TLC: Trust, Love, Consistency

I’ve got 3 what the?’s

Firstly my scales: Erm why is it I lose 4kg over night? It happened on Saturday morning and I thought they were just being weird but I got back from Sydney and got the same number. Not complaining. I’m actually seeing a pattern. It’s called carb-cycling. I switch up my diet, throw in some treats and woosh, down they go. By treats I mean sweet potato, rice, fruit and soylati. These have actually been slip ups, but I’m thinking I’ll see how I go with 2 high, 2 low for a fortnight.

2ndly: While in Sydney I trained at Market St FF and again experienced an annoying phenomenon. All the dumbells where just randomly scattered around the gym. The 5kg spot had a 22 and a 12 in it. The ez-curls and straight bars were all mixed up. No one seemed to care, and I got weird looks when I started to tidy up. The same thing happened when I trained at Melbourne Central FF late last year. I don’t know how you East Coast people do it! All 3 FF’s here in Adelaide are spotless in comparison. I do however, love that I can train anywhere in Australia.

What was the 3rd thing again?
Blah, I’m tired and have over done the carbs tonight so my brain is loopy.

Did an awesome leg workout tonight. I forgot to bring the program I’m working on with me so I winged it. Best lower body effort in ages.

Modified Fit-tribe warmup/activation- added clams for my glutes and scapula pushups for my wing
SS seated hams/seated curls 2×12
Front-squat (really ATG- how low can you go?): bar x 16, 27kg x 12 x2, 32kg x 6 x 2, rest 90 secs with hanging spinal rotations
Standing bb single leg DL- 15kg x 8 x 2 rest 90 secs
BB Walking Lunges: 20kg x 12, 20kg x 10 rest 90 secs
Forward thrusting jump swats (for calves) the length of the gym x 2, rest 60secs(curl up and die and do it again)
Cable fitball crunches + 12 burpees x2
Seated calves (40kg) + standing calves(90kg) + 10 burpees x 2

A HEEEEUGE Malaysian meal afterwords. Tomorrow is R&R and lean mean and green.

I’ve actually had a big learning and thinking couple of days and will hopefully get fingers to keys and get it all down tomorrow.

That’s my boy. He could do that for hours. He has no interest in food, all he wants to do is run, play games and cuddle.

A few ladies have been blogging about carbs and how they find they steam-roll their diet. On first reading, I tended to have similar feelings. In response, another blogger posted this was all baloney, that good low-gi carbs couldn’t set you off course and that they were vital to function. I felt torn between both ideas and decided to put a bit of self-experimentation together.

Lately, I’ve been trying to stick to my blood type diet and include as many of the ‘beneficial’ foods as possible. This means regular potato and any form of wheat are out, and oats, spelt and rice sit somewhere in ’switzerland’ (neutral). Most dairy is also ‘out’. I’m used to this as I gave up dairy while prepping. I also gave up oats for about 8 weeks, I noticed when I added them back (on instruction from the big guy) I’d always get a stuffy/runny nose and they just wouldn’t fill me up and leave me feeling ’snacky’. I’d been wondering why I’d been feeling like I had a head cold most mornings for 6 months, this was it! A biento oats. Sweet potato, adzuki beans and parsnip are just a few of the starchies which get the double-thumbs-up.

After competing I really wanted a few more starchies in my diet. I need them for mood/brain function and to perform better in the gym and in the real world. So I went for a search for starchies which suit me.

For breakfast I’m having a big bowl of red beans (adzuki bean) with splenda, hazelnut milk and a bowl of ground/minced beef/lamb, spinach and hot sauce on the side. Or I just mix in vanilla pp into my beans. The adzuki beans are a bean which is traditionally used in Asian pastries and deserts and is one of my personal favourites so it feels like a real treat every morning. Last night I went to bed excited about my breakfast.

I’m experimenting with having a big whack of starchies early in the day so my second meal is a sweet potato, goat ham (no pork for me), spinach and zucchini fritata. Again I find that, for me, sweet potato is another starchy which fills me up and leaves me craving free. Both the adzuki beans and the sweet potato are on the O-type beneficial list too!

