Figure Fever!

It's officially almost the beginning of the Figure Season with six weeks to go until the INBAs on 6th October. I can almost smell the Contest Colour already! I have a client (she will be laughing at this because it sounds so damn formal) competing in Novice Figure and I am just as excited as she is about bikinis, posing, shoes, music and of course competing in top physical condition. I have no concerns there - we met today and she is in great shape.

I put together a rather impromptu upper body workout today followed by interval running on the treadmill. At one stage I got up to 14km/hr on my sprints and still felt like I had more in the tank when I was done. It's amazing how your mind can be self limiting - I've always had it in my head that I can't run fast and here I am on the slope running towards 40 and running as fast as I could in my 20s. Must be all of John Berardi's fish oil!

I am one blogger who is not participating in Craig Harper's Challenge. I know many of you have been positively affected by what Craig (correctly) writes, but somehow, he doesn't do it for me with his writing style. Is it exercise physiologist envy or what - I don't know - as I agree with most of what Craig writes - maybe it is just down to writing style and nothing more. However to all who are participating, happy Challenging - I won't say "good luck" because luck has nothing to do with good results when it comes to body transformation.

I'm glad I'm not the only one having bovine issues

Thanks for the votes of sympathy on my "fat bloated cow syndrome" - it's amazing to think that at any given time, 25% of the female population is probably going through the same conundrum. Even though it is a pain, I'm in awe of the complexity of the female body and all of the hormones that come into play for a shot at potential reproduction.

I had a day off today - it felt like everything was achy and bloated and I managed to knock over all the laundry and ironing, mopped my floors,vacuumed and generally unleashed my inner domestic goddess (yes, she hides in there somewhere!). I'm looking forward to some strength training tomorrow. Back to Week 4 of the Christian Thibandeau program, some BOSU work and some running.

DH leaves at the crack of dawn tomorrow to finish the final phase of his Management Development course in South Africa. He won't be back until late September, so it will just be the girls and myself. I don't mind it initially, but after a few days really begin to miss his company.

Going nuts on a Wednesday

I taught RPM this morning - pushed it hard but not as hard as I would have liked as TOM surprised me this morning. This evening, I'm feeling like a fat bloated cow. Which leads me to ponder...do cows themselves ever feel fat and bloated themselves. Too much green grass? Who knows?

My Precision Nutrition experiment continues - I would guesstimate that I've upped my caloric intake by about 200-300 calories and my energy levels (despite TOM) are very good. I did have a moment when I grabbed a few macadamia nuts to eat with my afternoon snack - that voice from the Nineties shrilling at me: "they're too fattening" - this wasn't a good feeling to match my fat bloated cow style physique right now, but I march onwards and upwards anyway.

I'm looking forward to finally returning to some strength work now that the craziness of the launches is over. Lift, girl, lift!

A Precision Nutrition Day of Eating

Meal One: scrambled eggs, broccoli, beans and snap peas, slice of low fat cheese and good handful of almonds
Meal Two: Slim Secrets bar and apple
Meal Three: oats, protein (whey), milk, berries (raspberries and strawberries in liberal amounts), pumpkin, cauliflower and carrot soup
Meal Four: 150g cottage cheese and 2 cups mixed steamed veggies
Meal Five: pumpkin soup and nuts
Meal Six: salmon and grilled asparagus :)

Energy to Burn!

Gosh, I feel like quite the mad scientist today - woke up to a Precision Nutrition compliant breakfast of eggs, vegetables and nuts and then headed off to teach RPM for Ruthie T. I really felt like I caned it this morning - I was lucky enough to have Alicia come to class today for a bit of a get together and I told her afterwards that I was really begging for mercy after Track 5 (did anyone say "Pain Killer"? LOL! I got to see Alicia's beautiful Style on Stage Bikini. I have to say I fell in love with the colour and adornments and it made me think it will be fun to compete again when the time is right.

