It's only my "see you later", not my goodbye

Off for a month of holidays today. Looking forward to blogging in the New Year (well end of January really ) Hope everyone has a safe and Happy Christmas :)

Day of ups and downs

Today was a day of ups and downs. Firstly I got up and did Bodymax 2 again with an increased step height which was pretty challenging. Then I prepped all of our food to take with us to Woop Woop in the interests of eating healthily and saving the hip pocket. I was especially proud of the fact that I had remembered everything. Only I hadn't - after running all of my errands in WW, I came home to discover that I had locked the keys in the house. I had to contact DH and whilst we were waiting for him to turn up with a spare key, took the girls to the local coffee hang out for afternoon tea (not so good for the hip pocket now ).

The other news is that my Father in Law has been diagnosed with bowel cancer. Surprising as the Outlaws actually lead a pretty healthy lifestyle - they play tennis, golf and recently bought mountain bikes and eat fairly well most of the time. Luckily it only seems to be in the one spot at this time and FIL is going in for surgery ASAP. DH jokes that he's trying to "ruin Christmas" but I know that he is pretty upset about the news.

Weekend Catch Up

After dealing with PMS earlier in the week I am now dealing with the phenomenon of Sundayitis which loosely translates to the feelings one can get every Sunday about "where the hell am I going in life right now" interspersed between the weekly cleaning, lawnmowing and meal prep (if I am that organized).

I still have not decided what direction I am going to take next year with my training. I know that if I am to keep going with Figure, then I need to do something surgically about my belly. If I do anything about the old belly I want it to be for more reason that what a Figure Judge may potentially think. I have a bit of thinking to do there. What totally puts me off though is the recovery time. I find it hard enough to sit still as it is and a long recovery time in the middle of Woop Woop just may send me round the twist. I am going to see my GP when I go home on Thursday and have a chat with her about it.

The other thing I have been considering is buying a road bike. There is a lot of flat road out here and I reckon cycling it could be a lot of fun. I am trying to do some research on what would be the best type of bike for me.

Weight training wise, I am going to tackle P90X which is a home based gym style program which runs for 12 weeks and then I am rather keen to try one of Alwyn Cosgrove's conditioning programs or perhaps one of Ian King's. I'd really like to keep developing my upper body in 2007!

Looks like I need to work more on some goals (which I'm going to put into my sidebar here and tick off as I go).

This week however, I am trying to fit in a few RPM sessions on the bike. I am teaching a few classes at Fitness First when I'm home, so I want to make sure I'm at my "give them a thorough thrashing" best.

PMS...yuck!

Don't ya just hate PMS? I'm telling you, it turns me from a mild mannered, even tempered kind of gal into a psycho cow of massive proportions. No one is safe from me when I am in the clutches of it and luckily I only seem to experience the off-the-richter scale variety once every six months or so.

Who copped it this month - let's see. I went down to Woop Woop to do the shopping with Miss G. I decided to buy her a sandwich from Subway. I wheeled my trolley in through the entranceway which was very narrow when I was told by the manager that "I couldn't read the sign" (which had been conveniently placed on the other window) and that trolleys weren't allowed in the store because people kept "running into the door" and smashing it. I mildly suggested that they change the entranceway to be more user friendly as there was a lady struggling to get in with a pram. She started telling me to take the trolley outside when all of a sudden Vesuvius erupted (yes, me) and started yelling at her that it was "typical of a place like Woop Woop, where you are all so two headed, not to think of who was going to use your facility and design the place accordingly!" I then went on to say that her attitude to me showed a "superiority complex that was not warranted in such an environment". I couldn't believe my outburst - I just wanted the ground to swallow me up there and then so I could just disappear. I don't think I'll be dining at Subway again...

Needless to say, chocolate was definitely warranted today. I'm just so glad that in a few short days it will be all over.

On the brighter side of life, I got in a run this morning and felt really good. I also bench pressed a PB in the Room of Requirement, benching 40kg very easily for 8 reps - I have lifted heavier, but I cannot remember lifting that weight so easily.

Finding a happy food place..

Quickly catching up to report that I did Drill Max (as depicted above) - great workout - who says you can't get fit at home? I also went for a 30 minute walk.

This morning I went for a 40 minute run and did a shortish back and hamstrings workout.
Running music this morning consisted of some odd tracks - "St Elmo's Fire", "I Go To Rio", "Don't Cha" and "Easy Lover (RPM remix" - I managed to get four decades of music into one workout!

The past few days I have come to the realization that I need to be eating more. I have unintentionally starving myself by staying too close to pre competition mode. I started by adding more vegetables and lean protein and enjoyed a handful of cashews as a snack yesterday. For some reason I associate nuts with Christmas time..ie do I go "nuts" at Christmas? Anyway I feel so much better for eating more and feeling a little silly that I didn't "listen" hard enough to what my body was telling me. Yes, I've gained some weight but I still look pretty darn good. I reckon if you stick to lots of vegetables and good sources of lean protein, lean protein and "good" fats with the odd treat thrown in you can't go wrong.