How has my weight been affected? I’m still sitting only 2.5kg (5lb) over my stage weight. My muscles look strong and full and my abs are still smiling back at me in the mirror. Am planning on doing some skins and photos shortly.

What I’m suggesting is that the traditional "go-to’ starchies for figure and bb, such as oats, might not be the ones for you. Whether you believe in the whole blood-type diet or not, I suggest you experiment with a few non-conventional alternatives and you might just find energy, recovery and training, as well as cravings, all take a positive turn.

Kek started this little meme, and I love my kitchen gadgets so I thought I’d play along.

In my kitchen I can’t live without…

My Analon non-stick pans: I was given a wok for Christmas and used it 3 times a day. Stephen then bought me a 2 4-litre saucepans and then after falling in love with them (he’s the official dishwasher of the house) bought 2 28cm fryingpans. These are all awesome and hands down the best non-stick pans I’ve owned.

My cast iron grill pan: It’s a Le Chassuer which means it’s heavy as hell and built to last. I’ve developed a good ’season’ on it now so it’s pretty non-stick and adds great bbq-ey taste to steaks.

Mundial Knife set: Nothing is nicer than nice sharp knives and these babies are the best. I don’t normally buy sets of knives or pans, but this lot is the perfect set. If only I could find where the pairing knife has gone.

Digital scales: Mine are great and accurate to the gram and can easily be switched to imperial units too.

Silicon Bakeware: So easy to clean, my silicon muffin moulds get used most days for meatloaf or pruffins.

Tupperware/gladware: Any bodybuilder knows the tupperware fetish!

Sunbeam StickMaster pro: I’ve got a huge food processor which my Dad gave me for my birthday and it’s great for big jobs. but almost everyday we pull out this mini-food-processor. It’s really just a stick mixer with a small bowl attachment and a whisk attachment. It’s great for sauces, pestos and making mince in the bowl attachment and the whisk attachment takes care of my egg whites perfectly.

Battery powered salt and pepper grinders: They constantly need filling but the convenience of being able to one-handedly grind is awesome.

Our BBQ: It’s not in our kitchen, obviously, but we cook on it most nights in the summer and it’s great for doing big batches of chicken boobs and is where I’m relegated for any fish cookery.

Stephen: Cleaner-upper of all kitchen disasters and non-dishwashable dishes. I love to cook, but I’m also known for abandoning the kitchen in a complete state of disarray.

What kitchen gadgets can’t you live without?

I was honestly expecting to feel like death heated up by now, but I feel great. Better than I did a week ago even. I have to give credit to JD. I’m sure I piss him of with my "can I have this? why not that?" questions, but he’s got me feeling great and looking awesome.

It’s strange, the diet is pretty much lean and green but I don’t feel at all carb depleted. I’ve been on similar macros before and felt like a zombie so it must all be in the timing. My diet is very conservative body-builder stereotype (though this really isn’t JD’s style from what I understand) as I needed urgent ass-kicking. Breaky is egg-whites+egg and greens with 1/3 cup oats if post cardio, 3 of my meals are 120g roo/fish and buckets of green and lunch is always a chicken, almond and avocado monster salad. The secret weapon, I suspect, is the 20g pure-carbs in my training drink. On non-weight days I really miss it and feel flat. If I’d been in charge I would have ditched this weeks ago, shows what I know.

A lot of people complain that lean and green is boring. I’m doing pretty well. It’s really not that different from how I’ve eaten for a few years anyway, just less fat and forbidden sauces and condiments. I’ve been buying lots of different kinds of fish to add variety and love my roo and zucchini meatloaves.The one thing I miss is my weekly restaurant meal which has been strictly off the books for the last 5 weeks. I jokingly asked JD if there was a curry in this week’s diet plan and he handed me a freebie! Tomorrow lunch I have a date with a thai curry, a whole mess of rice and maybe some quail to be eaten beachside at my favourite Thai restaurant. I swear I almost cried with excitement. Along with being told fruit is no longer forbidden I was a happy girl this week. I thought things were meant to be dissapearing from my diet not re-appearing. AWESOME!

To be honest, I’m a little worried about my ‘free’ meal. My weight’s been hitting all time lows this week and dropping daily and I’m going to be a little thrown by the inevitable spike. However, after 4 weeks of no movement on the scales I have a reasonable disregard for them. I know how to get the lighting just right in my house to make me look great in the mirror (it’s my tan substitute).

