Adina’s Cute & Perky Blog!

Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood was on while I was on the treadmill this morning. 

I’m not really sure which one of my clever gym buddies put it on that channel and left, but I have my suspicions.  And proper action will be taken.  That’s just how we roll at my gym!

But as I tried to drone out dear, sweet, fabulous Mr. Rogers, I couldn’t help but be drawn in….just a little.  I mean…I grew up with the man for Pete’s sake.  It’s Mr. Rogers, y’all.  THE Mr. Rogers. 

And while you may think he has nothing to do with bodybuilding, clearly you are wrong.  Clearly.

You see, Mr. Rogers was making a paper chain out of brightly colored construction paper.  Allowing me to flashback to when life was simple, and I made paper chains.  To when seeing a paper chain I had made hanging on the classroom tree filled me with a sense of accomplishment and pride.

And no matter what you buy to adorn a tree, nothing is quite as beautiful as something fashioned with love and hung with pride.

People tell me all the time they can’t afford to eat the way I do, train the way I do, or afford proper supplementation.  Yet, I made some pretty big changes to my physique with littler more than a paper chain approach. 

The chain that holds my diet together is made up of egg whites, rice, Ezekiel Bread, tuna, bananas, asparagus, and chicken. 

My paper chain supplements?  Good old caffeine via coffee and green tea.  Not pill form, mind you, but real cups of green tea.  I lifted for over a year before I would boldly enter into the supplement section of the health food store. 

Jogging is the paper chain that helped me shed the first 27 of my 121 pounds.  And I would go on to lose 50 before I joined the gym.

I made a lot of changes with my paper chains before I got serious about making a REAL difference. 

We hear it all the time, don’t we?  

“If I had only known what supplements could do, I would have started earlier.”

“I wish I had joined a gym earlier.”

But for me, it wasn’t until that tree was up and the chain hung that I could look and see what was still needed. The blank spots that needed some ornamentation.   Or maybe some supplementation.

And it was at this point that I changed from a wide-eyed child wondering what lifting could do for me into a grown-up, willing to make sacrifices to get what I wanted.

I could give up dining out here or going to a movie there to buy the supplements I needed.  I could give up going out to lunch to buy a gym membership.  I could wear the same pumps a few more times to buy new running shoes.

Yet it all came back to the foundation I had built with those paper chains.

I lost 50 pound before joining the gym.  I got my resting heart rate to 48 through running.  I had my first glimpse of real girl muscle before ever ingesting my first Whey shake.  My paper chain was long, strong, and firmly attached to that tree before the first ornaments were hung.

And I would not change the order in which I did things.  I needed to understand clean eating before I added supplements.  I needed to see that I would stick with my jogging before I invested in a gym membership.  I needed to understand how my body builds muscle without supplements to know what it would do with them.

If you have not been at this long enough to see that your goals are worth investing in, keep making links on your paper chain.  Don’t ever stop. 

Keep making them till you can see the empty spots on your tree, and you are willing to do what you need to fill them.

Do you want to know what REALLY got me started down the road to weight loss success?  I mean the REAL factor?

It was a break-up.  A break-up that left me so hurt that I would lay in the fetal position on the floor of my shower and cry like a baby.

This was one of those break-ups like you see on TV.  A big convoluted mess, culminating in losing a guy to a best friend.  And don’t pity me.  He was a man I should never have been involved with in the first place.  But he was someone I cared deeply for and loved at the time.

In one of my more functioning moments of weepiness and self-pity, I decided to lose weight to get him back.

And that is where I learned one of the biggest and most valuable lessons of my two year journey….stumbling blocks can be your biggest internal motivators.

I’ve shared with you the fact that the first thing I did to lose weight was jog.  What you didn’t know is that I was jogging to get that man back.  That blonde-haired, blue-eyed Greek God.

But you know what?  It doesn’t matter what made me lace up those jogging shoes the first time.  What matters is that I did it.  And that I kept doing it.

And as my physical body gained endurance, strength, stamina…my soul and my heart found peace. 

(And his eyes weren’t THAT blue.)

And I was no longer running to get this man back.  I was just running. 

(His hair WAS kind of stupid-looking.)

And the running led to the diet.

(He’s not even Greek.)

And the diet led to the gym.

(And he’s certainly not a God.)

And the gym unlocked the doorway to my soul. 

(Not even a demigod.)

And I would go through that break-up ten times over to get to where I am now.

That man went on to marry my former best friend.  And I went on to find the two best friends a girl could ever have and joy like I have never known.

