Friday 31 October 2008

Feelings!







Thursday 23 October 2008

Huge gap between posts!

Hey hey bloggers, remember me???

Well it has been a while since I have blogged. Just been busy reading the Stephanie Meyer series atm, don't seem to be able to put it down of late. Good books.

So whats new with me......................hmmmmm!

Of late, I have been in a good place both with food, emotions and exercise. I have actually backed off on my gym time under instructions and as a result have had some RESULTS! Wahoo! About F*&^%#X@ Time! I did try to cheat but my conscious would not let me do it.............. so heres how it starts.

Monday morning get up after having a good planned weekend with food, even had treats and a 'Dirty Diana' meal. Scales went up, but have been told to relax and just watch............so that is what I did. For the first time I actually relaxed about the scale reading. I missed going to the gym Monday, slept in and had to race to work. Tuesday woke up, jumped on scales and there was a good drop from the previous day, to lower than the starting point on Friday. Wahoo! What a nice feeling to see some positive changes. But knowing my pessimistic side, I doubted that this would continue. Now Tuesday is my psycho crazy day at the gym but i was instructed to back the hell away!!!!!! So I was only allowed to do a warm up cardio for 15mins and then a good heavy weights session. Then banished from gym for the rest of day, do not go back. Do you know how hard it is to do that, especially when you love doing certain classes and group pt sessions. Tuesday afternoons are my boxing and spinning class day, and I just love it. I was going to cheat and go and just say i didn't go, but driving there, yes I actually started to drive there, I thought of my commitment to my BEHAG and promptly decided to have faith, and turned off and went home! Phew that was hard but it felt good at the same time! I had the will! and I go more time to read my books.

Well Wednesday morning came and I got up and jumped on scales..............another nice drop. hmmm maybe there is something happening here and i should stick to a good thing. So again i did my 15 mins warm up cardio and a really good heavy sessions of legs and weights, then to work. Now normally on a wednesday night I walk on tready for about 30-45mins but again was advised not to do a thing...............a person could really get used to this! So I did just that and got to spend more time with my book.
Thursday morning came (today), jumped on scales and another drop! OMG! is this really happening! Now in saying this, I am thinking because I am getting some results and I am feeling a little chuffed about it, could I be jinxing myself! Tomorrow will be the proof. Fingers crossed. So today was a cardio morning and I did Nikki's crazy spin class this morning, I had forgotten how she loves to concentrate on those legs. But it felt very good, suffering slight DOMS from yesterdays weights, but all good. But now heres the cruncher.............I always do body balance on a Thursday night, great stretch, great sweat and just a relaxer, but again i have been warned off balance. As balance can be pretty intense if you are doing it right, and i assume I must be doing it alright, as i sweat profusely when I do it, that it was advised that this had to be missed as well. GASP GASP all I could do was hyperventilate! What you take away boxing and spinning and now balance.........................nnoooooooo! But in the back of my mind I am at complete ease because i do trust this decision, so i will not do balance tonite. So now everyone is thinking, why can it harm you with all this extra exercise I am giving up at the moment, well it is to help me recover as it has been diagnosed that i have an overtrained body and the vasodilation is not recovering well. We need to start from scratch so as to speak. Teach it to work effectively again. What does that mean?

It means that i need to concentrate on eating correctly, keep caloric intake to match my required energy levels, drink plenty of fluids (water) and let my body actually recover from exercise. and this is what it is all about - perfect balance. Argh! theres that word again - balance!!!! Oh this will be hard to bare til I get home. once at home, I will be okay with not going to balance tonight.

So in short, i am looking forward to tomorrow.

Ciao!

Wednesday 22 October 2008

Travis - First - Australian Titles - Sydney - 18th October 2008


Tuesday 21 October 2008

Inspiration


Saturday 18 October 2008

a perfect day!

Today I planned and maintained a perfect day! How awesome does it feel that when you actually acheive everything you had planned for the day actually happens.

My food has been exactly as I planned. right down to the little treat I will have after dinner, a Macadamian and Vanilla Weis bar.

