So Emotional

"I get sooooo emotionalllllllll" Whitney Houston

Today has seen me doing a really good Whitney in the emotional stakes. How do you know if it is best to keep your emotions within or to bust 'em wide open? Sometimes it seems as if we don't have a choice, they come up and grab you at the most inopportune moment.

I think we all need an outlet for pent up emotional energy. Sometimes I pour this into my training or my class and very rarely I have a good cry, which is something I should do more often. The only time I seem to cry is in movies - it is as if I have given myself permission to validate my feelings and bring them into the moment.

Today I cried during RPM. This is not the first time it has happened to me, but to be frank, today's episode shook me to the core. Today I participated in the Les Mills Advanced Instructor Module where we spent the day working the essence of what is RPM -today's focus was on coaching, choreography mastery and technique mastery.

The technique mastery sessions were amazing. We did a lot of cycling drills, some which I'm familiar with and other drills that I'd never used before. It was really enlightening and left me with a desire to start getting out onto the road to train.

The coaching sessions were inspiring too with one of the presenters, Meg, sharing some class stories, which were very cool. We then did an exercise where we had to place ourselves on a line of where we thought we were with our RPM journey and it was then the emotion hit me like a ton of bricks, that I feel like (for many reasons) I just haven't been achieving my real potential - this is all mixed in with the frustration of the arthritic shoulder joint from you-know-where. No matter how hard I fought to keep it in, I just couldn't stop the tide - and I have been on and off like this all day.

I have to admit that I felt sorry for the presenters having such an emo nutter on the course - I felt I had to explain that it wasn't anything they'd done that had set me off, but rather a combination of circumstances and emotive language about coaching that had contributed. We ended up doing two assessments, both of which were way below what I'm capable of giving. However, after a good sleep, I am sure that the great stuff I learned will fall into place.

My journey these past few weeks reflects the journey of what I know to be true. I'm human, I get emotional and I've just relearned the value of having a good cry. Self expression propels you forward, rather than backwards. I have a bed to fall into, a house to pack and a road bike to head out on this next week with a light pedal stroke and uplifted heart.

See you when I get back.

Alone in the Universe

To quote a really dreadful film - "It appears the question of whether we are alone in the Universe has been answered". Before I go any further, that "really dreadful" film was "Independence Day" where Bill Pullman was cast as the President of the United States - the outcome wasn't good.

Back to my quote - it seems sometimes as if the Blogging Community is quite small. You find a niche to blog about - in my case, when I started my blog, it was about preparing for a Figure Competition. I found like minded individuals doing the same thing and blogging about it and soon an online figure/bodybuilding community began to develop.

Since my competitive days and due to all sorts of circumstances, I'm more about long term health and fitness and a mix of different stuff rather than bodybuilding alone. I still coach girls in prepping for a comp the sane way, but my interests are diversifying as my fitness pursuits change. All of a sudden I'm finding others in the Universe who are just like me - dabbling in all sorts of fitness related stuff and writing some really terrific blogs and inspiring me to introduce myself and leave a comment.

I think that meeting other bloggers who are travelling similar paths is awesome. I get inspiration, encouragement and smiles all wrapped up as one! Not all the blogs I come across are interesting - which leads me to the question of what do you all think makes someone's blog stand out? Is it the writing, is it the journey itself or is it the attitude?

As Molly Meldrum would say, "go and do yourselves a favour" and travel past your usual reading list. You'll be delighted at just who is out there. Conversely, if you're reading this and you've travelled a long way from your usual reading list, please say hello!

Kiss Kiss

Hunger or Habit?

Today's post is a continuum of all things emotional eating and how habits are formed. I think it explains why we can relapse or revert back to emotional eating when the going gets tough. Let's face it, when you're on a mission, it's relatively easy to lose weight - you're pumped, you're focused, you've got the goal. I speak to so many people who tell me, "I'll never regain it!" only to end up regaining and then some - in the meantime those who are in diet mode look on smugly and say, "I'll never be like that!". However, unless you do the work upstairs, this is EXACTLY what will happen.

Our responses to stressors are often learned. I know that when I was a child, the last thing that I felt when I was stressed or anxious, was hungry. I learned the behaviour through seeing patterns in my family and in others - "eat something and you'll feel better". So naturally, some event happened, I ate to "feel better" and off I went. I would feel stressed, tired and anxious on coming home from work, so I ate something to feel better. Eventually I just used to come home from work tired and not particularly stressed - what would I do - eat something! And although a stressor was the initial driver, the habit still remained. Do it over and over again for long enough and it becomes an ingrained habit. Get anxious? Eat! Get bored? Eat!

