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Beautiful Badass Profile – Molly Part 2

• Posted 07/28/2011
• Tags:
  beautiful badass, nutrition AND strength training.
• 6 Comments

Today is Part 2 of the Beautiful Badass Profile with Molly Galbraith. If you missed the first part, you can find that here.

2008

I rebounded pretty hard AGAIN after my 2007 competition despite intelligent dieting and cardio programs. Then in late 2007, Michael Keck introduced me to John Berardi’s G-Flux Theory article.

Training: I finally realized that I didn’t have to train with weights 5-6 days a week. I started doing more reasonable routines like 2 upper body and 2 lower body days a week, or 3 full body days a week. I was focused on getting stronger in all the big lifts as well as increasing my pull-up strength.  Like I mentioned above, I had read Berardi’s G-Flux theory and it made perfect sense to me!  Long story short: increased activity + increased food = increased recovery and the best body of your life. Using his theory I was able to get my body weight back down to 157-160 (down from 175-ish after rebounding) and stay there very comfortably while eating TONS of food. This is also the year that I accomplished my first double body weight deadlift (315 @ 157) and the first time I got 8 pullups. Since I felt so “on top of the world,” I decided to do another figure show.  I thought, “I have never been SO lean while eating SO much food. This is going to be a cinch!”

Cardio:  Berardi’s G-Flux theory is based on high level athletes. They do a TON of activity and eat a TON of food to fuel that activity and have incredible bodies. This means that not only was I training 3-4 days a week with weights, but I was doing several days of intense cardio.  I was doing TABATA 2 days a week, sprinting 1-2x a week, and doing Cosgrove’s Leg Matrix a couple of times a week (24 Squats, 24 Lunges, 24 Jump Squats, 24 Jump Lunges one right after the other done with body weight.) I was also walking with a weight vest around my neighborhood a few days a week just for some extra calorie expenditure.  Normally I would have been over-training, but because I was eating for this kind of training and sleeping quite a bit I actually felt fine and had a ton of energy. 

Diet:  I had been experimenting with my diet and I knew that I was NOT very carb tolerant. Carbs made me sleepy and feel crappy. But I also knew I had to eat for my activity level. I have always been a big fan of very large calorie discrepancies between non-workout and workout days, so I designed a carb cycling plan with 3 low days, 2 medium days and 2 high days a week (one of the high days was a ½ cheat day).  The low days fell on non-training and I consumed between 2100 and 2300 calories a day. Carbs were kept below 75-100 with most of the carbs coming from fiber. That means I had about 225-250 grams of protein and 100 grams of fat. On my medium days (my upper body lifting days) I was eating around 2600-2800 calories with almost all of my carbs coming right after my workouts. This equated to 225-250 grams of protein, 60-80 grams of fat and 225-275 grams of carbs (80% of which would come right after my workout in the form of Surge recovery, raisins, brown rice, Honey Bunches of Oats, bananas, sweet potatoes, etc). 

My high day when I didn’t “cheat” was around 3200 calories. This was 250-275 grams of protein, 60-80 grams of fat and 300-350 grams of carbs (again with the majority of carbs coming post workout). My high day where I did cheat would sometimes get up to 6,000+ calories (I actually logged one of them in Fitday and it was 6,074 calories – 265 protein, 770 carbs, 235 grams of fat). Looking back I cannot BELIEVE my calories were that high and I was so lean. As I got closer and closer to my show I alternated dropping calories with increasing cardio. I wanted to approach my show prep intelligently and not practically starve myself like I had done in the past. I believe the week before my show I was down to 1400-1600 calories with minimal carbs. 

Life:  Training was good. I was strong and I was enjoying myself. I was doing a lot of it but I ate for it and my body looked the best it had probably ever looked. Nutrition was good; I never felt deprived and I was enjoying my diet. Red Point was supposed to launch in August of the previous year, but kept getting delayed and eventually launched in April of 2008. It was everything we hoped for and more and we were positive that “if we built it, they would come.” Unfortunately it didn’t quite happen that way, but we were still very optimistic. Since Red Point was a very hurry-up-and-wait process, I used some of my spare time to train clients online and in person.  I enjoyed both but it was difficult. 

