Fitglam’s BodyBlog

hellooo… wow, i haven’t posted here in a really long time, have i?

well, i’m planning to become a lot more active in the bb.com community because it really is SO MOTIVATING.

i’ve been working as a trainer and i have to say, i love my job. i really, really love it. it is so rewarding to share my passion for health and fitness with others and, at this point, i’ve had several clients who have worked with me long term and it’s so exciting to watch them transform themselves and get stronger, fitter, BETTER.

also, working as a trainer has done wonders for my body image. back when i first got hired, i had to go to a proprietary certification course for 24 Hour Fitness trainers. there were like, at least 50 trainers from all over the bay area there… and you know what? pretty much all the female trainers looked like me. they were mostly muscular and strong looking, the only exceptions were one or two who were naturally very ectomorphic body types. but i thought they all looked awesome and it made me realize that this is what a fit, healthy and strong woman looks like.

so, the last 10 months have been great for me, very rewarding. i still really want to do a triathlon, but it’s so hard to make time for the training because my gym doesn’t have a pool and i work very long hours. sometimes i have 10 people a day. i really struggle to even squeeze in the basics if i don’t have at least one 2 hour break, and sometimes my day is so patchy with lots of 1 hour and 30 minute breaks. too short for a real workout and then showering! argh!!!

the good news is that my abdominal and general core is stronger than ever since i’m doing planks all day long and showing this exercise and that exercise, haha!!! i always have the upper two showing and as long as i’ve been eating well, i have a four pack most days.

i definitely want to do a figure competition next year. absolutely.

So here I am, back in the US! I passed my test the other day and now all I have to do is get my CPR/AED certificate and I’m an ISSA  certified personal trainer!

I am not carb cycling right now, I’m doing a PSMF. It’s actually not that hard to stick to. Your appetite slowly goes away.

I don’t have a gym membership right now, but I’ve been doing body weight exercises and I have a swiss ball + a medicine ball… and I go casually with my buddy to his gym a couple times a week.

Ok, I guess I don’t really have much to say, except I never post progress pics because I’ve realized I have serious body image issues and I always think I look like a fat idiot, no matter how many inches I’ve lost

Not trying to be all emo, just a fact. I’m working on it.

I’m returning to the United States this Saturday via Korea - I’m spending five days there with my father and then I’ll be back in San Francisco!

I’ve been studying for my personal training certification and I’m taking the test tomorrow night - YIKES!!! I’m cool with everything but the physiology and stuff really intimidates me. Wish me luck! then when I get back, I’m taking my CPR/AED cert as soon as I can and I’ll be an ISSA certified personal trainer!

As for my diet and training, my gym membership expired 2 weeks ago and I took the opportunity to have a rest from lifting. I’ve been running and swimming here and there, but I have been so good on my dieting, I’ve been really strict and I’m happy with the results.

I haven’t talked much about this in the past here, but being around my mother has been so horrible on my body image. This is why I’ve been so frantic all year, never satisfied and so weird about pictures. I really don’t feel like going into this whole negative "poor me" thing, but having the pacific ocean between us is going to do wonders for my self-image. This year at home in Australia has been a struggle.

I have been doing pretty well. I haven’t gotten back into the carb cycling vibe, but I’ve been getting some good workouts in and also doing lots of running and spin classes.

I have about 7 weeks until I return to the US and I really want to look my absolute very best when I do, so I’m gonna start carb cycling and I’m gonna start a journal on here to keep me accountable and inspired. I think I can lose 5 kilos in 7 weeks.

Right now, I weigh 74kg, which is still a little higher than what I’m aiming for (69kg). But when I came back from my hiatus in March, I weighed a whopping 83kg! I am telling you, I knew I gained while I was out of the gym, but I never realized it was so much until I stepped on the scales. I can tell you right now I will never take more than a week or two off EVER AGAIN.

I’m so much stronger and I’ve never been fitter before in my life. I’ve never been able to run like I do now, and I’m getting faster and making more progress with that each week.

I started doing the leg press one leg at a time the other day and I’ve got to say… it ****ing kicked my ass, lol. It’s my new favourite leg exercise, heheh.

