fitnessprincess’s BodyBlog

One of the first things to go when you are dieting down and one of the first things you lust after is chocolate.  It is simply downright sinful how enticing chocolate can be.  I swear I can smell the stuff at a quarter-mile.  I don’t know about you but I find I do far better on my diet when I don’t forbid/outlaw any foods.  The path to diet destruction, the dreaded binge, in my opinion, is outlawing a food.  This has made me creative in my approach to dieting and I think actually healthier for it.   In the case of chocolate and many of my other favorites I have developed coping skills.  With chocolate the strategy that works best for me has beenn to identify low or so-called no-calorie foods that contain chocolate, are relatively healthful, and taste good.  Here are a couple of chocolate treats you may find help you defeat the chocolate craving and keep you on track with your competition diet, too:HerbaSway crème de chocolat.  (URL:  http://www.herbasway.com/) This is a white tea concentrate containing an infusion of pure cocoa that is sweetened with stevia and lo han fruit – so no artificial sweeteners.  You add a dropper to a glass of water to prepare the tea.  Zero calories and lots of good anti-oxidants.  Yum!  Hits the spot just right for me!  You can buy this online or at any Whole Foods store.Chocolate PB2.  (URL:  http://www.bellplantation.com/) This is a powdered peanut butter that is partially defatted and mixed with cocoa.  Caution folks:  if you love chocolate and peanut butter the buck stops here!  Just mix with small amount of water to reconstitute and create a creamy pnb blend that is perfect on top of a slice of Ezekiel toast in the morning!  12g serving (equivalent to 2 tbsp reconstituted) has 52 calories, 4 g protein, 6 g carbs, 2 g fat, and 4 g sugar.  By the way if you love pnb you might also try PB2 which is their lowfat powdered pnb – warning:  addictive stuff!

I love electronics.  I am a technology diva and if there is some new electronic device out there, I have it.  Especially if it is tiny.  The tinier the better – even my laptop is tiny (Acer Aspire One – sweet baby!) but I am digressing from my topic.  Hmm.. must be brain fog from dieting – LOL! 

My most recent acquisition is a tiny food scale that I can carry with me anywhere.  I bought it for about $12.95 on Amazon.com (URL:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EW315E).  The scale is 1 lb 2.5 x 4 x 0.65” in size and weighs anything up to 250 g.  You can also convert the measure to ounces if you prefer.  The scale cover doubles as a weighing pan.  The scale has a blue backlight and a tare feature so you can put a napkin in the weighing pan and zero the weight.  It runs on two lithium batteries.  Gotta say this works great! Weighs next to nothing so I have been carrying it with me everywhere in my purse and weighing everything.  Used it in a restaurant this weekend eating out with my mom.  I will admit she was a bit irritated but the scale was so cute that her irritation with me was very short lived.  If you are anal compulsive as I am about what goes in your mouth, for ten bucks you can’t go wrong with this baby.  It gets 5 stars!

Recently I read a number of blogs denigrating Weight Watchers. I truly hate reading stuff like that especially when the writers clearly have no knowledge of their subject matter. So, I decided to devote a blog entry to discussing Weight Watchers and why I still attend meetings weekly after losing 110 lb even though I reached my goal weight over 5 years ago.

Are YOU Holding Yourself Back? 

I think most of us spend 90% of our time on our diet and exercise program but very little – perhaps not even 10% of our time – on our mental/spiritual development.  Frankly, I think there’s a problem here and it is not a small one.  One of my former students, a beautiful, extremely talented young woman called me the other day.  The gist of her phone call was frustration with her lack of progress.  Listening carefully to everything she shared, it was clear to me that while she felt she was a complete failure, the reality is she has accomplished amazing feats and is extraordinarily gifted.   I spent several minutes recasting and recounting what she had told me in an effort to help her to see all of the wonderful things she has accomplished.  Could she see it?  Hear it?  No.  All that she could see is what she has done wrong.   Is she doing anything about it?  No.  I think this is a very real phenomenon/problem.   Much as many of us claim that we want someone to tell us what we are doing right, when someone actually does praise us and tell us about the good things we have done, we are unable to see them and being blind to the positive, is it any wonder we cannot make progress concerning the negatives?

To be successful you need to be successful at self-motivation and self-direction.  If you want to succeed you are bound to stumble and fall – in fact it is an invaluable element for success.  When we are babies first learning to walk, we rise, toddle, stumble, fall, cry ourselves silly, laugh and then rise and get up and do it all all over again until we are walking and then you know what running! 

Over the years in my personal and professional life I have found scrapbooks and journals extremely valuable in this regard in helping me to have needed perspective.  I am not claiming that I don’t have my own challenges in this area – I most certainly do – but I believe I have been more successful than I might have been otherwise for my efforts in journaling and scrapbooking. 