I spent a good chunk of this year getting ready for my show in October of 2008.  I came in around 152 looking the best I ever had, in my opinion. I was lean, proportioned and feminine. However, one of the freakiest girls I have ever seen (in a good way) showed up to compete for her first time (she was so naturally muscular and lean that she ended up switching to bodybuilding shortly thereafter) and my other competition was a veteran figure competitor who had been out of the game for a while, but came back and still looked incredible.  There I was… bottom of the pack again.  :::::sigh:::::  Admittedly I didn’t get quite as lean as I had anticipated, especially taking into account how lean I was when I started.  But I still thought my physique was the best it had ever been. Oh well…back to the drawing board. At least I knew for a fact that I could come out of this prep using intelligent methods and I wouldn’t have to worry about another rebound.  Or so I thought…

2009

I had just finished a figure competition and was itching to get my strength back! I was contemplating doing a Powerlifting meet for fun and to get my mind off of Figure. I was slowly ramping up my calories and I was gaining weight and body fat like crazy. It was NOT NORMAL. I decided to see a Functional Medicine Doctor in my town to figure out what was going on. 

Training: After my competition I went back on a Westside for Skinny Bastards training routine and did that for a while. This included Max Effort and Dynamic Effort lower body days and a Max Effort and Repetition Effort upper body day.  At this point my upper body was not strong enough to benefit from a dynamic day. I was training 4 days a week and my lifts were going well but I felt like CRAP! I was exhausted, depressed (not in a sad way… but in an “I am too exhausted to move or do anything else” way) and not feeling like myself. Because of the weight gain I wanted to focus on something other than aesthetics so I decided to train for a Powerlifting meet.

I enlisted the help of my friend/Coach/training mentor/former Powerlifter Jim Laird. Jim’s theory was, “don’t do so many different exercises.  Pick a couple and get REALLY strong at them.” He thought Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 was a really great way to do that. So we decided on 5/3/1, subbed out the Overhead Press day for High Incline DB Bench Press, and designed my accessory work around weaknesses.  He also thought that I should switch from a conventional to a sumo deadlift stance.  I wasn’t so sure about that, but I trusted him. I loved Wendler’s 5/3/1 and ended up getting quite a bit stronger in just a few months using the routine. I highly recommend it for anyone who lifts raw who wants to get stronger using a simple program. 

Cardio: I wasn’t doing a ton of cardio at this point. Jim had me come in and drag the sled really heavy on Saturdays and then work up to a heavy set of Kroc Rows and go home. I was also doing yoga 1x per week and maybe 1 day a week of TABATA or regular HIIT.  I didn’t have the energy for much else and wanted any energy that I did have to go to strength training.

Diet: My diet was pretty good at this point. However I had started gaining weight like crazy.  The most frustrating part was that I was eating clean and watching my intake and my body was blowing up. I got close to 180 at this point and was freaking out.  (I had been down to 152 at my last show). 

After consulting my Doctor, I tried giving up wheat and dairy for a while, but she said it wasn’t necessary so I added it back in (although now I think it would have been a great idea). I was probably eating 2200-2600 calories a day with most of my carbs coming after my workouts and carbs staying low on my non-workout days. It was very similar to what I was doing in 2008, but with much lower calories. Once I saw my Doctor and got everything straightened out, my weight started coming back down and settled around 172. I wasn’t thrilled with it, but it was better than 180! Diet stayed the same pretty much the rest of 2009 and so did my weight.

Life: As I alluded to earlier, I finished my competition, tried to come off of my prep diet intelligently and was gaining weight like a maniac. I decided to try my hand at Powerlifting so I could take the focus off of aesthetics for a while and I also made an appointment with a local Functional Medicine Doctor to figure out what was going on. I had my appointment in March and after numerous tests I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s (autoimmune hypothyroidism), PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and Adrenal Dysfunction. No wonder I felt like crap, had a hard time getting lean for my figure competition and was gaining weight like a maniac! 

More tests were run and we found out that my cholesterol was too low to optimally make hormones and all of my hormones were out of whack. I also had dangerously low levels of Vitamin D; I was a disaster.  Long story short, we came up with a comprehensive plan that included Bio-identical HRT, as well as some lifestyle changes and medications that would help my situation. In the meantime I was still training for my Powerlifting competition. 

I competed in May of 2009 in the 181 weight class (I was only 172 but because my body was so out of whack I did not want to try and cut weight) and I squatted 237, benched 148, and deadlifted 341.  All in all I was relatively pleased. I had squatted AND benched more than those numbers in the gym, but the deadlift was a 26 lb PR. Plus I had never done a full meet so to come in so close to my maxes and to hit a big PR under pressure was cool. I spent the rest of the year working on trying to gain strength and trying to feel better.  Unfortunately I was not hugely successful at either of them. 

