fitclubmom’s BodyBlog

Well they damn well better be lying to me!!  

I always laugh when I see the comment… "Pictures don’t lie".  And I laugh because, maybe they don’t exactly lie, but they are subjective.  It’s a fact that we all have great pictures of ourselves that are flattering and show us in a good light,  and we all have those pictures that we destroy immediately after viewing!  My hubby can attest to the fact that if he takes 50 pictures of me, I might like, maybe, 2 out of those 50.  And guess which ones I’m going to print/post/send… yep, the 2 that I like!  Most of the pictures that are taken I will find something that I don’t like… my expression, the angle, my stomache, my face, the way I’m posing (or not posing), etc.  And it always seems like when I get a great pose, my face looks dorky and when my face looks great, my pose is dumb.  It’s enough to make me growl in frustration (which I do a lot when viewing pictures of yours truly).

My hubby is a trouper when it comes time for progress pictures… he willingly, calmly, and without complaining takes as many pictures as I feel necessary to find 1 or 2 that I like (of course he DOES get to see me posing and adjusting my bathing suit, so that’s probably why he doesn’t complain ). 

Is anyone else like me, or am I just crazy? (okay, don’t answer the "crazy" part cause I already know I am!)

Yesterday I blogged about how I wished they would ban sugar in the office like they do cigarettes.  If you want to eat your evil candy… take it outside people!!!  Stop trying to tempt me with it!  So today, I get in and there are flyers posted about a pot luck that I had forgotten about.  And the potluck is titled "Spooktacular Treats".  And it’s located right next to my desk.  That’s right, the potluck is entirely SWEETS… no protein, no veggies, no cheese trays, nothing at all good for me or acceptable for me to eat.    And I swear that they have the hose venting all of those yummy smells right into my workstation.  It’s just not fair!  Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

This isn’t helped by the fact that I have had less than 2 hours of sleep.  My own fault entirely.  I took a new supplement later in the afternoon yesterday before knowing how it would affect me.  I thought that I would have plenty of time before bed for any effects to dissipate.  Apparently not, because I could not get to sleep last night.  I tossed and turned and every time I would doze off I would jerk awake and realize that only 30 minutes had gone by.  So I’m not at my best today.  And the lure of sweets isn’t helping matters.  But so far I have managed to stay away from ALL of the treats.  I’m going to go down to the cafeteria in a bit and get some fruit.  Hopefully that will help keep me away from the treats!

Today was leg day.  This is my second time doing this particular leg workout and it was just as hard today as it was last week.  I need to improve on my box squats, because I don’t like the way I am doing them.  I find myself starting the upward movement as soon as my butt hits the box, and I know that’s not right.  I need to sit down and then start the push from the seated position.  My mind knows what to do, but my body isn’t listening right now.  But I am working on improving the move and getting it right.

Oh, and ALL of the moves were extra difficult because my ab muscles are still so sore from Monday’s workout!  Although I can at least breathe without whimpering like a baby.  But it certaintly made the rest of the workout challenging. 

My eating has been getting better too.  Not as many cravings yesterday or today, but still having those sugar cravings.  And it doesn’t help that there are 4 different people in my area who have candy jars on their desk.   Especially when they are practically begging me to take some.  Grrrrrrrr!  My life would be so much easier if they banned sugar from the workplace like they do smoking. :-0

Yesterday was Abs and Calves.  It has been a long time since I have done rope crunches and I may have overdone it just a wee bit.  I actually thought my abs felt pretty good all day yesterday and even this morning.  I don’t know what happened between my walk down to the gym and the start of my cardio, but DOMS kicked in on my ab muscles in a matter of minutes.  And they did not like being used during the running sequences on HIIT.  Holy mother of mercy!

Thank goodness today was just a cardio day.  I managed to do 20 minutes of HIIT (I was sooooo happy when that was done) and then followed it up with 25 minutes of MISS.  Now I’m just trying to remain as still as possible and not engage my ab muscles in anything.  Do you realize just how much we use our ab muscles?!?!  Breathing… I can tell you with certainty that we use them for breathing! :-)

Oh yeah… I’m sore.  Sore, sore, sore… and then some. 