Stumbling blocks only stay stumbling blocks if you let them.  You can jump over
them.  Walk around them.  Change directions.  Shimmy under them.  There are infinite ways to move around a stumbling block, yet so many of us choose to walk right into them.  Knowing they’re there.  Or worse yet, strap them on like a backpack and wear them everywhere we go.

As for my stumbling block?

It’s now a coffee table.  And on that coffee table are pictures of me with my two best friends.  Copies of the magazines I have been in.  A DVD of the Today Show episode I was on.  The racing numbers I wore in the 5K runs I have been in.  Scads of E-mails from well-wishers.  Pictures from….

Y’all…I have to move so much good stuff to get to my stumbling block, I’m not so sure it’s even there anymore.

But herein lies the key:  I do not ever search for that stumbling block.  I don’t go back to it and wonder what if?  Because which joyful memento would I remove to go back and uncover a block? 

A big, ugly block.

Facing a stumbling block today?  That means you are at the beginning of something wonderful, and the best is yet to come.

Besides, y’all…clearly that man is crazy for giving THIS up. 

(He should probably get himself checked!)

There are quite a few recurring themes in the E-mails that I receive each and every day.  One of those themes being finding, hitting, or searching for Rock Bottom.

Some people tell me they are already there.  Some people say they guess they are waiting to hit it.  And some people tell me they guess they are so far gone they will never even find Rock Bottom.

You know what?   Last I checked, I am not Wilma Flintstone, and I am not living in a world made of rocks.

I don’t really even believe in Rock Bottom.

I believe there are moments and instances where we make some really bad choices, and I believe some really bad things happen at some really bad times to some really good people.

But an awful lot of people cross my path who think this place called Rock Bottom holds the key to unlocking their weight loss success.  Either they think they have reached it, and it’s time to crawl out.  Or maybe they’re about to reach it, so they are about to be able to start.

Look around you and take note of what you see.  Are your loved ones OK?  What about your friends.  As for me, as long as my sons and a handful of people  I hold close to my heart are OK…then no matter the circumstances, I am not at Rock Bottom.  Things could always be worse.

If you are at a bad place, eating poorly and skipping the gym will not help you.  It will just sink you farther down.  Because, like I said, there really is no Rock Bottom.  There is just the lowest you have ever been on the ladder…and at some point you have to CHOOSE to go up that ladder instead of down. 

I thought my Rock Bottom was reaching 250 pounds.  But…I went on to surpass my own Rock Bottom by six pounds.  And  had I not chosen to so something about it, you bet I would still be gaining.  Wondering where the end to all of this was.  Searching for Rock Bottom.

You just need to focus on making daily choices that will get you moving in the right direction.

Eat a healthy breakfast today?  Go up a rung.

Gym visit?  Up another.

Sure, you’ll go down a few rungs along the way.  But the more upward steps you take, the easier it gets.  And the more you choose to let the good show and focus on the positive, the higher you will climb.

And yes, I do have bad days.  Or really just bad moments.  I don’t usually give in to an entire bad day.  My last major episode was totaling my car about two months ago.  I knew there were people I could go to that would consul me and want to let me talk about my feelings.  And they would cry with me.  And we would have a pity party.  Sharing all the bad moments we ever had.

And I would be down for days.

But there was this one friend who I knew would find the humor in it that I had not been able to find.  Because y’all, I totaled my car by running into wild hogs in the middle of the highway.  And while it wasn’t funny at the time, I knew there was this one friend who would not be able to find this episode at tragic as I thought it was.

And I chose to go up a rung and stick to the one who would help me find the humor in it.

I chose not to wallow in the slop with those pigs I killed, and I E-mailed the one who would lift my spirits.  And he did.  And I went on about my day.

Don’t go searching for Rock Bottom, and certainly don’t wait till you think you’ve reached it to turn things around.

Climb out of where you are one rung at a time. 

And don’t say, “When pigs fly.”

Because when you hit one going 70….you’d be surprised how high that sucker will fly.

So I was having a little trouble with my Blog last night.  The Europa one.  My longest Blog entry ever!

No matter what I did, all these funny little symbols kept popping up.  This happens when I copy and paste it from word.  And Richard (BodySpaceAdmin) had sent me a message once before about how to fix this, but I did not heed his advice.  I usually just mess with it till I make it work and leave those funny little symbols in there.

But last night my Blog was just particularly screwy.  And I flashed back to Richard telling me to copy and paste it into notepad.  And I did this.  And it worked.  In fact, it worked better than ever.  All those annoying little symbols?  Gone.  Everyone of them. 

