I'm back and here's the plan

Ok, friends, if there are any of you out there. I have eaten my share of ice cream, chocolate covered bananas, kudos bars, restaurant fare, etc over the last week. I'm not weighing myself but I know it's got to be up there. I don't want to see the number.

There are 13 days until christmas eve. Here is the plan until then:

-1300 calories every day, no more, no less
-20 cups of water every day, maybe more, no less
-All of my supplements every day (fish oil, mv, calcium, glutamine, BCAA's, etc)
-Get my workouts in which i will write about here
-weigh in every 4 days, i don't want to be consumed

I am writing a meal plan for myself to follow for four days then I'll change it up.

I can do this! My goal is 130 lbs on Christmas Eve.

I have already started today with 60 min low intensity cardio and 3 c. water. Here's to an on plan day!

Heading to Disneyland!

Tomorrow we leave for disneyland! I weighed 136.4 on Monday after Thanksgiving and the weekend. Yikes. I really wanted to be at my low/normal before our trip so that I didn't come back even heavier. I busted it this week and got down to 131. I'm hopeful that tomorrow will be 130 and I'll be right on track. I swear I bloat up just looking at unclean foods. It is so annoying. And then I have to work HARD to get rid of the stupid water weight. Oh well. It is what it is and this is life if I want to stay lean. And I do. So it's worth it.

Tomorrow we're off to Disneyland for the week where I'm sure I'll put the bloat back on (but hopefully not as much...) and then bust my butt next week to get it off before Christmas. But, again, it will be worth it.

Quick update

I'm going to see if I can start posting here again. I am going to try to post something most days of the week even if it is just a little tidbit.

Quick update: I did in fact do the competition. I loved every second of it and placed 2nd in natural and 3rd in Open. I plan on competing again this next year. Here is a glance at my goals for the next while:

Nov/Dec: Maintain weight of 129-131
Jan: Either build a little bit of muscle in my shouders and glutes or continue to focus on maintaining.
Feb: Prep for March show
March: NPC Utah (hopefully only a 5 week prep to lose 5 lbs)
April: maintain
May: short 2 week prep for Bodybuilding.com fit body show and expo
June: maintain and vacay to Hawaii and possibly start prep for nationals 1-2 weeks before hawaii so i can allow for time to chill out while there
July: 4 week prep for nationals - USA's at end of July
Aug: maintain
Sept: Short prep for Oct show
Oct: NPC UTAH (possibly)

Anyway, that's a quick run down of my goals. We are currently in the maintenance mode goal. Which is easier said than done during the holidays. To be honest, it kind of sticks b/c i feel like i'm dieting most of the time. It is fun to be able to indulge on the holidays and at parties though. And it is worth it to come out of the holidays having maintained my weight.

I'm at the high end of normal (132) now and we leave for Disneyland on Saturday. I have to hustle this week to get myself down to the low end of normal. I know these small weight changes may not mean much to some people. But for me, that's how I gain weight. Just one pound at a time. So I have to keep them off.

Anyway, I worked my glutes today and did an amazing spin class. I brought my clip in shoes and I was able to push myself way harder. But, omg! I keep the shoes in the garage and when i got them out in the spin room, A SPIDER CRAWLED OUT OF ONE OF THEM!!!! EW! It was little but still! Nast.

Ok, I'm off to bed. Good night!

8 weeks out

8 weeks out today! Crazy, huh? I lost 2 1/2 lbs this week but my eating hasn't really been on since thursday. I gotta clean up my game. I was up super late on thursday night and I have felt off ever since. This week is going to be hard bc it is my son's birthday and there will be cake two different times. We'll see how I handle it. I am having cake for a free meal tomorrow (like i haven't had any of those this week, ha!) but will avoid the cake on tuesday at his friend party. I can do this. Maybe i'll make a little protein cake...

9 weeks out: 137 lbs
8 weeks out: 134.6 lbs

Average calories this week: 1423
Total exercise: 9 hours 15 min (6 h 20 min cardio)
Average water intake: 26 cups

Tomorrow is a day off and boy will it feel great! Here's to another great week!