And I stuck to my word, I did not go and do the spinning marathon, I just went for a walk for 60 mins and then spent the day shopping for groceries, cooking, cleaning and watched a dvd. I am starting to feel rejunvenated for the fact that I just took today very easy.

Heres to another perfect day tomorrow. Have a good one!

Ciao!

Friday 17 October 2008

Reflection of the week

Monday
Great with food and exercise - did a great heavy back session, then cardio.
Tuesday
Had an awesome physco day, started with 60mins cardio, the 60 mins heavy weights, chest and tris. Then went back in afternoon and did 60min boxing and a 45min spinning class. Luv it! Got my groove back
Wednesday
Heavy leg session - squats heavy and very very low, step ups with mediball (6kg) supaset with walking lunges. then lunges off bosu. my legs were shaking after that.
Thursday
met up with "coach" and went through some rehab exercises for shoulders, scapula. Did some pointers on back pin loaded exercises and chest. Very informative morning. Never made it to gym for balance that night.
Friday
Different Leg workouts - 45 degree leg press - heavy, romanian deadlifts - heavy, hamstring bridging - these I have never done before, googled and got the idea how to do it. My hamstrings were screaming before I finished and it involved no weights at all. Wall squats squeezing mediball between knees. I was supposed to hold for 60secs but only manged 30secs before legs burning - need to work on these to get the extended hold. Did some abs as well with reverse curl on fitball under smith machine. Woot woot! my hamstrings are very very tight tonite.

Plan for this weekend is a couple of walks on saturday and sunday, groceries, reading, clean house, some gardening, and most important is to have a very good weekend of food! Baby steps.
I am going to go buy myself an omelette maker, the electric one, which should making my breakfasts a lot easier. I have been splitting my breakfasts up, having the carb content before I go to gym in morning, then I have the protein portion afterwards.

Well time to go, getting sleepy, getting very sleepy. I have had and absolutely great week, fantastic on the food front, fantastic on the exercise front and best of all, fantastic on the hormone front! Wahoo!

Goodluck Tara! Thinking 'bout ya Chickee!


Inspiration - Cindy Phillips


Monday 13 October 2008

Happy Birthday Mrs Breach!

Congrads Trav!




Travis Reddington - First place - Classic Mens - IFBB! Wahoo!




And meet Mr Olympia 4th Place - Dennis Wolf - Man what a huge unit.

Had an absolute fantastic day yesterday, watching some of the big boys on stage! I even managed to yell the loudest for the day, hopefully not embarassing Travis too much. He came down after his stage time and said "hey dude, can hear you a mile away"! LOL told you I had lungs! and the fact there was no one else yelling made it easy to hear me. And Sab, STOP Licking the Screen!

Ciao!

Friday 10 October 2008

And the visitor is.............

That just totally explains everything! I have a visit from Uncle TTOM for the first time since February! Forgotten what that was all about as well. Phew! I am not a crazy woman - just had a massive hormonal shock to the system! Yippee! Funny, to get excited about something like this! Its just I didn't want to be that crazy mixed up woman, who crys at a drop of a hat!

Ciao!

Thursday 9 October 2008

Today's Chapter

Well today has been a good day, the mist is almost gone again. Wahoo! About bloody time. Got off to a good start today with an awesome shoulder workout and then did some rowing for 20mins later. Did alternate rowing styles ie 1 min high row, 1 min low row for the entire 20mins. Talk about burning muscles. I am already feeling them tonight. After work, went back to gym on to the tready for another 20mins and an hour of body balance. Feel nice and stretched. Also food was fantastic today, got in all those veges I needed to eat and tonight I ate 'dirty'. Love that word.............lol! I had a roast lamb, tomato, onion and lettuce sandwich, instead of the protein and green veges that I normally have. It was great.

The best thing about today, is the mist..............it is going away and I am laughing again. Woot woot. I am starting to feel confident again about my BEHAG and the never ending quest for the elusive body image. So now baby steps once again. so what have we acheived so far. Well, there has been the public anouncement of my BEHAG - 30th July 2008. I didn't measure myself then, so I can not compare changes (if any) since then. But I will do so once a month. Hopefully there are some small changes. I have changed my eating habits, increasing my vege intake and my supplementation. So I have made some small changes, waiting for the big changes.

