Feeling like death warmed up

On Monday was working with a client who had lost her voice and I swear that pretty soon after I was not feeling 100% myself - I woke up yesterday morning with a sore throat from hell and overall feeling pretty ordinary. I had to cancel all of my clients yesterday and RPM this morning. I've spent the better part of the last two days in bed and once I finish this blog post that is exactly where I'll be heading.

I'm continuing on in the theme of blogging about my scale weight - when I got sick and sore (as well as having killer DOMS from Monday and weekend), my weight spiked again by just over a kg. Today it has dropped to a new low and I can literally see the bloat coming out of my fingers of all places (they looked like little sausages yesterday). The point is that when you know why weight does what it does, you're eating and training properly there is absolutely no need for the scale to do your head in.

On that note, it is time for me to be a complete slug and head to bed.

Weekend musings

Decided to shove this photo in there of me at my first comp - I've always been lucky to be able to pull out the legs when I need to!

However, I'm nowhere near that condition right now and rightfully so! Though I have made mention of sticking my paddle in a little more vigorously. This week, as I predicted last week was a tough one - overall scale loss amounted to 0.3kg due to wildly fluctuating levels due to TOM and PMS. By Thursday, at the peak of things I had logged a 1.5kg gain over my previous low for the week but on Saturday morning had lost the 1.5kg and a smidge more to put me at a new low for the week. I had my treat meal last night, but haven't spiked as high as last week, which is telling me there's a loss on the cards sometime this week. When you know exactly what is going on with the scale, there's no need to attach any emotion to the number that is reflected back at you. On Thursday morning I was more like "wow, check out that spike (you little ripper...crikey!)!" rather than "I'm such a fat pig!" - though I was thinking I was looking a little puffy.

What I've really nailed home this week is the importance of having a proper treat meal - on Thursday I had a Skinny Cow and really didn't feel very satisfied (no offence to all the SC lovers out there, but I've discovered SC doesn't do it for me) - so yesterday I had a Double Chocolate Icecream with 2 Kit Kat sticks and felt like I'd done my Dirtiest Diana for the week properly. Yummo!

Today has been a rather mixed day emotionally for me after the high of teaching Step yesterday - my Inner Gollum has been playing on my mind and being a bit of a "mad monkey" but I've told him "to leave here and never come back" - Gollum comes out to play when I've got too much work to do and too little time or when I'm feeling overwhelmed by everything. So I've had a bit of computer time, polished off about 3 cups of Salad and Turkey mmmm... and am ready to get stuck into it!

DOMS Report: Oddly enough, not a lot of lower body DOMS going on, except for my calves - however my upper body waited 48 hours to come to the party! I am feeling faint DOMS in my glutes when I sit down, so I should be in full swing by tomorrow...thanks Shelley!

I feel good!

Have just finished teaching my first Bodystep class since before the surgery and shoulder injury. I am feeling sheer exhilaration because:

-I moved my arms above my head and felt no shoulder pain
-my knees (albeit strapped) felt good!
-I was a bit scrappy in places but everyone was wahooing and being noisy so I know that my efforts were enjoyed!

Shelley turned the tables and did a little lower body strength training. I could see a twinkle in her eye when she handed me a 15kg plate for my box squats and said "you're doing 12 reps!" Fun, fun, fun!

Happy weekend everyone!

Still selling

I also have this DVD for sale - all the DVDs I sell are shrink wrapped but I had to unwrap this one as the DVD was rattling around inside. This is brand new and plays well - probably one of my favourite Cathe DVDs and one that I used extensively in Woop Woop pre and post comp. I usually sell it on my site for $58.00 but I will part with it for $40.00.

I will post the description below......that's it for selling anything for now! Paperwork up to date today and everything is now sorted!

