Cassie's Figure Competition Journal

[Boss Man]

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[Nokie173]

How is the Nov. competition prep going? Have you been working on your poses?

[cassiegose]

How is the Nov. competition prep going? Have you been working on your poses?

Hello!

Training is going well! I increased calories so have much more energy now than I did for last competition. I will be slowly decreasing these over the next 3+ weeks until the show, however just having a few more calories in system this past week has made a tremendous difference as far as energy levels and workouts go. I had body fat measured last friday and am down to 14%. In order to be competitive I really need to get this down to 12% for the next show so am doing lots of HIIT and plyometrics in an attempt to burn some fat while maintaining muscle. As far as diet goes... in some ways the dieting is a bit easier (I think because i've been doing it so long now) and in other ways I'm completely fed up and ready to get off this damn diet and get on with life. Guess I have good days and bad. This competition really doesn't seem like its as big of a deal as the last one... I think I'm more at ease now as I know what to expect. I also know that the next 3 1/2 weeks are going to go so fast so I think that helps alot knowing that I'm close to being done with this strict diet and training regimen. It will be nice to be able to ease up a bit and resume a somewhat normal diet and training program.

One GREAT thing that has come from me changing body with this competition prep is that I've inspired quite a few people here locally and am working with several of them on the side to help them get their diets and exercise programs on track. This is true passion in life so its been awesome to get to help more people one on one. It has also inspired me to get off butt and get to studying for personal trainers certification. Its such a pain, but atleast when I get certified I will be able to help people on a wider spectrum and will actually be making some money at it (which will help immensly as I just started paying back student loans and am quite broke).

So thats whats going on with me. If you guys would like me to continue to update as I works toward this upcoming competition I would be happy to keep posting. Figured you guys were getting tired of hearing me complain about how bad diet sucks so was going to stop posting. LOL!

I hope all is well with everybody!

Cassie

[fitoverforty]

I had body fat measured last friday and am down to 14%

Wow! And that's for you entire body? Geez...I think I have that much in just one of thighs!! LOL
Great to hear you are doing well, and now that you're an old "pro" at this, you're more at ease with the next one coming up.

Figured you guys were getting tired of hearing me complain about how bad diet sucks so was going to stop posting

Cassie, I don't think you realize the impact you have on so many here and how posting your daily trials, tribulations, victories and accomplishments give us all inspiration and encouragement to keep working on our own programs! Just reading your last few weeks before your first show was such an inspiration to me....and I loved how you kept it "real" and told us how you were feeling whether it was good or bad, because seeing the positive results you ended up with and how you transformed your body proves what a hard working, driven person you are. For me personally, it was what kept me motivated alot of days to do own workout, so PLEASE don't stop posting about your experiences and progress, it is so helpful and important in more ways than you can know. LareinaMae had it right when she listed you as her hero, right next to Prefontaine. You have that same determination and drive that he had, so keep going girl!!!

[Nokie173]

Figured you guys were getting tired of hearing me complain about how bad diet sucks so was going to stop posting

Cassie, I don't think you realize the impact you have on so many here and how posting your daily trials, tribulations, victories and accomplishments give us all inspiration and encouragement to keep working on our own programs! Just reading your last few weeks before your first show was such an inspiration to me....and I loved how you kept it "real" and told us how you were feeling whether it was good or bad, because seeing the positive results you ended up with and how you transformed your body proves what a hard working, driven person you are. For me personally, it was what kept me motivated alot of days to do own workout, so PLEASE don't stop posting about your experiences and progress, it is so helpful and important in more ways than you can know. LareinaMae had it right when she listed you as her hero, right next to Prefontaine. You have that same determination and drive that he had, so keep going girl!!!

I AGREE what Lynne just said...
Although I don't have time to post here and there... But I always make time to READ your journal
Then.. of course... I hit the GYM... LoL

[lareinamae]

I don't think Cassie gives herself enough credit for how much she's inspired all of us, so it's good for us to remind her of how wonderfully awesome she is and how her hard work and determination has been such an inspiration to all of us. I read Cassie's journal every day after morning workouts and it reminds me of why I am doing what I am doing: to become a healthier, fitter version of myself and to transform body the way Cassie has transformed hers. After all, if 'little sister' can do it, I can too, right?!!
Cassie should remind herself...she has achieved a level of fitness that few people will achieve in their lifetimes and she has done something exceptional by sticking with it and seeing her hard work pay off in the end. I am proud of her, and I know everyone here at shapefit is too!

Cassie Gose is hero and always will be! GO CASSIE!!