I pulled some info that I posted on my previous blog, thought I would revisit.

seven steps to follow by Robert A Rausch (it was actually a management leadership article but it can and will be applied to everyday wants and needs - like my mojo!)

  • Always maintain your desire for what you do. Desire creates core energy. If you think you may have lost it, think back to a time when you felt strong desire for what you were doing. When you do remember, write your thoughts down and make it a habit to review what you've written several times a day. At the heart of all energy is DESIRE!

  • Believe in something bigger than you. Ben Franklin said, "A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle." Being sefl-absorbed wastes a lot of energy. Find something bigger to believe in than yourself, like your goal!

  • Find a reflector. A reflector is a colleague, buddy or a coach. It has to be someone not involved in your daily life whom you can talk with honestly and candidly. I also suggest not picking someone loaded with unsolicited advice, but someone who will listen, support and encourage.

  • Guard your mind. As best you can, surround yourself with people who are realistic, but who also have the attitude that you are going to make this work.

  • Don't neglect your emotions. Emotions are part of human nature. The harder you try to hide a feeling, the more that feeling will dominate your life. Fear, anger, frustration, love and sadness are natural emotions. Don't play the strong woman and try and ignore these feelings. Feel the emotions; express them appropriately, with the appropriate people at the appropriate time. Believe it or not, it's refueling to express emotions.

  • Normalise the struggle. I think sometimes we are under the false assumption that we're not supposed to struggle. Struggle is part of the game; without it there is little to no growth. It's when we meet the resistance that we get stronger. Energy is lost when there is too much complaining about the present situation and too little appreciation for the opportunity to grow.

  • Change the direction when necessary. Some difficult times cause us to re-evaluate where we are and where we need to go. Look for the inconspicuous messages. maybe you are being directed in a different way or to approach the situation in a different way. If you waste energy on worry and fear, you may miss the very thing that will create success.

  • Finally, don't take yourself too seriously. Given time, all things change. Theses are days that require strong desire and the courage to maintain it.

Time to quickly go and pre make my breakfast and lunch. I will do the rest tomorrow morning before I go to gym.

so guys talking to you all real soon

xxD

Ciao!

Wednesday 8 October 2008

And so it keeps going..........

So as the days goes on, the less the mist hangs around. I now have compared my blogs over the last few months and a pattern has appeared. Apparently I seem to suffer some sort of 'blue feeling' every 4 weeks, soooooooo what I think I am saying is that this is like a 'period'. I am having an emotional letdown rather than the physical period letdown. Since I have not had a period since February, I am thinking it has been replaced with this sucky emotion crap once a month. So I will keep on checking my symptoms just to get a total idea of pattern. But you know what, it is great to write about it. You get comments and encouragement that just help lift you out of it and this time around, there was absolute success in not straying from my eating plan.

A bit hungry today, I get full after all my eats but an hour later, I feel I need something more. Does this mean the metabolism is working or just feeling of wanting to be full??? Ah the question of what is right and what is wrong? You know what, the best thing of all would be some results. I guess what is making it very hard to swallow atm, is that there is a work colleague who has started to watch what she eats, but eats empty calories ie sprouts, tinned pineapple, tinned beetroot, 1/4 avocado, about 30gms smoked salmon is an average lunch - anyway getting off track there, she has lost 35cms and 6 kilos in 5 weeks. Makes it very hard indeed when I have been so vigilant for almost 8 weeks with very clean food, raw veges and a form of protein and I have no results. The worse of it all, she does not exercise at all???? Go figure, I do weights and cardio every weekday and cardio on weekends. Ahhh but it is no good comparing my journey with her journey. Life is meant to be different and difficult for me for a purpose. This destination of my journey has been set for a reason and hence I must keep strong on that path. Persistence, perserverance will prevail and payoff. Gotta keep telling myself that. It will happen.

Ciao!

