A Journey to Remember - Day 3

Day three was progress day. Although I just started a couple of days ago (literally the past Monday) I feel like I made some progress when I started. As you may know that I started training to become a physique bodybuilder and compete at the MABBA Fall Classic’s. If I were to compare myself from last week until now I would have to say I made a slight difference in just a couple of days. You may be thinking, how can there be a difference when you literally started

THREE DAYS AGO?!

Well that’s a very good question because I asked myself the exact same question. For a couple of months now I have been consistently working out and making healthier choices to stay fit, and eat right. I’ve jogged, rollerbladed and weight lifted; cut artificial sugars, desserts, candies, and ate a lot of fruits, vegetables, and various proteins. So I was fairly familiar on what I had to do when I began training. Despite knowing what to do there is always room for improvement on top of what I had already know. I honestly thought to myself that I knew what to do when I was working out and making sure I was making the correct food choices yet I surprised myself in when starting training.

When I started the prep plan the past Monday I never knew how to monitor my macro intake. I always counted my calories just like everyone else would. Checking the nutritional facts on the product and seeing how many calories there were. Brian, my coach, told me not to count my calories but my macros. It was definitely an adjustment to what I was use to and I am continuing to learn how to count my macros. Fortunately, I have an app that is able to keep track of my macros (and calories if I wanted to count them) to make sure I meet my daily macro goals. I use the app called MyFitnessPal. The app is super convenient that I’m able to decide whether the food I’m about to eat or think about eating fits in my macros (wow I never thought I would actually say that, “fit in my macros”). I have used the app for a while even before training. I did look at the macros to see if I was doing well, but for the most part I checked out my calories more than macros.

I thought I knew what to do when it came to working out. I guess you can say that I was being conceited thinking I knew what to do however, I don’t and did not. I’ll admit that I need a lot of improvement on my workouts and pushing myself to “go hard or go home”. Nonetheless everything counts. Even if I don’t push myself as hard one day then I’ll go hard another time because slow progress it better than no progress at all. Since I started training I tried my best to push myself to go hard. I would not go hard to a point where I’m compromising my form, I would go hard where I know I am capable of lifting the weight as well as not compromising my form or push myself to lift heavy weights with good form. Again the quote comes to mind, “train like there is always a competition”which I do train as if there is always a competition and that competition is with myself. I find this quote motivating, for myself, because let’s face it we are our own worse critic, and we make tonnes of excuses to put something off. However, for myself, I will continue to push hard each training day and make my macro goals as if “there is always a competition”.

I think, regardless of me just having started my training and showing a slight difference in my physique shows that every little bit counts. I was actually messaging a good friend of mine, Kylie, who lives out in Toronto and was telling me about how she did not put in a really good workout. I told her to not think that it wasn’t a really good workout because every bit counts, which is true. No matter how heavy, or how much time you put into something a little bit comes a long way. It is encouraging to see people who are motivating and passionate about what they’re doing, not just in working out, but also work, school or life in general. I do hope that more people can be encouraged and inspired to continue to push through even if it is one small step at a time.

(If you're looking for progress pics I won't be putting them up just yet until there is a significant difference. I do apologize for not posting a few. I will post some next progress day so please keep coming back for updates on my journey.)