I spent the day gluing diamantes to my bikini. I’ve done an impressive job on the bottoms but haven’t quite got the boobs even (story of my life). From where the judges/audience sit it shouldn’t be to noticeable.

I went on a huge shopping spree, Friday after work, and bought my nails, toe-nail polish, eye-lashes, jewelry and a feather combo for my hair (thanks stage shop lady). Teeing up a time with my makeup girl is proving dissastorous so I may just end up doing my own. C’est la vie. I also bought my only pair of ‘comp-prep’ pants, a pair of skin-tight black jeans. They were only $50, reduced for $140 and I figured I needed something to remember me by as I have no plans of staying quite this skinny for any longer than I have to.

It’s getting late and I have a early morning chest workout, visit to the farmers market and a date with a thai curry tomorrow so it’s beauty sleep time. Good luck to the ladies doing the WNBF this weekend.

As in, if you rattled my brain this would be what would fall out:

Last night I went to bed sick of this whole competing process. I hunkered down and said to the boy ‘only 33 more sleeps and it’s over’. I then slept really badly, my last meal not digesting and my brain turning over and over. However, I’d done one really clever thing before I went to bed. I’d left my blinds just slightly open. I awoke at 6.30am and the sun had started to come out. By 6.55 when Kevin let out his wake-up yap at my window there was glorious golden stream of light coming in. I had my supps, drank my tea and made S’s latte, emptied the dishwasher and grabbed the dog and iPod to do cardio. That’s when I realised all my wishes had come true. 3 months ago when I started my am cardio and it was cold and wet I’d wished for the last 30 days to be beautiful spring weather. The last 2 days we’ve had the most glorious walks. Today I walked up into Brownhill Conservation Park and let Kev run off lead for a bit, much to the telling off of the ranger.

I listened to two very fortuitous (is that the word?) podcasts. The first ‘Feeding Motivation‘ by Gill at Zencast which talked about deciding and feeding areas of right effort and was a generally great reminder of mindfulness practice. This was a great way to walk and had me really noticing the how all my body felt (not just the sore bits). I realised I was feeling strong and healthy and thankful for the opportunity to be out and about.

The second podcast I put on was for my home stretch. I chose The Daily Boost from Motivation to Move. The episode (can’t find which one- sorry) spoke all about consistency. How determination can get you started with anything, but it’s the consistency which really gets you achieving. I thought to myself, how true. I’ve consistently showed up for my cardio every morning, consistency in the diet JD has given me has given me great energy and sense of wellbeing,  consistency is what’s going to get me my next job. I can be as determined as I want, but without the consistency to back it up I’m just starting over again everyday.

It was nice to walk in the door after my walk, and instead of feeling behind, just take the time to do 1 thing at a time and take notice of what I was doing. My breakfast was more delicious (zucchini, watercress and mixed herb fritatta), I finally noticed the subtle sweetness in my Oolong tea that the package mentioned and I’d got the same amount done in the same amount of time that it would have taken but felt better about doing it. (GAWD! you’d think I’d remember this for more than 2 days!!!).

Other cool things:
The herb box and pre-prep: Yesterday I went the markets for some fish and other veg supplies and picked up some cheap herbs from the asian herb lady (Adelaidians will know where I mean). When I got home I had the smarts to wash and rinse each lot and, rather than my usual slide them into ziplocs, I got a 4 section divided container and placed each bunch with their stems removed in a section with a little kitchen paper. This morning I had the most delicious blend of watercress, a pinch of basil, parsley (from my garden), and coriander all mixed into my egg whites. At lunch I’ll be able to grab a handful of each and sprinkle it through my salad and on my fish. I’m in flavour country!

Zucchini: Yesterday’s post is a prelude to my ode to zucchini. Maybe it’s the sunshine, but zucchini is making me happy. They’re not quite in season here yet (trucked in from QLD- my bad), but are already dirt cheap. They’re my new favourite breakfast vegetable. I grated a whole one and fried it up with a little of my flavour mix (pre-chopped spring onion and capsicum) then poured it into my egg white and herb mix and back into the pan to make the most delicious fritatta.

