12 Week Challenge

Burger, Bread and Cupcake Dreams…

Hi Guys,
Well, following the third week, I’ve lost a few more inches, but then no weight.  I’m getting pretty strong for my competition and finding myself leaning down for everything.  Again, as I was sick, I took my time adding my gym workouts again throughout my schedule, particularly as I am doing a few more hours of climbing, but also because my climbing has become more intense.
Wednesday was endurance training – so 48 problems in the overhanging boulder gym without stopping and then hanging on the fingerboard to build up finger strength.
As part of my training, my coach, Rob, put me through a competition-style session on Thursday, which completely wrecked me, and due to the complexity of problems, I was very happy I warmed up properly with a run and a yoga session earlier in the day.  We spent 15 minutes discussing the way I will approach the comp and then I ended up doing 25 boulder problems in total in 1 hour until I had the shakes on the last few problems and my fingers burned.  It was a combination of trying a hard problem and only giving myself 1 ½ minutes to rest and jumping on it again and going for a full push.  Then it was an ice cold shower that night to bring all the swelling down.
Friday was another day of comp training, which would require two days of full rest afterwards – 4 hours of bouldering later…. ouch.  It was all about working the hard boulders again and getting my body prepared for a tough comp in two weeks time.
For both sessions, I have to praise Bio-Synergy’s energy drink combined with their Whey Better protein, which really gave me the last push for both days.
In terms of eating, the only issues I’m having are still having something less dull for lunch than a chicken salad or cottage cheese.  I’m also wondering if it’s okay to have a cheat day once a week, particularly as I’m starting to dream about bread, cupcakes and burgers. So far, I’m sticking to having one sweet thing and one unit of alcohol a week, but I’m dying to have French fries!  Any ideas would be appreciated!