Cassie's Figure Competition Journal

[cassiegose]

Bossman.. thank you so much for your kind words!

[Bonnie]

OMG ..WOW on the new pics..looking awesome !!!

[ldematto]

Cassie - you look GREAT!!! Course you looked great before too! Just a different great!

Congratulations on your engagement! I'm soooooooooo happy for you! Ditto on what everyone already said !

If you want cheap, come to CT - I'll do a very nice ceremony for nothing!

[cassiegose]

Thanks guys. Honestly... I'm not too happy with the pics. I really don't feel like I'm where I need to be... however the pics aren't the best as posing was crappy and I'm EXTREMELY bloated right now (uh-hem.. girl stuff). Sooo not too happy with those pics at all. Need to get abs to show through and really need to tighten up the waist. I'm planning on taking more pics in a few days to see if maybe I'm just having a fat day.

I'm really just having a bad day all around right now. I'm exhausted, cranky, and stressed that I won't even be close to ready by the comp... I have 3 weeks to go and really am nowhere near where I need to be. And I already paid $60 entry fee so am planning on going for it no matter what (unless I get to the show and just totally chicken out).

For the next 3 weeks I'm planning on taking the fat out of diet and just doing omega sups... also planning on increasing cardio, increasing water, really watching sodium (as I have been doing), and trying to take out all artificial sugars (which is going to be a huge challenge as I really love gum). I'm also slowly cutting back on oatmeal () and increasing sweet potatoes. I'm planning on keeping calories fairly steady, and will monitor weight to see if the increased carido helps. I'm planning on this next three weeks being the hardest part of the whole comp... and I'm prepared to put head down and just plow through and see what I can do. Looking back on last week, I really feel like that trip to the beach set me back more than I had realized. That was just really bad timing... however that can't be changed and I still have 3 weeks so will just have do best and hope thats good enough. This is hard than I thought it was going to be!

Well thats all I know right now. Getting ready to go take a nap so I can do more cardio tonight. I hope everybody is having a lovely weekend! Thanks again for all the picture compliments.

Cassie

[cassiegose]

[quote="amatlack"]I can see where you think you'd like your abs to show through more, but honestly, I think you look better than most of those I've seen posing for competitions. There's just something about seeing every single rib poking through and a concaved stomach that turns me off. I think you've done a great job of building a ton of muscle and getting it to show...but you also still look like a woman, not a skeleton with some biceps and quads, which I think is awesome. [/quote]

Well thank you girl. Youre right.. I definitely don't want to look too skinny or lose too much of hard earned muscle. I'll just keep up the hard work and hope that abs start to show up in the next 3 weeks.

[fitoverforty]

Don't worry about your abs, girl to me they look incredible! OMGosh your legs!! They are awesome! You have such a athletic body, natural and God given. You have definately found your "niche". And honey, you are rockin' those stilettos!

[cassiegose]

Don't worry about your abs, girl to me they look incredible! OMGosh your legs!! They are awesome! You have such a athletic body, natural and God given. You have definately found your "niche". And honey, you are rockin' those stilettos!

Awe... thank you so much! As for the God given body... LOL! I love God with all heart but he is not the one to be thanking for this body! I was blessed with a family history of obesity and weight problems and honestly have to watch every single thing that i put in mouth or I will gain weight like nobody's business. With that said... I was blessed with the ability to build muscle somewhat easily if I stick to the heavy weights and get enough protein ( dad is a powerlifter so have good genes there). I'm very greatful that i was given the ability to build muscle... and the discipline to stick with it... However, it is something that I have to work at every single day.

With that said, I have totally found "niche"! I LOVE this stuff!!!

[Boss Man]

Cassie is a very, very good sculptress. Not with Clay, wood, Plastic or Metal, but with Flesh. It is in opinion an artform, and it makes her an artist of sorts. Thereofre would consider such a body a living work of Art, created by an artist.

It's also got literally millions of different ways of being portrayed in photos, even the most microfine alteration in stance or postioning, creates a new piece of art, so probably billions of different viewpoints, which a piece of Monet, or Constable, or Picasso, cannot give you, even if some say some paintings are what you make of them, and they're yours to interpret. The measters did make great art, but for me, a body like Cassies is the ultimate in Art, it has more life than any canvass work, and the way to view it is practically limitless.

Also, just like a Painter or Sculptor, It's also not easy to create a good figure physique. It's harder and more demanding, than any piece of canvass, or sculpture can ever be. Therefore a body like that, deserves respect, and the person who creates it some respect also.

The only problem I have is when some of these artists, choose to do slutty semi-naked and hooker style pics for websites. That loses a lot of respect for me. They, if they ever were before, can never again be rolemodels, unlike Cassie who can, because that artistry is backed up with a well managed public image, that creates more respect, but as for the "fallen", they will and probably have done, tarnished the people like Cassie, that show more respect to themselves, and want to be seen as respectable athletes, not buff bimbos, or jacked up tarts.