I haven’t been carb cycling. I was going great for about 2 weeks and then I got really sick with the flu. I hadn’t been that sick since like, 1999. And I know the year because I was in bed crying and watching Oprah. It was the weekend JFK Jr’s plane crashed!

So that bowled me over for almost a full week. I took only one day off work, when I literally couldn’t get out of bed, but I really should have taken 2 or 3 days off, but I couldn’t afford it. I took the whole week off the gym, which… I hadn’t done since March anyway. I’m religiously taking Vitamin C now so I don’t get sick again, and when I get back to the States in October, it’ll be winter again, I do not want to get sick, it sucked so much!!! So I’ll keep doing the Vitamin C thing and eating lots of soups and stuff, I guess, haha. Echinacea maybe? I know I spelled it wrong, whatever.

I did see amazing results with carb cycling, even in that short period though. I definitely think it’s better than cutting carbs for a longer time frame. And it’s so easy! I was doing a 4 day cycle… so it was really only 3 days of dieting and that 1 day, I’d have bread and a chocolate bar and some fruit… which to me is like a total cheat day every 4 days, lol, even though I guess I don’t eat really terrible foods (except the chocolate, hee).

My waist dropped another inch too! Woo hoo! I’m just really desperate to get the fat off my legs. That is always the first place I gain and the last place I lose. Although I really like my calve development in the last few months. I don’t have a tan, I’m as white as a ghost, so pictures don’t show it well.

I might start a journal soon on here to keep me focused.

I didn’t carb cycle last week, I just watched ate "normally"… you know, 5 - 6 meals, roughly 40/30/30.

I’m also going to start weighing myself to track results. I avoid the scale like the plague, because, even before lifting, I was one of those people whose bones seem to be made of lead. I weigh so much more than other women my size, I always have, and it’s always depressed me. When I started lifting, I started gaining weight, but losing inches and the scales would upset me, even though I knew intellectually that I was healthier, thinner, BETTER… so I stopped using them!

I know I’ve topped out now, I’m not interested in gaining any more muscle and it’s time to face the scale. I’m going to weigh and measure and the end of every second cycle, so in about 8 or 9 days, I’m gonna weigh in.

I don’t know where I’m gonna fit in my 30 minute run. I’m gonna try it tomorrow and see how I go, but if I have no energy, I’ll have to work it into my high day.

OK, the carbs thing is not doing much for me, I’m over it! It was fun to eat them and stop counting for a bit, but… it’s not that great once you get it out of your system, know what I mean? I had my week or two and I really just wanna get back to shedding body fat.

Tomorrow, it’s back on carb cycling. I’m doing a 5 day cycle. 1 high day (training legs), 1 low day (under 100g of carbs and upper body) and 3 no carb days (under 25g).

Also I plan to walk to work in the city everyday and then have breakfast at work. I live about 1 hours walk from Sydney’s CBD. Everyone thinks I’m crazy, but it’s really not that bad. Plus, even if you catch the bus, it takes 5 - 10 minutes to walk to the bus stop, a couple minutes for the bus to arrive, 30 - 40 minutes in peak hour traffic and all the stops to get into the city… you really aren’t even saving that much time. You save 10 - 15 minutes tops by catching the bus. And it’s usually cramped and some smelly, ratty looking person will come sit next to you to boot. Oh joy!

People are so whiny and lazy. It kills me.

OK, I really need to have a month of eating carbs again, I am so tired of all my keto staples!

Also, my gym is unveiling a new spin room and I love spin classes — and it would be a cold day in hell before I try to do a spin classes on no carbohydrates! LOL.

So I’m planning on taking July off with the keto eating and just focus on training hard and running and spinning, I can get back on the keto train in August.

It’s served it’s initial purpose anyway - I took a loooong break and I couldn’t even get into my jeans! It was that bad! But now I’m back into them and I can relax. I’m doing OK anyway. I’m returning to the United States in October, so as long as I look great when I get back, I’m happy.

I started a 5×5 routine this week and I thought doing 5 sets would be really tedious, but… I actually really enjoy my workouts. Cheers.

August 1st - back on keto!