My highlights of INBA QLD Titles


This one I love as the gentleman on the right is 78 years of age! He was a bit hard of hearing and had to be shown what he had to do next.
The second one is awesome and worrisome - this is a teenage man. whoa! thats a whole lot of lats!
The third one is Travis the coach with Traci - I think a very nice keepsake for Traci - talk about a coach being proud of his protege!

This one is our lovely Tara. Check the ABS! hubba hubba! So so inspirational Tara!


The first one is one of the divisions of the men. The stage was filled with 20 competitors in this division - what a flesh fest!! made me go all hot under the collar.
The second one is the smile on the guy on the right - this guy had the cutest smile of the day! Not to mention - nice chest, niiiiiccccceeeee LEGs! Shoulders and arms - oh lets face it - just plain Noice!

There was one other highlight, a male competitor's routine and gee I wish I had video'd it. His coregraphed routine was just outstanding - methinks he likes to dance a bit as well. If anyone remembers watching him, he was the one jigging around the stage while doing his posedowns. The routine was the one that started slow, then with a massive heartbeat action, he just pumped it up! Awesome!

Feed them SUGAR!

LOL, I just love this photo of Traci - the backstage, getting ready and pumped up and the important intake of quick carbohydrate - SUGAR!

Tuesday 7 October 2008

and the mist slowly lifts...............

How does one stop from feeling blue???? What a crappy emotion it is. You are going great guns, you are eating all the right foods at the right time, you are doing cardio and weights, not just weights but heavy weights and then you do your fortnightly measure. SMACK! nothing has really changed. You dwell on this for a while, then the more you dwell the more the blue mist envelopes you........................................!
Went to the INBA Qld titles on Saturday to watch Tara and Traci, let alone meeting up with some familar faces. But as the day wears on, the mist becomes thicker and thicker, you become more and more withdrawn within yourself, not wanting to associate with anyone. LOL, do you know I sat in the same chair from 11.30am to 7.30pm - did not move even to go to the toilet. Drank heaps of water, just didn't want to move!!! To top the day off, I ripped my only purchase of clothing from Italy, a unrepairable rip! Shute! no matter, can try and make shorts out of them.
The sunday was more blue and miserable than ever (sucky hormones) but the bonus of the weekend. Usually when I am depressed, I usually eat something or drink something out of plan, and I DID NOT do that this weekend! I still had all my planned meals and infact would be a very good weekend food wise.
Why do you ask am I so blue - not being able to see results for all the hard work that has happened in the last couple of months. Although I am not as bloated as previously, I would have thought that I would have some good drops with the food and exercise I have been maintaining. But lets not whinge about it, it is not going to fix it. Perserverance, persistence, practice makes perfect and paysoff!
Today has been a better day than the last three, so hip hip hooray! The mist is thinning! This afternoon I did a bit of pampering and had my usual wax job done - legs, g string, arms, brow and lip. I just love having my body waxed, I just love the feeling of having the hair ripped out, my skin feels softer and younger. I just love the sensation you get straight after the rip and the tingling afterwards.
Going to another body building comp on Sunday = going to watch Travis compete. Another trainer at my gym and Traci's trainer. So heres to hoping that the blue mist will lift.
So off I now go and get my food ready for tomorro, clothes and gym gear. Another day of plan, another day closer to getting some results. Go get them tiger!

Ciao!

Sunday 5 October 2008

Well Done Traci! You are getting there!


Beyond now.................