2010

After doing pretty well at my Powerlifting meet, I was focused mostly on gaining strength and getting healthy again. I continued with 5/3/1 after my meet, but struggled since I had recently set new maxes for myself. I was having a hard time completing the workouts (which are based on a % of your 1RM) and I was feeling discouraged. Coincidentally enough, Nia Shanks and I were acquaintances from Figure Athlete.com and I remember her telling me that she went up to see Mike Robertson at IFAST in Indianapolis to have as assessment done and fix her weak points. Since my workouts weren’t going well anyway, and I knew I’d have to back off and work on my weaknesses at some point if I wanted to get stronger, I decided to go for it. I went to see Mike in January of 2010. Since I was strong and had always focused on upper back work, hamstring work, mobility work and pre-hab work, I figured Mike would be pleasantly surprised at my current condition.  WRONG.

Training: After my assessment I learned that I had no glutes, no hamstrings, and no abs. I had a very anteriorly rotated pelvis and my lower traps were nonexistent. I came to find out that these are actually very common issues, especially for women.  Mike wrote my training routines throughout 2010. They started out getting me moving properly and using the correct muscles to do exercises. I went from doing reverse lunges with 135 on my back to doing stationary lunges with no weight. My programs included things like split stance kneeling cable row, incline pushups (when I had been doing decline pushups with my feet on a Swiss ball) and planks that I only held for 5 seconds at a time. It was humbling and frustrating, but I stuck with it and it got better. By the middle of 2010 I was doing 1 Arm DB Bench, 1 Arm DB Row, Reverse Lunges, Front Squats, etc. Finally around the end of 2010 my programs started getting progressively heavier and I was actually allowed to throw some weight around. I hit some major rep PRs (225 for 15 on DL and 120 for 9 on bench).  I was enjoying training again and loving learning from Mike.

Cardio: Mike didn’t program much specific cardio for me. It would usually be Battling Ropes after upper body day or Prowler or KB Swings after a lower body day and it always said, “If you have the energy” afterward because Mike knew I was struggling with fatigue and that most of my efforts should go towards weight training. My cardio was pretty much all intervals. It was usually 10 sec on, 60 sec off or something of that sort. I did cardio 1-3x a week depending on how I was feeling. 

Diet:  A few months into 2010 I was introduced to something called The Modified Warrior Diet.  It’s called this only because it’s similar to the Warrior Diet, but modified for strength athletes. It was introduced to my boyfriend and Michael Keck from our friend and business partner in Red Point Fitness, Iron Addict (mentioned previously). He modified it and had been using it with his clients and himself with amazing success. People who wanted to lean out were doing so in record time. People who wanted to re-comp were doing so with minimal effort. People who wanted to gain mass and stay lean were doing it with relative ease. Everyone’s strength was going up, their energy levels were fantastic and they were actually enjoying food and life. 

The basic premise is as follows: 2 under-feeding meals during the day consisting primarily of easily digesting protein and a little fat, along with some berries or other good carbs. You train in the evening and have a giant feast after training.  I won’t get into the how’s and why’s (you’ll have to wait for the E-Book ;-D) but it works! It was fantastic! I didn’t have to lug food everywhere, I had incredible and stable energy during the day, I had energy for my workouts, I was gaining strength, and I was leaning out! It was amazing. The best part was I didn’t have to eat so freaking clean all the time! I could enjoy myself and a have a life (and if by enjoy myself I might mean eating almost a pint of ice cream every night for a year and having abs… don’t judge me!)  Yes, it happened. I am off that kick now, but it did happen! So that was my diet for the rest of 2010 and I loved it. Saxon (my boyfriend) and Michael have since made quite a few tweaks to Iron Addict’s original concept and the results keep getting better. Like I said, keep your eyes peeled for the E-Book to be out soon!

Life:  2010 was a good year.  Red Point was doing pretty well, my lifts were getting better and better, I got my nutrition under control, I started to have more energy, I lost body fat and stayed pretty lean without being so strict, and I was enjoying myself. I also started running Group Personal Training Classes with my good friend and Coach Jim Laird. Things were starting to pick up. Plus I got published on EliteFTS and my very first article made it in their Top Ten Articles of the Year at number seven! The coolest part was, they measure this by views and mine was published December 21^st, which means it only had 10 days to be read while some of the other had almost a year to be read.

