Clumsy

I am clumsy at the best of times but this past week has been a whole new level for me. I have been spilling drinks, breaking cups plates, dropping food, falling down etc etc like nobody's business and I'm really over it! Even my workmates were having a chuckle about it the other day remincising about (recent) occassions Ive managed to spill coffee on my keyboard, hurl cokezero all over someone else's monitor (was walking past and hand caught a desk) and stand up from my desk with a dead foot only to take one step, fall over and sprain my ankle...! I think Im in for a spot of trouble these next 20 weeks from what I've heard about comp prep!

Last weekend was the worst. Sunday afternoon Ali and I were both a little tired, grumpy and bored so we decided to go and see a movie. To cut a long frustrating story there short, the cinema's carpark was full and then by the time we found a park the session was full. So not to have wasted the trip into the city, we decided to have our favourite coffee- Gloria Jeans. When I went up to get our two long blacks, mine somehow ended up down the front of my thin white singlet. AGONY! Had huge blisters appear and pop and some very tender raw skin.

Its going to take a while to heal. With respect to my comps Im glad they are not for a while yet and yes, Dream Tan is amazing and would cover everything. Im trying not to be vain but am quite concerned at the prospect of having a large and ugly scar; Ive been advised to use Vitamin E cream and to massage Bio- oil onto the area once healed, twice a day for as long as it takes...

So yeah, not much good news to report unfortunately. 20 week mark was yesterday but Im not sure where Im at right now as our scheduled appt last Friday didn't eventuate. I did choose a song for my routine and started thinking about what I might do with that but Im already umming and ahhing over the choice as its a recent song im afraid that either someone else will choose it or it may be unfamiliar to too many people... got to strike that balance i think..

Clean out time

So how was your Easter break? We didn't get up to too much.. here were the highlights:

I finally got a haircut and coloured it myself, ahh. I have been a hair dag for too long now AND at the too young age of 23 I have a few grey hairs coming through. How unfair is that? I put it down to a mixture of genetics and me being a stresshead. The colour did not turned out how I wanted it too but it wasn't a total disaster and at least the greys are covered, lol.

As i mentioned in the last post, Ali and I had a very nice time Saturday evening catching up with his fathers' side of the family for his 50th birthday. As for the cheat meal- it was pretty awesome, I highly recommend good Indian food as a welcome treat from a strict (ish diet) :)
Ive been so focussed lately and hadn't had a cheat meal for about two weeks, felt like I could go longer but its still part of the plan, was going out to dinner for the bday so why not? The Naan bread alone was heaven! can you tell what a fan of food i am? haha, but who isn't. I had wanted icecream for dessert but settled for bday cake (tiramasu).

We ended up decided to stay at his parents' place Saturday night which meant a huge bag of meals in tupperware to see us through! So it was straight back on the wagon with a little extra energy to burn over the next couple of days.

What else? I cleaned the house (yay) watched an appalling amount of TV and.... was actually motivated enough to clean out our pantry! I removed everything, scrubbed it down then replaced only the 'on plan' items resulting in a full bag for mr garbage bin! we didn't really have anything 'forbidden' in there to begin with actually, what I threw away tended to mostly be open bags of breadcrumbs, a dozen different types of flour, bran cereal etc. Since we moved in, everynow and then I would get the urge to bake something from scratch, hence the plain and self raising flour. Then I made friends with a celiac (requiring gluten free diet) thus the collection of rice, corn flour, wheatgerm etc! Now that I will be beating down any urge to back for the next five months, no need for a place in my pantry. I hadn't touched any of them for ages anyway, I do love creating new personalised recipes but when you are only eating one slice of something it was always a bit of a waste anyway- save that for someone's bday etc now.

The benefits of Ali and I being in this together really hit me seeing our clean pantry!I should have taken a photo of the finishe d product, it is cute- at eye level is a shelf full of our vitamins and supplements and below that is our 'grains' shelf featuring our oats (quick for Ali, rolled for me) rice (white for Ali, brown for me) and potatoes (white for Ali, brown for me).

