Round up

Well, it looks like I will not be attending the North American Bodybuilding Championships in Cleveland this weekend. The figure competitors (my category) are judged at 8:30 a.m. on Sat. and that's a wee bit too early. Of course, if I REALLY wanted to go, I'd get up at 6:30, be out the door by 7:30 and in my seat by 8:30. But the truth is, I'd rather not extend myself at that hour. Plus, I have a feeling that the show would seriously mess with my head. Some of the women who are competing have taken drugs and the difference is apparent, and I'd wind up spending the whole time there wondering who's natural and who's not. That's annoying. Of course, I'll be wondering the same thing during the show I'm competing in, but hey, whatever. It's worth recalling though that the judging criteria is not based on size but definition, symmetry and proportion. And muscles built naturally stay with you after the show, whereas muscles that are "juiced" deflate after the show, assuming the drugs are curtailed to avoid dire consequences.

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As it turns out, last night was my last swim in the backyard pool. The heat has evaporated enough water where the level is lower than it needs to be and I don't want to fill it up with a hose for the purpose of 1 or 2 more swims, only to drain the whole thing in 10 more days for the paint job. So trainer Glenn has stepped up and offered another method of torture: hills. He plans to join me at a sledding hill to scale it with weight somehow attached to me. I haven't bothered to gain a full understanding of what he has in mind cuz it would instill fear and trepidation. I prefer blissful ignorance, for as long as it can last. Our first session will be Wed. "But what if it rains?" I asked Glenn. "So?" was his reply. I guess I can count on participating in this activity no matter what. It will only take about 10 or 20 minutes, he said, depending on how much rest I require.

This exercise fits Glenn's "minimal cardio" approach to fitness. It's based on the principle that dedicated cardio beyond roughly 20 minutes can lead to catabolism where muscle is burned for fuel instead of fat. Of course, cardio (or an elevated heart rate) is a direct part of solid weight training, especially where super sets are involved (a set of say 12 reps with one exercise or machine, then a set of 12 with another exercise or machine, repeated in rotation say 3 times). This builds muscle while burning fat. What's considered by many fitness professionals to be a superior form of cardio is the HIIT approach (high intensity interval training) where the heart rate spikes through challenging work for say a minute, then drops for a minute, then spikes, then drops over maybe 8-10 minutes. Weight training can achieve this pattern. So can hill climbing. Gravity will be very punishing.

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This holiday weekend will be the final challenge to my meal-time mettle. I'm going to be surrounded by lots of food and alcohol and those things will not be easy to resist. My only coping mechanism is to try to ensure that I'm never hungry when I'm around the things I can't eat. This method makes it a little easier to control myself. But it's still hard. Really hard. I know, however, that the time period for which I need to behave is shrinking, and there's sugar on the horizon! I think about this a lot, too. I try to imagine a gradual reintroduction, rather than a massive binge. Except we just booked an 8 day cruise for winter break. If I manage to not go crazy up until then, I don't know how well I'll succeed on vacation. I guess there's always my food scale, measuring cups and calorie restriction for when I return.