Fighting with the Beast and my plans...

Everyone has a Beast - Shelley and Katie call theirs "Mad Monkey" and I call mine my "Inner Gollum". Why Gollum? Because Tolkien (author of "Lord of the Rings") has done an amazing job of portraying your subconscious in the character of Gollum - any Lord of the Rings fan will know that Gollum spends most of his time fighting with himself in the book and dealing with a nasty addiction to his "Precious" - the Ring, which in the end takes him to his fiery end.

The same analogy can be applied to weight loss and physique transformation. Much has been written about "The Beast" and your subconscious in the weight loss arena. Put simply "The Beast" or "Gollum" is part of your subconscious, the internal chatter that goes on in your head all day - after all we spend more time talking to ourselves than we do any other person. For someone who is losing weight and feels they're addicted to certain foods, the Beast can have an absolute field day convincing you that you should have x, y or z to make you feel better. It's easy to become scared of "The Beast" who can get very peevish and say things to you along the lines of "You'll never get to experience anything nice ever again", "you're always going to miss out", "why shouldn't I indulge and treat myself?" amongst other things - AND the kicker is that "The Beast" can become so insistent that we forget that we're the ones who are in control.

I have just listened to an excellent lesson on self talk by Coach David Greenwalt. This is part of his Bootcamp program and I really got a lot out of it. We all have a tendency towards negative self talk - and it is this negative all or nothing/in absolute terms "eg I suck at eating well" (negative and absolute) that allows "The Beast" to sit in for a nice round of cards. So we need to go back to continually practising our positive self talk eg "I may not have the best record in eating well, but I can take this step "blah" to get me on the right track" (honest and positive). In effect, losing weight (as is the case of prepping for a comp or just getting lean) is not the answer. You can lose 2 or 20kg and if you haven't learnt how to deal with this change psychologically (ie you can say with 100% certainty that the outside matches the inside..ie you're no fly-by night fake living in a hot body) then you are not likely to succeed in the long term.

This week signals TOM week and my Inner Gollum has been having a field day trying to tell me that it is OK to bake some sweet goodies (my trigger). Conversation has gone something like this:
Inner Gollum: "How can it possibly hurt to make one batch of chocolate chip cookies?"
Me: "I don't want the feeling of Monday Morning, ie I wake up with the regret of Sunday in my head and feeling like I have to paddle ferociously just to hold my position in the water."
Inner Gollum: "But you've tidied up the house and you could do with a treat, something you enjoy"
Me: "Whilst I do enjoy baking, I haven't been able to come to a landing yet in terms of it triggering me to eat everything."
Inner Gollum: "The entire family have gone out for the day. You could buy all of the ingredients and spend all afternoon baking and no one would ever know".
Me: " Well I really don't want to pretend I'm hungry for dinner when everyone comes home when I'm stuffed to the gills with fat and sugar".
Inner Gollum: "You are so weak".
Me: "Shut up already, I can't believe I've had you clattering around in my head about this for the last two days. I actually have things to do and I'm done with procrastinating. I know you tell me that I have hopeless time management skills - but that is so negative and absolute. I am improving all the time"

and so on....

Lately I have been wondering about the value of this blog and my contribution to the blogging community. Originally I started this blog to document my journey to compete in two Figure Competitions whilst living in a remote area. These days I wonder what my relevance is to the bodybuilding community in the competitor sense - I'm not sure where I'm headed in that regard - being unwell certainly hasn't helped that - I'm proof positive of the saying - "you make plans and God laughs".

Many coaches keep blogs to help attract business but I don't want my blog to be that - I want a place to write where I can keep it real. Being able to write about what is going on is cathartic for me.

In that spirit, over to me - I mentioned Leanness Lifestyle Bootcamp - I am on the bus for Bootcamp 11 (I did BC-3 last time) and I am now in a strong action phase - my goal to be lean enough to do justice for another photo shoot. Luckily with Lindy and Dallas down the road, hiring an excellent photographer is not a drama.

I have been lucky enough to have the week off work, and am planning on getting plenty of rest and learning the choreography for RPM 42 and BS 75 as well as doing Cathe's STS - Mesocycle 1, as I slowly improve. I taught RPM Hi Performance yesterday and got to meet the delightful Selina. I was nervous that I would be suffering in class but I think the iron is doing its job - all systems go. In between all of that I shall be sleeping and eating really well and practising my positive self talk.

Gym Whoppers

My blog today focuses on big fat fitness lies - so settle in and watch what I'm going to pick on today.

