#36 - Competition Life
Hey, hey ladies, how are you? I am recording this episode ahead of time because when this episode drops, I will be on the sunshine coast with one of my best and oldest friends and both of them are moms, for mother's day. We've rented a beautiful house right on the ocean, and it's got a hot tub and it's got all the bells and whistles and we're going to go. And just love each other and just so in all of the goodness. And mother's day couldn't have fallen on a better weekend so by the time this episode airs we'll have just wrapped up the WNBF Vancouver show. I've got three athletes from team Sculpt competing. I'm so excited for them. It's going to be such a good couple of weeks. Anyway, by the time this drops, that all will be happened and done, and I'll be enjoying my mama. Yeah. And then I'll tell you guys all about it next week. Okay. I promise. All right.
So what we're going to talk about today in episode number 36 is competition life. And I didn't prep for this episode. We're winging it today. So just me and you here, I'm going to tell you about competition life. So this is something that I fell in love with, which is the process of competition, which I think of as competition life. So you can expect your lifestyle to be like when you're in competition mode. So, if you're listening to this, you're probably already striving towards a sculpted lifestyle. And what I mean by that is you're purposefully making time to work out to meal prep. And you are aware of the things you're putting in your body and how your body looks and feels on a daily basis. This means you're already like 50%, they're my friends. So going into comp prep. What you can expect is that you're gonna get hyper vigilant and hyper focused on the things you already plan and prepare pretty well. What this looks like is for me, about 20 weeks out from competition, I sit down and I make a really solid game plan. So for my athletes that come to me at 16 weeks out, I do this for them at 16 weeks. So I sit down and I put together a solid game plan of exactly what we should see their weight doing, exactly what I'm going to focus on training wise each month, what their nutrition strategy is going to be, all of those things I plan out in advance. Now, once you've done that, it doesn't mean you can't change them. Right? The strategy sometimes shifts and changes depending on what comes up for you in life and how your body is reacting to the plan. But I like to have that blueprint done ahead of time. So once that is all done, then you get to work on living life. So what this looks like for me, when I'm in comp prep is I've got a pretty regimented meal prep schedule. So maybe this looks like grocery shopping every Sunday and spending a few hours really doing solid meal prep, making sure my refrigerate looks like a Tupperware bomb exploded by Monday morning and then maybe there's meal prep again, later in the week on Thursday. Literally, nutrition ends up becoming really simple when you just follow the plan. Personally, I much prefer to have a nutrition protocol than to do flex dieting for competition because I don't want to have to think about it. I don't want to think about what I feel like eating, usually what I feel like eating is not what I should be but I should be eating. Do you feel me? If you left it up to me to eat what I feel like, I would want pizza, all of the time. Okay. So that's what nutrition looks like. Training is very similar. So what you can expect your life to look like training wise is you're going to have to get very specific with your training regimen. It shouldn't be whenever I can fit it in or kind of sporadically placed throughout your calendar.
You should sit down and it should be very consistent day to day. This helps with energy with your body creating ATP to energize your workouts. It also helps you strategically, feed yourself for the best possible results. If you're working at different times each day, you're going to have to change your nutrition each day to best fuel your workouts. So if you're working at 7:00 AM every morning, you can create a strategy for nutrition that fuels you best for 7:00 AM workouts. Right? So I would look at my schedule and really decide when it is going to be best for my workouts. When can I be most consistent with it? When is the best time of day for my energy? How can I rearrange my schedule and what do I need to do to make this happen? Do I need to find puppy care childcare? Do I need to talk to my husband about making sure that this is, you know, my time. And really make sure that you've slotted that time in your calendar out so that you're not being interrupted. Make sure your phone is off. Make sure that no one needs you during that time so that you have that time to focus specifically on you and your training. And then as your prep goes, you may have to do this for posing as well. At the beginning of 16 week prep, I usually just throw posing first thing in the morning when I'm super lean. I like to take a look in the mirror, put my heels on, and do a couple of rounds of mandatories. And then before bed again. But as I get closer and closer to prep, posing time gets slotted in usually after my workout. And then again, later in the evening, So if you're pondering the idea of competition, you want to be prepared to spend about two hours a day, focusing on you and competition, whether that's two hours on meal prep, whether that's two hours of training imposing, whether it's coaching calls, that kind of thing. I take two hours a day, seven days a week to cover it. So is that a huge commitment? Yeah. That's 14 hours a week, that is almost a part-time job. But if you're already spending time in the gym and spending time on meal prep. It may not be as big of a commitment as big of a change, as you might think. All right, so it doesn't have to be four hours or six hours a day. It can be done strategically and purposefully and very efficiently, if it's planned ahead of time and you stick to the schedule, right. If you don't spend half an hour looking at social media, avoid your workout before you go. Okay. So workouts, nutrition , that's out of the way.