So perhaps in some ways that makes me an art critic

[Bonnie]

And I already paid $60 entry fee so am planning on going for it no matter what (unless I get to the show and just totally chicken out).

I am so glad to see u typed that, well not the chickening out part though nerves r understandable.To me, even if u r new to this & maybe arent where these judges deem u should be, this is a chance to introduce yourself to the scene as it were & gain some exposure, so there is a reference point the judges will remember the next time u show up.Well is only thinking, but if they dont think u r a work of art they r BLIND !! Good luck to u, uve earned ur right to show urself & be proud

[Bonnie]

not buff bimbos, or jacked up tarts.

Gotta love that sense of rightness

[cassiegose]

Well thank you bossman for the compliments and explanation of what it takes to "build" a body. That was very nicely put... and I totally agree with you opinions on those "buff bimbos and jacked up tarts" who feel the need to display themselves in inappropriately sexy fashions. To me, its more "sexy" to display your body in a tactful and classy manner... to show athelticism without looking all slooty.

[cassiegose]

So... counting today... I am 18 days away from getting up on stage... and in all honestly I'm actually feeling pretty good about this rapidly approaching competition. This weekend I was pretty much freaking out... ready to try anything to get off this last bit of fat... however I realized that at this point, I've worked very hard and no amount of crash dieting or insane overtraining is going to help at this point. I've done best, I'm very proud of progress, and no matter what happens this past 5 months has been an AMAZING experience.

I think one of the reasons that i'm feeling so much better today is because the scale has finally started to budge a bit and I feel like the bloating from the past week is finally starting to go down a bit. I'm planning on taking more progress pictures on Friday to see if i can get some better shots. One thing that last progresss pics showed me was that I REALLY need to work on poses for this show. It honestly doesn't matter how good of a body you have, if you don't know how to properly display it on stage you will not get the credit you deserve. So I've been working on posing twice a day and plan to continue to do so for the next 18 days.

Right now diet is insanely strict. I'm not going to say how many calories i'm at as i don't want to give anybody the wrong idea (I would never recommend this diet to anybody! LOL!). For the next 2 1/2 weeks I'll be eating a very small amount of oats for meal one and sweet potatoes as other source of carbs. I'm eating quite a few eggwhites... and chicken and tilapia as other sources of protein. I've pretty much cut out the protein powder and have cut all dairy for the time being (the quark was fun while it lasted... looking forward to getting hands on some more of that after the comp!). For veggies, I'm eating spinach like its going out of style, as well as green beans, green peppers, and mushrooms. I was going to completely cut out all nuts and nut butter, however I'm not sure thats totally necessary so have decided to leave that in atleast until the end of the week... although i have definitely cut back. Because calories are so low, and energy levels are pretty much gone, I am doing a "carb up" day once a week where I increase carbs (in the form of oats and sweet potatoes) to kind of shock system a bit and fill up the ole energy tank. Yesterday I did a carb up and actually felt pretty darn good for the first time in a while even though i still kept calories fairly low. It is amazing how much experimenting and trial and error has gone into this process!

Sooo today I seem to be fighting off a cold (started to lose voice in spinning class this morning) and i'm getting a little worried about posing suit not being here in time. I ordered it over two weeks ago so am hoping it will show up sometime this week. I ordered a plain one that i will have to embellish myself so the sooner it gets here the better!

I hope all is well with everybody. Thank you all for your continued support, inspiriation, and motivation. You guys rock!

Cassie

[cassiegose]

For veggies, I'm eating spinach like its going out of style

Be careful your forearms don't get too big!

LMAO!

[cassiegose]

It has artificial sweeteners in it. Trying to get all the artificial stuff and sodium out of body. Most people don't do it until the last week, however I wanted to cut it out early to see if it would help with the bloating (I look like a water buffalo right now so trying to figure out how to un-buffalo myself)... seems to be working! Also, i'm at the point in diet where everything I eat needs to be in solid food form as i'm pretty freaking hungry and would rather have food that I can chew instead of drink... you just don't get the same effect from protein drinks as you do something that you actually have to chew and digest.

Basically... it sucks to be me right now.

[cassiegose]

Ooooh while i'm on the subject of artificial sweetners I have to share this! So a while back i bought some cupcake batter flavored protein powder. Soooo last weekend I had a KILLER sweet tooth so decided to make some sugar free jello... which is really not the best for you but it only has like 5 calories per 1/2 cup so I went for it. So anyways I made strawberry sugar free jello and tossed in a scoop of cupcake batter protein powder. It was soooooo delicious that I had to make another batch the very next night.... which is probably the reason why i've been looking like a water buffalo for the past couple of days! The sugar free jello has some questionable ingredients in it... however if youre desperate (as i obviously am!) its pretty tasty! Just thought I'd share in case there are other desperate dieters out there reading this.