This behaviour peaked after my second daughter was born. When she was nearly two I started to change my lifestyle for the better. I lost the weight, I did three Figure Comps , and yes, I worked on the mental side of things on the way down. And yes, for the most part, I've done pretty well with maintenance.

However my experiences this year are a potent reminder that "life is managed, not cured" - you don't just lose the weight and be done - you spend your life literally being a continual work in progress. My own experiences with both internal and external stressors this year have seen some habits that I thought I had seen the last of, return with a vengeance. It's been a reminder to focus on what I want, not what I don't want.

One habit that I'm reacquainting myself is mindfulness - it's impossible to be mindful and savour your food when you're in the grip of an emotional eating experience. In an emotional eating experience, "hunger" is immediate and insistent whereas if nature takes it's course, true hunger builds gradually and it's easier to go for nutritious food rather than crap that doesn't do you any good.

Tonight I had chicken thighs for dinner with brown rice,broccoli and almonds, inspired by Katie Pirate and Miss Shelley - I've always been a breasts kinda girl and a bit of extra fat has left me feeling full and content. I think Cavewoman Liz is going to have to have a new rule when approaching a chook - eat the legs first!

What did I learn today?

Today was Bodystep day and my first shot at teaching Tracks 7-12 - Tracks 7, 8, 9 were taught well but 10 and 11 were a total nightmare and I found myself leaving class today feeling really disappointed in myself.

I know I've said it before but doing a "stinker" class sometimes makes the next ones so much better because you stop, really go over your choreo/teaching techniques and try to learn from your mistakes.

That (and other reasons which I can't blog about) put me under a bit of a cloud today and it got me thinking about how important it is to be "emotionally fit". A dear email buddy from the US who I "met" before our two youngest kids were born and I have been having some great email dialogue about it. She's really been working hard at this aspect of herself and her last email really inspired me to focus on this area as well at the moment - I know I need to! Being emotionally "unfit" can open the door to being nutritionally "unfit" and physically "unfit". It is as if the emotional fitness part is the bit of string that hangs out of a woollen ball waiting for life to pounce - pull the string hard enough and the whole thing unravels.

I just thought I would share this fantastic post from John Gilson of http://www.againfaster.com/ about fit beautiful women.

I were feeling a little more lawless, I’d gather all the copies of Cosmo and Seventeen, douse them in kerosene, and strike a match. I’d throw in reams of print ads from Calvin Klein and watch with delight as Kate Moss’ stick-thin image was reduced to carbon. I’d add copies of Shape and Runner’s World until the flames reached toward the heavens, and then I’d crank call the editorial desk at Muscle and Fitness until they stopped publishing pictures of women on steroids.I’d get the master tapes of America’s Next Top Model and dub over them with “Nasty Girls”, broadcasting the results on every television station in America. I’d skywrite “CrossFit.com” across the Boston skyline, and gently admonish the hoards of long distance runners trotting along the Charles River—with a bullhorn.I’d take every woman with mass media-induced ideals of beauty, and I’d show them what it really means to be beautiful. Beautiful women are strong and powerful. They are athletes, capable of every feat under the sun. They have muscles, borne of hard work and sweat. They gauge their self-worth through accomplishments, not by the numbers on the bathroom scale. They understand that muscle weighs more than fat, and they love the fact that designer jeans don’t fit over their well-developed quads. They know that high repetitions using light weights is a path to mediocrity, and “toning” is a complete and utter myth. They refuse to succumb to the marketers that prey on insecurity, leaving the pre-packaged diet dinners and fat-burning pills on the shelf to pass their expiration date.Beautiful women train with intensity. The derive self-image from the quality of their work and their ability to excel. They don’t wear makeup to the gym, and they wouldn’t be caught dead with a vinyl pink dumbbell. They move iron, they do pull-ups, they jump, sprint, punch, and kick, and they use the elliptical machine—as a place to hang their jump rope. They spend their weekends in sport, climbing walls, winning races, and running rivers. They laugh as they sprint circles around the unschooled, turning the image-obsessed into benchwarmers. Beautiful women don’t care if they’re soaked in sweat and covered in dirt, if their nails are chipped or their hair out of place. They care only about quality of life. Beautiful women are happy, healthy, and strong, and they’re right there beside me, tossing conventional beauty on the ever-growing flames of what used to be.
Be beautiful.

THank you John