You canemail me

if you're interested. Sheesh, this has got to be better than Ebay , wink wink

*******************TWO SUPERB WEIGHT TRAINING DVDS WITH MULTIPLE SET OPTIONS AND PREMIXES

Supersets is a unique 53 minute full body weight training program that incorporates a series of exercises that are grouped by varying body parts and performed in rounds. While this may not be the traditional association that many are used to with supersetting, superset training is also classified as doing two or more exercises at a given time with little or no rest between exercises (or sets). Round One, Group A, consists of the following body part and exercise:
Legs...........barbell squats
Legs/Back...barbell deadlifts
Chest..........barbell bench press
Shoulders....dumbbell front/side raise on stability ball
Core............wood chops on the stability ball

Round One, Group B, repeates the body parts but uses different exercises:
Legs...........barbell plie' squats
Back...........dumbbell pullovers on the stability ball
Chest..........dumbbell incline fly on stability ball
Shoulders....dumbbell rotator cuff side raises on stability ball
Core...........roll outs on the stability ball (no weight)

Round Two, Group A, consists of the following body parts and exercises:
Legs..........dumbell one leg squat
Shoulders...dumbbell seated overhead press
Biceps........barbell preacher curls on the stability ball
Triceps.......dumbbell extensions on the stability ball
Core...........bike maneuver

Round Two, Group B, repeats the body parts but uses different exercises:
Legs..........explosive lunges (no equipment)
Shoulders...dumbbell rear and front delt raises prone on stability ball
Biceps........dumbbell concentration curls on the stability ball
Triceps.......seesaw tricep push ups (no weights)
Core...........side oblique crunches on the stability ball

Because the specific exercises themselves only do one set without repeating, you are encouraged to go as heavy as you can with good form. Of course the first few workouts will take some practice since you will not know exactly what weight will bring you to fatigue by the end of the set. Many exercises also contain a non-traditional set (ie: up 4 down 4, low ends, lunge forward lunge back then jump for 4 etc.)
The music is fun and recognizable. Here is a list of the songs: On and On Somewhere, Somehow I'm Glad Don't you just know Whats Up Golden Eye You are not alone Unbreak My Heart This ain't no love song Eternal Flame

Push Pull

Push Pull is a 45 minute total body workout which features many new and refreshing exercises to keep your muscles stimulated in new ways. The focus of this workout is to promote muscle balance as well as strength and endurance gains through exercise variety and balance challenges. We use the stability ball quite a bit in this workout to create this added balance challenge which in turn promotes even greater muscle recruitment. It's important to point out that when using a stability ball you should use a lighter weight than you typically would for a given exercise since the unstable environment makes the muscles work harder to stabilize. As your body gets acclimated this "wobbly" environment you'll find that you are able to gradually increase your weights again.

The soundtrack to this workout is filled with soft rock classics. Here is a list of the songs:

Walking In Memphis
Freedom
Our Friends Are Electric
Breakfast at Tiffany's
In The Living Years
Dreams
Sleeping Sattelite
This ain't a love song
Missing

Keep in mind that for muscle balance we are doing one muscle group then the opposing muscle group. In most cases this is anterior (front) and posterior (back) but when it comes to shoulders we have both anterior (front delt) and posterior (rear delt) as well as superior (mid/top delt) and inferior (lats) which are directly beneath them.

The exercises for Push Pull are as follows:

Barbell Squats (legs with focus on quads)
Deadlifts (legs with focus on glutes/hamstrings)
Static lunge with heel lifted (legs with focus on quads)
Leg Press (legs with focus on glutes/hamstrings)
Bench press on ball (chest)
Deadrows (back)
flys on ball (chest)
Y's on ball (thats the Push Pull picture where we had our arms going back with thumbs up...for upper back)
Inverted shoulder press on high step (top/mid delt)
One arm row (back/lats which are beneath shoulders)
Front raise on ball (front shoulder)
Rear delt raise on ball (back shoulder)
Bicep curls with ball (biceps)
Slow Dips/immediately to kickbacks (tricep)
Outer thigh on ball
Inner thigh with ball
Superman on ball (low back)
Crunches with ball (abdominals)
Calve raises
Tibialis Anterior w/ball (shins)
Full Body Stretch

You may initially find this workout to be easier since you are learning to make adjustments for the new variety, but once you have worked through this, form and concentration is of the utmost importance for optimal muscle recruitment. Feel free to add sets to any of the exercises for an even greater challenge.The DVD version will offer premixes with multiple set options.