I had been pretty much eating in a very similar fashion to what Precision Nutrition recommends - veggies with every meal, lean protein with every meal, but what I wasn't doing was having enough fat. I'm a fat phobic stuck in the 1990s - I'm amazed at how much better I feel with a bit of extra fat in the old system. I'm experimenting with Precision Nutrition to see if I can "set" my metabolism higher - so it's all a big fun experiment right now.

Ok, best be off to dinner soon - salmon with pecan meal and steamed veggies - yum yum!

Aaggrh Monday

Unfortunately for me, Miss G was unwell today, so I had to call in absent from my regular Monday morning RPM class. I am teaching for Ruthie T tomorrow and fingers crossed, little Miss G is feeling much better.

I still managed to get in a workout today, albeit a little interrupted - I did Cathe's Bodymax 2 - Cardio only premix which clocks in at an hour and later in the day when I felt I wanted to stretch my legs, did a 30 minute Spinervals set on the bike. As I posted yesterday, I am amazed at how much I'm sweating these days - it was less than 10 minutes and the bike and the carpet square underneath it were looking like a bit of a cesspool.

The photo above is of Cathe's newest DVD set due out in September - a 4 day heavy training split with four very intense cardio workouts. I will be in heaven on the days I decide not to go to the gym.

Launches done (back to back workouts!)

I thought this picture was really appropriate for today as I have done "back to back" workouts today - taught Bodystep this morning and RPM this afternoon as well as RPM yesterday morning.

Yesterday morning I taught with Emma, the GFC at Toowong, which I really enjoyed, although I muffed up Track 7 a bit. The great part about it was that because noone had done it before, it really didn't matter.

Then I was up for Step this morning with Luke from CBD who is just an amazing step instructor. He was fantastic.

Then it was RPM today with "Macca" - who I had never met until the start of class but after we got used to each other, we settled down and rode together beautifully. It's great to ride with someone where you're not worried about maintaining the same cadence etc - as the Honda ad says "isn't it nice when everything just works?". What I'm really proud of is that little 5'5" me sweated a noticeably bigger pool of sweat than 6'3" Macca :) It's the little things :)

Thank you to everyone that contacted me about Fattitude and PN - I sold Fattitude and was able to get my PN upgraded so everything is good. I'm doing a lot more with Precision Nutrition now and looking forward to sharing my experiences with it as an independent reviewer (the internet seems to love John Berardi ). From what I've done though, he's very much into eating for athletic performance, health and vitality. Which is excellent from where I sit.

For Sale!

I am selling a copy of Craig Harper's "Fattitude" - it's brand new and unread. I already have a copy of the book - it was originally published under the title of "Your Perfect Body" in 2004.

Anyway it is $20.00 Australian + postage. Feel free to contact me at liznelson@bigpond.com if you're interested.

I also have John Berardi's "Precision Nutrition" Vol 1, including 4 DVDs and "Gourmet Nutrition" for $100.00 Australian + postage.

Rolling along!

Today's training: prefatigue quads workout (10 minutes of ouch!), teach Bodystep - that wasn't part of the "plan" but Shelley called me this morning, sick as a dog and I was happy to help her out. It was a good class - the Wednesday crew are a really nice bunch and as well as working up a terrific sweat, it was good fun.

After class, I grabbed a quick bite - my "On the Go" standby of a Slim Secrets bar and piece of fruit and then headed back into the gym to learn my choreography. After an hour of playing around, I was ready for a shower and lunch (which was prepacked in my cooler/Esky and just waiting to be eaten!).

This afternoon was spent with the girls at Jazz Ballet - they are just too much fun to watch - then home for dinner and catch ups with clients.

Another Rainy Day!

I'm delighted to see another rainy day. It's just one of those days I feel like curling up under the doona with a good book - but not before I meet my training and fitness obligations of course!

This morning's workout was a good one - 4 x 1 km repeats on the treadmill at sub 5 minute k pace with 2 minute recoveries , shoulders and tricep training and then 25 minutes hard at it on the Spin bike going through the new RPM release. I've pretty much stitched up RPM except for troublesome Track 7 and this afternoon I will probably get started on the new Bodystep release.