2011

2010 had been a great year.  I was feeling better, making good progress in the gym and business was good. I contemplated doing a Powerlifting meet a couple of times, but so far I have decided against it.  2011 has been great too! The current goals are to keep growing my business, keep getting stronger, improve my organizational skills and ability to get things done so I have less stress, and spend more time with people I care about.

Training: Mike Robertson has continued to write most of my training programs and I have set some rep PR’s like 225 for 15 on deadlift and 120 for 9.5 on bench since training with him. Most recently I was continuing to focus a ton on my form and was getting frustrated because it wasn’t perfect. Mike told me to give his programs a rest for a while and train with my friend and business partner Jim Laird. This is one of the many reasons he is an incredible Coach. He told me to stop training with him for a while and train with someone that he trusts to get back in the groove of things. Once I get some confidence back and get used to lifting heavy and don’t freak when my form goes out the window a bit, I will go back to training with Mike.

If you have ever done a 1 rep max lift you know that form is almost never perfect, and I have to get used to that, and get used to straining again. I started training with Jim last week and I was so excited because I hit a PR doing a high box squat with chains. There was 185 lbs on the bar + 120 lbs of chain, so it was 305 at the top.  It felt pretty easy and I never could have done it if I hadn’t exponentially increased my core strength training with MR. So for now I will be following my tried-and-true Westside for Skinny Bastards template with Jim picking my exercises. I will do that for 4-8 weeks and then go back to training with MR.  (Notice a trend here – even though Molly is more than capable of training other individuals and designing programs, she prefers to outsource her own programming. Some people who aren’t in the fitness industry may think this is weird, but it’s very smart! For example, when I went to Mike at IFAST, I knew he would spot things about me that I couldn’t, and under his guidance I made excellent progress.)

Cardio: I still do minimal cardio for a couple of reasons. In terms of leanness… the Modified Warrior Diet takes care of that for me, and in terms of overall conditioning… well, my lifting takes care of that aspect of things.  I don’t have incredible endurance, but I don’t need it to reach my current goals. I might add in some more conditioning at some point, but for now it’s usually Prowler pushes and/or KB Swings 1-2x a week for 5-10 minutes.

Diet: Like I mentioned above, I am still doing the Modified Warrior Diet. For most of 2010, my diet was filled with lots of “bad” food. I had my body fat tested a couple of months ago and I was at 16% via a Bod Pod measurement which is more than satisfactory in my opinion. However, I got curious about what would happen if I cleaned up my diet a bit. I am in the process of doing that now and I am confident that in a couple of weeks my body fat will be 13-15% with minimal effort and while still eating things I enjoy (BBQ pork chops, mashed potatoes, homemade gluten-free pizza, etc) plus a couple of “cheat meals” a week. I absolutely LOVE the Modified Warrior Diet, though it’s definitely not for everyone; especially if you have unhealthy binge/starve tendencies. But if you like the idea of lugging around less food, having a ton of energy for workouts, and being able to crush a ton of food at night… it might be just the solution for you! 

Life:  Life… wow. It’s hard to properly examine your life in the current moment since hindsight is always 20-20, but all in all I think things are good right now.  My family life is good, my boyfriend is literally one of the most amazing human beings I know, my lifting is getting back on track after a small slump, business is seriously about to BLOW UP (in the best possible way), I am networking with and meeting people I have idolized for almost a decade and I am helping change people’s lives for the better. Overall I would say that makes for a pretty stellar 2011. Please add me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, subscribe to my Youtube Channel (MMG8427), etc so you can follow along and see what happens as my journey continues.

Thanks so much for sticking with me through all of that mess that is my life. It’s hard to summarize each year succinctly because we all grow and change so much during that time. But hopefully my story helped you realize that we have all been there and done that, made mistakes, learned from them, worked on getting better, hit slumps, got through them, met adversity, triumphed over it, and became better for it. At nearly 27 I am not exactly old and wise, but I think I am doing a few things right.  And hopefully as I continue through this game we call life, I will learn to use my ears a little more, shut my mouth a little more, open my mind a little more, and hold on to what is useful and discard what is not. I can’t imagine a better way to learn and to grow.