It seems so simple, this way of eating that any sane competitor adopts, yet why do so many criticize us for it? These are usually the whingeing "poor me, I'm sooo fat" couch potato slobs who want a packet of pills and a "quick fix".

I love this way of eating and this Lifestyle. Life is way too short to eat crappy food.

Cardio Queen

Gosh, I cannot believe how many days have gone by since my last post! I have done a few strength training workouts since I last posted but most of my time has been taken up with cardio. Weird, I know for a Figure Competitor, but I would rather do something rather than nothing.

Tomorrow I have an upper body and hamstring workout planned in the Room of Requirement - but not before I give Cathe's Drill Max a shot. If it is as good as Bodymax 2 is then I will be in seventh heaven.!

Today I ran 5km and then backed it up with a 2km swim, with lots of drills for both freestyle and breaststroke. I would have shoved my RPM DVD in except that DH has done something to the sound on the computer and it looks as if we are going to have to replace the entire motherboard.

Apart from that, my day is consisting of catching up on paperwork and all of the normal and unavoidable tasks one associates with everyday living.

The Room of Requirement and the Chest Matrix

I love giving things names, so the dingy room that they call a gym here has now become "The Room of Requirement". It has a lat pull down machine with various attachments, a leg press machine and a few random weights, so I can still get a pretty decent back workout if I put my mind to it.

Yesterday was spent logging another run and spending half an hour in the ROR training my back. I had a client travel from Woop Woop to see me and I must say I am impressed with the transformation thus far - a total of 27cm lost over eight sites and starting to look very lean and toned. She was of normal size and weight which makes such a huge loss so significant. She's lost bodyfat and gained muscle (her total weight loss is only 2.5kg). I'm also having great success with the few online people I train as well.

Last night Miss G was extremely sick with an ear infection and I spent most of the night up and down. Then she woke up at 4.30am, so there was my workout for the day blown. I was feeling rather blue about it as I also had a nasty scale spike which I am sure was carb and salt related, until I decided to plonk the G in front of "Playschool" - did RPM 32 tracks 1-6 and then did my own bad chest matrix in the Bolthole.

Chest Matrix:

I used 40lb barbell.
Bench Press on Stability Ball: (8 explosive reps, 8 at 4:1:1:1 tempo ) x 2 followed by 12 full BOSU ball push ups with varied hand placement, all repeated 3 times. I could not complete all the bench pressing by the 3rd set and was begging for mercy after the BOSU push ups.

I then did a couple of sets of incline flyes on a medicine ball - this helps to "open up" chest and front shoulder area - 3 x15

Add a set of bicep curls to the mix and the morning went from blowing off exercise to actually doing something constructive.

I'm very pleased - this is one girl who will not "die with the music in her".

Training in "The Bolthole"

I am really proud of what I have achieved this morning - firstly I went for a 35 minute run outside, which is great for me as I am a real 'comfort princess' and prefer the treadmill to 'real' running. Unless you run out of town proper, a run around the town takes about 15 minutes, so I headed down one of the roads leading out of town and had to navigate a dog (this place is the Dog Capital of Australia I reckon - a dog or two in every backyard) and three kangaroos as well as plenty of black flies.

Then I went swimming in the pool next door which is the jewel of the town - an Olympic size pool. I did 1500m in about 25 minutes (I think)

200 warm up with fins
200 warm up no fins
4 x 100 freestyle on 2.15
2 x 50 back
2 x 50 free
pull 50m, 100 m free x 2
kick 200 m

Then after I dropped Sarah off at school I gave my shoulders a pasting, ala Di in the tiny study which is now my "gym"/office - now known as "The Bolthole". It felt very strange, trying to push the limits in the study, but once I started (and got my IPOD going) I managed to punch out

Shoulder press with barbell: 4x 8
Upright row: 4 x 10 with BOSU rollbacks
Lateral raise: 4 x10 with planks on BOSU

Hooray for kicking some butt this morning! I have made the commitment to do 400 minutes of solid exercise this week and I'm looking forward to buying some stationery as a reward at the end of the week :) Yes, I am a stationery junkie.

Desperate Housewives

Pretty quiet here today - I walked Miss Georgia to kindy today and got the surprise of my life when I walked back home - yes, I arrived home to find a gentleman mowing the lawn! Unfortunately he wasn't "Desperate Housewives" worthy, but wow anyway! Apparently it is all part of the employer service and some homes also have a cleaner come and visit once a week as well. I will be hanging out for that visit if it eventuates.

I had morning tea with two other women whose DH's also work at the same place of employment as DH. This was quite nice and I made some banana bread to take along. I decided to go against my introverted tendencies and invite them back next Tuesday, so I am going to dream up some LL friendly fare - probably a big fruit platter would be the go. DH has befriended a guy in his office with a hobby farm and yesterday he brought home a huge rockmelon (cantaloupe) for a dollar. You can't get much fresher (or cheaper) than that.

Getting my gym area together is still frustratingly slow, but I am well on the way!