*******************************

Short Dated Nutrient Secrets for Sale!!

Hi everyone,

Just to let anyone that may be interested that I have a couple of boxes of short dated Nutrient Secrets bars - that expire in Dec/Jan 08 for sale - they are one x box of NS Smart Vanilla Almond and One box of Mixed Bars (Radiant Peaches and Cream and Cranberry Crumble) - They usually retail for 31.25 per box but I am selling them for 22.00 per box (plus postage) - up to 3kg anywhere in Australia.

You can email me if you're interested.

Well, who's a blog whore then?

Two blog posts in two days, whoa~ another busy day - taught RPM this morning which was good and then went and had a Bodystep practice. I've still got bits and pieces to go - namely 5, 6 and the cooldown tracks but all is going well and knee is not too bad - nothing a bit of Fixomull and attitude won't fix at the moment.

Fitted in a couple of clients today - I have non officially taken Wednesdays off, but today just seemed to develop a life of it's own, not helped along by the fact I've got raging PMS/TOM and I could eat the arse out of a rhino today. It felt like every time I ate something I wasn't satisfied and by mid afternoon I was reaching for junk. Realized in the nick of time and thought that if I was to apply my 200, not 2000 calorie law then it had better be on decent stuff - so I've mown my way through a couple of large carrots and teamed it with hommus dip. It's just lucky there weren't any bunches of asparagus in there (I would be having orange hands and stinky wee in combination!)! Adding some fat in the form of a red curry (with regular coconut milk) also helped fill the gap.

I'm hoping that tomorrow I can do some strength training for the first time this week. Overall this week has been pretty good shoulder wise, so I'm one step closer to recovery! Yeah!

Going to be a Step Diva!

I have to teach Bodystep on Saturday, my first class in six months or so. It's definitely going to be a bit of a challenge with my knee (patellar tracking issues) and my shoulder (about 80% healed but not there yet) but I think that I'll be able to manage. I'm going to teach Release 71 (pictured), work on my knee (this will involve more glute work and quad/hip flexor stretching) and enjoy it.

Apart from that I've been head down, tail up doing the PT thing, answering emails and the like. I taught RPM yesterday but forgot my cycle shoes which was a bit of a blow - once you move to cleated shoes, you never turn back! Also got a bit of glute focused X trainer in and this morning spent 30 minutes on the X trainer (hard) , 10 minute run @ 11km/hr (focusing on toe off) and 30 minutes of stretching/foam rollering and glute activation work. Tomorrow I will be attacking the upper body and teaching RPM, this time with my cycle shoes firmly in tow. I will use "Carolyn Mix" again tomorrow morning, who doesn't love waking up to Acca Dacca at 6 in the morning?

On the weight front my canoe has hit some turbulence going upstream, namely I think I may have PMS - I'm always hungrier when the little beastie strikes, though the treat meal induced spike I had on Monday went away and I was left with a win this morning of 0.1kg down. My goal is to get to 0.4kg or 0.5kg this week as PMS/TOM is around so keeping this in the back of my mind, I'm going to be realistic about what the scale may say. Definitely feeling smaller - my amazingly unflattering Fitness First pants are a bit looser again today (or maybe it's been demonstrating all of those box squats ...lol)

Dream Tan in my ears!