[Boss Man]

I might be wrong about all of this, but I think Cassie is quite humble in certain respects I feel. possibly this is to try and keep herself grounded, and not get flighty feelings, or an ego.

I don't think it's because she doesn't feel worthy of praise, or deserving of it, but because when you see what some people in other avenues or life / countries, have such a struggle to cope with, including a few people who have posted on here, who have constant physical issues to contend with every day, maybe in some ways Cassie feels her achievements don't rank as highly as other people, whos achievements are borne out of no option, because it's either acheive anything positive you can in life, or choose to give in and accept their situation.

Again I might be wrong on this, so don't shoot me for it.

However yes I am always constantly proud of her. She certainly does have such a big heart and a big personality, and she is worth more than her weight in Platinum.

[cassiegose]

Well holy crap. Thank you everybody so very much for your kind words. I'm sitting here (at work LOL!) with tears in eyes after reading your kind comments. You guys have no idea how much it means to me to be able to help you with your workouts and motivation... nor do you realize how much you all inspire me everyday to keep going. It is one thing to work out everyday because thats what you do, and what you've always done. I've been working out regularly since i was 16 (well actually at that age it was more obsessively but now that i've gotten older its become "regularly). When you've been doing it for that long it becomes routine and honestly I don't even think twice in the moring when alarm goes off.. i get up and i go to the gym, no questions asked. I should also mention that i was raised in a home where mom worked out every single day, rain or shine and dad was a track, cross country, and football coach. I was raised knowing that exercise and healthy diet are important and I've really never known any other way. It is one thing to exercise and eat healthy when thats how you are raised and you don't know any other way... However I think it takes true courage and will power to start an exercise program when you've never exercised before in your life. I've watched women walk into gym for the first time with a look of utter fear on their faces.. fear that they will stick out as a "newbie" or that people will judge them on their weight, appearance or obvious lack of athletic ability... it takes courage for that woman to go to the gym, and that inspires me. I've seen the pain that people endure when they first begin an exercise program after never exercising before. I really have no idea what this pain is like because I've always been in shape, but for those who are just starting out I would imagine it pretty much sucks to get on that treadmill and start running for the first time... that takes endurance and sheer will.. and I'm inspired by this. I've also witnessed the... I don't know what to call it... suffering I guess... that people go through as they first begin to change their eating habits. When you've been raised on candy and junk food, i would imagine it would be pretty difficult to give up those foods in favor of lean proteins, complex carbs, fruits, and veggies. Granted the change will make them healthier in the long run, however making that initial change tastes willpower and determination.... which definitely inspires me! Lastly, I don't have children, I'm not going to college, I'm not married (yet), I'm not working two jobs to support parnents/family (Nokie:)).. I really have it pretty good so its easy for me to get to the gym every day and its easy for me to make healthy food choices when i flat out don't have unhealthy food in house. For those who do have children, or have more than one job, or are just have a lot on their plate... it is SO INCREDIBLY inspiring to see you all get in your daily exercise and healthy foods even though there are other things that you could be doing... other things that you'd rather be eating (M&Ms anybody!). SOOOOO what I'm trying to say here is you guys... each and every single one of you... inspire me in ways that you've probably never realized. I can't even begin to explain how much I enjoy hearing about everybody's struggles, accomplishments, ideas, and everyday happenings. You guys are the BEST and I'm so blessed to know you all and get to be involved (in a very distant way) in your lives.

Cassie

[Nokie173]

Have you been meeting up with your trainer? Working on your poses? Have a new outfit?

[cassiegose]

Hello!

Happy Friday!

Tomorrow I'll be 3 weeks out from next competition. I'm definitely not as consumed by this upcoming comp and to be honest really don't feel like heart is in it as much as it was for the last one. I've considered not doing it several times, but then keeping deciding to just go for it as i've worked so hard to get this far and have spent so much money that i feel like I might as well get up there and do another show. I know I need the experience, and i already have the suit and everything else that i need, so will keep pushing for 3 more weeks and go for it.

I keep finding myself counting down the days until peak week. last experience with peak week is still so fresh in mind that I am completely 100% dreading having to go through the experience again so soon. With that said, I can also look back and remember how fast peak week flew by. It is somewhat comforting to know that peak week only lasts 6 days (including the day of the show) and I get to eat whatever I want on the 7th day. I will be tweaking diet a bit for this upcoming peak week as I felt like i ended up a bit bloated on the day of show for the last one and would really like to prevent that from happening again.

