Archive for September 15, 2009

I’m Here!

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I promise I didn’t fall off the face of the earth. A LOT has been going on. Good and bad.

Comp. prep has gotten off to a rocky start. Not proud of it and actually I’m pretty embarassed about it. How can I call myself a competitor when I am so easily falling off the wagon these days? and also… WHAT IS WITH THIS TIME OF YEAR?! Last year around this time, I fell into a binge cycle/depression/i want to crawl in a hole and never come out…state of being we shall call it. NOW, I am no where NEAR where i was last year. I have grown so much emotionally and mentally and am able to recognize all of these things. I will say that I am struggling big time right now. Fortunately, I realized that I was struggling and made some changes that I believe will turn things around for me. Before I let that happen though, I am going to take control of things myself. I feel like a broken record and those of you who have stuck with me, I am grateful. Those of you who think I’m a phony, well, I’m not, but I don’t blame you. I keep saying “I’ve got it together!” and follow that up with a big leap in the wrong direction. Sometimes I will catch myself and wonder what the hell I am doing?! Well, it’s called self-sabotage. There are a lot of reasons why we do it. Sometimes we think we are going to fail and instead of putting our heart into something, we purposely sabotage ourselves so that we can’t look back and think that we did everything we could and STILL failed. Does that make sense? Kind of hard to put into words. It is something that many of us have faced at one point or another. It is totally backwards of what we SHOULD be doing, but sometimes our minds work in funny ways.

The changes:

So one of the big changes that I am making is that I am moving out of my apartment and moving back in with my Dad. If you remember, my roommate moved out at the end of May. She was going to move back in, but after a family situation decided not to. I was happy. She’s a nice person but our lifestyles are total opposite. Well, living alone was great and all for a while, but it has come to the point of me being lonely. I don’t have a boyfriend, I have tons of friends, but I don’t go out during the week. It couldn’t be a better time that my lease is up on the 26th, and rather than renewing like I had planned, I am going to save a crap load some money. So that is two things: save money=less stress, less lonely=less stress

I am apprehensive about living with my dad just because I like being on my own, but if it doesn’t work out I’ll just find a roommate and move out again right?!

Okay so back to comp. prep. I am very disappointed in myself but at the same time not beating myself up. I am just trying to get my head in a position that makes me want to give it my all as far as the dieting goes. My training has been UN-freakin-stoppable. I am lifting heavy-ass-weights and loving every minute of it. I am getting strong as hell and putting on decent muscle(i better be with all of the food that i’m eating.) But boy have I put on an extra layer of fat. I know that if I get a good 7-10 days under my belt it is smooth sailing from there. You would think I could get through 7-10 days easy peasy, but this is where my sales skills and negotiating capabilities DO NOT work in my favor. I am REALLY GOOD at selling myself on anything. I sound pathetic and I know it. I know exactly what I need to do, I know the advice that I would give someone else in my position, but taking my own advice seems so difficult right now.

If you are still reading at this point, you are a trooper, but basically I am just getting my thoughts out on paper. Realistically, I need to stop whining and complaining and practice what I preach. One day at a time, one meal at a time. I will get there. I’m hesitant to say that “I will do this” because I feel like I’ve said that a lot lately and been positive only to screw it up again.

Hopefully the motivation gods will find me tonight and ensure that i do this the right way with no excuses. I am going to give it all that I can. The only person in my way is ME, and if it were someone else I’d be stepping all over them to prove them wrong. I guess it is time to prove myself wrong. Not going to stand in my way anymore! Ah encouragement is much needed guys. Sorry for the novel, just have a lot on my mind…

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Things I Love

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I thought I would post about the things that I LOVE about my lifestyle. Lifting heavy weights and eating clean are so rewarding. Competing is just as rewarding. Some don’t like the idea, but I see it as a way to show off what I have worked so hard for. When someone works on a piece of art, they display it at an expo

I love:

-seeing my muscles contracting at the gym while I work out.

