Saturday, November 8, 2008

The Cardio Question: Part II

Well, I think outside of announcing I am competing, I think this post has gotten the most comments ever! :) Yeah! I LIKE it.

Most of your questions/comments surround the following questions Cynthia asked in her comment so let me clarify. :)


Q: Can you clarify why you were doing that much cardio that far out?

A: I did two shows back to back - one in early June and one six weeks later. So the 12 weeks I was doing was in between the two shows (6 weeks) and 6 weeks prior to (so not far off of what you guys were doing).


Q: Was it your diet?

A: No, my diet was good - I was carb cycling and started at 1800, then went to around 1500 calories about 6 weeks out (from the first show) and then 4 weeks out I was down to around 1200.

Q: Was it that you had adapted?
A: Might have been.


Q: Were you in starvation mode?

A: I am assuming during the last four weeks I was....tired, crabby, cranky and poopy.

Q: Were you instructed to do it?
A: I, like many of you, read a ton for about three years before I started competing. Oxygen used to print training routines and diets for any competitor they featured. So, I literally have pages and pages of what Jenny Lynn, Jenny Hendershott, Gina Aliotti, Mary Lado, Davina Medina, etc. While I didn't hire a trainer, I did a bunch of research and I based my training around my progress and biofeedback.


Ok, so all that being said...the one thing I want to point out is that I don't know what would have happened if I would have done it ANOTHER way. That's the rub right - what would have happened if I WOULDN"T have trained that way. For me, I added the additional cardio when I still wasn't seeing the results I wanted to see. Part of it is hard b/c you have to TRUST it will happen. You just never know. :)

In fact you never know WHAT life will bring you.

I think doing two shows back to back like that was a bad idea. I was over trained and it affected so much of my daily life.

More later. BIG VLOG to come tomorrow. :) Stop back in - it will be a REALLY good one. I promise.

Jess

6 comments:

Cathy said...

Maybe we should call it the cardio trap :)
xo
Cat

Kelly Olexa said...

TAGGED YOU ARE IT. CHECK MY BLOG.

;-)
K

Stef said...

Hey Jess~
I am not a big fan of cardio and I think it is absolutely crazy that people are either instructed by their trainer or doing it on their own because they think that is what it will take.

I will give you my story and maybe that will shed light on why I believe this.

This time last year, I didn't have a trainer, but was following an old diet that I had used in the past. I was eating about 1200 cals daily (but started to binge here and there) and was doing cardio 6 days a week for about an hour. I decided to hire a trainer (in person) and the first thing he did was to tell me that I absolutely didn't need to be doing all that cardio! He immediately upped my calories to 2100 and had me cut back my cardio to twice a week at 20 minutes of moderate intensity. I was skeptical to say the least. I kept thinking "i know my body", which is something I hear from several competitors all the time. But, when they say that, I am thinking...."have you considered trying it the other way??" Anyway, the new approach worked and the fat was melting off!

Sorry such a long comment, but I feel strongly about this.

=)

Jessica said...

Hey y'all!

Ok, so I started thinking about the "cardio trap" and I guess I want to make sure people out there know that the recommendation for 2 hours of cardio is given by MANY trainers...which is why Erik posted his blog posts. And Scott Abel (who I am another big fan of) has a blog where he talks about the cardio issue as well. It is sad and not good.

So, while I was self prescribed I am not alone b/c many girls are out there doing it.

Stef - there is NEVER a long comment in my opinion. :) Thank you for sharing. :)

Jess

Visionquester said...

Yeah... I agree with Stef...

It's about finding that sweet spot.
Where you are giving yourself enough calories for energy to continue lifting hard in the gym.. but still at a deficit..

Alot of times... your body just gets scared you are going to continue starving so to speak so it holds on to the fat.

You body needs to know it's going to be fed...it needs to be able to trust you enough to release some of it's fat stores... does that make sense??

~C.

Visionquester said...

Jess... I thought I saw some guy training you in the Beverly Newsletter???

~C.