Why now? Why anytime? Why not! I want to feel normal, I want to be treated normal, I want! Why do I want…………… its been said. I have always struggled with my weight and no matter how hard I work at it, I never seem to get it right. Why is it so hard to lose body fat? Do I have to continually live the life I have, day in and day out, struggling to maintain, let alone lose weight. This mountain that I climb seems to get steeper and steeper each year. I am a 42 year old woman, who is a sendentary office worker, actively goes to the gym 5 days a week, loves lifting heavy weights, manages some type of cardio 5 to 6 days a week. For any other “normal” person, this would be enough to create that defecit required for consistent body fat loss. But you are listening to a person who can put on just under10 kilograms in under 3 weeks, while walking around Europe all day, albeit the diet was not ideal, it was not that bad either. Maybe more carbohydrates than I should have. The breads, majestic breakfasts, long days walking, not eating again till early afternoon and the gelati’s. Whew, pretty bad, but hey you only get one go at the first time in Italy.
So now that my feet have landed back in reality and the knowledge that I had put on some serious weight in a short amount of time, it was the wakeup call to get back on the wagon for the ever quest to get that body I wanted way back in 2004 when I witnessed my first ever body building competition. I had already discovered weight lifting in the coveted “boys area” at the gym serveral years ago. Then got invited to a competition where a fellow gym junki was competing in Physique. Although I didn’t like the way she looked (I felt she was too thin compared to others), it was the rest of the competition that totally roped me in, hook, line and sinker. I watched a competitor call Telia Raciti and totally fell in love with muscle and Physique competitons. To top the day off, I witnessed a quest appearance by the magnificent Jo Rogers. It wasn’t her extreme muscular look that mostly appealed to me, but the way she did her routine on stage and her talk afterwards. I was bitten. Since then I have dieted, pushed myself hard with cardio and weights and obviously yoyoed up and down in body size. Then comes the anxiety and disappointment for not getting good fast results and obviously that coveted body image that I crave.

Now talking about the body image I crave, also comes with the need to be satisfied. But do you know what the hardest thing to accept, is watching people who you know do less exercise than you and eat not as cleanly as you, get more results than you and faster too. Your determination starts to disappear and now going to the gym becomes a chore. Your time starts to peeter off, till you are just going along obligatory and following a half ass eating plan, on goes the body fat you managed to lose over six months of consistent effort. You start to feel sorry for yourself, sabotage yourself then kick yourself in the butt. So after a week of asskicking and reflection, you drag your sorry ass back to the gym, you get started back on the right track and continue down it once again to try and obtain that body image you crave. So now you ask yourself, all those years, surely somewhere you should have got it right. You go and obtain more knowledge by completing Certificate Three and Four, and you would think with all that knowledge, surely you can get the whole body image quest right at this point! A case of Try and Try again until you succeed.

Accepting your challenges is bad enough, as you cope with the daily grind of bearing the unwanted body image, but to note that people tend to look past you or not take you into conversation due to your size. Surely not, you say, people are not like that, but alas, bear witness to people often walking past you to talk to the person who has a much neater body image. Females are not quite as bad as males, but working in a construction industry, you tend to notice this more. An example of what you feel can be best explained following: You know you have some serious surface veins on your legs , and normally it does not worry you as you usually forget about them. But walking around with shorts on or a shorter skirt, you start to notice people looking at your legs and you become extremely self conscious of it all. You then start to cover yourself up. This is what it is like with the body image issues. You are comfortable with yourself all the while you are pursuing your happy body image, until you come into public and you discover people around you don’t have the same issues as you, then you start to feel inadequate. Enough to the inadequacies, time to put a stop to these feelings. Time to get out of this rut. But what is the rut you in, you exercise consistently, you train till you fatique, you ensure you expend more energy than you take it………..so where are you going wrong. Emotions!

I can tell you that disappointment plays a big part in the weekly grind. You put in an extra effort that week, you exercise so hard, that you are literally tired and sore and the scales and measures show no to hardly any change at all. You tell yourself that persistence and perseverance will always pay off. So you keep at it the following week like a good little Trojan. You stick to an extra clean eating plan for 5 days of the week because it is easy at work. No distractions. But the weekend comes along and you have so many chores to run. You start the first morning off with a great powerwalk and breakfast, then out you go for your weekend routine of groceries, odd jobs and catch ups. Before you know it, its 4.00pm in the afternoon and the last time you ate was at 8.30am in the morning – what the? Where did the day go? You are now hungry, so you think about something to eat but dinner is soon, so you can’t have too much. You nibble a bit, maybe a piece of bread with peanut butter or crackers with something. Then after a long day of shopping, chores, cleaning and running around, you really don’t feel like cooking dinner. You live with 2 men (husband and son) who do not cook, so you make toasted sandwiches or homemade pizza. You couldn’t be bothered making something else for yourself so then you eat the pizza too. Now comes the guilty feeling that you didn’t put in the extra effort and vow not to do the same tomorrow. Tomorrow comes, you keep to family tradition and cook breakfast for everyone – usually a very good healthy breakfast, an omlette of sorts. So again the day starts out well and often you get to lunch eating what you had planned in the first place. Usually the morning is taken up chopping, dicing, cleaning and bagging vegetables, roasting and chopping meat and basically preparing food for the following week. Lunch then turns into something healthy at home for yourself and sandwiches for those who are at home. Mid afternoon always gets missed, usually doing way too many chores to think about it. Come Sunday night, you have either put on a roast for the boys or have something else prepared but you do not feel like eating yourself. You don’t. Later that night you get hungry, so you open fridge doors and cupboard doors…………………looking for that elusive tasty morsel that is good for you, has no fat and will help you achieve that body image you crave……Ha! In what dream?