-seeing my muscles grow and see progress in my physique

-the taste of freshly boiled green beans(sooo much better than the pre-packaged ones you steam in the microwave..wish I wasn’t so lazy all the time hehe)

-Getting pumped in the gym and seeing my veins flare

-Seeing new veins start to surface every few months from my training

-Feeling my body functioning optimally.

-The jitteriness I get after a tough weight sesh.

-DOMS

-The taste of a well-balanced meal after a tough workout

-Knowing that I can pick up and run 6, 7, 8 or whatever miles at (for the most part)any given moment

-Inspiring people to do more, try more, and become healthier.

-Helping others in their quest to lose weight, build strength, become healthier, etc.(i love answering questions that people have)

I could probably think of 100 other reasons, but I’ll stop there.

What are YOUR reasons why you LOVE your lifestyle?

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FritesDay

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Don’t worry guys, I didn’t eat any french fries. I just like saying “frites”.

Now that we have established that I’m a weirdo, I will get on with this post.

Today has been pretty good overall. My mood has gone up and down, but that’s another story which I will get into in another post.

Got a good chest and tricep workout in this morning and finished it off with some HIIT on the treadmill. I did 5 minutes at 6.0mph then 1 min. on 1 min. off for 10 minutes (6.5-8.5mph) and then went back to 6.5mph and gradually went up every minute by a .5mph until I got to 8.5mph. That brought me to 20 minutes and I cooled down for 5 more. Hard and quick, just the way I like it.(TWSS)

I came home afterwards and ate, dilly dallyed, showered and eventually made it to work. Got what needed to be done out of the way, headed to the bank to finish up some fun accounting bolog-na and then dropped off some D-Bax tickets to papa georgio.(his name is Gregg but when my sibs and I were little we would call him George because we seemed to get a quicker response…that or saying “dad, your secretary called” always triggered an immediate “what?!” from him hehe), and finally headed home.

I was exhausted and had a date with the couch and also VH1 Classic. NEW FAVE CHANNEL. Yesterday it was Woodstock and The Wall…today I watched a show called Classic Albums-one about Nirvana, and the other about U2. I love it because they are in the studio with the rough tracks messing around with them, talking about them, etc. (I am going to school to learn audio engineering so I totally dig that kind of thing!) And now, The Beatles: Hard Day’s Night is on!! I highly reccomend this channel if your a music buff like me 🙂

Going to a movie tonight with my besttty. I miss her we have been friends since we were in 3rd grade and still talk daily. Since we’ve started college we don’t see eachother often, but she is still my numba 1!(besides my seester)

Food-ing went well today again. If I have to bitch and moan my way through these next 10 weeks I will, but hopefully that’s not the case 🙂 So far spirits are still high!

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Channeling My Inner Hippie

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Woke up late today and missed boxing this morning! WAH :'(.  I also slept through my training appointment. DOUBLE FAIL! It’s probably good though because a) i needed the sleep and 2) my whole body is sore.(home alone fans anyone?!) I still hit up the gym when I woke up and just did cardio today. Chest/Triceps/Abs will be done tomorrow instead. I decided I would stop at the grocery store after the gym to get some essentials: Eggs, egg whites, water, and veggies.

veggies

I got a BOAT LOAD of veggies, and forgot EVERYTHING ELSE 🙂 Figures. When I say a boat load of veggies, though, I mean it! My fridge looks a lot like the picture above, minus the eyeballs.

The goods:

Purple cabbage(that thing was HEAVY..honestly probably weighed like 10-15 pounds)

Zucchini

Red Bell Peppers(55 cents each thank you very much!)

Mushrooms

Onion

Celery

Broccoli

Green Beans

Grape Tomatoes

Blueberries(not a veggie, but an essential for my oats)

I also got a plethora(word of the day!) of low in sodium sauces. A mango hot sauce, spicy szechuan(love saying this word), a regular hot sauce, mustard powder, and hot spicy Sriracha!

I came home, realized I forgot most of what I planned to get, and made myself a stir fry! It had chicken, quinoa, and a nice dose of veggies with the Szechuan sauce. Flavorful, but not over powering. I was still starving after that, so I made some oats to go along with it.