Yes, somehow I managed to get Dream Tan in my ears yesterday at the Nationals! It was a great night and although neither of my girls placed, they looked sensational up there in their beautiful blingy suits. I got to see so many of the blogger girls which was awesome - only blip in the evening was temporarily losing my mobile phone - but the legendary Tim Martin found it - thank you for your help Tim!

I also had the pleasure of having Michelle C and Carolyn come and do RPM with me yesterday - I knew that Carolyn was coming so I made sure I loaded the class with Motley Crue, AC/DC and Nirvana, especially for her!

Have spent the rest of the weekend on an excellent postural analysis course - cannot wait to apply what I've learned on Monday!

Another Busy Week and Report Card

Another busy week up here in the world of Chez Liz - I'm going to take a leaf out of Miss Katie's book and write about my week based as a Performance Review.
Monday: After wanting to give the scale a swift kick on Sunday, I was returned to my previous week's low on Monday morning. I'm usually not one for talking about what is going on with my scale weight every day but as I've written previously I've had to whack the paddle back in after my small flirt with carb cycling (after 5kg flew on to be exact - and 5kg that has nothing to do with water or glycogen..hmmm). I committed to eating really well but "dirty diannaed" it with a can or two of Pepsi Max and I'm sure a Slim Secrets bar may have popped in there as well.
Had three clients, RPM and a whole lot of online work to do. Put in the most serious upper body training session I have done for seven odd months. Did four big boy push ups! (watch out Shelley!)

Tuesday: Woke up to another scale moment the next morning. Not moving, not one iota! Look at myself in the mirror. Put on my flattering (not!) work pants - swear the butt area is feeling roomier. Train seven clients from 6am through until 1pm - decide that today I'm going to get more incidental exercise in and I do some errands around Indro, walking briskly the whole way.

Wednesday: Down 0.4kg this morning...whoosh! Aaah, that feels much better. Log my CK for a client to look at. Haven't logged in ages. Surprised by how much I'm putting away whilst paddling - a few hundred cals more than my usual comp level..good stuff. Teach a good RPM class - as usual start off feeling uncomfortable and am in my element by Track 3. Have my coaching call - learning to be on the end where I'm not dishing out any thoughts is hard but learn something about myself - I can be nervous about defining what I want for myself.
Spend the day doing lots of online work and have dinner with good friends...yeah!

Thursday: Another big whoosh this morning - another 0.3kg - that's 0.7kg for the week, spot on! Five clients today, including having a training session with Miss D - this was great fun - it's always so inspiring training people who already have a burning passion to go places - so I'm looking forward to seeing what the next month brings there. Visited Louise my physio in the middle of it all - she reckons my shoulder is moving the best it has, but I'm still winging around my inferior scapula border - yes, more serratus work for me - hard yakka. She also taught me a few new cues to do "clams" - all I can say is "wow"...I have learned so much.
Got home starving and had to take girls to swimming lessons - shall we say that being hungry and tired is not the best combination - lesson learned is to refuel before going out!
Have a really good chat to Shannon (not only my client but my good friend and personal stylist!) - it's always so nice to catch up with friends.

Friday: Scale up 0.4kg - pants are baggier and suspect that the jump is real carb bloat - train today on the elliptical and do 10 minutes of rowing intervals. Then 30minutes of pilates and rehab on my own. Really feel like giving the bench press a good smash...sigh and say "your time will come!" Train six clients around my training. Go home and email Shelley - "when are you coming home? " and start to prepare tomorrow's RPM class - Motley Crue is definitely going to be on the playlist for someone I know!

Saturday: National Titles and Centrality Course - I've planned ahead and will have all my meals prepped and will get the opportunity to see whether the carb bloat has left the building. Look for a Nationals report early next week :)

Summary: Like Katie, I like to know WHY and pilates/rehab bores me to tears - however, I do feel better afterwards so I will keep going. Having fun with the scale and enjoying the journey back. As an experiment I'm not logging my food and I'm relying more on intuition - at some point I will probably need to keep closer tabs on the intake but basically I'm following the guidelines I give all my clients and I'm nearly 3kg lighter for it. 2-3 km (I mean kg) to paddle!