Friday I had body fat measured and am at 14%. I would love to get this down to 12% by the next show... however i know that I would have to take calories dangerously low to do that and am not sure that i'm willing to go there at this time. So, i've stepped it up quite a bit in the gym while keeping calories stable and am hoping the increased intensity will have some effect on body fat.

As for trainer. I actually never had an actual trainer for the last competition, I designed own workouts and did the majority of diet. I did have a posing coach who helped with peak week diet and training and of course helped with poses. The posing coach was charging me $50 per hour and looking back i don't feel like she was really worth the money. She did help me with posing, however at this point i feel like i just need to practice on own and really don't need to spend money on an actual coach. Plus, i felt like the advice that she did give me on diet wasn't solid advice and had i actually taken it would have really set myself back. So, i am no longer meeting up with her and am using the resources from the internet and videos to plan the next show. Outfit... a new posing suit costs about $150 so will not be buying a new one for the next show. I'm planning on simply wearing the same show that i wore at the last one. Most women do buy a whole new suit for each show, however I'm broke so will be wearing mine again.

To sum it up.. I guess i could say I'm really just doing this next show for the sake of doing it. I really don't have extremely high expectations and to be honest will be really happy to just get it over with. I know this isn't the attitude that i should have.. however I've been on this diet now for 25 weeks and I am really ready to resume a somewhat normal life again for a while.

So thats whats going on with me.

I hope all is well with everybody! Have a happy happy FRIDAY!

Cassie

[Boss Man]

Nobody can make you feel or think what you don't want to or maybe can't about this. This is your future and the kind of chance you deserve, especially after everything you did to get here, and the things you've had to go through when you were younger, but only you can truly decided how this goes, or how it could be regards the aspirational side of it.

The fact is, there are a lot of people here and maybe in other areaqs of your life, that believe in you and want you to be as successful at this, as you thought you could be some weeks ago.

I'm just as much one of those people as anyone. belief you could become a pro without the need for using certain methods to do it, still holds true.

I however wouldn't dare to intentionally make you feel guilt, shame or negativity, for how you felt about your competitive future, I would only and should only support you and try to understand how you felt about your situation at all times.

Nobody can make you do this, or feel a certain way about it. All I know is, that I see a beautiful, engaged young Lady, who has come a long way and made many, many friends and admirers too, and has shown such true ability and potential, by even doing one show and with age well and truly on your side, there is no reason why you should consider yourself, close to the now or never line of thinking.

Any decision you make, is a decision everyone in your life should support and understand. It's not for anyone to accuse you, of ruining or spoiling a really good chance, or try to push you into a decision you aren't comfortable with.

I still know and believe that you are capable of so much. It goes without saying, I would never be anything less than 10,000% behind you, whatever you did decide.

You know what it feels like to do this, we don't, so we have no right to be anything but supportive, or ignore the issue if we weren't interested.

I hope you continue to go a long way here, because you deserve it and all the positives from it as well. You really are a great talent and a fantastic person / inspiration, but this is nothing, but nothing, but your decision to make, and yours to stick by.

Whatever you do regards this part of your life, at any point in the future, GOOD LUCK and don't let anyone make you feel negatively in any way, for anything you have done, or will do.

Just know that what you do goes with the pride, respect and admiration of so many people, because we all want you to be happy and we all want you to have a life that you deserve.

So keep pushing for ths comp, GOOD LUCK and no worries. Just 3 weeks to go, and you're going to look fantastic.

.

[cassiegose]

18 days until next competition...

Haven't posted since last friday so thought i'd post an update.

I'm still struggling as I prepare for this upcoming show. Its not that I'm not motivated necessarily... I look forward to workouts and most of the time feel like i have a decent amount of energy (as much as can be expected at this point). As I said before, i guess heart just isn't in it. I'm going through the motions but have been for so long that it seems like the motions have lost purpose.