Happy (Almost) Easter

This picture cracks me up :) Apparently 71% of people surveyed start with the ears, seems logical to me.

Wishing you all a safe and happy Easter long weekend!

I hope, like me you have gone and checked out when your gym is and isn't going to be open over the next four days- ours is closed Friday and Sunday and open certain hours only on the Saturday and Monday so yes all plans are structured around that!

So far only two people have been kind (silly) enough to give me choccies which i graciously and gratefully thanked them for only to regift when they went away! hehe, someone else might as well enjoy them, hey? Although the Lindt bunny my mother sent me was a little bit more difficult, might save that for this weekends' cheat meal. Ali and I are going out to dinner with his family for his Dads' 50th on Saturday night so that will be fun. 

Oh and I must correct myself, I am still 24 weeks out this Saturday from the QLD ANB State Titles, I am so keen I was trying to shortchange myself a week, lol! Sigh- come on!!! 

Im going to start posting pictures etc more regularly from 20weeks out and try not to only post ones of me first thing in the morning looking dishevelled and so skinny from not having any water yet! 

xx

happy to be on the count down

Ali and I had our appt with Jon and are every day feeling more and more in the groove of our comp prep, 23 weeks out this Saturday so yes, plenttty of time but my head is right where i like it these past few weeks- in the game!

For the first time in my coaching history, i got permission to eat more food this time around rather than it being cut back! hehe, i will enjoy that while it lasts!  Sigh, I remember how I used to assume i had a poor metabolism for so long when I struggled with my weight, little did I know there were things you can do about it!

Training is going well, I am enjoying my new split and am starting to see lines in my delts which is exciting. I am hoping as I go along and get lighter that I do not lose too much strength but i know that some days I am just stronger than others.. definately don't make gains in a linear fashion. Some days I feel it and can push the heavy weights for those working sets, other days I try, but if the strength is just not there I turn up the intensity differently, but taking a lighter weight and usually doing a couple of drop sets.  As Ive mentioned a few times before, I don't have an overly structured way of training but I think there's more than one way to skin a cat as long as you're consistently pushing yourself.

Ali and I have been joking with others in the gym about the fact that we're going to be dieting at the same time but overall, i think its going to be great, at the toughest of times we will at least know exactly how the other person feels and hopefully be able to be more sensitive to that.. I have only met two other couples so far I think where both partners compete and neither couple did so at the same time.. so we'll see!

xx

simple pleasures

What is your idea of a perfect day?  Lucky for me, mine involves a lot of good food and training :)

This morning after my morning cardio, I had brekkie and cleaned up our bomb of a kitchen. Honestly, when two people have to eat every three hours how is it possible to keep a kitchen clean for more than five minutes! lol, ive had to learn to relax there a little. 

For our next meal we went to Nando's- have you tried their chicken garden salads? geebus, i didn't think I would ever make friends with a salad over burgers etc but I LOVE it! and as we all know, a meal you didn't cook yourself is always going to taste great. Nando's may be a little more expensive than other takeaways, but the quality is great- organic chicken too. 

From there, we went into borders at garden city to have a large long black from the gloria jeans inside the bookstore and read a fitness magazine each, I chose the latest American Oxygen mag (got a subscription to the Aussie one). What a great idea hey? At first I felt a bit cheap reading a mag for free but everyone does it, and I guess its kind of the point, the set up is right next to the mag section. 

Well fed and pretty high on caffeine (those GJ large babies have three expresso shots) we went to our gym, CBJ up the road from the shopping centre and today I trained back, hammies and calves. I have slowly been working on my chins, a while ago I never thought Id be able to do them! I warm up on the assisted machine then do at least two working sets trying to get as many as I can with my own bodyweight- 8 perfect ones today! I like to do them slowly and fully extend my arms at the bottom. very proud :) The kilo i lost since last seeing Jon might have had something to do with this PB, I have been so focussed since our last appt and our next one is this Monday 6th so I'm looking forward to seeing my results for the last 2 weeks.

Hope everyone is well and looking forward to a little time off over Easter! xx