11 WEEKS OUT....I'M A POSER NOW.

Last week didn't go as badly as I thought it would. I went all out on the cardio and managed to smash away that extra two kilos with pure sweat and, yes, a few tears. Lesson learnt and 'nuff said~ time to move on. Tuesday I drove out with trepidation to meet the woman who was going to make me look fabulous on stage. I''m not going to lie. I will answer to the call of the 'Roughy Toughy Princess". As much as I love being kickarse, I also like to play with my hair and prance about in ridiculously high heels. So I was pretty excited that I was going to be able to design what I wanted. She swung open the door and led me to the lycra and sequinn mecca. 'Here' she said as her squinted eyes cruised over my body. 'This is your size, try it on.' I was about to ask how she knew but thought better of it. She was intimidating in stature to say the least......actually I was a little bit frightened! I held up the tiny triangles of spandex, dubious I would even get into it. Trying to make light of it I put it on and went with a flourish~ TAH DAH!!! She deadpans me. 'You have the bums on back to front.' Mortified, I wriggle them off apologising I didn't realise butt floss had a front and back. Silly me. Hallelujah, this got a smile and I can now say I am the proud owner of my very own gorgeous butt floss bikini! Yah! Can't wait to accessorize!
Wednesday morning is what I had truely been dreading. Posing practise with Kylie. I thought she'd take one look at me and know everything I'd eaten the sunday before! So we put on our big girl shoes and I watch as she slinks across the floor and glides through a series of poses. Meh~ doesn't look so hard. I have skill. I have grace. I have agility. We begin with my relaxed pose, the one I'm supposed to stand in while waiting to be told what to do on stage. Relaxed my ARSE. Painful is the only way to describe it. "Flare your lats, stand to the side....maybe the other side is your better one. Twist. A little more. Drop that back knee NO keep the front one straight. Ram that fist into your non~ existant waist line, keep your other hand soft. Now flex everything and SMILE." Holy snappin' duckshit, Batman. I rapidly forgot the skill, grace and agility and became keenly aware of my Spondylothesis (that's a spinal deformity for you plebs). Within minutes I sweating and trembling and wondering how the hell I was going to pull this off. One word. Practise. I shall harness my Yogi skills of contortionism and look at the posing as challenging asana. Hopefully the next 11 weeks will produce a vision more of elegance and less of Kung Fu panda.
Of course I am now catching myself checking my look in the mirror! How embaresssssssing!!! HAHAHA! I was working my triceps the other day and there I am watching them flex in the mirror. SHAME!
Other than that, there have been no more lapses in dietry behaviour and I'm generally feeling pretty good. I did have one incident that I like to call the 'No Carb Crazies'. I came back to my car after going to Woolies and hit the unlock button. I heard the locks' familiar click and tugged on the door. Locked. A group of guys parked in the space next to me. I press the button again. Click. Tug on door. Locked. Colour rising in face now as guys get out of car and watch as I press, click, press, click. "Auuuurgh. Why the fuck won't you open?" Yes the car is a cherry red hatchback. It's just not MY cherry red hatchback. MY car is parked three cars down. SHHHHHHHAAAAAAAME!!!!

