Off-season? What's that?

I've been competing for a while now (going into my 5th season!) and every competitor looks forward to their "off-season".  It's usually a time for us to become more relaxed with our diets, cut back on the cardio (or sometimes eliminate it completely), and rest up for the next season of competitions.  The questions I get a lot from new clients/competitors are: When do I take my season? How much weight should I gain? Do I have to do cardio?  To answer that question I will say only this: What off-season? 

I used to be a firm believer in living it up in my off-season.  I loved eating those carb-filled meals and not having to do the stepmill for 45 minutes at a time, but I hated trying to get all that weight off when it was time to start dieting again.  That's when I decided to change my habits from the "gotta eat to grow" mentality to my stay lean and win reality!  I've found that having one afternoon a week to eat whatever I want while following my "competition diet" the rest of the week works really good for me.  It gives me something to look forward to and feels like a reward for eating the right foods all week.  

Since I started doing this last year, I found it much easier to keep the weight off, therefore making my dieting down phase a lot less intense.  I noticed that while I only gained 8 lbs last year in my off-season, I still looked bigger and more muscular than the year before- last year I competed at 106 lbs and this season I ended at 101 lbs. I've posted a comparison photo from my contests in 2010 (left) and 2011 (right). 

The biggest difference I see is in my hamstrings and glutes.  Like most women that's the hardest area for me to lean out, so seeing the difference just in that area alone is motivation enough for me to keep the fat off this season!  That, plus the photoshoots I'm scheduling through out the year...

In a little less than 3 weeks I have a photoshoot with a couple of girls from my Iron Addiction team down in LA.  So, I've cut out my cheat day to harden up for those pics.  Man, I really enjoy those Smash Burgers and Barbeque, but it'll be worth it to have some awesome pics :-)  Plus, it'll feel good to not have to lose 5 lbs of water (at least I hope it's just water) each week to maintain my weight!  You read that right, I actually put on about 5 lbs after my cheat day.  It makes me sick to know how quickly I can put weight on!  Weighing myself before and after that cheat day keeps me in check.  Lord knows that weight sure does creep up on ya!