I'm still in total hunger mode, so I am going to make myself a pot of vegetable soup. Today I am blaming it on the rain! Gotta blame it on something - I do know that I'm not preggers, so I can rule that one out :)

Does anyone know anything about dreams? I had a dream that I owned a cheetah as a pet and despite my misgivings about its fangs, it behaved more like a giant pussy cat. It was very vivid!

Starving!

Ever have one of those days where you are just really ravenous for no apparent reason? I'm chalking it up to RPM today - felt like I absolutely thrashed it this morning.

I'm looking forward to some strength training tomorrow and more work on my choreography.

Rain!

It is raining in Brisbane today - it is so nice hearing the sound of rain on the roof! It's real "get under the doona" weather but for me I had to teach RPM which was quite good once I got going. I also spent nearly an hour going through the new choreography for our launches next week. I just have to knock over Bodystep now and I will be cooking with gas.

Plans for next week include:

Monday: teach RPM + RPM practice
Tuesday: Bodystep DVD + run + weights #1
Wednesday: Bodystep Tracks 1, 7, 8,9, 10 + RPM + weights #2, BOSU work
Thursday: Bodystep Tracks 1, 2,3,4 + run + weights #3, teach Bodystep fill in CBD.
Friday: Bodystep run through, RPM run through, weights #4, BOSU work
Saturday: Launches
Sunday: Launches

IF I can actually nail all this, particularly the choreo for Bodystep without too much drama, I shall be a happy, happy camper.

BOSU madness!

Today's workout involved a mixture of traditional strength training and BOSU work, as per the course work we have for the "Core" program.

My workout went like this:

Warm up: rower

Prefatigue quad workout: leg extensions, then squats as a superset...ouch!

Prefatigue chest workout: flyes then incline bench press as a superset, double ouch! Teamed with BOSU plank pushups, triple ouch!

Bicep workout: Barbell curls followed up by hammer curls.

Then 5 minutes on the bike - Tabata intervals (puke worthy ouch!)

BOSU hamstring/glute work (feel the burn)

5 minutes Tabata intervals (double puke worthy ouch)

BOSU hamstring/glute work (variations)

10 mins escalating intensity on elliptical

BOSU abdominal work

10 minute steady state elliptical (I was running out of gas by this stage and it was all I could muster)

BOSU back extension work.

Thoracic BOSU stretch (aaaahhhhh!)

It was higgeldy piggeldy, but it was quite a workout!

I had energy to burn I guess as we went out for tapas last night and I indulged in some lemon tart for dessert. I haven't had this for yonks and enjoyed every mouthful.

We are now off to take the girls bowling. Should be fun!

Spoiled by DH

It's our 11th Wedding Anniversary today and DH has spoiled me rotten with a Tag Heuer watch. I really wasn't expecting anything as we have been hit and miss over the years with our Anniversary and gifts - someone's been sick or at work etc and things just have never gone to plan. My parents in law visited us in Woop Woop last year to babysit so we could go out ...only the problem was, there was nowhere for us to go, unless you count the vegetable free pub in Banana, yuck.

Anyway I was just blown away by this gift. I have to get the wrist strap adjusted, but I'm going to look great with my watch on one arm and my heart rate monitor on the other.

Speaking of heart rate monitors, I wore mine for training this morning which consisted of:

4 x 1 km repeats - 2 at 5 min k's and 2 at sub 5 min k's which I was rather chuffed with.
Then it was onto the Prefatigue workout - 5 exercises in total which doesn't look like much, but sure packed a punch. Plus I have the most amazing hamstring DOMS from Mike McSweeney's Core course, which was really interesting. I have plenty of practice to do on the BOSU but I'm confident of eventually nailing all of the moves, some which require a lot of balance and core strength/stability, which unfortunately is not my strongest suit. However I find doing things I don't "like" initially turns me into a convert once I'm done!

Never quite the way you plan!

