The Trees
Philip Larkin

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.



Cycles. I think everything in life has its own cycle that spins like a wheel before being passed down to the next generation. Today is a gloomy day here. The trees look sad, black against a gray sky and yet the grass laughs ironically for it has still maintained its lush greenness. It's amazing how in the face of adversity nature can still thrive. And when I say nature, I include mankind.

I heard on the news yesterday of a 16-year old boy in Turkey who had survived for six days in the rubble of a crumpled building. No food, no water, no family to support him or encourage him. I marvel at how he did it. The reporter stated he slept much of the time, which reserved his energy and allowed him to maintain life whereas others struggled and used up precious moments. So, here's the question: When faced with adversity, do you sit back and let it do its damage, like an innocent bystander witnessing a tornado on its rampage? Or do you thrash about and fight back and utilize all ammunition in order to come out on top? Which is the right choice?

It's so hard to say. I don't know if I can answer my own question. I think I would choose the latter option. I can say that in my competitions, I am thrashing about and fighting back. If I were to sit back and become a spectator, then jealousy, rage, and regret would fill my heart as I watched fellow competitors take places that I could have earned. And this is where competing for a trophy on stage and competing for a place in life go hand in hand. I truly believe that a hobby can mirror your personality and can help you to achieve so much more than just filling time and space.

Someone said to me yesterday that this sport requires much patience. I realized that I've been at the national level for two years now, and I haven't thrown in the towel yet. I'm too stubborn for that. I'm also too curious. Even in the off season, when I was mentally exhausted, I couldn't imagine quitting simply because I wanted to know if I could reach the top. I would never want to be left with "what if" questions, and so I struggled through the depression, through the tears, through the self doubt. And it has been worth it.

The progress pictures will be up soon, but already they are a bit obsolete. I am harder, leaner, stronger in just a span of two weeks. What is attributing to this? Me. My work ethic. My desire. My depression isn't as strong as it was a few months ago. It seems to cycle in and out of my life. It almost disappears when a show is on the horizon. Possibly, it's because I feel more useful, more purposeful. Maybe it's because I'm a bit happier with myself and can look in the mirror and find a few positives. Or, it could be because I feel more in control. In the off season, I could not get handle on my cravings or my weight. I watched my body put on pounds and I cried. I wriggled--unsuccessfully--into jeans that had fit just a few months prior and found that only sweats or baggy pants would work. It was devastating. I knew there was a purpose to that weight gain. It was necessary in order to pack on some much needed muscle in my upper body, but to watch your physique change from something that everyone oohhhed and aahhhed at to something that I just wanted hide was quite difficult.

My leaves are turning green now. Branches are forming; my trunk is stronger, and my roots are embedded deeper into the tough soil of competition and preparation. I am ready for this year whether I receive a pro card or not. I'm giving it my best shot, and if it's not good enough for the judges, well, that's too bad . . . because it's good enough for me!

Now that I've had my diatribe, I can move on to my training and nutrition info for the past week.

We've reached the 10-week mark. Actually, a little less...but who's counting? Lol! I'm maintaining a weight of 109 to 110 pounds. That's important. I don't want to lose muscle mass in the process of shedding fat. I've worked too hard in the off season for that! So, the carbs are cycled on a regular basis (there again is the issue of cycles!). A lot of this is determined by instinct and by the mirror. There are some days when I am looking flat. By this I mean that my muscles are smaller, the skin is looser, the veins aren't evident, and I look almost skinny. That means that my body has used up all the carbs and is probably in need of more or will start using muscle to fuel its energy during cardio and weight training. I have to avoid that. But the tricky thing is that I have to have some flat days so that I don't spill over and become too full and start holding fat because I've had too many calories or too many carbs. This is where the cycling comes in handy. My body is constantly becoming flat and then filling out, becoming flat and then filling out. This ensures that no last-minute saving graces have to be endured. No mile-high stack of pancakes the morning of the show, no deep dish pizza the night before, no pie filling, no excessive amounts of jelly and rice cakes. This is too precarious to me. You never know how your body will react to something that hasn't been in your diet for the two months before a show, so my philosophy is, why add it in during the last minutes and risk excessive spillage of carbs and possible smoothing out (which means abs and such would not be seen).

Here's an example. In the 2002 Junior Nationals, I was way too flat. I was very lean but not full. You can see it in the competition pictures. I believe they are in the public section's gallery. Now, examine Gene X. Hwang's photos where I'm in the green bikini and the pink strapless top and white pants. Do you see a difference in my physique between the two sets of photos? Which one do I appear fuller and healthier? Let me add that Gene's photos were done the morning after the show. The morning after a dinner made up of an entire bag of Reese's miniature peanut butter cups (I think that thing is about eight servings...just call me Miss Piggy and I'll oink in response), a huge cheeseburger, and a plateful of fries. By the evening of Gene's shoot, I had lost my abs. The sodium, addition of water, and shock of sugar had hit my body and I reacted.

Now, my body has become more attentive to what I'm doing to it. This is why I'm considering not dropping my water at all but instead flooding it with water in the days leading up to the show. Within four or five hours, my body realizes that it is missing water and counterattacks the situation by retaining water. Examine the 2003 Figure Nationals photos on Ironman Magazine's site, and you'll see that my abs are a bit blurry and my legs not as lean. I had depleted water (and I munched on a few brownies and cookies before the evening show, which is when the pictures were taken . . . completely oblivious to the fact that I might make it into the finals. Two second call outs rarely put a person into the top five). My body reacted within hours. I had a feeling this would happen, for I had been tighter and leaner in the days before the water depletion (my abs are much more evident in the Brian Moss photos than they are in the stage photos for the Figure Nationals; mind you, I shot with Brian the day before I stepped on stage).

All fascinating stuff if you're a competitor. Boring if you're not. So I'm sorry if I traveled a little off course, but I wanted to explain the terms of being "flat" (I'm not talking A-cuppage here, though I tend to reach that point while dieting down), "spilling over", and being "full" (though my pint of Ben and Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Crunch ice cream during my cheat meal on Sunday evening definitely made me full, competition physique "full" is a whole different terminology).

And that's why cheat meals are incorporated into the diet. I had to go four full weeks with strict dieting in order to get my mind in the right place and to get my body lean enough. Then the cheat meals have been added in sporadically in order to keep me from getting too flat and from not reacting to the diet and possibly reaching a plateau. I've also kept my sodium levels up higher than I have ever done in previous years. I think it's adding to my strength, for I'm holding onto some water, which keeps my joints and muscles lubricated. Sodium will drop the three weeks before the show.

In terms of training, I'm sticking with what has been working all along since my last show. Light weights, high reps on quads. Heavier weights, high reps on hamstrings and glutes (glutes are tricky; how do I thicken the muscle there without touching the muscle in the quads? Talk about conundrums!). Heavy, heavy, heavy weights for all upper body muscles and rep ranges are constantly changing to keep my body constantly guessing. I think it's working. The progress pics will tell, and I'm very curious as to what your opinions are.

I have a photoshoot with Tre' Scott this Sunday, and some talk of fishnet stockings has been making its way around the board, so I might have to do a little shopping this week. Should be interesting!

In the meantime, enjoy the winter. Without it, we wouldn't notice the beauty of the spring or bask in the face of the summer's warmth or revel in the rich colors of the fall. I thought my off season was a tortuous time. Now, it doesn't seem so bad after all.