30 weeks left to my first NPC Bikini show… and while my Week 1 fitness was consistent, my Week 1 nutrition was awful… and some epiphanies came from it.

I watch a lot of YouTube videos from IFBB Bikini Pros. I want to know what their approach, strategies and mindset consist of and, all week, I heard a statement they didn’t quite explain and it’s taken me all week to understand: dialing in fitness and nutrition.

Over and over, a number of competitors talked about how they finally hit a point where either their fitness or nutrition was ‘dialed in’ but they never explained what that meant… so I looked and looked for more videos or forums or blog posts that would explain it.

And here’s what I discovered: getting to a place (in terms of fitness competition prep) where you’re in a really good rhythm with your fitness and/or nutrition is what people mean when they say they’re ‘dialed in.’

In other words, when you find your way of prepping and that way is both producing results and becomes your way of living, you’re dialed in… and here’s the other thing I noticed about the competitors who said that- it’s takes a while to dial in.

Now… going back to my Week 1 of prep. My nutrition sucked. I wasn’t at all dialed in and what getting to the bottom of the term ‘dialed in’ did for my mindset was something very powerful: it grounded me in the reality of what this prep is really about.

In prior attempts at prepping, my mindset on it was all-or-nothing. Either I follow strict nutrition and fitness guidelines ALL the way or NONE of the way. By nature, I’m a 0-100 person so that is my natural inclination to handling just about anything in my life.

However, I’m now starting to see that this fitness journey is so much more about iteration, learning, improving, tweaking, and making tiny shifts that, in the long run, produce MASSIVE gains… and I’m not used to that. I like to sprint through life. I do things fast and slow processes bore me… but ‘dialing in’ is a slow process.

So… there are a few pieces that I learned from Week 1 that I’m going to focus on to help me get closer to ‘dialed in’ during Week 2 and here they are:

1. I need a nightly treat. I love sweets. I could give up bread and pasta and have no desire for cheese but try to take my chocolate, swedish fish or sour patch kids away from me and watch another side come out! And I noticed that many competitors keep a daily or nightly treat as part of their daily macros. When they get closer to the show (6-10 weeks out), I’m sure they cut that but until you get really close to the show, there’s no reason to cut that. So I ‘dialed in’ and asked myself, “What sweet treat would I like to eat every night that would satisfy my sweet tooth and still work with my macros?” and the answer was clear- Hershey’s kisses. 7 of those a night equals 160 calories and I can still keep my protein high and my carbs relatively low and have nightly chocolate. #winning
2. I need to put more focus on choosing proteins that please me. After a while, four meals a day of chicken and broccoli is nauseating and I realized this week that there are so many other protein sources that I love (and actually crave) more… So, in Week 2, I’m going to incorporate more shrimp, steak, salmon and even paleo style chicken wings (still chicken but tastes much better) into the mix. My fat percentage will be higher but at least I’ll follow through and get my protein in.
3. I have to get my protein, green drink and brazil nuts in right after I workout. If I don’t eat after working out, I start to feel weak and, before you know it, I’m starving hungry and then I reach for foods that I don’t need to be eating (like Wheat Thins). So… getting in my post-workout supplements, daily vitamins, hot lemon water, apple cider vinegar, protein shake, and green drink by 10 am (and before I have my egg whites, bacon, and carrots Meal 1) is critical to me following my macros for the rest of the day.
4. HUGE gamechanger here: I need to enter in all my macros in MyFitnessPal for the day BEFORE I have meal 1. I did this once or twice last week and I found it helped me stick to my macros. Once it’s all in MyFitnessPal, the moment I’m tempted eat foods not on today’s plan, I can shift it in MyFitnessPal, see the damage to macros and not do that.

So… those are the changes I’m making to nutrition this week. The goal is simple: see how the tweaking impacts my nutrition and learn from this week’s tweaking so I can tweak some more in Week 3 or however long it takes for me to get ‘dialed in.’

On the fitness side of things, I’m finally starting to see my delts develop (it’s been years since I’ve seen that delt separation) but my legs and glutes are not budging (even with doing spin 6 times a week and lifting legs 3 times a week) so I’m going to add some band and pilates training to my leg days and give myself the next 6-8 weeks to see if I can get my glutes higher, my legs leaner and my quad muscles closer to what they once were.

Again, dialing in is a process… and my 0/100 self is fighting the process on the inside… which is why commitment to my goal (IFBB Bikini Pro) is what I have to keep my eye on.

Here we go…