I started my new weightlifting routine on Friday because I was too impatient to wait until today.  I am loving it!  I can barely move due to DOMS, but since I like that feeling, I can’t complain .  It’s a cool routine that mixes up supersets, with failure sets, and ball work.  I had forgotten just how hard doing the bench press on a swiss ball was.  I made the mistake of going too heavy on my first set.  It’s very hard to maintain proper form while having to stabilize yourself on the ball.  Great stuff!

I was soooo lazy this weekend around the house though.  I was too sore to clean or do laundry (which really needed to be done), so I spent most of the weekend watching sports with the hubby and reading.  It was kind of nice, but now I’m really behind on my normal weekend chores.  I also over ate this weekend.  I don’t think I ate poorly (okay a couple of poor food choices were made), I just ate way too much.  It seemed like I was constantly hungry.  Today isn’t much better.  I’m not even all that hungry, I just seem to want to constantly be munching on something.   Weird.

… that when you are running late you hit every. single. bloody. stop. light. in a 20 mile radius?!

… that when you are late you get behind all of the cars that have decided to make it their life mission to go five miles UNDER the speed limit?!

… that when you are running late every single bus, semi-truck, tractor, etc. is somehow right in front of you?!

Such was my morning.  Murphy’s Law at its finest!   To add insult to injury I typed a humorous blog about my morning and as I hit the "save and exit" button I got the dreaded "run time error" from Microsoft and it closed the window.  Without saving my blog.  Grrrrrr!  Damn that Murphy!

So I went downstairs to the gym at work and took all my frustrations out on my leg workout.  My legs hate my guts, but I feel much, much better now.

I got my new workout program from JAnthony and was too impatient to wait until Monday to start it, so I used the leg day for my workout today.  WOW… it is a killer leg work out! 

I hope everyone has a great Friday and wonderful weekend!

Here is a ’life lesson’ (story) I would like to share… 

IT DEPENDS ON HOW YOU LOOK AT IT

A man pulled into a gas station on the outskirts of town.  As he filled his tank, he remarked to the attendant, "I’ve just accepted a job in town.  I’ve never been to this part of the country.  What are people like here?"

"What are people like where you came from?" the attendant asked.

"Not so nice," the man replied.  "In fact, they can be quite rude."

The attendant shook his head.  "Well, I’m afraid you’ll find the people in this town to be the same way."

Just then another car pulled into the station.  "Excuse me," the driver called out.  "I’m just moving to this area.  Is it nice here?"

"Was it nice where you came from?" the attendant inquired.

"Oh, yes!  I came from a great place.  The people were friendly, and I hated to leave."

"Well, you’ll find the same to be true of this town."

"Thanks!" yelled the driver as he pulled away.

"So what is this town really like?!" asked the first man, now irritated with the attendant’s conflicting reports.

The attendant just shrugged his shoulders.  "It’s all a matter of perception.  You’ll find things to be just the way you think they are."

I love trying new supplements, exercise routines, eating plans, etc.  I am one of those people who embrace change and "go with the flow".  But sometimes that attitude bites me in the butt.  Especially with supplements.  I am hyper sensitive to just about all supplements.  I would never have made a good druggie.  I can’t handle pain pills, or stimulants very well at all.  But it doesn’t stop me from trying them (fatburners… not illegal drugs or pain pills, lol).  Which I’m sure is why sometimes my hubby just shakes his head in confusion at me.    There have been a few things that I have tried that have very few side effects on me, so why you ask don’t I stick with them?!  Because I get bored of them and I always wonder if there is something better. 