As far a diet goes... I guess you could say that i'm kind of experimenting with diet at this point. At 3 weeks out, most people are insanely limited on what they allow themselves to eat. For last show I too was very strict with food choices and in the last 4 weeks pretty much stuck to chicken, tilapia, eggwhites (some people won't even do eggwhites because they have sodium in them), lettuce (with balsamic vinegar on it), green beans, brocolli, mushrooms, asparagus, oats, sweet potatoes, and brown rice. Right now i'm less than 3 weeks out and am allowing myself a few blueberries with oatmeal, low sodium cottage cheese, greek yogurt, salsa/hot sauce, lentils, cauliflower, eggwhites, kamute (I love this stuff!), sugar free jello (I know this stuff is terrible but it helps when i have a sweet tooth), and this past weekend I even had a few plums (all this in addition to what I was eating for the last show). So we'll see how this goes! The purpose of this little experiment is to see if the true bodybuilding diet is honestly necessary or if a person can go behind the typical chicken breast and veggies diet and still be competition ready. Common sense tells me that the typical bodybuilding diet isn't the best as your body NEEDS different kinds of foods and can't survive on the same foods day in and day out for an extended amount of time. I've been doing this diet since March 30th now.... this is 204 days... 29 weeks. I really felt like I needed to add in some other foods just to keep sanity and to try to get additional nutritients that I had been missing out on. For some reason right now I just can't seem to get enough lentils! I love those things! I cooked up another big batch of them last night and can't wait to get off work so i can eat them!

I think another reason that I feel like i'm not feeling totally dedicated to this show is because I've finally made up mind to hurry up and get personal trainers certification so have been throwing myself into that project lately in an effort to get certified by this coming spring. I tend to put 100% into everything that I do so its hard to focus fully on the competition while also trying to really focus on studying. In addition, fiance and i are planning on getting married next summer and I'm in the middle of remodeling house. I'm not talented enough to multitask so should really just try to focus on one thing at a time! Plus this damn diet makes it really hard to memorize personal training stuff and between the diet and training really don't have much energy for things like house remodeling projects. fiance is a SAINT for putting up with me and everything that I have going on right now.

I guess thats all I know today. I hope everybody is doing well!

Cassie

[Boss Man]

All you can do with things is yours best. You can't ask or expect more of yourself than that.

Good luck, best wishes and no worries yeah. you ARE doing great and you CAN be proud of yourself .

[Nokie173]

Hey Cassie… I know you must be sick & tired of your diet. I can’t blame you since you have lost crazy weight, gained muscles, and looking super fly. At the moment, you may not feel like you’re looking for this next competition but once you get on stage… the excitement will come back… Your moment to shine & show what you have worked on!

Think about it this way… you’ve been missing out on eating “normal” food b/c you have to be on a special diet but the comp will be over before the holidays when people start cooking up their specialties! So… by Thanksgiving & Xmas … you can enjoy & reward yourself (A bit ) with those YUMMY foods. Man, I wonder what will happen if you had to be on a special diet during the holidays… that would suck big time!!!

As for the other things in life… take it one step at a time… the older we get, somehow the more responsibilities we get on our plates! However, to make us stronger is knowing how to deal with it. It can be stressful when we think everything is hitting us all at once but by taking it one at a time and trying our best… Hey... that’s all we can really do! And knowing you… you always give it your best and you know your limits. As Boss mention, you can’t expect more of yourself than that… especially now since you’re still carb deprive!

[cassiegose]

Nokie,

Thanks for the encouragement girl!

So today I'm feeling much better and MUCH more motivated. I had a dream last night about the upcoming show. I got up on stage and did absolutely awful. I looked like crap, posing was TERRIBLE, and didn't place AT ALL in the show. The judges were so incredibly unimpressed with me that they ordered the photographer to not take pictures of me and in the end they didn't even list me in the results. It wasn't a very pleasant dream at all.... however I'm VERY glad that I had it because I woke up and remembered everything about it VIVIDLY (which is odd for me). That dream totally motivated me to change attitude and get a$$ in gear. Not that I've been slacking necessarily, but in some ways I have just been going through the motions. I realized today that I WANT to do this next show and I really hope that i can do well. Obviously I ultimately have little control over how well I place overall as the placings are based on the judges opinions and that can be so subjective. HOWEVER, I DO have control over how hard I work and how good I look when I step on stage. In the end i want to be able to get on stage knowing that I tried best. I have 2 1/2 weeks left to prepare and I'm going to feel pretty shitty if I step on stage knowing that i could have worked harder. Lately I've been feeling like i have to do this show becuase its expected of me and because i've worked so hard to get to this point. After having that dream last night I realized that i do truly want to do this show.

This mornings workout was the best I've had in a long time. I was focused and I really kicked own butt. I read a quote a while back by a famous bodybuilder (I believe it was Ronnie Coleman). He said "If you can walk of out of the weight room on leg day then you need to get your back in there because you didn't work hard enough". I always think of that quote on leg day. Today was leg day and it was a struggle to walk out of the weight room at the end of workout. legs were SCREAMING! Felt pretty darn great.

We're halfway through the week today! I hope everybody is having a wonderful one so far!

Cassie