Meals today were eggcellent today. 

I met with the girls today for posing. Missed them! We went over a lot of stuff and we are ready to practice, practice, practice! 10 weeks to go, and each one is going to count! Focus is on nutrition, weight training, and POSING!

I came home and spent the afternoon watching a Woodstock documentary in which I decided that I’m really upset I couldn’t be a part of that! If only I had been born sooner…..

I followed that up with The Wall. I LOVE this movie. I am a huge Pink Floyd fan and also love the psychedelics of the movie. How everything becomes something else and it all ties in together. I think it is so damn cool! (I promise I don’t do drugs!) Many people think I smoke pot just because I’m very laid back and intrigued by things that…well…stoners are usually intrigued by. Truth be told though, I’ve never done drugs. I tried pot once or twice when I was 15, but that ended as quickly as it began. I guess I just have that inner hippie 🙂

Hope everyone’s day went well! See you all tomorrow.

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10 Weeks Out

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Lizzy compete 6-2

Okay, so officially Friday is 10 weeks out, but we are going to pretend 🙂

I have some goals for this contest prep. Let me brief you about my past contest prep real quick. It started back in December 2008. I wanted to lose weight and doing a show was my goal. I didn’t really know how to do a lean-out, so I just did what I knew. I ate clean foods. I counted calories, but they would range anywhere from 1800-2500 calories per day.(Sometimes even 2800 a day) I didn’t have any “free” days until about April of 2009. I had lost the pudge that I made up in my head was carrying, and was ready to try to lean it out for the July show. I didn’t have a “plan” per say, I was still just doing what I knew worked. Not being too strict and having a cheat day about every two weeks. These cheat days were full out binges, by the way. It obviously slowed my progress, and it is why I came in just right for the July show.(I say that because had I been on a strict contest prep diet from December to July, I would have looked like I was just shipped over from a deserted island that didn’t have any food.)

Fast forward to now. I have eaten enough crap to feed a third world country my fair amount of junk these past few weeks during my “mini bulk”. Whether I bulked up my muscle or just a bunch of fat, I’m really not sure. What I DO know is that I have gained strength, pretty sure I have gained a fair amount of muscle, very sure I have put on some fat. Don’t worry guys, I am OKAY with it. A year ago, I would have been sitting under the table crying because I was destined to become obese, but these days, I KNOW what I need to do to lose weight, and KNOW that I have done it before and feel CONFIDENT in myself that I can do it. I’m about 10 pounds up right now. Which actually works out perfectly because I have 10 weeks until my competition.

This is a BIG competition and it has been my goal since I bought my plane ticket a few weeks ago that I will bring my BEST PACKAGE to the stage. That means that from 10 weeks out until the day of the show, I will put in 100%. Not 99.9%, I will be standing on stage knowing there was NOTHING more I could have done.

Now that I have written Chapters 1-6 of my novel, I will lay out my goals for this contest prep. i am going to go into this prep with a PLAN, not just going to wing it like I did before.

  • Calories will be 1800 per day. Macros on most days are: Protein: 168 grams Carbs: 161 grams Fat: 53 grams (this comes out to 1793 calories)
  • Days that I am insatiable, I will up the carbs or fat and lower the protein a little bit.(Fats like nuts and carbs like oats help fill me up pretty well) Calories will stay the same.
  • If I am finding myself TOO hungry, I will go up to 2000 calories per day, but will have to assess that as time goes on. With my lowered cardio, 1800 should be okay.(i’m 5’7, so i easily lose weight on 1800 a day)
  • I will be taking measurements and posting progress pictures every two weeks. I am not going to start them on day 1, because I am superstitious and feel like it will jinx me(call me crazy, no really, i don’t mind :)) So look for them two weeks from Friday!
  • I am going to enjoy myself for this 10 weeks. I will enjoy the process of leaning out and seeing the changes in my body.