I was looking at how I organized my week and it definitely won't end up to plan - for example
it's been:
Monday: teach 3 RPM
Tuesday: run - sustained endurance + Prefatigue Workout A
Wednesday: RPM @ home
Thursday: Core Course at Mount Gravatt

After that, who knows? I think planning is wonderful but I'm trying not to get too disappointed with myself when things aren't exactly so.

I have started learning the new RPM release - so far, I'm enjoying all of it - I haven't got a favourite track picked, though I'm leaning towards Track 6 - I like cadence work.

Last night I ate fruitsalad for dinner (not the one above, but pretty darn good) - sometimes you go through these phases where you are not one bit hungry. Yesterday and today have been one of them.

Tuesday

What a super inspiring name for the above post! I pulled up much better than I had anticipated from the knockout punch of the three RPMs and did a treadmill run -sustained endurance intervals for 30 minutes which really got up there intensity wise by the end and started Week 4 of the Christian Thibandeau program - the reps are now in the 12-15 range and there is a lot of prefatigue work going on. I trained shoulders and triceps and I can feel the DOMS in the top of my shoulder caps.

It's Miss S's 8th birthday today and she has had a lovely day. It is exciting to see how excited your children get on their birthdays and she's had a wonderful day. I took 27 cupcakes to class today for her to share with her class mates and teachers and this afternoon we had various family members wandering in and out to wish her a Happy Birthday.

Tomorrow is a Public Holiday here in honour of the local Show and I am going to try and get stuck into some training at home.

crap, I'm tired!

I've just taught 3 RPM classes today and the last two were back to back. According to my HR monitor, I burned over 1000 calories. Now if that doesn't deserve a Koko Black hot chocolate after dinner, I don't know what does.

Stepping it up!

I've been inspired by Lia to get myself organized. I'm moving into a very busy week with learning the new Les Mills choreography and attending Mike McSweeney's Core Course for Fitness First - I'm also moving into the next phase of Christian Thibaudeau's program which is all about pre fatigue type work which should be interesting (and DOMS inducing to say the least!).

My exercise week is looking like:

Sunday: Horizontal Dominance Training Upper Body, 30 min cardio

Monday: teach RPM

Tuesday: Prefatigue workout A

Wednesday: RPM at home, learning choreo

Thursday: RPM revision with Em, Bodybalance

Friday: Prefatigue Workout B, cardio

Saturday: Prefatigue Workout C, cardio

Sunday: teach RPM

My personal week is looking like:

Monday: work (programs etc), make birthday cake, cupcakes for school

Tuesday: Miss S's birthday

Wednesday: Public Holiday - activity with family

Thursday: Core Course

Friday: lunch with Steve (it's our 11th wedding anniversary!)

Saturday: 10 pin bowling and Sizzler party for Miss S

Sunday: off

Unfortunately with launches coming up, a day off doesn't look likely until the last week of August. This is when I'm going to schedule another day of indulgence! I'll have certainly earned it.

My other good news is that my physio, Dan, thinks my glute control has improved and he has given me the go ahead to keep squatting, deadlifting etc. I still have a long way to go with it and it will never be perfect, but it's really heartening. I am throwing in the Bodybalance to help open my hips - I did Balance last week and compared to Tony's yoga, it's a piece of cake. Well, not quite - but not as hard as I had remembered it to be.

'flu who?

Seems like there is an epidemic of influenza in Brisbane right now with offices almost being shut down due to illness. My poor hubby started getting symptoms last night and came home from work today feeling dreadful. I've bundled him up into bed and lamented the fact we sold our spare bed before we moved back. I feel like sleeping in our bed with a brew full of flu virus in the air would not be a good idea. I had severe flu which hospitalized me about 7 years ago - I'd love to carry over some immunity from that but I feel too much time has now lapsed. I've set up another mattress in Miss S's room and hopefully that will stop me from getting the flu as well as the usual handwashing etc. measures.

I finally got to do some strength training today - I did Vertical Upper Body Dominance for the last time and was thrilled to note big improvements in my chin ups (nearly back to unassisted). I also got in an interval run and Bodybalance class.

Reflection..

