fitnessprincess’s BodyBlog

Sorry folks that I have not been more regular about my posts recently.  Life has been hectic to say the least.  I am hoping that things are evening out now and hopefully I will be back to making more regular blog posts. 

Well, irony of ironies!  I am too small!  LOL!  I can tell you that in the past that was never a description anyone would give of me!  I have worked so hard to lose weight and become smaller so I never imagined that this could be a negative but well it is.  I am apparently TOO small for figure - I need to develop a more muscular upper body - shoulders, biceps, triceps, chest, and back - the whole shebang!  So, I need to put on some muscle.  Easier said than done.  Putting on muscle takes time and effort.  It also means you have to eat and put on weight and I have an uneasy - at best - truce with food.  So the question for me is how do I conquer my fear of losing control in order to eat and put on muscle which means put on weight?  Did I mention that already? LOL!  This is going to be a challenge mentally and emotionally. 

I have a bit of time to get my head and heart around this though.  Right now I am cutting down to around 120 lb or so with a goal of doing so by Dec. 24th.  Then let the fun begin!

The other question I have to wrestle with related to this is when should I realistically compete again?  Originally  I was planning on doing two competitions in the spring 2009 but it takes time to put on appreciable muscle and since it takes a finite amount of time (typically 12 weeks or so) to diet down for competition I wouldn’t really be in a position to put on any more muscle if I plan to compete in the spring so I am thinking that it will probably make more sense to instead plan on a fall 2009 competition perhaps the INBF Monster Mash.  I have time to think about all this but I always feel it is important to "cement" things in writing and that’s what I am doing now in composing and posting this blog entry.  I also hope that it will help others to see the value in planning, too.

Answer:  Bikini Bite.   I decided to write this post because a) Bodybuilding.com sent me an email requesting a review (I recently bought a bottle through them); and 2) a friend asked me how I kept my suit in place at my recent competition.  I remember when I started out wondering the same thing myself and I had never heard of Bikini Bite.  So here goes!

I have been thinking about this topic a lot lately. Placing last - for the second time this season - in my competition last Saturday and a personal desire to see slim/trim thighs - I struggle with stubborn fat deposits on my inner thighs - have both been factors motivating my reflection. It has become apparent that I need to diet down to a lower bodyfat level if I truly want to achieve my goals. Until recently I never thought of moving to a lower weight. After all I am well within the WW healthy weight range for my height, my BMI and %BF also place me in the healthy weight range. My perceptions were also based in part on my own perceptions: Being overweight all my life I surmised I must be an endomorph and I thought I had a large frame. Only recently through my work with Dr. Joe did I learn that I am actually an ectomorph and I have a small frame. Being overweight doesn’t mean you are an endomorph and frame size can be evaluated by the degree of overlap of your thumb and forefinger when you wrap the thumb and forefinger of one hand around the wrist of the other hand. Turns out in my case my thumb and forefinger overlap by a whole thumbnail - go figure? LOL! Sorry bad pun! Finally 136 lb always seemed to me to be my perfect weight because it took me significant effort to get the scale to move either up or down away from this weight.Dr. Joe has suggested that my perfect weight may be lower ca. 115 lb than what I previously perceived my perfect weight to be ca. 136 lb. The upshot is that I am going to continue dieting down through Xmas in search of my perfect weight and toned/slim thighs. I plan on using Xmas eve as a “competition date” of sorts and of dressing up in a little/very, very short black dress and high heels and taking photos to commemorate my accomplishment and I plan on posting the photos here on-line. I have made an appointment with my primary care physician for Dec. 12th for a checkup to make sure that I am healthy ad not doing something stupid based on a vain desire for external beauty as the deepest desire of my heart since I started my weight loss journey 7 years ago has always been to build a healthy body. If you are putting off losing weight or getting fit until the new year, let me encourage you to start today. Just think how much better you will look and feel for the holidays if you begin today.

A couple posts back I ranted on the way women are depicted as working out in women’s fitness magazines (see entry for 10/20/08 entitled "Intensity").   Reflection and closer inspection merited revisiting this topic of the depiction of women working out in fitness magazines. In my earlier post I commented that in women’s fitness magazines women always look like fashion models smiling demurely holding their 5 lb pink dumbells (only a tiny exaggeration) beautifully coiffed and with no sign of exertion or sweat on their face or brow - God forbid there be sweat on their workout clothes.   On closer inspection I noticed that the depiction of women in men’s fitness magazines is absolutely no different! If there are spreads of women doing workouts in men’s magazines the women are depicted in exactly the same way they are in women’s fitness magazines. Mind you usually if there are women in the men’s fitness magazines they are usually featured in a "swim suit" or "thong" spread. So perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on the women’s fitness magazines but honestly ALL the fitness magazine should be able to do better than this.  Is it any wonder that women think they should be lifting pink 2 lb dumbells? 

I cannot tell you how excited and happy I was last week the week before my competition on Saturday November 1st. My feelings were so different from those I had prior to my competition in April. Last April, I was not looking forward to the week before my competition. How could anyone in their sane mind look forward to it when their coach called it “Hell Week.” Hmm… should have told me something wasn’t quite right then and there but I couldn’t see the forest for the trees as they say and I was frankly so brain fried/fogged at that point that well I never could have seen the problem.