Focus on your thinking, change your results!

I was reading Carolyn's ramble and realized that it's been quite a long time since I've been the "fat chick". My journey started on Australia Day 2005, when I decided that I was going to not only change my body, that I was going to change the way that I thought about myself and finally step up to the plate and be the person I truly was, rather than hiding it it in shame behind a layer of fat or in my case, several layers of fat .

For me, being the person I truly am meant to be was firstly accepting where I was in the whole journey and then who I was. I've lived in the shadows of a fairly extroverted family - not that I wasn't loved or encouraged, but a lot of the time compared to all of the hilarity going on around me, I felt that what I had to offer was bland and boring - part of my transformation has been knowing that it is OK that I can be more on the serious side, introverted and reflective. I often have my best revelations in these moments of quietness. However I love people and love to share in the journey with them as well.

Over the past four years my world has been full of different thoughts and perspectives about all sorts of things that's finally led me to where I'm sitting today, six weeks away from another Figure Comp.yikes! I feel that transformation and personal growth for me occurs in layers and this time around has been yet another experience entirely.

For a start, I've had the swelling joints issue to deal with - the results say probably viral, but have noticed a strong correlation between ingestion of processed wheat products and swelling. So for the first time ever, I have eliminated a food group and embraced the Paleolithic way of eating. I've ditched most food and drinks with artificial sweetener (apart from the odd Diet Coke - I had my first can in about 3 months yesterday at the movies). I'm reading more labels and noticing the insane number of fillers and preservatives that go into so many commonly eaten products and believe that none of this stuff can be possibly good for you.

Secondly, I haven't used a formal training program - why? - because I've been focussed more on moving better and looking after my shoulders, SIJ and glutes. Then I've been trying to fit it in around clients - so often I'll have a look at myself and decide there and then what needs work. Better movement is still the number one priority for me, show or no show.. Cardio works out between 30 minutes and an hour depending what I've got on that day, 4-5 days a week. Usually there are 3 x 30 minutes and 2 x 1 hour.

Thirdly and most importantly, I have a different perspective on this one to previous efforts. I know realistically that I probably won't win or place, given that I just don't have the symmetry or the muscle to be a top figure athlete. My reason for doing this is to honour myself with the values that I hold dear and that I try to instil into my clients - discipline, focus, concentration, perspective, personal growth and seeing the job to completion. I'm looking forward to being up there with the biggest smile ever, to celebrate getting to the end and staying true to my values the whole way through.

Even though I didn't get a stitch of training in last week, I'm going to look very positively towards this week and have loosely planned out my training week - after all to hit a goal well you have to prioritize it. I did a bit of cooking today and am set to go there as well. I made these awesome Paleo tuna patties that I've been enjoying all weekend. I plan on losing 0.7kg this week to bring me to the 5 week out mark. That will happen by Saturday.

Yesterday was fantastic - really enjoyed teaching RPM and having Lia, Dori, Lindy and Tara in class to "enjoy" it with me. I am really loving the High Performance format at the moment even though there was a moment there I was thinking ,"oh no, still two tracks to go!" I chose a few favourites, "Silence" by Sarah McLachlan, "Human" by The Killers and "Blood is Pumpin'" by Serrano et al. It was great to catch up with Lindy O, Shelley, Katie and Shannon afterwards - uplifting to be around like minded people!

We all really enjoyed the movies last night - we've all been making a lot more effort as a family to do things together and this was a fun movie to see.