My blog is a public journal.  I also maintain two more private journals  (one focused on education) though I generally share everything that is in my private fitness journal in my blog. I also scrapbook – most of this is electronic on my laptop but I also have an old fashioned scrapbook that I use as well.  As I am a college educator, my scrapbook contains photographs, cards, letters, copies of emails, newspaper articles all reflecting accomplishments in my professional life.  From time to time I pull it out and review it.  My efforts help me to recognize and own my strengths and to recognize, own, and have the strength to deal with my weaknesses as well.  I find it much easier to rationally acknowledge and address my weaknesses because I know that I do have strengths and I know what they are. 

I don’t believe that journals and scrapbooks are magical but I do believe that they can help anyone interested in affecting personal growth to develop the habit of reflection – active reflection, reflection that produces action that results in personal change.  These tools allow me to take a step back and see the “forest for the trees” as they say (LOL! Whoever “they” are “they” sure are wise!). 

Vital elements of my fitness journal are “data” which for me include information on

·         nutrition - what I eat, how much I eat, and when I eat it

·         my workout program – what cardio and weight training exercises I am doing, how hard I am working out (HRM and perceived workout exertion info), and when I workout

·         physical data including bodyweight, %bodyfat (I am not interested in the absolute number so much as I am in whether it is going up, down, or staying the same), body measurements, and photographs.

·         My reflections themselves – how I feel when I am working out, eating, what happened at work or with the family, etc.   Everything in life is interwoven.  Hard to know what’s important unless you actually write it down!

I wish that I could tell you that my young friend is doing better.  She isn’t because she refuses to acknowledge any positives in her situation and she still hasn’t made any effort to change anything – truth be told she doesn’t really know what she is doing so under those circumstances it is very difficult to affect positive change.  If you are struggling right now let me encourage you to begin to be self-motivating and self-directing, it could be the beginning of something truly beautiful.

Yesterday was crazy!! First day of classes.  Thankfully today was more sane - I really needed that.  Ate well and got the gym and had a great workout:

Breakfast 7 am Mike’s
eggwhite omelet w veggies, black coffee
oatmeal
as usual I enjoyed 2/3 of the omelet at 11am
14-oz DD coffee w skim (7:30 am, 2 pm)
16-oz water

2:45 pm
2.7-oz Bumble Bee albacore tuna

Eeks!  Catching up yet again!  I am so far behind here that I will simply say the end of the week and the weekend went great diet-wise and workout-wise.

Summary for Monday September 8
Breakfast 8:30 am Steve’s
eggwhite omelet w veggies, black coffee
fresh fruit cup
14-oz coffee w skim (10 am)
16-oz water

20-min step mill L10-12 intervals 2.12-mi 101-floors 189 cal HRM

Chest & Shoulders - 40-min 240 cal HRM
flat DB press (pectoralis major) 15 rep@ 25 lb, 12 rep @ 30 lb, 9 rep @35 lb, 15 rep @25 lb
[incline DB press (pectoralis major) 10 rep @25 lb, 10 rep @25 lb, 15 rep @25 lb, 8 rep @25 lb
incline DB fly (pectoralis major) 12 rep @15 lb, 12 rep @15 lb, 12 rep @ 15lb, 12 rep @15 lb
[DB lateral raise (lateral deltoid) 3 sets of 15 rep@8 lb
DB front raise (anterior deltoid) 3 sets of 15 rep @10 lb
DB upright row (lateral deltoid) 3 sets of 15 rep @15 lb
standing DB military press (anterior deltoid) 3 sets of 15 rep @15 lb]
pushups (pectoralis major) 2 sets to failure - 2 full body 7 girl then 0 full body and 6 girl

Abs - 15-min
didn’t do hanging leg raise will do later this week
[Cable crunches 15 rep @ 85 lb, 3 sets of 15 rep @ 90 lb
crunches on exercise ball 4 sets of 25 rep]

shopping, hair color and cut, shopping…

Snack 5:30 pm
4-oz Trader Joe gravlax salmon
114-g Akara bean cakes
48-oz green tea

Dinner 8 pm
162-g broiled scallops
285-g asparagus
32-oz water

Snack 9 pm
Doctor’s CarbRite s’mores bar
87-g When Pigs Fly lc wheat bread
32-oz water

Summary for Tuesday September 9
I am in agony - not from working out though you likely probably thought that I was going to say that. No, from banging my left hip on the door. How? Why? Well, if you were ever overweight as I used to be, that was how I caught and opened doors with my hip. Never used to hurt - LOL! All that nice padding there. It is funny but I have been a new person for just over five years now but every once in a while I will catch myself doing something I did in my former life - like opening the door with my hip.