I always try to listen to my body and let it tell me if something is working or not.  And usually that works very well for me.  But sometimes I have to get knocked upside the head to realize that I’m not paying attention to my body and what is happening within it.  Such is the case recently with my hypoglycemia.  I have had 4 instances in the last two weeks where my blood sugar has crashed suddenly and severly, with no advance warning signs.  It took the advice from two people (my hubby and Shannon) to come to the conclusion that if I am eating every few hours and doing the right things (the first time my blood sugar crashed I had done all the WRONG things), then it might be something that I’m taking. 

I had recently been trying a new fat burner, and for some reason it didn’t even enter my mind to question if it was contributing to the hypoglycemia.  Probably because I have never had a side effect like that when taking fat burners.  But this morning I decided to forgo the fat burner.  And so far, no hypoglycemia episodes.  I will stay off of the fat burner for a few more days and see if my blood sugar remains stable.  If it does, then it was probably due to the fat burner and I can add a new side effect onto my list [rolling eyes and groaning].

To date, there have been three things that I have been able to take with relatively few side effects.  The first being Lean System 7, the second being Cytolean (the old version… haven’t tried the new version yet), and the ECA stack (it is legal in my State).  Each one of these have had some side effects… the ECA stack was jitters for the first few days (but that tapered off after my body adjusted to the caffeine), and a runny nose (absolutely hate that side effect… makes it hard to lift when you are constantly sniffeling!).  The Lean System 7 caused some tummy aches due to the dandelion (this is because I have gall stones and dandelion can aggravate the gall bladder/stones).  And the Cytolean caused me to break out (pimples) for a week or so.  All in all the side effects are minimal, and all of these were effective in getting me past a plateau.

On the plus side, I know that there are fat burners that I can take that work for me, BUT I know myself well enough to say that I will probably keep trying new fat burners and supplements in the future.   I can just see my hubby shaking his head as he reads this… lol.

I was able to hit most of my bodygroups twice this week.  For quite a while I’ve only been hitting each body part once per week, but this was not the way that JAnthony designed the workout to be done.  This past week I did the workout the way it was supposed to be done.  I lifted weights 6 days this week, and hit each body part twice.  I did tweak it slightly by putting in the cardio bursts in between each set to save time on my cardio at the end.  That method got progressively harder as the week went on!  By Sunday, I was having a heck of a time with the cardio bursts. 

The end result of this week is that I have DOMS in almost every bodypart today.   Good thing I like that feeling!  I’m going to do the same thing this week.  Today is my one scheduled day off, and I will lift weights and cardio the other six days this week.

I’ve been proud of myself for getting all of the workouts, but I’m not giving myself too many high fives because my eating habits have not been nearly as good as they should be.  Combine my winter hibernation instincts and PMS and you don’t get a good combo in the clean eating department!  So I’m still trying to get that area cleaned up more. 

Once I have both pieces (working out and eating CLEAN) in line, then the magic will happen.  Discipline, discipline, discipline!!

Yesterday I did cardio between every set of exercises.  Today, I am definitely feeling it!!!  I think I am going to start doing this for all of my weight lifting days. It let me get out of the gym earlier than I normally would because I was getting my cardio in between lifting.  In my mind that makes it a win/win situation.

Today is a ‘rest’ day for me, but I may try to get in some light steady state walking just to loosen up my legs a bit.  I ended up getting some pretty bad leg cramps last night.  My wonderful hubby broke out the pickle juice for me (I’m telling you… it really does work!).  Apparently I am low on sodium which causes the leg cramps.  Actually, a regular leg cramp I can deal with… but those damn "Charlie Horse" cramps kill me.  You can’t walk them out.  You can’t even walk when you get them.  I hate those suckers! 

As you can see by my new avi, I got my hair cut and colored by my new stylist.  She convinced me to go a lot shorter than I normally ever would have.  But I had a lot of damage to the ends and she felt it would be best to try to get them gone by cutting it shorter instead of doing it gradually, a little at a time.  I’m still trying to get used to it, but I do like it.  The hubby loves it too.  So all is good in my world.   This stylist wasn’t that much more expensive than my stylist who left me, so I’m going to stick with her.  Hopefully she sticks around for a while, otherwise I’m going to get a complex!