Day 59 - sicker and sicker still

I'm getting sicker each day. You might think I should stop all the exercising, and, yes, that idea has crossed my mind. BUT, during the day I feel pretty good, just a bad sore throat. But my body feels fine. It's just the nights that I feel really crappy. AND I realize if this turns into a bad cold I will have to take some time off. So I'm saving missed workouts for if I get even sicker. Hopefully that time won't come.

Tonight we went out to eat with my mom who is staying the night with us. I tried hard but wasn't perfect. But I'm fine with it. I ordered a bbq chicken salad minus the tortilla strips and cheese. It was just chicken, veggies, bbq sauce and ranch on the side. There was a lot more bbq sauce on top than i thought there would be. I should have asked for it on the side but oh well. I only used prob 1/4 of the dressing they brought me. For my approach (liveable and enjoyable contest prep) I did great.

Here are the deets:

Weight: 134.6 (Woot woot!)
Sleep: 8.5 hours
Cardio 1: 6am, 40 min elliptical
Lift: 10am, back, 30 min then tanning
Cardio 2: 10 mile bike ride, 35 min
Calories: 1467 (47/141/127)
Water: 29 cups

I don't expect to lose today b/c of the mini free meal tonight but I am already almost at my goal for the week and I've lost 2.4 lbs so far this week, so I will be ok with a maintanence day.

I'm off to bed. Yes, at 9pm.

Day 60 - Ouchy...

My throat is still on fire. So far it hasn't turned into a cold and for that, I am grateful. Today was hard. I am in the process of quitting my job at the gym and it is proving more difficult than I thought it would be. And Brandon is out of town so that seems to make my weeks much more stressful. I feel emotionally drained right now. And I feel like eating cheerios. So I brushed my teeth.

I lost 1.2 lbs yesterday! I am at my lowest weight since gaining a few lbs. (If you don't know, I maintained 133-134 for a long time. Then I trained for a 55 mile bike race and used it as an excuse to eat too much - I was so hungry all the time! I put on 8 lbs and 5 percent body fat in the process.)

Here are today's deets:

Weight: 135.2
Sleep: 7.5 hours
Workout time: 1 hour 35 min
Lift: chest/arms/abs: 35 min, 10am
Cardio 1: 30 min swim, 6am
Cardio 2: 30 min stairs and sprints, 3pm
Calories: 1371 (27/135/157)
Water: 2 gallons

Tomorrow I am going to a restaurant with my mom and the kids. I will order a grilled chicken salad with just veggies on it. I will order their light dressing and just use half. There. Hold me to it.

Have a great night!

Day 61 - count down begins

Today went perfectly! I have the worst sore throat ever though. I still followed the plan and drinking 2 gallons of water was not hard at all b/c I felt thirsty all the time (b/c of the sore throat). I did feel like I was working out all day. But it's ok. This is basically my second job for a while. And that is fine. Here's how the day went down:

6am - cardio 1 - 55 min walk/jog
10am - lift legs and tan
7:30 pm - cardio 2 - 30 min run/stairs
8:30pm - abs

It was actually easier to split up the workouts like that throughout my day. Now I am a sticky mess though.

Here's the daily deets:

Weight: 136.4 (yes it went DOWN after a weekend!)
Sleep: 8 hours
lift: 50 min
Cardio: 1 hour 25 min
Total: 2 hour 15 min
Calories: 1340 (34g/113g/157g)
Water: 2 gallons

Temptations resisted: (here's where I get to pat myself on the back) none - no temptations today

Can't get much better than that folks.

NPC Bikini - Oct 9th - 9 weeks out

That's right, folks! I am doing it once again! But this time I'm doing it right. If you don't know, last year I decided 10 days before the competition to compete. Most people diet and train for 12 weeks for these types of things. I basically dehydrated myself and went out there. I learned a lot of what NOT to do though so I wouldn't say it was a total waste. A big thing I learned was that my pale body can not do on spray tan alone. So, against my principles, I bought a 2 month membership to the tanning salon. I know, I know. Naughty. You don't need to tell me.

Anyway, Mike Davies is doing my nutrition. I will be writing my workouts. Sandy Hancock will help me with posing and presentation. I think I've got myself covered.

Here are some goals I have over the next 9 weeks:

1. I will be about 13-15% body fat on show day. I am competing in bikini which is a softer look in figure. I think this will be low enough.

2. To be at that bf% my weight will be between 126-128 lbs. I haven't seen the 120's since... maybe ever? I think I skipped those when I was 12 years old. Prob due to the frosting I used to eat in my pantry with the door closed. Oops.