12 WEEKS OUT~ THE UGLY TRUTH.

I really don't want to write this this week, but if it IS going to be an account of how I've been going with my prep, then I'd best be completely truthful, warts and all. Let's just say that I feel like an epic failure. I don't know why, but last week all preparation went out the window. I made the mistake of cooking off about 2.5kgs of chicken and even though I changed up all the vegies, it was enough to create a ground hog day effect and kinda made me loose interest in eating all together. The result has been disasterous.
To begin with, I missed a couple of meals on a few of the days. I was saying to Adam that I'm not gazing with longing at things I think other people would crave, like bread or chocolate..... I miss nuts and fruit!!! He said a small handful of almonds in the afternoon if I was flagging was totally ok and he sounded suprised I wasn't doing that already. I'm extremely literal~ if it's not on the list, I don't eat it! So after an uber long day in which I had missed a meal somewhere along the way, I was up at my mum's and literally ran to the pantry to cram a handful of nuts into my mouth. Just in time for my sister to walk around the corner and bust me. (Why the hell do I feel so guilty for eating some frigging nuts!...because they aren't on my list!) The guilt is ridiculous.
My second melt down was due to my lack of headspace last week. It takes me FOREVER to leave the house now. I've never owned so much tuppawear. Doing the 20 point check list : meals 2~4,  protein shake, BCAA, Define8, work clothes, soap/toothbrush/ moisturiser, towels, work towels & sarongs, sunglasses. Keys. Standing in my living room after checking aaaaallllll of these things are present, "Aaaaaruuugh!! Where the FUCK are my keys?". After retracing my steps to the fridge, yuh~ there they are. On top of meal 5. Sigh.
Training at least went really well. Killer leg  and shoulder sessions and a very funny cardio session with Adam ("Put your headphones in, I can't talk anymore" strike one for the stairmaster!). I had my now usual 12 hour sleep on friday night and woke up feeling amazing on saturday. And that is where the fairytale ends. I went to a cocktail party and watched as my oldest group of friends got smashed on Cosmo's and had a really great time. I answered a call and wound up dancing the night away at Shooters until 3am, still completely sober and having a rad time. Then, for reasons known only to my left side brain, as we were trawling home through the Mall I said, " Let's get pizza!!!!" MY IDEA. Why? I wasn't pissed. I'd drunk that much water my eyeballs were bobbing in my head. But I was in Surfers and my whole life, a trip to the strip meant a wad of greasy barbeque chicken to hammer down the 1000 drinks I'd just necked.
I woke on Sunday hoping it was a bad dream, and then proceeded to continue my good work of destroying my diet by meeting a friend for breakfast. I could have had coffee, but instead went for a fresh fruit platter. Ohhhh how evil of me I hear you sneer. After 5 weeks of no fruit, how do you think my tummy reacted to all of that fructose? To make it worse, I THEN went to Adams' engagement party and yammered on about how strict I'd been with myself blah blah......it gets worse....
I THEN went to The Magic Apple and got a protein pattie wrap with EVERYTHING including Gado Gado sauce (picture Homer salivating over donuts)....and a piece of vegan chocolate cake. It actually hurt to eat the cake but I was in it for everything now, so I took it to the limit.
Needless to say I woke up this morning feeling DISGUSTING. But don't worry, all of my efforts were rewarded with a 2kg weight gain. Tomorrow I'm going to meet the woman who will create my costume for me to wear on stage and who is a serious competitor in her own right. Wednesday morning I get to spend a whole hour with Kylie working on my posing in a bikini and high heels. Yay! YES~ that's SARCASM.
Lesson for this week is kids: remember the 5 P's
PRIOR PREPARATION PREVENTS PISS POOR PERFORMANCE.

Can't it just be thursday already?

13 weeks out~ DON'T TOUCH MY STUFF

I now understand why pregnant ladies freak out when random strangers try to rub their bellies. Adam told me  this day would come, comments on how I look and the like. But I didn't expect people to help themsleves to handfulls of me. I'd like to put it on the record, " You can touch me when I say you can. Not a moment before." I can't believe how many hands have slid down my arms and legs in the last two weeks, not to mention a couple of savage pokes to the belly just to check if my abs were tight! I'm a massage therapist so I'm down with being tactile, but I'm the one doing the touching and I'd like to think I make it very clear that it's a one way street. So that's my little rant done now.....but you have been warned~ DON'T TOUCH MY STUFF! On the otherhand~ I have had some mad conversations with a lot of the people I work with. Last week I had massive days working with the Canturbury Crusaders and the New South Wales State of Origin teams. The kiwi lads were facinated by what I was doing. Because it really is a science of diet and training techniques to achieve a very specific result. I had to giggle though when one of the lads suggested in all seriousness that I try Zumba classes to bring a "gracefullness to your hips". Hhhhhmn. Yeah~ nah.
Last week I went to my sculpting guru, Kylie Bruno at HPC to see what she thought of my progress. I'm not gonna lie~ the first time I stood next to this living godess in my bikini....under fluro lights, was somewhat of a traumatic experience for me. She was very kind in her comments, but the whole time I was wanting to die! After that first viewing I started my carb cycle diet and training splits every day with the programme Adam gave me. I stuck to that bloody diet like glue and smashed myself in every weight session. I actively avoided looking at myself in the mirror though so three weeks later I was pretty nervous to be back in front of the mirror in my bikini again.
Happy days! I'm on track! Even though this is not a numbers game (well it kind of is if you take your actual body fat percentage into account)~ your weight isn't the be all and end all, how you look is. After my last Bioscan though, I've lost another kilo and come in now at 58kgs. Kylie thinks my stage weight should be 55kg (including loss of water weight). Otherwise I may start to burn muscle. So yaya! I'm pretty stoked with that. It's given me the boost I needed to keep motivated. I also discovered I have a hernia. Quite disconcerting as I only know it's there now because I've lost some abdominal fat! What else lies beneath???