And I started to send Richard a little private message telling him his trick worked.

I STARTED to…

Until it hit me. 

He is not waiting for me to share this little tidbit of information with him.  He knows this works.  He told me weeks ago this works.  His screen name alone tells me he does, indeed, know that this works.  And not only is he not waiting for this information, I feel sure he would roll his eyes to even read it, thinking to himself, “I hate stupid, perky people.”

Yet, somehow, I am amazed, amused, and surprised at my own epiphany.

And isn’t getting healthy so much like this?  We search and search for what to do and how to make it to goal.

We are surrounded by people who could help us, yet we want to find some magical way, some different route to get there.

We want to ignore the fact that those who come before us have told us what to do.  Eat clean.  Lift.  Do some cardio.

I always find it amusing when someone comes to me and says, “I tried what you said.”

I always play my part here.  I know they are wanting to surprise, amaze, and amuse me the way I did Richard with my Blog skills.  So I let a few minutes of dramatic silence pass before I say… “And?”

And this is when glee washes over the other parties face and I hear THE phrase, “It worked.  You were right.”

Well imagine that.

Eating clean.  Lifting.  Cardio.

They work. 

Who would have guessed it?

You can try all the crash diets, quick fixes, and easy ways to lose a few pounds fast, but you’ll just be filling your Blog with crazy little symbols.  And after all your struggling and redoing to find other ways to do it, you will just have to come back do it the right way.

Eat clean.  Lift heavy.  Do cardio.

Then come leave me a message that it works…and I’ll still act surprised and brag on you…just a little…..even though I told you so.

Y’all know when I do things outside of my normal perky Blog, I like to post them separately.  My regular Blog will still be there in the morning, but I DID go to the Europa, y’all.  So, I MUST write about it!

Words cannot describe nor do justice for the experience of going to a professional show.  Especially one with an Expo.

As I drove up, wondering if my Yahoo! directions had led me to the right place, I knew before I ever stepped foot out of the car that I had reached my destination.

Tan people.  Muscular people.  Gym T-Shirts.   Coolers.  Gallons of Water.  Tubs of Protein.  Vendors.  Icons of this sport.  Smiling young guys armed with bags of free stuff!  It was great!

I made my way up the escalator full of anticipation, and I was not to be disappointed. 

An archway of red, yellow, and blue balloons led me to the Expo where heath and fitness booths and activities filled a giant convention center from one corner to the next.

There were separate activities in each corner where you could see various things throughout the day.  I really thought there was something for everybody.  Personally, I enjoyed the lifting.  I saw AMAZING bench presses and power lifting feats.  Hundred pound plates being lifted and tossed about like they were nothing.  And that was just the women!!!

There was a car show going on in the middle.  A fashion show in one corner.  Followed by singing.  Some country music.  Some dance music.  Karate.  Wrestling.  I’m telling you, there really and truly was something for everyone.

The actual shows were great too.  There is just something about seeing  up close and personal all those people you see in the magazines or on this site.  To see, no, that’s not air brushing.  It’s rock solid muscle.  Those guys really do look that hard.  That cut.  That vascular.

Most attendees walked in with nothing, but came out with at least one bag of free goodies.  Most had two.  There was stuff everywhere.  I’m telling you, the goodies could more than make up for the price of the ticket.

Personally, I did not leave with a lot of stuff.  Those of you who read my Blog know I’m pretty loyal to my ISS brand!  I only got stuff from three people who sought me out. 

The owner of Gammo-O gave me a T-Shirt.  I was standing at his booth watching the guys try to hit one of those strength testers like you see at carnivals.  The kind you hit with a sledge hammer.  That was fun to see!  And he was a sweetie for giving me a tank!

Jen Hendershot gave me a magazine as I walked by the Isatori booth.  And out of the clear blue told me I looked really nice.  And I appreciated that.  Sometimes we women aren’t too quick to give each other compliments.  But a big thumbs up to her for being such a genuine sweetie through and through.  She will never know how many times I looked at her pictures for inspiration while I was struggling to lose weight.

Then one of the protein guys from another company ran across the expo to give me samples, and ask for my number.  And Mitch, you ARE a sweetie, but yes, you are too young!  But we girls do appreciate that kind of effort!  Yes we do!

And like I had three vendor experiences, I also had three favorite moments of meeting up with people at the show….

After I guess a year of talking to my hot ISS friend Kevin over E-mail, I finally got to meet him and the ISS crew in person.  That was SO great.  I told him he got to keep his Hot Friend title, because he really was hot in person too!!!  The whole ISS gang was really nice, and I am sure they will all make appearances in my Blog over the next few weeks if not the next few days!