Sometimes you have to do what you don't want to do and sometimes you have to say what you don't want to say.

I was subbing a Bodystep class over at Toowong on Tuesday morning when shall we say, I had some difficulty with a participant. I have rarely had any altercations with anyone during my long group fitness teaching career but this lady decided that she was going to stand right up the front, change all the choreography and not lower her step height when asked. I dropped a hint or two and then I finally decided to stop the class and tell her that it was my duty of care to advise her to drop her step height and that I would not restart the class again until she had done so. She asked me if she could see me after class, which was perfectly fine with me - however her definition of "seeing me after class" involved a whole swag of abuse rather than a constructive conversation. I, meanwhile was harbouring a degree of regret that I'd been such a pussy and not just kicked her out in the first place!

I guess I'm one to just try and give "peace a chance" first!

And on doing something you don't want to do, especially if you are trying to change your physique or your body for the better it is often something you MUST do in order to move forward. Does it feel natural? Hell no, but work at it long enough and it truly becomes part of your lifestyle. Getting plenty of exercise and eating well are now as natural as brushing my teeth but it wasn't always this way! I had to break through the discomfort barrier first - small steps, but it is worth it.

I have been participating in a Veggie Challenge with some other Leanness Lifestylers - at least 4 cups a day all of different colours and at least 10 different varieties. I could have counted the different variety of lettuce I had in my mesclun salad leaves but thought I'd go for more Chinese veggies and baby corn to bring up my numbers. The challenge has only run for a week, but it has reminded me again of how much better I feel when I put clean fuel in the tank. The TOM symptoms are easing and I'm beginning to feel almost normal!

PMS

Ack, PMS/TOM time - and this month I am suffering. I'm usually quite fine during this time, but for some reason a menstrual curve ball has been thrown at me this month which has had me craving sugary junky food and a hot water bottle. Said junky food is out of the house and I'm enjoying a nice cup of tea .....

Yawn.....

Another day done and dusted - did a very nice run today on the treadmill and knocked out some more RT. I deadlifted 62.5 kg (I've only got to double my quota and then some and I will be just like Lisa!) for 4 reps. Seriously, I was thrilled with this as it's a) above my bodyweight and b) something that I didn't think I could manage given my chronic hip issues.

I took my Mum out to lunch as it's her birthday on Saturday - we went to the "Beautiful Deli of the Unfortunate Name" - the Vietnamese cafe called "Phuc Viet". We both enjoyed fresh Vietnamese salads, followed by a hot chocolate. Not quite as good as Koko Black, but still very nice to share a few hours together and catch up.

Tomorrow I am on a Fitness First training course all day, so will be very scarce. I will go for a walk in the morning and prep all my meals ready for the day. I am doing a veggie challenge with some of the other LLers - 4 cups at least, all of different colours. Should be lots of fun and fibre!

Uplift and energy!

Another busy day, done and dusted! I taught RPM for John this morning and absolutely caned myself in the process - average heart rate for the class was 160 bpm and according to my HRM, I torched 500 cals - on fire! I then went and did my strength training for the day - I didn't really feel like it after RPM, but pushed through anyway and got the job done. I was really pleased to see improvements in my lifts from last week, so it was worth the effort.

Later on, I picked the girls up from school and Kindy and we went to Jazz Ballet - we have "Dancing Days" on Tuesday's and Wednesday's - they are such cute little squirts to watch. Then it was back home to cook dinner, and hop on the computer and see what all my clients have been up to and update my blog.

I have been pondering how important it is to "enjoy the journey" and to work at finding the type of training that you enjoy and to eat with the idea of being an athlete in mind, rather than worrying first and foremost about what you look like - because if you are improving on the first two counts, the body falls into line anyway. I am continually amazed by how much energy I have now, versus the lethargy of the "bad old days". Not to say that I don't have my down times - I do, just like everyone else.

Livy was asking me about my Before Shots. For anyone interested, have a look on the right hand side bar under "Leanness Lifestyle" and look under the Success Gallery. There you will see my at my 87kg glory (back shot ).