Firstly a tool of measurement that is commonly used to chart a transformationist's progress - the body fat calipers. Body fat measurement is in vogue, it seems. Mention scales or weight and you'll clear the room full of frightened people worried about what a number will mean to them, but mention measuring percent bodyfat as a more accurate guide and you'll pique everyone's interest. "Finally, a way of charting my progress that doesn't use the scale!" they'll rejoice and "look, my measurements dropped even though my weight is up, it must mean I've gained muscle and lost fat!", followed by the even bigger whopper "I've gained 2kg muscle in a month (from a female perspective )" or, "I've gained 5kg muscle in a month" (from the male point of view). I must mention I am talking about trainees that don't use their local internet pharmacy but are "natural" athletes - more on that later.

I want to first highlight that body fat measurements taken with calipers from a highly experienced and skilled individual, with well calibrated equipement can be quite accurate for certain populations. I know several people who use skinfolds during their comp preps who do have highly experienced coaches so this doesn't really apply to them. However the point of difference is that they are athletes and athletes usually maintain a lower body fat % than the general population.

As a rule of thumb body fat measurements, using calipers become more accurate as your leanness increases - you'll get the best readings close to a competition for example. If your body fat % is wandering up in the 20% or more range, accuracy decreases as % fat increases - try taking poor Oprah's tricep skinfold as an example. So when I hear "average" women (bodyfat 25% or more) complaining that weights have "bulked" them up and that they just want to reduce their bodyfat, and looked toned, it's hard for me not to laugh.

Other things that throw caliper readings out is - time of day measured - typically bodyfat readings are more accurate at night, hydration, supplementation status (for example some creatines can cause water retention), water retention or hormonal status - body fat is calculated using skinfold sites, weight, height - if you've gained 2kg of water, you'll return a false body fat reading as well by virtue of simple mathematics. The other thing to look out for is making sure the same person does the measurements - pinch your body- first thing you'll notice is that when you apply more pressure your skin compresses - apply brute force and you too could have lower skin fold readings (which mean diddly squat when you're up on stage in front of 500 people in a skimpy bikini).

With all of these confounding variables I don't usually do skinfolds unless specifically requested. The main thing (as with scale weight) is that you're 'trending' downwards.

Now onto the fantastical claims of muscle accumulation that abound on the Internet. Dave Greenwalt says it beautifully in his book, "The Leanness Lifestyle": "claims of higher muscle accumulation abound in popular muscle building comic books and Internet discussion forums. To say that I question their veracity would be an understatement. If you're not sure, then ask any person who claims you can add more muscle that what I suggest (for women 0.25-0.75lb - 0.1kg to 0.3kg per month)to provide a published, peer-reviewed study supporting their claim. Just make sure you don't hold your breath waiting".

These same people who claim superior muscle growth can also be those who tell women that by adding muscle that they "won't bulk up" - if the claim was true, I'd be pole position for the IFBB Olympia (yeah, I've been training awhile). By the magic 2kg calc I would have gained 360kg of muscle by now.

Time for me to sign off for tonight...I need to go find something I've lost...

Lots going on!

There seems to be an awful lot going on in the exercise DVD world. All of my DVD suppliers - Amy Bento, Cathe Friedrich and Tracey Staehle have announced that they are all filming new DVDs shortly. I will be posting presale details on www.thefitnesssolution.com.au shortly for anyone interested in purchasing the new DVDs. No charges will be made until the DVDs are in stock.

My other announcement is that for Fitness Solution clients, I have partnered with David Greenwalt, owner of the Leanness Lifestyle ( www.leannesslifestyle.com ), to offer all of my clients Club Lifestyle access and "The Leanness Lifestyle" book and MP3 downloads for a heavily reduced price. As many of you know, I have been a member of Leanness Lifestyle for nearly 3 years and it is David who taught me how to prepare for a competition the right way. David recently competed at the NPC State Titles in Illinois, coming 2nd in his division. Amazing for a natural athlete in that particular federation. You can contact me through www.thefitnesssolution.com.au for more details. I am very excited about this partnership and I recommend the book as "The Text" for all Physique and Figure Competitors. However it works just as well for regular Challengers.

Taught RPM this morning and gave the bike (and the class) a good caning! I've been dreaming up an even better combination of tracks to give the ultimate workout! What else? Just busy doing paperwork and cooking up a big batch of pumpkin soup. Winter is a great time for soup!