Day 75 - No Excuses!

We have all heard this "I wish I had time to workout, how do you find the time to workout, I don't have time to cook", I need to lose weight etc, etc, etc. Honestly, I don't usually respond to comments like this because my comment is not what they will want to hear. I hear excuses after excuses. Some of the excuses I've heard from friends and acquaintances include..."Michigan made me fat" apparently since she moved to Michigan she gained weight, therefore, Michigan made her fat? A co-worker told me that her company made her gain weight because there is always food in the lunch room?
Sadly, people are in denial and then they expect a magic pill to instantly give them the body they want.
I think one of the greatest feelings is to accomplish a goal and just being able to say "I did it". Whatever the goal may be. There is a sense of accomplishment that engulfs your entire body, and for me it's a natural high and sometimes relief to know that you did it, and may not have to ever do it again. Sometimes it's to set another bigger goal because you have finally come to the realization that you can attain a bigger goal and the smaller goal was just a stepping stone. No matter what you want, just remember that you can do it and that Needing something and wanting something are really different!

Faith is the Absence of Fear!

I used to be very fearful and my husband once said to me "you can't have faith and fear at the same time"! I thought about it and realized that he was right, I could not be fearful and have faith at the same time and I always thought I had faith! If I really believed in myself and really believed in positive outcomes I could not be fearful. When I thought about it, I thought of the many things I was fearful of and how I overcame them. I always had the "what if" thought in the my head which prevented me from doing. I remember I had a difficult time learning how to swim (everyone in my family could swim except me) and it was because the thought I had was "what if I sink to he bottom, and what if I drowned". One day I just had to actually believe that I would float and when I did I surprised myself, but my thought before I actually did it was that I could do it.

I am sometimes asked why I decided to compete. One of the reasons was to overcome the fear of getting on stage. I figured that with all the hard work of training, I had to do it and I did overcome my fear of getting on stage. If I could get on stage in a bikini I would overcome that fear.

Day 79 - They can because they think they can.

Well I am back from South Beach. It was great, the beach was great, the water was great and we had a wonderful time. I did attend the Fitness Universe on both days. I really enjoyed the Fitness portion of the competition. The girl who won, Sherri Vurrick, looked great and had a wonderful routine. She really stood out from the rest of the girls, so I would have been really surprised if she had not won. It was quite an interesting experience, mainly because the show was so big with so many competitors. We didn't stay for the entire Musclemania portion because some of the routines started to get boring after a while because they seemed so long.

I was so happy to be on the beach and get some sun. My husband and I went to the gym every morning. There was a Gold's less than 2 miles away that we walked to. I did pretty good eating clean and staying on the program for the most part. We had a kitchenette in our room, unfortunately we didn't have a stove, so I actually made scrambled eggs in the microwave. I must say though, the Mojitos looked really good and were tempting.

I am happy to be back and since my competition is only 79 days away, I have to be extremely disciplined. Yesterday I had a leg workout and it felt great. I increased my squats to 145lbs and also increased my leg extensions. I am starting to like leg extensions, mainly because I am seeing such an increase in my strength in this area.
On Monday I had a shoulder and bicep workout and it was extremely long. I don't necessarily like long workouts, and makes it worst when I have to wait for the weights. Although I went to the gym pretty late and it wasn't really crowded, there was this woman monopolizing the 30lb barbell. One of my pet peeves is people who stand around talking and monopolizing gym equipment. She was just standing with the 30lb barbell next to her in an upright position and would proceed to use it ever 5 minutes or so. Needless to say, I had to change my workout and do barbell curls last because she held on to the barbell through my entire workout. I was getting irate and had decided that I would ask her for it when I needed it, but she finally placed it back on the rack. Oops I forgot to mention that this woman was wearing a sequin tank top at the gym. I seriously had to do a double take when I saw that. Wh the heck wears sequin to the gym?

Day 87 - Progress is great. I feel good, just like I should!

Yesterday's leg workout was a killer. Tony had me doing a lot of high reps. I have a love/hate relationship with high reps. I hate doing them but I love all I feel when it's over and the sense of accomplishment. Stepsups and lift lunges on the Smith Machine are the worst or best because they sure can work that butt and legs. I also did some Leg Presses and I was able to press 270 lbs which is a record for me.

I am really excited that this is a short week for me at work. I am taking Thursday, Friday and Monday off and we will be heading to South Beach Miami. We will be attending the Fitness Universe contest and that should be exciting. I will try to remember to take a lot of pictures to post on here.

Strange but true! I actually saw this woman (she was not a senior citizen) using the Leg Press Machine with 30 lbs and she was not pressing one leg at a time. How ridiculous was that? I really, really, really wanted to take a picture of her to post it but my gym recently banned cameras.

Another example of the myth that heavy weights will make you have big bulging muscles. Really though, 30 lbs on the leg press machine? This woman was also telling a trainer at the gym that she wanted to lose weight. The trainer told her that she didn't need to lose any weight, and he is absolutely correct since she is already thin. It is just terrible how society has just gone to extremes. There are so many obese people who need to lose weight and they are not, and then there are skinny people who just want to get thin an aneroxic looking. Where is the happy medium? Yesterday I saw a preview of some show on television (not sure what it was), maybe Oprah. The show was about a 10 year old who weighed over 400 lbs and how she lost 300 lbs. That's just crazy!

