One more week to the Washington State Natural! This week I have made tremendous progress towards this show. After the Capital City on July 18th I ate too much and gained 13lbs and I did not know if I had enough time to recover. However after pushing really hard for the last week and a half I have already improved my conditioning from the Capital City. I currently weighed in at 161 lbs on my scale. This is two pounds heavier than the last show but for some reason I am leaner at a heavier weight. I could be holding more water within the muscle, which is a good thing. I have been doing 60 minutes of cardio everyday to keep pushing to lose more body fat. Some days it is really tough to do this but I just remind myself that it is extremely important to get as lean as possible. I want to show up in better condition than the Capital City. My diet has stayed fairly the same as before but I have dropped my carbs on a couple of days to shed some of the weight I had gained. I dropped them from 240, down to 200 but while doing that I increased protein to counter balance that. Then I add carbs back in the next few days to fill back out to preserve my muscle. It has worked great as I am getting leaner and I feel I can get a tad bit leaner by next weeks show. I have increased carbs the last two days to around 600 grams and I still seem to be getting leaner and drier. For the week coming up I will continue to use this formula as it seems to be working and I am in the best condition I have ever been in. My weight training sessions have been tough for me as well as energy levels are not very good but I still push as hard as I can. I finished my last leg workout last night and to my surprise I was able to handle a good amount of weight on my squats. I did smith machine squats, smith machine stiff legged dead lifts, standing toe press and finished up with decline sit ups. It was a good workout and then I followed that up with 60 minutes of cardio! I am looking forward to this show as it is always good to meet new people. I feel this show will be tough and I do not know what the outcome will be but I all I can do is show up in my best ever condition and see what happens! My goal is to go and have a good time and try not to worry about winning or losing because this sport is really about competing against yourself. I have no control over the judges, other athletes, or anything else. If I win it will great but if I do not it will be ok because there always other shows to do. I am just excited about improving on my last show. Here are a couple of shots without a pump from last night. Until my next blog! Keep training hard and naturally!