I was also honored to meet one of my fellow bodyspace buddies in person!  Of course, I HAD to go by the bodybuilding.com booth.  I expected the spokespeople to be there.  But sitting quietly in the back of the booth, typing on a laptop was a face I was almost positive I recognized.  Well, not so much the face at it was the hair. Webmaster.  I rushed to introduce myself, having no clue if he would even know who I was.   But I told him my screen name, and he did.  And that was just fun for me! He’s a sweetie for sure!

And after playing phone and text message tag for two days, I finally caught up with Victor at the MHP booth looking spectacular as ever.  He is simply the best.  Even though there were people waiting in line to meet him, he took time give me a hug and meet the friend I had brought with me.

And I could end this here, but you know me.  If I feel motivated or inspired, I feel the need to share it!

I got up at least three times while I was typing this out, because I was just smiling so much I felt too silly to type.  And do you know why that is?

It’s because I took the time to do something that would inspire me.  Not only am I inspired today, I will be inspired for weeks to come. 

You see, I put myself smack dab in the middle of a convention center full of people who live this same life that I do.  And while it may seem at times like no one understands why I make the choices I do or why I work so hard, for a day I was a small minnow in a stream full of people who did!

And being a single, working mom it took some planning, saving, and creative scheduling on my part to get me there.  But I knew that I needed this weekend, this time with my people, to come back refreshed, recharged, and revived. 

And that’s exactly what these shows do for me, and why I will keep going.

If you are a lifter, you know how to focus on the task at hand.  You might not have known how to when you started, but you gradually learned how to.

When I first wandered into the gym, I was not focused.  It was simply overwhelming.  Machines on one side.  Free weights on the other.  People who know what they are doing on one side.  People who don’t on the other!

So I’m up early this morning getting ready to go to the Europa.  I’m always excited to go to the shows.

I think what makes this sport different from most others is the fact that we get to see so many of our favorites in one place.  Other sports have individual teams.  So you see this team against that team.  But of course, all the other teams aren’t there.

Even though our guys are clearly competitors, they are all essentially on the same team.  Living the same lifestyle.  And in most cases, you see respect among the teammates, as no one arrives at a competition without having made sacrifices and worked hard to get there.  Some of them may not have arrived dry enough or hard enough, but a beast is a beast is a beast!

Of course, those beasts are just regular guys under all that muscle.  I was reminded of that when Victor called yesterday afternoon.  So larger than life in the magazines, yet just a regular guy.  A sweet friend to have.  And I will be glad to see him.

And of course, for the first time I will meet my hot ISS friend Kevin.  Y’all hear me talk about him a lot, but I’ve never met him. 

But isn’t it neat that a common bond can bring you friends from all over?  Victor and Kevin are certainly part of my team, no matter how far away from me they are.

And it’s like the visit I had with my coworker Michael the other day.  We were talking about the fact that it’s just easier to keep on track when you surround yourself with people who have common goals. 

Michael and I work together and go to the same gym.  And you can bet that if he isn’t there, I’m tracking him down at work.  I’m not the captain of the team, but don’t good teammates check up on each other?

You know that old phrase, “There is no ‘I’ in team.”

But you know what?  There is an ‘am’ at the end of it.

And you should ask yourself:

Am I on the right team or have I surrounded myself with people who are against the goals that I have in mind?

Am I doing my part or am I content to let everyone else do the work for me?

Am I a leader when I need to be or am I content to let other people do all the thinking for me?

Am I doing things to build up my team or am I the one who brings out the negatives and never the positives?

Am I living a life that will make other people want to join my team or do they look at me and think, “There is just no way.”?

I am on my way to spend the weekend surrounded by my teammates.  Immersed in a sea of people who live my same lifestyle and share common goals.

Take a look at your surroundings today.  Make sure that you have placed yourself in the middle of a winning team. 

And if that look around leads you to the conclusion that you have no team, you’re in luck.  There is ALWAYS room on mine.  In fact, I’ve been waiting for you.

So I went to the gym yesterday after work with a goal in mind.

One of two things was going to happen.  It was arm day.  And I was going to lift till my arms went numb or I felt physically ill.  Whichever came first.  It mattered not.

It’s my little way of reminding myself that I am tough.  I am a lifter.

I don’t do this very often.  Go to the gym with THAT goal in mind.  I just do it every once in a while.  You see, it reminds me of why I lift and how far I have come.

