’t a consensus on what the best diet is. There have been small differences in terms of weight loss, the most important thing was whether you were in a deficit and were able to MAINTAIN that deficit.

So moral of the story is pick one that you can see yourself doing for awhile that isn’t torture. And STICK with it, as you get leaner it gets harder to continue to lose fat, that’s why patience is key. Also Keto sucks.

Sources:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25182101/

https://ebm.bmj.com/content/20/3/103

My progress!

This was last week and I’m already seeing a night and day difference week by week! Almost 4 weeks to go now! My energy is starting to take a dip so old man mode is now in full effect. You’ll find me falling asleep around 9 now 🤷🏾‍♂️

Back pain while exercising.

A lot of people complain of back pain after squats, RDLs, Deadlifts, bent over rows, etc. Some tightness or soreness is expected, but should be MINIMAL during these lifts. The most common reason is improper core bracing or a lack of core stability.

When bracing our core we should think about pushing our stomach down and out. Imagine having a belt around your stomach, you should try to stretch the belt as much as possible with your stomach and hold that throughout the movement! This is proper bracing!

Our goal is to create intra abdominal pressure by breathing down and filling our torso with air and holding that. You can generate massive amounts of spinal stability when you do this!

Once you do this efficiently you’ll see your back pain decrease during these movements.

Doing bird dogs where you practice this feeling in your warm-ups will help prime your body for lifts! Try doing 2-3 sets of 10 with a 5 sec hold on each side!

3 years...

Wow I didn’t even realize how much of a change I’ve made over the last 3 years! I’m so happy with where I am right now! My goal was never to be the biggest person out there, I’ve always just wanted to look good and be kind of strong at the same time!

I’m excited for the progress I’ve still yet to make! Follow along and let’s grow together 💪🏾

Work in progress!

Officially less than 6 weeks out, excited to see the progress I’m gonna make! These last weeks are gonna be the hardest and truly will test me! But that’s where the last of the belly fat starts to roll off!

Your Mentality Dictates your Success.

Mental health and your state of mind is such an under appreciated aspect of wellness. People tend to not understand how your mindset can be the single largest inhibitor of you achieving your goals.

If you view yourself as worthless, then everything you do will follow suit. If you view yourself as not having the ability to take the next step, then you won’t take the next step. Having trust in yourself is the single most important thing to focus on when trying to achieve a goal.

Yet it’s so easy to lose that trust in yourself. Your actions will start to have less effort, your actions will start to have less meaning if you don’t focus on developing that trust in yourself.

As cliche as it sounds, I have a lot of my clients start with daily affirmations in the mirror. Speak OUT LOUD what you want into existence. Everyday start with saying a few sentences in the mirror like:

You are strong.
You have the ability to move forward.
You are confident.
You are amazing.
You will succeed.

Even if you don’t believe it at first, eventually you will. It takes time, it takes consistency, but most importantly it takes a start. It takes a day 1. Everyone started as a beginner.

For those who are getting discouraged by not losing lower belly fat THIS IS FOR YOU!

I know it’s disheartening to see those problem areas not going away, but keep up the hard work! It is paying off! Those problem areas are stubborn due to certain fat cells having higher Alpha-2 Receptors. These receptors impair fat mobilization. Which basically means, certain fat areas breakdown slower than others! But they will break down! They are just usually the last to go unfortunately :((

There are other more in depth reasons, but this is just the basics of it! Our body releases hormones to mobilize fat when we diet and exercise and different areas of our body have different distributions of receptors that respond to those hormones!

So eventually that stubborn fat will go away! Just keep up the grind and remember you are not alone!!