Riding, not hiding!

I've checked my diary for this week. Oh boy, it's going to be a busy one culminating in the INBA Nationals at the end of the week. I'm scheduling some training this week - I felt like I'd turned a corner on Saturday and I want to keep the momentum going - so I'm teaching RPM tomorrow and doing more upper body weights. It's all slow but it's definitely happening!

I did a Shelley this morning and nearly kicked the scales across the room, uttering "f*ckers!" (every time I think of this I just want to laugh until I cannot laugh any more) but I was expecting a temporary increase in reading after having a rather delicious treat meal of homemade pizza and TWO Skinny Cows (I had to try each flavour right?)

I'm sure I will have better news to report on that front in a day or two...

Dagging Out and on being a "Dirty Diana"

I have a confession to make - when it's cold outside (well by Queensland standards anyway) and raining, I love nothing more than to dag out inside wearing holey tracky daks and old TShirts and my fluffy slippers. I must look quite a sight, but I am as happy as a pig in mud and love getting all contented reading bits and pieces and sipping a cup of tea. Today has been that sort of day - had a cancellation and got to train Shelley (I am currently waiting for a post describing what she thinks of straight arm lat pull downs and whether she's bringing her mixing bowl with her oats in it to Hi Performance tomorrow). I went and did the grocery shopping (reminder to myself - take a list next time - through my own stupidity I now have 6 cartons of eggs in the fridge - frittata city here we come!) Then I stretched out, answered some emails and read the paper in my dag out ensemble - couldn't have been better.

Tonight was a different story - had to do an RPM fill for a dear friend and who does RPM at 6pm Friday night? Most of Fitness First apparently! Absolutely smashed myself silly which felt awesome and can't wait to do it all over again tomorrow. Am starting to feel a bit weary though now - nothing one of Kerryn's Lindor Balls (how did you know?? ) won't fix.

I've also been mulling over all of the competition preps I have done this year and come up with the conclusion that if you keep your diet a bit "dirty" you more often than not come up with the better results - I think that knowing that you don't have to give up your favourite foods and that you are following a set of guidelines rather than hard and fast rules works very well for most competitors and transformationists alike. Which is why I enjoyed Kerryn's posts about her chocolate souffles so much - yes, she was eating them in the final week and enjoying an Indian meal on the Saturday beforehand - she had arrived in terms of leanness the week before and all we had to do was cruise in for the final week. My other client Caryn, had pasta , which most competitors would consider a no no on the Tuesday prior to her win in the INBA Vics last Saturday - again reaching the required levels of leanness was no problem with her balanced food intake.

Which leads me to my own personal theory that eating super super clean can be detrimental to a transformation or a competition prep. I read so many posts on various forums and blogs about people feeling virtuous because they've meticulously consumed all their vegetables (which isn't in inself a bad thing) , good fats and proteins (which isn't bad either), taken all of their supplements (which isn't so terrible either) - but I think the combination of all and trying to be "perfect" takes a toll on those trying to live that way. For example during my first comp prep I had to go up to Woop Woop to check out our housing situation. There was little good stuff up there and in the end I had to eat what the locals had on offer - if I had decided, for example that only organic yoghurt would do, then I'm sure I would have burned up bucketloads of muscle by stressing that I could only get the artificially sweetened diet stuff and that all that phenylalanine was going to kill me. A focus on keeping nutrition "pure" is not only stressful, it's unhealthy - if you can't switch gears and go for the dirty stuff now and again and if your digestive system has become so rarified you can't enjoy a gorgeous restaurant meal, it's time to rethink what you're doing.