I remember being the sad, 256 pound woman sitting on the floor of the bookstore on Friday nights.  Flipping through muscle magazines, as I had already read through ALL the other fitness books.

And I remember this one article on Arnold.  THE Arnold.  He was flashing back to when he was a teen.  The years before even Arnold looked the way he wanted to look.  Sure, he may have been genetically gifted.  But he chose to wrap that gift, stick a bow on it, and even a gift tag!!  But did you catch that?  At one time even Arnold did not look the way he wanted to look.

We may have been on opposite ends of the spectrum, but hard work and dedication were the bridges we both crossed.

I went on the read how he fell off his bike one day on the way home from lifting, because his arms were numb.

And who epitomizes this sport we love better than that man?

And certainly it could be argued that he reached THE optimum physique.  In fact, seven times he was judged to have it, by all but maybe Sergio!

So every once in a while, I unleash my inner Arnold.

The guys know it when I get there.

I walk in differently.  There is work to be done.

I silently walk past people I would normally talk to.  Unaware.  Focused only on the task at hand.

You see, between me and numb, a lot of feeling has to occur to get me there. 

I have to focus.  I have to squeeze.  I have to push. 

I have to clear my mind of every distraction.  Aware of nothing but the muscle I am working at the time.

And I don’t smile until my very last set.  And a random man says to me, “Why are you smiling like that?

And I say, “Because I can’t feel my arms.”

I don’t know him.  I don’t care what he thinks.

And as I drag my gym bag to the car, I realize from the first sip of my shake that I will have to take it slow.  I will get sick if I don’t.

Arms numb.

Workout hard enough to get sick.

I found MY inner Arnold.

Go find yours.

In response to yesterday, I got a few sad private messages.  The same theme rang true for all….a resounding sadness in place of the internal fire I had mentioned in my Blog.

I can tell you this: when I was heavy, I ate away almost every feeling I had.  The bad ones and the good.  We’ve all heard this phrase, “I ate to stuff my feelings.”  But do we know what it really means? Because you have to grasp what it means to pull yourself out of it.  You can’t fill your tank if you don’t know where your gas cap is.

When you eat to stuff your feelings, you are eating to the point that you are so full, you cannot feel anything.  All you can focus on is the full feeling you have created in the middle of your body.  Oblivious to all other parts….heart, mind, soul…..everything.It’s hard to feel sad, happy, or anything at all when you have eaten beyond your need.  It takes all your focus.  When you decide to make changes, you will have some hard times ahead.  You see, when you take away the main way you dealt with every occasion in your life, happy or sad, you don’t immediately know what to do with yourself.

But the hard times won’t last forever, or really even for very long.  Not in the grand scheme of things.

I cannot tell you how to skip this stage, nor would I even if I could.  It’s an important battle in the war you are waging with yourself.

All I can do is tell you what I did.  And that is, I learned to let myself feel.  Whether the moment was happy or sad, I had to learn how to feel without stuffing the feeling away.

And here is what I learned and what I take with me….

I will not die from allowing myself to feel a broken heart.  But I would have died from the heart disease that my obesity would have brought me over time.

I will not die from allowing myself to feel the aggravation of people who irritate me.  But I would have died from the aggravated blood pressure that was on the rise due to my eating behavior.

I will not die from learning to deal with people who are not sweet to me or do not treat me with kindness.  But I would die from complications of diabetes from continually putting sweet things in my mouth.

But isn’t it good to know…

I am more alive than I have ever been, because I chose a different path.

Joy can be found in simple things, because I learned not to stuff every feeling away.  I was missing out on a lot, y’all!

The things that used to bother me were greatly magnified by my magnified size.  And as I became smaller, so did my problems.  Because I learned to deal with things as they occurred.  In my former life, I stuffed them.  So the same problems kept surfacing over and over and over again.  Every time they popped up, I zapped them with a Twinkie.  Now?  I face them head on and punch them with some girl muscle!

The road you are on is not a quick-fix, but it is a permanent fix.  Once you learn it, you learn it.  And life is better.  Better than it ever has been.

And think of it this way.  Whatever you’re dealing with or struggling with today, will it really help to compound that problem by not exercising and eating clean?    Those two things are in your control.  Always.  Just grab the reins back from whomever or whatever you gave them to.

And just as one ash from a smoldering cigarette can light a whole forest on fire, one internal spark of realization on your part can set your whole soul on fire…

And the next thing you know, you’ll have a Cute and Perky Blog too…because, y’all, I’ll share that name!  I don’t have it copyrighted, but I did right the book on it!!!  I’m just waiting on YOU to write the next chapter!