My First Figure Competition

The moment I had been waiting so long for has now come and gone and what an experience it was! So many things go into training for a figure competition that you just many not think about from the way you eat to the way you train from week to week. I was eating a very limited Paleo diet that consisted of egg whites, tilapia, ground turkey, green veggies (spinach, kale and chard) some sweet potatoes and sunflower seed butter. Not a whole lot of recipes coming from that combo, just throw in a pan, cook, and eat.

I did mostly Crossfit style workouts consisting of heavy lifting and cardio. The heavy lifting trickled down to more light weight and high reps toward the last couple weeks, just enough to get a pump.

My life consisted of work, eat, workout, eat, and sleep for a couple months and it payed off because I placed third in class for my first ever competition! Not too shabby. I have decided to do another one in June because I'm not stopping until I place 1st overall, I'm stubborn like that :)

Here are some pictures from the show:

On stage doing one of my poses

Holding my 3rd place trophy

In the line up (I'm on the very right)

Me and the Ninja

Since most of my recipes are so simple I haven't taken the time to post any but along the way I discovered that a certain blend of spices really tickles my taste buds more than others so I thought I would share. I use this combination on my meats and in my egg whites to give them an extra kick. Everything I do is to taste so I don't have any exact measurements.

I take a pinch each of smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and salt and sprinkle it on my food while it is cooking. Today I had sliced turkey tenderloin and Power to the Greens from Trader Joe's all sauteed in a pan with my seasonings and it was awesome! Take a look!

Spiced Bacon

Ahhh November.... The weather is starting to cool off, there are so many holidays coming up, my birthday is this month, what isn't to like?!

A while back I decided to do the Whole30 program, which was awesome by the way... everyone should do it. So that meant bacon was off my list of items I was allowed to have, I didn't realize bacon had sugar in it until then. After ending my Whole30 I just didn't have a taste for bacon, I know I know, that's ridiculous, but true.

Something I love about being in the Paleo community is we don't just limit bacon to breakfast. It's in EVERYTHING! I tried it in muffins once, it was ok but I didn't get it crispy enough. That might be my next mission.... Or maybe I need to get started on Thanksgiving foods!

This isn't so much a recipe but an idea of how to make bacon even better! What?! Is that possible?! It is in my opinion! I like my bacon with a little kick to it. I honestly have no idea why I started doing this but I'm glad I did because it makes the bacon even more delicious!

Ingredients:

• Bacon (as much or little as you want)
• Cinnamon
• Cayenne Pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and lay your slices of bacon flat making sure they aren't overlapping each other.
3. Sprinkle the cinnamon and cayenne pepper over the bacon. How much depends on your own taste. Remember cayenne pepper is spicy.
4. Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake until crispy, about 30 minutes.
5. When you remove it from the oven, transfer the bacon to a paper lined plate to cool off a little.