It’s been a few weeks into prep and progress has been slower than I had hoped. 2018 was my best year. I looked my best and I placed my best. So I use it as a comparison for progress. I’m not quite as lean as I was in 2018 after a few weeks. But, I learned I have a pretty solid reason for the slower progress.
I did what any competitor should do before starting prep and had my blood work done. I had taken a nice long break after the last show and was expecting everything to come back pretty standard. But what we found was I had pretty significant hormonal imbalance. My estrogen levels were exceeding the high limits. My doctor commented they were higher than the had seen. It certainly explained some things I was feeling that I hadn’t recognized as being a problem. My mood was all over the place but I spent the majority of my time depressed. My sex drive was non existent. I had pretty much no motivation to do much. I told myself I was excited to be starting prep and doing what I love…but when it came time to train or meal prep I had no actual motivation to do it.
The point is there is no amount of cardio or dieting I could do that would get me where I needed to be. My body was not set up for it. I would have run myself into the ground if I tried. So my doctor, coach and I worked out a plan to make some adjustments. I’ll re-test my blood in a few weeks. But after about two week I could tell things were turning the corner. My mood and energy were the biggest signals for me. But we got to the point where we’ve been adding food and now seeing drops in weight.
I don’t remember his exact quote but coach Shelby Starnes has posted many times about how important it is to have the hormones right before you ever even think about prepping. He’s 100% correct. So now that I know what I’m dealing with and sure we’re making the necessary changes, I’m getting legitimately excited to see how this plays out. So far it’s a very different approach to prepping than I’ve experienced, so I’ll do better job of documenting this process.