3. I want to do this prep happily and keep my family happy. If I notice myself becoming crabby at them due to lack of carbs I will change something. Even if it means me coming in a little softer. They are number one. I also don't want my workouts to take up too much of our family time. BUT, they do support me and realize that this is a big time commitment.

Are you guys ready to follow my journey? I am so excited! I won't be posted the exacts of my nutrition plan because I am working with a nutritionist. But I will try to post daily about my workouts and general nutrition info.

I will post my 9 week out pictures and measurements tomorrow! Wish me luck!

Feeling "off"

I don't know why but I just felt off this week. I felt really tired and not motivated in my workouts. Today was better but the rest of the week was just bleh.

Here's what the workouts looked like:

Monday: crossfit workout - was really tired here. Might be b/c I started out with a 2 minute plank so the push ups were harder later on in the workout.
Tuesday: boot camp and zumba
Wednesday: crossfit (short)
Thursday: off
Friday: boot camp - strength pyramid
Saturday: 33 mile bike ride

Today my body is tired from the ride but I am feeling better than earlier in the week.

Sorry this is a boring update... I'll try to make it more exciting next week. I'm tired.

25 apples in 3 days?

I ate a lot of food this week. The main culprit? Dried apples and almond butter. I don't normally buy almond butter so I ate a little too much in celebration. And, if you follow me on facebook, you know my other pleasure I indulged in this week, dried apples. I ate a WHOLE number 10 size can of dried apples in 3 DAYS!!! To say I have been bloated ever since is a severe understatement. I gained a full 5 pounds this week. 132 to 137. Bleh. I really hope it's just the apples. I guess we will see this next week. 132 was really low as I am normally 133-134 so that makes the gain seem even more.

In workout news, workouts were great. I did a really hard crossfit workout called the Filthy 50. It was 50 reps of a bunch of hard exercises. The highlight of the workout was 50 burpies and I did a push up in 35 of them! It was awesome! Today's ride was supposed to be 25 miles but I underestimated the distance and it ended up being 31. That last 5 miles was into the wind too and it was really hard mentally. But I am glad it is done! Next week we'll do 35.

My body is so tired right now that typing this is making me tired, so I'm going to go. Here's to another great week with healthier eats!

I heart crossfit

I have started doing crossfit workouts and they are AMAZING!!! I double L o.v.e. love them! They have me ready to puke and I am running around the gym like a super woman. (see www.crossfit.com for info if you want it) I've never had so many people ask me what I am doing at the gym before. It is so funny. I was doing overhead squats and this guy said that it was "incredible" that I could do that. Ha ha. I also had a guy stop me and say that a couple months ago when I was doing pull ups he was watching me and thought to himself, "she is in better shape than I am! I need to get my butt in gear!" Since then he said he has lost 20 pounds and is in better shape than ever! He said that I was an inspiration to him! Wow, right? Anyway, those are my random thoughts for today.

Pull up challenge update: I am still going on this. I don't think I've improved too much actually but I will retest for the last time on Monday. I will still work on them obviously but they will stop being such a big part of my workout. I want to try to build my arms just a bit so I may start working them a little more often and see if it makes a difference. I don't really want them "bigger" just leaner. But I also don't want to diet so we'll see if just working them a little more makes a diff. I have no idea if it will.

Boot camp is going GREAT! The group is so motivated! We are doing really different things this time. There are close to 20 women and it is a lot of fun to have that many people there. It's good times.

I am going to try to get back into the regular posting again. So watch out. I'm back. :-)

Week 2 - Pull up Challenge

Week 2 of the pull up challenge has come to a close and I am here to report my workouts for the week. They totally rocked and my pull ups are kicking butt. Here's how it went down:

Monday: Off (remember how last week I was saying I was so tired? I ended up being really sick with a 24 hour thing this day and I was out of it most of the day)
Tuesday: 60 min boot camp, pull up work - 4 sets of 3 - 12 total
Wednesday: Pull up work - sets of three: 14 1/2, 45 min cardio
Thursday: 60 min boot camp
Friday: Full Body weight training, pull up work - sets of three: 24 1/2!!! Woot woot!
Saturday: 5.9 mile run in 60 min

Total Pull ups: 63!!!
Total workout time: 5 hours
Last weeks weight: 133.4
This weeks weight: 133.4
Average calories: 1865

Workouts this week totally rocked. I felt AWESOME on my run. I've been doing this thing where I alternate my speed based on my what song comes on my Ipod. It breaks a 60 min run into 3 minute segments and it makes it much more doable. I love it.