All in all, it's been a pretty rad week. I had my first sober clubbing experience. It wasn't as painful as I thought it was going to be although I did get accused of being a Cheerleader by the drunkest guy in the room and had to gently explain to another that my calves are a result of freaky genetics~ and no he couldn't come to the gym with me in the morning. Knocking back San Pelegrino's finest with a slice of lime and feeding off everyone elses' vibe wasn't so bad! Sitting at the bar sipping black coffee while the girls were downing champagne was a bit different, but I'm lucky I have awesome friends who support what I'm doing. Early on I had a horrendous experience where I almost felt bullied to have a drink and I totally understand now why my sister became almost reclusive in her competition preparation. I'm far too social an animal to stop going out, but I've realised that this is also probably the most selfish thing I've ever allowed myself to do. NOTHING takes preceedence over my training and eating schedual. And if people can't understand that I can still be a vision of awesomeness whilst sober, then I simply stop making time for them. My whole life I have attempted to make everyone elses' path the smoothest and not make waves. But not this time. At the end of the day, I'll be the one on that stage holding a huge freaking trophy.... ; )

14 weeks out....please don't take my cheat meal away!

Last monday got the week off to a cracking start! First, I dumped the entire contents of my protein shaker into my kit bag. Then I forgot my iPod (and everyone knows the quickest way to kill your workout mojo is to not have your own tunes)~ double distaster because I happen to be a Maria Sharapova~esque style of weight lifter. With my headphones in, I can't hear myself ~ sucked in to everyone else who can! Then when I finally got my shit together and actually made it to the gym floor, everything had been moved! Are you KIDDING me??? It took me 3 weeks to not wander aimlessly amid the equipment, pretending I knew what I was doing. Sigh. Monday was topped by Tuesdays' effort of protein shaking the inside of my car....which in hindsight wasn't so bad compared to the tuna salad I lost under the passenger seat on Sunday. It goes without saying I'm getting my car professionally detailed once this all over.
Thursday was D~day...weigh in and Bio Scan at HPC. Havn't lost that much weight which I was seriously bummed about, but happy days~ everything I've lost has been fat and lean muscle mass has even improved a couple of points. So at 14 weeks out I'm sitting on 14.9% body fat. 59kgs with 50.5kgs lean muscle mass. Should I be freaking out? I don't know! I've never done this before remember!!! In my mind I have a goal of getting to 7~8%....I reakon I can do it. I know my weakness is my lats~ how the frig do you flare your lats without looking like the back of a Mac truck??? I'll just have to get bigger ones. Pity your boobs don't get bigger with all this hard work. I just had to down size my bra....I don't really want to talk about it. Needless to say I'm devo'd. They bloody well better grow back! The local tit guy kinda freaks me out! I don't think you should trust anybody with your boobs who is obviously wearing their knee caps as eyebrows.
I have to say, until now I never really understood the cheat meal obsession. Is it wrong to plan what you're having for dinner on sunday night as you're doing monday mornings' cardio? I started out really well. My first cheat meal my sister and I cooked up a sensational vegan feast. My second was equally delicious but slightly less healthy, Pad Thai. The third.......I'm hoping Adam doesn't read this~ a mini tub of Ben and Jerry's Phish Food! Aaaaaaurrrgh! I seriously nailed the whole thing because I knew if I didn't, it would call out to me from the depths of my freezer for the entire week, until in a mindless frenzy I would get up in the middle of the night to finish it and my flatmate would find me in a sad, cold, chocolatey mess slumped against the fridge. WHAT? It could have happened.
So now comes the serious business of juggling work with training. Last week was the busiest week~ 20 massages & 5 yoga classes. I made it to 6pm friday night before collapsing into my bed. The kind exhaustion that makes you feel like you're in an induced coma and you know you aren't going to wake up for a long time. Boo Yah! Made it all the way to 6am saturday morning and I only woke up because in my brain fog I must have set my alarm. All I can say is, suppliments make everything better.
Next on the list~ posing. Time to step out of the comfort zone and get my flex on....watch this space!