And here I am....

Wow, I truly cant believe that me Britney, will be posting my first blog post tonight!! Many times I considered it... Different topics came to mind but never turned into a post. However today is a different story. Why you might ask? Well as of today my husband (Joshua) and I are in our final 12 weeks to our first figure/bodybuilding competition!!! It will be May 28th in Columbia, SC for The Palmetto Cup.

As I read that statement i can feel my stomach get tight, lol. I'm so nervous I can hardly stand it but also ubber EXCITED!!! For so many years I have struggled with my weight as most people have. Losing and gaining pound after pound but one year ago on Easter 2010 we were given a diet that changed our lives. My Mom had been telling me about my cousin and how she had gotten into amazing shape. I hadn't seen her in quite a while and well she was already beautiful to begin with so I thought how much could she have really changed? When I actually saw her that Easter I couldn't believe it. She had put on muscle in places I didn't know you could. Tone arms, tight abs, a butt you could bounce a dime off of and legs, oh the legs. I immediately said what are you doing and how can I get some?! Come to find out it was no special diet pill or "get slim quick" gimmick. She literally had to make a lifestyle change and on April 4th Joshua and I made that same change.

Christmas 2009

Our Amazing Wedding Sept. 4, 2010

She sent me a copy of the diet the following day which was a carb cycling schedule. It was 6 meals a day consisting of clean foods. Protein, complex (slow digesting) carbs, healthy fats and green veggies. We ate the same things everyday and each day had a different amount of carbs we ate and at different time of the day. Like if we worked out we had a post workout meal that consisted of a certain amount of protein and carb's. Let me tell you this was not easy to follow at first. Everyday we had to weigh out and measure all of our meals. If it wasn't on the list we didn't eat it. For two weeks we followed the diet and started seeing immediate results. I think I lost 6-8 lbs those first few weeks.The real amazement was that I was committed to this plan and I followed it religiously. Not to mention we also were allowed "cheat or re-feed" meal every few weeks (but for a certain reason which ill get into in later blog post). Also we followed a workout plan that we found on http://www.bodybuilding.com/. That is probably one of our top "go to" sites when we needed a workout or nutrition info. I still use it along with others now.

I continued on this plan from April to right before our wedding in September. I had went from 188 lbs to 167 lbs.  The week of the wedding and during I really didn't follow the plan at all, however I did notice that I found myself eating every two to the three hours like I was supposed to. For one: I was hungry at those times and just reacted to my body which I had never done in the past. Interesting.... Secondly: it was kind of engraved in my head that I needed to eat regardless of what I was doing because through lots of research we had found that the major component to losing weight or being healthy for that matter is regulating your blood sugar ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_sugar_regulation ). Now for a long time I didn't know exactly how it worked I just knew that if I didn't eat and I let my blood sugar spike that I would gain weight, and that was just not an option at this point. I had worked to hard and come so far but I wasn't finished I had more to lose! My goal at first was 150 lbs and so that meant I had 17 more pounds to lose. After the wedding I got right back on my plan and really stepped it up in the gym. The scale once again started moving. By Christmas I had lost another 10 lbs and was feeling so great! Now during this time from the wedding to I guess right before Thanksgiving Joshua had decided that he was going to do a bodybuilding competition. Crazy right? AND he asked me to do it with him. I quickly said "I don't think so. I am not depriving myself of all the foods I MIGHT want just for some contest I'm not gonna win." Being the amazing husband he is and always telling how I can do anything I want he really encouraged me and told me that there's no reason why I couldn't win a show eventually. For as long as I can remember I also set goals for myself. Always striving to be better tomorrow than I am today and the more I thought about it the more I wanted to do it. I'm 26 years old, I don't have to work and I have all the time in the world to do whatever I want. I can recall many times sitting in an office by myself feeling worthless eating my cheese burger and thinking if I didn't have to work I would be in the best shape of my life. Well here was my opportunity, so I decided I was going to go for gold and do a figure competition........

After finding the right show and finding the right trainer Joshua and I got started the 2nd week of January really trying to lose as much body fat as possible. From January to today I have lost another 12 lbs coming in at 5'6 146 lbs. My contest goal weight is 135. From what I've learned about competing in figure it's not so much about the weight that I'm concerned about but as to how tone and lean I can get for the show. I will say that our trainer is nothing but great and very encouraging. He has made Joshua and I really feel like we are going to have the look and courage to stand on stage next to people that have been doing this much longer than we have. He and his wife also compete so it's safe to say they know what the heck they are doing, lol!

                                                Before                After
 Nov. 2009 @ 188Feb. 2011 @ 148 lbs

For the next 12 weeks I will consistly post here about our journey. I also want to offer any support and help that I can for anyone looking for help on getting in shape. Weather its just losing a few lbs or a lot of lbs I truly feel like since I've got the "been there done that" t-shirt I can offer some real life tips to losing the weight and keeping it off. For those of you reading this and truly wanting to change something in your life just know it can be done. You truly can have it all and find your own NorthStar. I have never been happier in my whole life and when you make the right decisions on a daily basis weather it be to eat the cheesecake or not, skip the workout or not, pay $2 more for the chicken breast instead of the fatty thigh's cause there on sale, it all adds up. And when your "right decision piggy bank" starts getting full great things start happening....

So heres to finding your NorthStar.