Anyway, here's to another great week. Hope you all are doing awesome!

Pull up challenge - Week 1

Week one of the pull up challenge is over. It went well but I kind of forget an important aspect of the program. I was confused and I only did two days of the pull ups instead of four. I will get it right this week.

Anyway, here's what my week consisted of:

Monday: Upper body lifting + pull ups at 50% (meaning sets of 50% of max so 3 in my case, until you can't do anymore) 14 1/2 pull ups total + 10 min intervals on arc trainer - 60 mins
Tuesday: Boot camp - 60 mins
Wednesday: 20 min of a spin class + 40 min on cardio machines - 60 min
Thursday: Boot camp - 60 mins
Friday: Lower body lifting + pull ups at 50% for 11 1/4 total (I was tired today) + 10 min intervals on stair climber - 60 mins
Saturday: 5.8 mile run - 60 mins
Sunday: off

That is about the max I work out. If I had to miss a day in there I wouldn't stress over it. In fact I usually get closer to 5 hours a week of exercise not 6.

I am so tired this weekend. Like I feel like I'm pregnant b/c I just can not stay awake. Now, don't get all excited, I know I'm not pregnant but that is the kind of exhaustion I feel right now. I dont' know if it's the 6 hours of exercise or if it is because I had to wake up early almost everyday this week. I was up at 5:30 pretty much all of those days. I am going to focus on getting more sleep this week and see how I feel.

Last weeks weight: 133.4
This weeks weight: 133.2
Average calories 1688 (this is low b/c one of my days last week was still part of my little 5 day slim down thing)

I think that's it for the week. I did wake up last night with a totally dry through and I couldn't even swallow so that could be contributing to my tiredness. Hopefully I can kick it with enough sleep. Until next week... Stay Strong.

Chin Up Pretest

I did my chin up pretest today and I am excited to say I did 6 FULL chin ups. Meaning dead hang to chin over the bar. Ok, so maybe on my 6th chin up my chin got to just bar level not quite OVER, but I'm counting it! Workouts for the chin up challenge start this week!

I rocked zumba today. And by "rocked" I don't by ANY means refer to dancing well or looking good while doing it. I basically just mean it was fun and a great hour of lower intensity cardio.

I finished off diet week #1 at 132.4 lbs. The goal is to maintain around 133-134 for the next 3 weeks or so and then see how I'm feeling. Possibly do it again for another lb drop. The body fat monitor I have at home reads me 2% higher than the bod pod pretty consistently and it was at 19.3% before this week and now it says 18.8% so I was successful in losing my 1/2% this week. I'm assuming the bod pod would now read me in the high 16's.

It was nice to eat a normal amount of food today. I had about 1700 calories today. It felt good and I am very satisfied. My only "treats" were 2 hershey kisses and I had lots of veggies so I consider today a success!

Oh one more random thought. I had the BEST lunch today and I am so happy that I got so excited about this lunch. I had ... are you ready for this ... steamed assorted veggies with spray butter and salt, one of those microwave brown rice bowls (SO GOOD!!!) with agave and a little soy sauce and some grilled chicken. As I was eating it, I just had this thought. I am SO GLAD that my taste buds LOVE this food. Eating brown rice, chicken and veggies tasted wonderful and did not feel like drudgery. Of course you've gotta know how to make it though. I put 1 t. soy sauce and 1/2 T. agave on my brown rice and stirred it up and it was incredible.

Ok, those are my ramblings for the day. I have to do farmers walks this week... I feel kind of retarded doing them at the gym... I will report on how that goes.

Pull up challenge will begin ... again.

I've had some unexpected things come up that have put the pull up challenge on hold. One is that I fell on my back on Monday while running. I slipped on ice and because of that I didn't work my back much this week b/c it has been sore. I'm better now though. Second, not this week but the two weeks before were filled with a little too much snacking and my clothes were feeling a tad tight. I wanted to do a little mini "diet" this week. I hate that word b/c i'm not really "going on a diet". I just use that term to describe a period of time where I tighten up my nutrition, count a little more carefully and get rid of some bloat. Feeling much better now.