I’m really excited. I have never done a contest prep where I followed it exactly, and REALLY am excited for this challenge! I love myself a good challenge and KNOW how happy I’ll be on show day if when I do this.

(By the way, the strike out feature is 99% of the reason I switched to word press…and yes, i’m serious haha)

Anyways, I hope you all enjoy watching me transform these next 10 weeks. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome and SERIOUSLY helpful. 🙂

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Review

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The fun of not being on contest prep :):) haha

 

Penny’s Low Fat Desserts

  From the website…

“Penny’s Low Fat cookies, muffins and TOPS are delicious and great for healthy eating and weight management.  They’re the perfect portable guilt-free gourmet snacks! 

Unlike many manufacturers, we figured that if you wanted to be healthy, you are interested in what’s in your food and read nutrition and ingredient labels! That’s why we use high quality ingredients, developed our products with a food scientist and lab tested with attention to nutritional accuracy.  We have a long list of benefits…

*  All Natural

*  Low Fat and Calories

*  Very High Fiber

*  Rich in Whole Grains

*  No Artificial Ingredients or Preservatives

*  No Cholesterol

*  No Eggs

*  Some are Dairy Free

*  No Transfats

*  No High Fructose Corn Syrup

*  Very Diet Plan Friendly

*  Individually Wrapped in Generous Single Servings”

 

I was sent 4 different items to try.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie-This was pretty good. Tasted like a cookie, nothing extraordinary, but I would definitely purchase this again.

White Chocolate Cranberry Cookie-This was really good! Loved the white chocolate chips 🙂

Almond Poppy Muffin-The muffins were better than the cookies. I ate this warm with peanut butter on top and it was pretty tasty.

Carrot Raisin Muffin-This was probably my least favorite of the 4, but it was still pretty good.

 

Overall I like these treats. They are definitely still TREATS, not a health food, but MUCH MUCH healthier than the normal cookies/muffins. You can get their nutritional stats here.

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Labor-less Day

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Morning blogggies! Hope you have all had a fantastic weekend so far!

Mine has been pretty good! Friday night I went to the casino, if you remember. I came away with $40 bucks 🙂 Not too shabby for not even betting my own money 😀

Afterwards, I went out to Oldtown with my friend Nina, and got home around 1:30am. I crashed in bed.

Saturday, I got in a good ab workout and some cardio, and then got home and showered to meet a friend at the OCB show. A few of my friends were competing and I was also promoting Funktional Fitness there. My friend/posing coach/amazing mentor Tiffani, who was competing, placed 1st in figure, 1st in fitness model and also received the Best poser award!! Laura placed well in her classes as well and it was an overall really fun event. OCB runs their shows quite a bit differently than I am used to, so I am glad I got to see it first hand. I feel like I could have done pretty well at this show, had I decided to compete, but I am still glad that I didn’t. I feel so good lately. Sleeping through the night rocks 🙂

Sunday I went up to Prescott with my dad. He has a cabin in the area, and I’ve grown up going there multiple weekends out of the year. Since we are all grown up now, I don’t get up there as often as I like. I wish I had pictures to show because it was GORGEOUS up there. It had rained on Saturday, so the air was fresh, breezy and crisp. We started out at the farmer’s/flea market where I got some beautiful red bell peppers, and 5 pounds of apples for 3 DOLLARS–yes please 🙂 They were sweet and delicious! We then ended up meeting a good family friend for breakfast. Afterwards, my dad and I walked around the city, since there were some events going on, and ultimately headed back to the cabin. We just relaxed on the deck, reading and enjoying the beautiful 85 degree weather.(Much cooler than the 100 degree weather we deal with in Phoenix.) The best part is that it is only an hour drive from Phoenix.

Note to self: Get up there more often!

Came home and did laundry, cooked up some chick-a-dees, prepared meals for today, and did the dishes. I also cleaned up my room a little bit. Very productive!

