Training for physique competitions or for different competitve sports may require an "extreme" way of training and nutrition. Overtraining and experiencing forms of fatigue can be almost guarenteed in some circumstances. Finding a way to care for ourselves as much as we can by including as much rest and relaxation as possible, tracking our meals and making them as sufficient as possible, and being completely careful with our choices in supplementation is very important. 

Off season is a time to improve for the next competition season, but also must be seen as a time to "recharge our batteries" by putting a lot of focus on rest and recovery. Burnout is very possible when a happy median between on and off season isn't reached.

Our bodies are built to be built upon, in the mind of a physique athlete and all fitness lovers alike. They are beautiful and are capable of amazing things. Stength we never thought we could posess, transfomations we never thought possible and can last beautifully, when we take care of them. Oversupplementation, over training, focusing on the look and ignoring the health of our bodies is common. So many "easy" fixes are offered, and overtraining is often ignored: Feeling tired? Burntout? Aren't feeling as strong as you once did? Some suggestions may be to grab a fat burner, pre-workout drink, push it anyway. Pushing ourselves is fantastic to a point. We should challenge ourselves, in a healthy way. Feel how great it feels to push out that extra rep, see the changes in the mirror after working hard. But if there's a little tug in your mind, if you are feeling more and more burnt out or unrested, are seeing a decline in progress despite working just as hard or harder, or are having an increasingly difficult time recuperating from workouts, maybe it's your body telling you it's time to take a step back and give yourself time to really recuperate. Listen. Compensating for fatigue with fat burners, energy drinks,etc., and going when your body and mind is telling you not to, can do more damage and set you back further than any break or decline in intensity ever could. It can feel like a difficult thing to give your body a break, thinking there could be a loss in muscle,strength or progess. Maybe you feel like it would be a waste of time working so hard just to "take a break " and watch it disappear. If you've been training hard and have built up a nice muscular base, chances are you won't lose anything you've worked hard for and if you did it will be rebuilt (more enjoyably and naturally) when you're stronger and refreshed. Your body and mind will be more equipped to do so, and you'll end up looking and feeling even better.

There are two options when it comes to needing a rest to recuperate: either we listen and take it back a couple of notches, Or we ignore it and wait for our bodies to force us into a break through injury, chronic fatigue, etc. With everything, we always have a choice. Listening to ourselves will always be the best option.

Hello! This Wednesday night, so 2 nights ago, I went out for a "cheat" meal with my coach and soon-to-be mom, Stephanie. I'll usually take a cheat once a week where I'll eat a not so good for you meal. Sometimes it can be more than once a week, but while you're trying to cleanse and repair your system being a bit more careful with your choices is a good idea. Your body is trying really hard to be clean and find balance, when you throw really processed food and things that it's not used to eating into the mix, things are made a little more complicated.

Our meal was a big one filled with lots of night time carbs. When you find you operate really well on a high protein and fat, low carb meal plan (protein type) and consume a lot of carbs, you throw your system a bit off balance. You are not feeding your body the proper "fuel" it needs to function optimally. Some people may notice after having high carbohydrate meals they feel sluggish, irritable, just want to sleep. This may be a sign that you could be a protein type. If you're not familiar with what metabolic type you are (protein, carbohydrate or mixed type) or which food choices would be most beneficial for you, see metabolictyping.com for more information, great reads and ways to figure out which type you are. (You can also e-mail me at renee@reneeprimeau.com and I would love to help.) Most of us know that when we go to sleep at night, that is the time our bodies use to recover and repair. When we eat meals that are not right for our metabolic type, especially before bed time, instead of being able to go easily into a repair cycle, our bodies take more time attempting to bring us back into balance and we can feel like we've woken up from a wrestling match. Our bodies have worked really hard all night to "set everything straight" instead of doing it's regular duties.

So basically I ate a LOT of carbs and stuff my system isn't really used to and Wednesday morning I woke up feeling pretty worn out. My body felt really stiff and I had a difficult time concentrating throughout the day. Although it's so cool how much what we decide to eat affects our bodies, maybe a better time to decide to eat like this (if we decide to!) is earlier on in the day. 

Last night, sticking to a high protein and fat meal before bed (ground sirloin and fish oil) sleep came a lot more quickly and I woke up feeling so much more rested! (Some people may require less fat than this before bed, it might take a little experimenting).

So today is upper body day ( focusing on back, chest and arms). I'm pretty excited about it. Aside from things being thrown off a bit yesterday, each workout has felt better and better!

Hey there! Today my energy is up even more. There is a slight fog headed feeling still kind of looming around but I have not been getting to bed as early as I should and also get up in the middle of the night. For the past year I have been getting up almost every night to eat protein. I've formed such a habit out of it that sometimes I won't even know I'm doing it until I'm already in eating lol! This needs to stop because it interupts the rest and revovery stages during sleep. Our bodies also repair and recover a lot better without the extra food to process. Whenever I don't get up and eat I always feel more rested. Hmmmm...maybe a hint at something??? lol.

I started a liver cleanse over a week ago using Liv-Tone by Genuine Health along with extra Milk Thistle. It's such a cool but wierd feeling to explain, I  can feel my body working away at cleaning things up. Your liver can harbour a lot of toxins and parasites. There is a chance that these things can be released into your blood stream during a cleanse, especially parasites. They are super smart and want to survive very badly. Liv-Tone has ingredients that help to prevent this, but Oregano Oil on top of it may help minimize the risk further, since it's an anti-parasite, anti-bacterial and blood cleanser (among a lot of other amazing things). 

With training I've just felt ready to move from the Vitalizer program by Paul Chek and am doing a 5 day upper/lower body split. It contains a lot of concepts from the Performance Program by Paul Chek along with weighted movements supersetted with plyometrics for legs, and some more muscle group specific movements for arms and shoulders. It'a a little bit early to tell, but I believe this blend of training will work really well. 

I am learning to really pay attention to what my body needs, and sometimes it needs to slooow down! During workouts pushing to the point of challenging our  bodies for the purpose of seeing gains is great, but  pushing to the point of draining isn't necessary.

Recovery time between workouts has improved a lot in the past few weeks and I can feel it getting better each time. I feel a lot more in tune with everything and feel a lot more equipped to avoid over training.

I haven't been writing too regularily because I'm not too sure what my body is doing right now and what training and eating is working best for me. I felt like I should know and that I needed to have the answer for which way to eat, train and repair everything for myself. I got the best advice the other day from someone who has been a really great influence. They said that the "real stuff" is what we all want to hear about and is what has the most value. A lot of times we're afraid to share our times of doubt because we think it might be a sign of weakness. It's not though, the times where we need to experiment, dig deeper and look into things are when we can learn and benefit the most. There is something so freeing in being true and admitting when we don't know something.

Energy levels continue to be more stable, weight and water retention is fluctuating a bit but I'm not really concerned as I know when my system becomes more balanced everything will even itself out.

I'm off for the night but more to come soon.

I haven't written in a while and I wanted to write a quick update. My system feels like its recovering amazingly as I've tapered completely off the fat burners and feel more rested each morning. There is some hormone fluctuation still (water retention is up and down) but it's just a a part of a system becoming balanced. It's really cool to see some of the changes and feel so much more clear headed and alert.

I apologize for the short entry. I'll add more soon!!