Let's talk a little bit about competition, life, and social life. So, this is where a lot of my athletes struggle a little bit is to try and figure out how competition can fit into their social life. And some athletes just prefer not to mesh the two, when they're in comp prep, they don't have a social life period, they just stick to their prep. They tell their friends that they will be available after the competition. And they isolate themselves down. This is one way to do it. It's not the way that I recommend. What I really recommend to my athletes is that they make sure that they talk to their friends and family about what they're doing and they ask for support. And what this might look like is them being invited to social events, but it's okay that they're bringing their own food or not drinking alcohol at those events. Right, or if you're going out for a night of dancing with girlfriends, It's okay. That you're drinking sugar-free red bull and soda water, right. Those kinds of situations can happen. It's all about how open you are with your goals and asking for people's support. And then also about how you're thinking and feeling about the situation because if you're complaining to your friends and family that you can't partake and that it's so hard and that it's too tempting. They're going to wonder why you're doing this, but if you're going out and having an amazing time and not minding that everyone else is drinking alcohol and eating cupcakes, and you're fine with your sugar-free red bull and protein shake, right. They're going to be like, okay, she's having a blast and looks amazing and we support her. Yay. Let's go. So, it's all about your attitude about it and how you want the experience to be. If you are experiencing FOMO at every turn. It's not going to be a great experience. But if you're like, this was my choice and I'm going to rock out and enjoy life and have fun with my friends and do all the family things. And do it all while sticking to my protocol. To me, that's a pretty awesome sculpted lifestyle right there. And this can totally totally be done. I've worked with athletes year after year that are in comp prep and we plan for camping trips and family reunions and road trips and trips to Mexico and all of it during camp prep, it is all possible with a little bit of strategic planning and the right attitude.
Let's talk about attitude just for a sec, because literally the attitude that you go through your comp prep with, will make or break your experience, my friends. If you go through comp prep feeling deprived and like it's hard work and like, you're not going to be ready in time and doubting yourself and wishing that you could eat all the things. You are going to hate the experience and you're going to be white, knuckling it the whole way there. And there's a really good chance that post-competition, you're going to end up with, uh, rebound, you're not happy with because of how unhappy you were through the experience. When I'm training an athlete, when I'm coaching an athlete who doesn't seem like they're enjoying the experience, I sit down and talk with them and ask them why they're doing it. And make sure that it's for the right reasons and remind them that it's supposed to be a good experience. They're doing this for themselves because they want to. If you stop wanting to why do it, if it stops being fun, what is the point even though you are sacrificing a little bit. And even though you are in a deficit and you might be a little bit more moody than usual right. Even though you can't have a treat every weekend, you get to have this amazing inspirational, bad ass body. And to me, that is such a trade off. And when you go into comp prep with the attitude of I'm doing this for me, and I want to be doing this and I want to inspire the people around me and I want to prove what's possible, everybody around you rallies together to support you and help you get there. Okay.
Let's talk about my experience with comp prep and why I love the process of comp prep so much. I've talked to you guys about all the ways that you get hyper vigilant. And when you get hyper vigilant in organization and planning in your nutrition and in your training and in your scheduling. This beautiful thing happens in every other area of your life. It all ends up being hyper vigilantly, planned and scheduled and beautifully put together. I know, and this may not be for every athlete. I don't speak for all of us, but for me, when I'm in comp prep. There isn't a time in life that I feel as organized as productive like, I am a little bit of a super human person. One of my goals with Ladies Sculpt the membership and this podcast, and my goals right now is creating that competition prep lifestyle that's a sculpted, purposeful lifestyle all year round at all times in my life, because I love the way it feels to be that productive. And the only way I think that you can be that productive is when you plan that strategically and that far in advance and not specifically. It just makes such a world of difference. I'm trying to think if there's anything else that I left out.
Ooh, let's quickly talk about your comp prep family. What this is, is when you're in comp prep. You have your friends, you have your family, normal people that support you. But if you're in comp prep with other athletes who are competing at the same show, and maybe you're a part of the same team. For us, we have our Lady Sculpt community, and then we have our team sculpt athletes that are preparing for comp prep. And then we also have team Sculpt athletes that have competed before that are all kind of in a chat and in a community, in a group supporting each other. Now, these people are going through what you're going through at the same time. It's amazing to me, how fast you become super close friends because no one else quite understands what you guys are going through. No one else quite understands the effort and the consistency and the discipline that's needed. And so to have other people that are going through it with you and can share in the experiences and are feeling the same things and experiencing the same highs and maybe the same lows, it really helps to have that little community around you, supporting you when you are going through a lot. Some athletes prefer to just do it on their own. Some athletes are a little bit like a lone wolf and just want to put their heads down and go. I have a few athletes who prefer to train that way. But I love the idea of competing as part of a team, competing as a very individual sport. It's literally you against you. We're going to talk about that in an upcoming podcast. But literally you're competing against your past body, your past self. And yes, you're being judged and compared to everyone else on stage, but you have no control over who else shows up. So it's you against you? And when you're doing a sport like this. It is so nice to still feel like you're part of something bigger to still have people there supporting you and having your back. And being able to share stories and swap things and share all of it, so much fun. So when you're thinking about getting into a comp lifestyle, you may feel a little bit of FOMO in normal lifestyle events that you're missing out on, but you got to remember that you're adding all of this new, exciting stuff and these new exciting people into your life at the same time. So it's a little bit of a trade off, right? Not everyone's going to understand why you're doing it, not everyone's going to support you. We're going to talk about this more in the next episode, episode 37 is other people's opinions. So if you are worried about other people's opinions or if there's people in your life that you are worried about, they may not support you. You want to stay tuned and listen to episode 37. I will see you next week.
Just a quick message before I go. Just a reminder, this is your last chance to register for the 16 Week Transformation Program. Starting this Monday, May 16th closes this weekend. Get over to lylasleona.com. Click on transform for all the details and to register now. I'll see you there.