A lot little too much snacking on kettle corn may have gone down, but I am still 11 weeks out. I will allow myself a little extra snackies here and there this week, for sanity purposes of course 😉 10 weeks out (Friday, September 11th)I will begin my prep. Right now, I am basically eating contest prep diet, but not fretting about eating an apple, or a little extra sumpin sumpin, ya know?! I am going to take measurements every two weeks and will post them for you to see. First measurements will come this Friday!

Today, I’m headed to the gym for some leg ac-shee-own(action;-)). Not sure how the rest of my day will play out but I think I might go hang out with the sister since she’s off today. Maybe do a little shoppy shoppy?! (Hey, I’ve got an extra $40 to spend right?!)

Quote for the day: 

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

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Friday Friday!!!

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Hello lovelies 🙂

I have had a fantastic day so far. I woke up at a leisurely 7AM(I actually sleep through the night now! It’s awesome!) and got on my laptop to read up on what all of you have been up to. I drank my water and then had breakfast before the gym.(egg/egg white scramble with spinach and oats with blueberries and cinnamon mmmmm:-D)

I did a 10 minute jog to warm-up the bod and then hit up the weight room for an awesome hour and 15 minute sesh.

I hit shoulders and triceps today and seriously crushedddd my shoulders. Triceps were hit hard too, but my shoulders, WOW. It was one of *those* workouts. The kind that you wish you could have every day! Here was the workout:

DB Military Press/Skull Crushers

DB Lateral Raise/Tricep pulldown and turnover

DB Rear Delt Raise/Overhead cable extensions

Lying DB Delt Pulls/CG Pulldowns

It was such an awesome workout I am on cloud 9 🙂 Yay endorphins! I foam rolled afterwards and my triceps were shaking as I was rolling out my hammies. A job well done!

After the killer weight sesh, I was going to do 30 minutes of incline walking. About 5 minutes into it, my left hamstring started tightening up, and by minute 7, I had a feeling if I kept going any longer I was going to experience an injury. I stopped, walked at a slow pace for 3 minutes on flat ground until the tightness subsided, and hopped off. Doing much better about listening to my body.

Agenda for today:

Have to stop into work to do a few things

Need to run by nordstrom rack and find something to wear tonight

Going to the casino tonight with my gambling-addict friend(He plays, and i get to keep the winnings when he hits black jack hahaha. Its a win-win for me! I like to think of it as my 2nd job :))

Then going out tonight with my friend Nina for a night on the town.

Hiking tomorrow morning, and some abs at the gym.

Hope everyone has a fun and safe Labor Day Weekend!

 

If you haven’t already, please vote for me!!

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Mirrors

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How often do you glance in the mirror? Once a day, 5 times a day, 10 times a day?

When you look in the mirror, how often is your thought process a positive one? Are you saying to yourself “i look pretty today!” or are you saying “i look like a whore on nickel night!”  “Not looking my best today…”

Do you ever find yourself going through almost the whole day and realizing that you haven’t looked in the mirror all day? That happened to me today and I realized..if I don’t look in the mirror, I don’t see the negative flaws that I pick out when I am staring at myself. I don’t even care, because I can’t see it. “What momma don’t know can’t hurt her.” Right?!

Chances are, if you don’t see what you look like, you probably aren’t dwelling on how terrible your makeup looks, how fat you look, and that the dimples in your ass seem to have multiplied over night. (However I’m pretty sure that has happened to me before :))

So what if you went an entire day without looking in the mirror? Are mirrors forcing us to dwell on our flaws and therefore contributing to the constant negative attitude that many women have about themselves?

I challenge you today, to walk by the mirror without glancing at yourself. Put your make up on, and don’t touch it up for the rest of the day. Don’t glance at it, don’t check to make sure your looking “thin” today. Bypass the mirror, and see how it impacts your day. (Or rather how it doesn’t impact your day.)

Staying positive will get you ahead in this weight loss game. When I committed to losing weight last December, I told myself not to look in the mirror and to just do what I know is right. Not having those constant “i look fat and ugly” thoughts consuming my days allowed me to stay positive and be patient. Results don’t come overnight and patience is what wins in the long run.

Let me know how it goes 🙂

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