Make a Few Changes~Solve a Few Problems~Enjoy your Life!

My legs are already sore from yesterday's leg workout. I increased some of my weights yesterday and I felt strong which was odd because I didn't feel like working out. I dragged myself to the gym and was tired before my workout but afterwards I was fine.

Workout Myths/Problems:

Women who lift weights will get big bulging muscles. It just about drives me crazy when women think that lifting any weigh over 5lbs will cause them to get big? That is so not true. I've been lifting weights for years and if that was the case, I would be huge. It's so difficult for women to add muscle mass, therefore it's okay to lift more than 5lb dumbbells. Women, get rid of the pink 1 pound dumbbells, they are useless and a waste of your time. Your purses probably weight more than a pound so why would you want to waste time lifting 1 pound.

Spot Reducing. I see this and hear this all the time on those infomercials that if you purchase this gadget, and do a million crunches, situps etc, you will get nice flat abs and even a six pack! So doing crunches, situps, etc and working out your abs is great and it will strengthen your midsection but it will be pretty difficult to see a six pack under layers of fat. Believe me I know, since this is where I store most of my fat.

It's better to workout on an empty stomach. It sort of makes sense because you really don't want to workout right after eating but I remember the Body for Life program emphasized that it was best to workout first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. If I worked out on an empty stomach my energy level would be too low and I would be too lightheaded. I cannot speak for anyone else but I find it extremely difficult to workout on an empty stomach. My husband can do it (but he can also go all day without eating which I can't do).

Day 94 - We actually change the things we see by changing the way we see them

I have been focusing on visualization every chance I get. Positive visualization of course. I visual how I want my body to look and the changes I want to see. Today I had a chest workout, I never really liked working my chest, mainly because it seems to be an insignificant body part. Think about it, for women, no one really says to a woman, you have a nice chest. They will say, "you have nice abs, legs, arms etc, but never really chest. Now, I like working out my chest because I now have a goal to increase my bench press. I can now bench close to 100lbs. I am not sure for how many reps, but I know I can do 95lbs therefore I know I can bench 100. Soon I will be able to bench my body weight.

Last weekend I attended the competition I originally intended to compete in and I am glad that I didn't compete in it. I think I would have done well, but it was way smaller than I anticipated, and the trophys were really boring.

Tomorrow I get to train my legs another fav body part to train.

Day 99 - "Not to go out and do your best is to sacrifice the gift" - Steve Prefontaine

Are carbs essential to a diet or not? This was a debate on the Oxygen forum and some of the statements made were pretty funny. This girl insisted that carbs are not necessary at all in a diet. I think people often forget that fruits and vegetables are carbohydrates because why else would you say that carbs are not necessary? The body can survive without carbs but it would not be very healthy. I cannot imagine life without fruits and vegetables. Major lack of fiber and vitamins and minerals. Can we say constipation?

On another note, I am thankful that tomorrow is Friday. I work with this woman who is so negative that she drives me nuts. I couldn't believe it, she was actually complaining that the July 4th holiday falls on a Friday. Her reasoning is that she wants all holidays to be on a Monday? I don't get it, I was thankful that it was on a Friday and not sometime in the middle of the week. I usually stay away from negative people but I am not sure how to with her because she works with me and stops by my office to chat and talks and talks and talks and all I do is half listen. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Day ??? Best time to Work Out?

My countdown clock changed again! I decided to go to the OCB website to look at the venue for my competition and I noticed that the date was changed to September 13. I thought it was my mistake but when I looked on the Oxygen website they had the old date posted, which explained it all. I am not disappointed because it will give me an opportunity to visit Toronto in August and most of all it will give me an opportunity to train longer with Tony and take 1st place!

I usually workout in the evenings after work. I am not a morning person and cannot workout (particularly lifting weights) first thing in the morning. I find that my energy level is greater in the afternoon/evening therefore, years ago when everyone was jumping on the "morning workout is best" bandwagon I resisted and thought that was a bunch of crap!
Since I cannot seem to fit all in the day to go to bed early and my goal is to get more sleep, a few evenings after work I've been taking naps (only 10-20 minutes) before going to the gym. It's weird but my naps have helped and I find that I am a bit stronger (I am hoping it's not my imagination).
So the question is when is the best time to workout? I would have to say is when you feel like it is best for you. Some people like getting it out of the way and prefer to workout in the morning. If I had to workout in the morning consistently, I probably would never workout (maybe cardio but not lifting, my muscles take a long time to wake up). I was so happy that when I found Tony he didn't tell me that I have to workout in the morning.

On another note, last night at the gym I heard a guy say..."fat weighs more than muscle". I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would think that 1 pound of fat would weigh more than 1 pound of muscle??? A pound is a pound for heaven's sake, and this guy was going someone advice.