I am ready to start a 6 week pull up program. I will be using this program by Leigh Peele. It talks about the real way to do pull ups and I have been kind of cheating a little, I admit. I don't always go down to a dead hang after each one. Tomorrow I will start off by maxing out and seeing how many I can do the right way. I will be training with the chin up/underhand grip. I am going to start on Monday.

On another note, I think it'd be way cool to be down to about 15% body fat for the summer. At the same time I don't have much energy for dieting these days. I'm totally happy with how I look so I don't really have it in my to "diet" hard. Here's the plan I came up with. If it doesn't work out, it's ok. But I'm going to try it. Instead of doing a one month cut like i talked about before, I will do 3-4 different week long "diets" and try to shed a pound/half percent bf each time and then maintain it for a few weeks. Week one of this plan was this week. I started at 134.8 lbs and today I was 133.4 lbs. I will focus on maintaining for the next 3-4 weeks and then possibly do it again. We'll see.

Anyway, those are all of my random thoughts. I will post again this week about my pull up challenge.

I want to come back... Here's where I'm at

Is anyone still out there? Leave a comment so I know that someone still reads this blog! Please...?!

Let me tell you in a nut shell what has been going on with me fitness wise.

I did the triathlon in November, as you probably read about forever ago. My goal through the holidays was to maintain my weight. I was hanging out around 134-135 lbs. I was very happy there. It was hard to maintain through the holidays though. I definately had to have days of "dieting" interspersed with the days of indulging. But I didn't gain any weight and I was thrilled about that.

On Jan 8th, I had a photo shoot with a girl that I did some trade work with. I haven't seen the pictures yet but I think they turned out well. I did a 10 day diet down and got down to 130 lbs. I LOVED how I looked here. I went to the gym the day after the photo shoot and I felt SO good. I knew most of the loss was water and that it would come back but i was still hoping to maintain around 132-133 ish. But i had no way of knowing what was water and what was fat so I was just guessing.

But our cruise threw a little kink in the whole maintaining idea. :-) We left two days after my photo shoot and I came home at 140 lbs! Lol. I know i didn't gain 10 b/c i was at 132 when we left and who knows how much would have come back even if we didn't go on vacation. But I pigged out and it was so much fun! I wouldn't change a single minute of it! Within 6 days I was back at my 134 lbs. I tried to get under that for a few mores days but didn't have the desire to be strict enough.

This brings us to now. I am getting my bf done again at the bod pod on Thursday. I was 18.2 last time which was a huge shock. I thought I'd be closer to 22%. I almost wouldn't be too surprised for it to come back at 20 or something and have the last time be a total fluke. We'll see. I am 2 lbs lighter than last time I did it and I don't THINK i've lost muscle as I can do more pull ups... Who knows.

I want to focus on something every month. And I dont' want it to always be a weight thing b/c I don't really need to lose much more weight. I am a size 27/4 in pants and I think that is small enough, right? ;-) BUT, everyone has their trouble zones so I want to have a different focus each month to keep my focus from losing weight. Make sense? Here are the ideas I have:

Feb: Pull ups
March: 1 arm push up
April: A 4 week cut for summer (maybe)
May: (or sometime in summer) Decrease my 5k time

These are just possibilities. But you get the idea.

I do know that Feb's goal is Pull ups/chin ups.

Start: Today I did 6 1/2 chin ups. Not sure how many pull ups I can do. I'll try next time I'm at the gym.

Goal: By the end of the month I want to be able to whip out 9 of them. 10 would be AWESOME. We're talking chin ups, fyi. If I can do 9/10 chin ups maybe I'll be able to do 4 pull ups?

I also want to focus on maintaining my weight without putting a focus on it. To do this I will workout 4-5 hours a week total (counting lifting and cardio and camp workouts - camp starts next week). And keep my calories at 1700-1750 a day.

Before you all say, that's such a low calorie count to maintain, keep in mind, i don't count fish oils, calcium chews, veggies, crystal light, gum, mints and I know that I underestimate. I am assuming I usually get about 200 cals more than I count or close to 2000. FYI.

Anyway, here's to week 1 of February!