Breakfast 6:30 am Mike’s
eggwhite omelet w veggies, black coffee
oatmeal
as usual I enjoyed 2/3 of the omelet at 11 am
14-oz DD coffee w skim (8 am, 3 pm)
16-oz water

2 pm
2.7-oz Bumble Bee albacore tuna

20-min step mill intervals L11 2.07-mi 187-cal HRM

Workout #2 - Legs 1-h 08-min 471-cal HRM
leg extension (quadriceps)12 rep @ 55, 12 reps @ 60 lb, 20 rep @ 70 lb, 25 rep @ 70 lb, 30 rep @ 70 lb, 30 rep @ 65 lb
[smith machine squat (quadriceps) 2 sets of 12 reps @ 100 lb, 15 rep @ 100 lb, 15 rep @ 105 lb
40-degree plate loaded leg press (quadriceps) 12 rep @ 230 lb, 12 rep @ 240 lb, 2 sets of 15 rep @ 240 lb]
[supine leg curl (hamstrings) 15 rep @70 lb, 15 rep @ 75 lb, 15 rep @ 80/75 lb
step ups on box (quadriceps) 3 sets of 15 rep @ 15 lb] note: 20 lb DBs weren’t available
hack squat (quadriceps) 20 rep @ 80 lb, 40 rep @ 60 lb, 2 sets of 20 rep @ 70 lb

Dinner 6 pm
118-g scallops
123-g Akara bean cakes
305-g asparagus
32-oz Teas’ tea green jasmine tea

Snack 8 pm
Jim’s Permalean stark ravin pnb bar
85-g When Pigs Fly lc wheat bread
1-tbsp smart balance light
32-oz Teas’ tea green jasmine tea

Oops!  Gotta catch up   Things continue to go well diet-wise and in the gym.  I will just post my workouts for the last two days.  Diet has been pretty much the same this week.  I am in a "scallop and asparagus and bean cake and protein bar" mood.  LOL!  Hey it works!

Wednesday  09-03-08 Legs!
New PR on leg press and I up’d weights on most of the exercises:
leg extension (quadriceps)12 rep @ 55, 12 reps @ 60 lb, 20 rep @ 70 lb:), 25 rep @ 70 lb, 30 rep @ 70/65/60/55 lb, 30 rep @ 60 lb
[smith machine squat (quadriceps) 2 sets of 12 reps @ 100 lb:),  2 sets of 15 rep @ 100 lb
40-degree plate loaded leg press (quadriceps) 2 sets of 12 rep @ 230 lb, 15 rep @ 240 lb, 15 rep @ 250 lb]- PR
[supine leg curl  (hamstrings) 15 rep @65 lb, 15 rep @ 70 lb, 15 rep @ 75 lb
step ups on box (quadriceps) 3 sets of 10 rep @ 20 lb]
hack squat (quadriceps) 20 rep @ 80 lb, 40 rep @ 55 lb, 2 sets of 20 rep @ 65 lb:)
Thursday 09-04-08 Back&Traps 40-min  total including calves 444 cal HRM
sumo Bb deadlifts (erector spinae) 20 rep @ 85 lb, 15 rep @ 105 lb, 12 rep @ 115 lb, 10 rep @ 125 lb, 8 rep @ 135 lb, 30 rep @ 95 lb
[one-arm DB row (general back) 3 sets of 12 rep @ 25 lb, 1 set of 10 rep @ 30 lb
close grip lat pulldown (latissimus dorsi) 1 set of 15 rep @ 70 lb, 2 sets of 15 rep @ 60, 15 rep @ 65 lb]
seated cable row (general back) 12 rep @ 85 lb PR, 10 rep @ 85 lb, 8 rep @ 85 lb - yeah!!
barbell (or Smith) shrug (trapezius) 3 sets of 25 rep @ 85 lb
Calves workout 20-min
[smith machine calf raise (gastrocnemius) 4 sets of 25 rep @ 115 lb
seated plate-loaded calf raise (gastrocnemius) 15 rep @ 110 lb, 3 sets of 15 rep @ 125 lb]
leg press calf raise (gastrocnemius) 20 rep @ 180 lb, 30 rep @ 190 lb, 40 rep @ 200 lb, 50 rep @ 210 lb PR

Overall good day.  LOL! Got confused several times at work as to what day of the week it was.  Couldn’t workout yesterday at the gym because it was closed so effectively today was "Monday."  What amused me though was while it was Monday for me the usual throng was noticeably absent from the weight room.  So, for everyone else I guess it was Tuesday as Monday is usually "National Chest Press Day" in the gym - here anyway LOL!  That was sweet though for me as I didn’t have to fight anyone for an incline bench. 

I posted a couple progress photos I took Sunday with mom.  I am so happy.  Even I - LOL! can see that my legs are leaning out.  Kudos to Dr. Joe and Sean.  Those guys truly rock.  I emailed Dr. Joe and asked him to what he and Sean are doing that seems to be so effective in bringing about changes in my physique as compared to when I was with Cathy Savage.  Here’s his answer:
"One of the biggest differences in what you’re doing now is simply giving your body the protein it needs (not way too much) and thus allowing room for more carbs which are both anabolic and metabolic in nature. More muscle and better metabolism. Sean’s training style is definitely more hypertrophy-based - volume/intensity - and that helps too.“

All I can say is amazing!!!

OK here’s my summary for today:

Breakfast 6:30 am Mike’s
eggwhite omelet w veggies, black coffee
oatmeal
as usual I enjoyed 2/3 of the omelet at 11 am
14-oz DD coffee w skim (8 am)
16-oz water

Great weekend - stayed on track and had a good time with mom.