Now you ask what are you doing?? What do you really want?? You want to be that Physique competitor that you admired and aspired way back then when you first was touched by the passion. You want not to be that failure that you think people think you are, you want to achieve that perfect body image for you. So now once again you have set yourself goals, announced those goals publicly and 3 months later, you really have not made such a dent in that doona layering that you have on that hard hot body of yours. You have set goals – Big Enormous Hairy Ass Goals that you want to compete next year. With the three months gone already, you realize you are not making the achievements you need to have done by now to actually make it next year. But this is okay, you still maintain that sometime, something has to happen, and when it does, it will be great. So you talk yourself about staying on track and each weekend you try to make it perfect. Try and try again till you succeed. You surround yourself with positive people who inspire you, acknowledge you and even admire you, all in the quest to boost your self confidence.

Now goals are set – Ulitmate Long Term Goal, to maintain a body image you will be happy and comfortable with. To live life comfortably and to be accepted by your peers as have a fit and healthy body, and not overlooked for the person with a neater body image. Intermediate Long Term Goal is to compete at least once in Physique. Medium Term Goal is to achieve one third body fat loss towards your end goal by Christmas. Short term goal is to have a very clean healthy full week of 7 days with one reward at the end of a good week.

I will compete in Physique and no one will deter me from my vision, not even myself.

Thursday 2 October 2008

I always come back to this amazing inspirational physique!




Wednesday 1 October 2008

Contentment and Satisfaction!

Wahoo!
I had the grilled fish and I found a snack bar who is mindful to your requests. Talk about doing the right thing. The boys went up to the snack bar and asked for grilled fish for me, but preferably fat free - the snack shop placed a piece of baking paper on their grill and grilled me fish - a nice piece of dory approximately 150gms with no oil.

Craving satisfied and long term goal satisfied! WOOT WOOT!

Ciao!

Necessary Awareness!

Be respectful and mindful of yourself.

There will be times when your immediate wants will be in direct conflict with you long term goals. One part of you will have a strong urge for something yummy (and obviously fattening) but you haven't given up your desire to succeed your long term goal. Immediate wants - to satisfy craving. Long Term goal - to compete physique. So I was reading an article this morning that suggessts you discuss the issue at hand - wants vs long term goals.

Right now I feel like something yummy for lunch, actually feeling very hungry atm. I have lunch packed but sort of don't feel like it - mind you it is a yummy lunch too! So what do I do?? The article suggesst don't follow your impulses for immediate gratification, nor don't tough it out and ignore the craving. Often by ignoring cravings you will eventually pig out and eat more that you would have by satisfying the craving in the first place.

Possible solution - go and use your awareness and knowledge of the fat and calorie content of foods, and find something that will both satisfy yourself that is lower in fat and calories and won't sabotage my long term goal! So what do I crave - grilled fish, but problem being is that I haven't grilled the fish myself (use scanpan at home so no oils added). What do I have packed - chicken breast - have had this for the last 3 days and today feel very tired of it. I don't think that one serving of grilled fish will hurt my long term goal. So I am giving into the craving, justified it with myself and shall totally enjoy it!

ciao!