Hhmmmm… I use this phrase all the time and I’m not anorexic.  Or bulaemic.  There was last Saturday where I ate myself silly for the first time in a year where I wished I’d had more practice in the art of self-induced emesis.

But I digress.  I say it because when there’s a warm box of Krispy Kreme’s sitting on the desk next to me I say to myself, it’s not worth it.

Ruining the work you’ve put in to get to 12% b/f is NOT worth shoving 3 KK’s in your mouth.  Although wouldn’t that be lovely.

Nothing tastes as good as 12% feels.  I guess it’s HOW i got to 12% that matters most.  I eat 6 times a day and sit through the ridicule of eating tuna straight from the can. I don’t avoid food, I just avoid the WRONG kind of food.

Food is fuel not an emotional crutch

Oh, and remember - nothing tastes as good as seeing the veins in your shoulders feels!!!

BB rows, 1-arm dumbbell rows, lat pulldowns, hammer pulldowns, with a deadlift finisher.  Love it!

There’s a lovely birthday berry pound cake in the kitchen and 3 blocks of chocolate sitting on the desk behind me so instead of taking to ANY of it I decided to write this bodyblog post instead.

And then go get a glass of skim milk.  And maybe a can of tuna.

Holy crap - I’m spent.  This entire week has been the PERFECT beginning to getting back into the momentum I left behind about a year ago.  Weights cardio weights cardio.  I have an image in my head and it’s not gonna get away from me

Anyway I’m going nuts because I was meant to do Monday bi-tri’s, Tuesday Chest- back, Wednesday boxing, Thursday shoulders -legs, Friday 45 mins cardio but what happened is that I got an offer to go do cardio with a mate on Tuesday and then boxing this morning left me NO weights for two days.  Which is good, don’t get me wrong it’s just that i’m SO PUMPED about starting this new routine that I’m going nuts with anticipation.

It’ll be so f-ing hard and I’m looking forward to maxing it out so much that I want to do everything I can to put it out of my mind until tomorrow morning.

But I can’t.  I want to do it NOW.  I want to feel the failure of that 15th rep NOW.  I’M READY

"I want it now!"

In the 3 years I’ve been doing this I’ve not ever thought "I want it now!". Yet here I sit, obsessing over how to meet my goals faster.  I ran a timed mile today and almost threw up.  I’ve never cared about a timed mile.  Ever.

I’ve run plenty of 5 and 15k’s just for fun but you know, 9 minute miles are pretty near to what I’d call leisurely. I’m sick of running leisurely.  I finished my 14k run in August and when i finished i thought, "i’ve still got some in the tank".

I’m sick of working out leisurely.  I’m sick of looking at my workout charts, thinking "I’ve done a thousand reps this month for all different body parts and, for what?"

What have I gained?  For so long I just thought, patience.  Just keep doing the reps and it’ll come but now that I’ve got an image in my mind i feel possessed.  Always preoccupied and just a little bit loopy with the thought of turning up to the gym one morning and know that I’m gonna walk out in an hour and a half feeling like I’ve taken it to a new level.

I’m ready to take it to a new level.

18% b/f at my measurement last week which is neither here nor there really since it’s only a number.  I’d be happy if it was lower but I know it’s a consequence of my deciding to take 4 months off over winter.

So, my new trick is to schedule the bodypart that i LOVE for a Monday. That way when i rock up to the gym on Monday i can’t help but be excited about it. That, and i know that if i blow it off I’ll not have worked my favorite part (very strict order and any swapping or skipping makes me have to re-arrange the whole week).

Blasted my bi’s this morning and went for a run at lunch which is helping me confirm that my knee injury is behind me. Patellar tracking disorder is apparently what i had and, you know, while at the time it seemed career ending (not having had much experience with injury) but a year and 2 months on and it’s like it never happened.  That feeling of running like I can’t go any faster and my lungs are gonna pop is indescribable.  I missed it like crazy and went a little depressed when i couldn’t have it to tell you the truth.  My running suffered, my mental state suffered, and my body shape suffered.  I wasn’t doing ANYTHING.  I was being a little melodramatic.

But I’m getting harder and faster and life is great. Fit is not a feeling, it’s a fact.

Either I am or I am not.  And I choose Am.

Oh it burns!!

i have to laugh because i think of dipping down "into the basket" as i heard it called once when doing push ups.  That place that only feels right when you know you’ve removed all mental doubts and put your ass right down to your heels.  I play a game called "looking like i’m working but i’m not really putting it out there".  Until now.

Every exercise I do with this 3 day a week routine makes me want to push it past the limits.  On my squats this morning I had 60kg up and made myself turn around to face the mirror so I could see myself (see? just one way of not making myself truly look at what i’m doing) and realised I’ve only not even been taking my quads down to the parallel.  Hence my only pushing out 16 today.  And on my 16th I went down "into the basket" and couldn’t get out and it’s that fraction of a second which makes you ask the tough questions to yourself.  What if.  What if I can’t get back up?  And a voice in the back of my brain goes "You disgust me".  It reminds me that if i can’t get back up then you walk away, go back in two days and do 17 before you walk away.  That’s how it goes.

Don’t even talk to me about my straight arm pull overs.  I went way back past my head and pushed out 15 x 25kg - thought my arms were gonna rip out of the sockets.  And THEN i have to go push out 3 circuits of chin-ups, dips, decline sit ups.

I feel torn up by the time i finish my pullovers much less having to do chin ups.  If it was up to me I’d do chin ups first and call it quits i think.

Makes me strong.

Yes I’ve hammered myself but squats were the last real frontier for me.  I feel like I’ve always been afraid to jump head first into a really ugly workout.  I’ve explained before but I can’t articulate enough how much legs workouts really broke me down. Mentally and physically.  I have not ever never felt ill after a weights workout until this 20 squats thing. It literally takes me 3 minutes and a lot of breathing to squeeze out 20 of these f**kers and I’m not even hardly breaking the parallel plane with my quads.  I f**king love it.  I’ve done quite hard back workouts where I walk out feeling like I totally couldn’t do any more but to walk in and not be able to walk within the first 10 minutes - and THEN have to somehow get on with the rest of the circuit is just insanity.

I decided a long time ago after I watched a special feature dvd on the making of Superman and watching Christopher Reeves clean jerking and shoulder pressing that it’s man against iron - forget the machines, forget the cables, this is just you and a hard truth.  Nothing stands between me and strength but a real acceptance of what is real.  Squatting 80 kgs is a truth that i need to get to.  And through.