So what’s next?

A fortnight on from my first competition, I’m recovered and back to training so it’s time to focus on what comes next. I’ve fallen in love with strongwoman training and had a fantastic first competition. But, in the 3 and a bit months that I was training for that comp, fat loss was not my priority, and that now shows on my body, in my clothes and on the scales. I’m not at all regretful about that, I needed to focus on strength building and that’s what I did. But long term I still have fat loss goals that I want to achieve as well.

Having done a bit of research into quite a few strongwoman events if I want to be really good in my current weight category (over 75kgs or ‘openweight’) then I’m going to need to continue to get stronger. I could of course do that, but it’s difficult to do at the same time as losing fat.

So I’ve made a decision. I want to get down into the next weight category, that means reducing my body weight to under 75kg. The weight on the scales on the day I made that decision was 89kg so that’s 14kg to lose. It’s a lot and I’ll be the lightest I’ve been as an adult but I believe with time it’s achievable – my husband has just lost that much from a similar starting weight in 6 months!

I’ve learned over the years that I respond very well to performance related goals, actually better than I respond to aesthetic ones. I’d usually be very wary of setting weight related goals but since this one has a performance purpose I feel quite differently about it. My aim is to achieve this goal by this time next year – there’s a specific competition that I want to be able to enter as an <75kg competitor in May 2017.

In the meantime I want to train for and take part in another competition so I’ve found another one in Northampton in June with different events which are focused on speed and reps as well as strength – I can pretty much do all the weights already so I can focus my training on getting fast rather than on having to build more strength. That will work really well alongside fat loss.

So that’s my goal. But a goal without a plan of how to achieve it is really just a wish. So how am I going to get there?

1. I will workout 6 days out of 7 – one PT session, one strongwoman session and one other weights based session strength. The remaining sessions will be taken from Julia’s online gym
2. I will sign up for and take part in the new fat loss programme that Julia is launching very soon
3. I will do mobility work for my hips and ankles at least 3 times per week – this should help to reduce my risk of more knee niggles
4. I will track my food on My Fitness Pal for at least a month until I’ve got a good feel for the amounts I’m eating. To start with I’m going to aim for 2000 calories a day and a macro split of 40% fat, 40% protein and 20% carbohydrate
5. Achieving those macros will mean that I naturally limit sugar and processed carbs which I have come to realise are my fat loss nemesis. Instead my diet will be mainly be made up of lean proteins, vegetables and healthy fats.
6. Recognising that I’m human – I will allow myself one ‘cheat’ meal per week – I’m not talking a total blowout – I mean one meal where I let loose a bit and don’t worry so much about calories or macros.

The road to being an under 75kg strongwoman competitor starts here!