I know that I have at times got myself caught up in the clean eating bandwagon - and for the most part I enjoy eating healthy whole foods - but I also enjoy a daily Pepsi Max and I hate eating vegetables at breakfast. Sometimes I don't eat starchy carbs after a workout and sometimes I have oats for dinner because that's what I feel like! I hate being told what I have to eat and what supplements I need to take. I eat well because I enjoy it and when I want to be a Dirty Diana and have a Pepsi Max and a Slim Secrets bar together - I do so and enjoy every mouthful. Having this balance is what has got me on stage so successfullyand keeps me successful in the long term.

I'm choosing a lifestyle, not a diet - one where I can wake up every day and know that I can live and enjoy it for the rest of my days! I train because I want to and I teach others how to train so that they can live lean and love their life too. Nothing better than sharing knowledge and sharing the love.

Huge Weekend

Wow what a weekend - and to think we're nearly at the beginning of the next one.

Hmm - where to start - Saturday...

Taught RPM HiPerformance and then it was off to the Sleeman Centre at Chandler for the INBA Qld Championships where Tara and Gil competed and did us all proud - Tara placed 3rd and got her ticket to the Nationals - great job Tara and Miss Shelley did an amazing job getting Gil ready for her moment on stage. Gil came fourth but was just amazing on stage - it was just a shame that everyone did not get to see her routine - it was unreal (Gil has a dance background so you can imagine how good it would have been).
It was also fantastic to catch up with so many friends at the show - this is the best bit for sure, getting Dream Tan all over you and socializing!

Then it was on the plane to Melbourne Saturday night and I got to bed at 2am - then up at 7 for a walk around the Treasury gardens which was a great eye opener, followed by a quick breakfast - then it was time to transfer to the Ibis where I met up with Amanda - we caught a tram out to the show and Kek kindly picked us up and took us to the venue in her little black car (perfect for when you're brown and wearing Dream Tan) - bought some Deli Rolls from Maccas on the way for lunch and then met Lindy ( www.lindyolsen.com ) at the venue - Lindy compered the show and did a fantastic job, no doubt aided by my stealthy supply of food and Pepsi Max to keep her going - the show went until 10pm and it was the biggest show (apart from INBA nats ) that I have ever seen.

I eventually got out the back to see Charlotte who looked stunning in her blue bikini and Miss Caryn who got the fastest coating of Dream Tan from me that I think I've ever done - she was surprised when I told her she was looking a bit flat and shoved copious amounts of jellybeans at her (kind of reminded me of an excavator moving lots of dirt in a specific direction) - she was just amazing on stage and got harder and harder the more she posed. She came a very credible 5th out of 14 competitors in Figure Novice but the best news was that she WON the INBA Figure Novice Division on the Saturday - yay Caryn! Charlotte also competed in this event and although she didn't place she looked fantastic and also got harder as she posed and did her routine. Caryn is the pink INBA cover girl!

Then after a little while it was Kerryn's turn to shine up on stage - she totally nailed the prep beautifully and came in 0.1kg lighter than I had predicted she needed to be. The funniest part in the afternoon was her asking me if it was "OK to have a Lindor ball" - yeah, sister - you gotta love a Lindor ball before you hit the stage. I got to meet Sara ( www.sanafit.blogspot.com ) as well who did an admirable job being Kerryn's backstage slapper and I also helped Wendy with her tanning and pumping up. The hardest part was working out the timing - the show ran really late and often the competitors had pumped up only to have to re-pump (that sounds hilarious) later on.

Then it was off to Lygon Street for some well deserved Indian with Lindy, Kerryn, Amanda, Sara and partner Jason. Then Lindy, Amanda and I collapsed into bed - Amanda and I trained at Fitness First in the morning, whilst Lindy caught up on a bit of shut eye.

There's more to come but that's most of the weekend covered. The worst part was coming home and having my car break down in the middle of the city - I became one of those pests you hear about on the radio blocking traffic in peak hour! Finally got home at 10pm last night and posting this at 5.30am this morning. Have missed blogging and hope to blog later today.