I’ve felt the urge to get back into sketch journaling again. I’m hoping this will help me find my creative mojo a bit more and a little peace and quiet in my comp addled mind.

Weird things:
Figure competing is a weird sport. I was chatting to the boy in bed the other night about my lack of mojo; the Austin Powers kind, not the aforementioned kind, and best explained it as the following. I feel a strange sense of conflict with my body image. By all normal sense of normality (huh?) I’ve got a lean, hot body. The boy tries to tell me this everyday and I know this is true. However, I don’t have a body which is yet ready to step on stage and be competitive. My goal is to have this competitive body, which in a sense means I need to be dissatisfied with the body I have. Am I? At many stages I’ve looked in the mirror and said this is where I want to be after I’m done. Boy pointed out that if this wasn’t for a competition goal then this would be the thought process of eating dissorder. Scary, but hopefully not the case. I think last night’s countdown wasn’t anything more than 33 days and I can appreciate what I’ve achieved. Typing this I realise that there’s nothing from appreciating what I’ve achieved already. I then worry about my motivation. THIS is where consistency takes over from determination……… and my whole post is wrapped up nicely!
Thanks blog.

In trying to fit almost 3 hours worth of extra stuff into my day (posing, cardio, weights) I’ve been looking at rejigging my schedule. One of my ideas was to get back to cycling to work. After all, it’s the fastest way to get to work and it ticks the cardio box nicely. I stopped cycling a few weeks back as I was feeling way to carb depleted to handle it.
This morning I made adjustments to my breakfast to include some oats, ameranth and buckwheat porridge to power the bike. Breaky was still 300 calories-ish but just different macros. Sucked down my new pre-workout combo of BCAAs, l-tryosine, creatine, glutamine & alca and off I went.

I intentionally took it pretty easy and averaged about 22km/h (about a 15% reduction on my usual speed). Made it to the gym in one piece and pushed through my chest workout in an acceptable but not awesome style. I’d left my Xtend in the bottle on my bike, locked downstairs, outside the gym so made do with water. Exactly 59 minutes into my workout  (and my second to last set) all sense of strength was zapped. Finished up, showered and changed and downed my Xtend as quick as possible to see if I could reverse the zombie’s curse.

The first hour of work was a write off, even after having my post-workout meal of chicken, veg and pearl barley. Then I realised, woah am I thirsty. I must have downed 1 litre of water in half an hour. Magic, the zombies curse lifted.

At lunchtime I decided I’d better make sure I could get back home again, as I don’t have time to get the train tonight, so I ducked across to the supermarket and bought a big bag of frozen brocolli and cauliflower to add to my snack (kangaroo pattie). Yuck, there is NO FLAVOUR in supermarket frozen veg, but hopefully the extra greens should keep me rolling through to the afternoon a bit more evenly.At first I was stressing it was outside of my scheduled meals, but then I came to my senses and realised half a bag of broccoli is 50calories of fibre, hardly a determent!

So next time I’m feeling like death:
water
green veg
take a nap (not an option at work)
glutamine

I’m slowly learning from this science experiment!

In other exciting news, I did a quick and probably inaccurate self caliper measurement and wound up with 13.5%. Tomorrow, Joe will do proper measurements for me but things are looking up. May even increase calories slightly.

My last few workout with Joe, my trainer, have left me feeling a little lack-luster. We trained shoulders last night and i just couldn’t get my head into the right space, again. I love training shoulders and left feeling disappointed. I think I like setting my own pace in the gym and working through the weight and reps that I know I can do. On the other hand I love having someone there to help me get out that last 2 reps that I just can’t do myself. I’ve got about 3 more sessions with Joe paid for and I’ll feel guilty if I don’t keep training with him up until my comp, but I just don’t see the benefits right now. All this being said, I’ve had generally unfocussed and weak workouts for about a week now, hopefully it’s just a monthly problem and I’ll be firing again next week. I sure hope so, I can’t handle feeling weak for much longer. On a contradictory note, I’ve also been thinking it’s time to start chatting with more of my co-gym rats. We’ve all trained together for ages and I’m always to shy to say hello.

I’m on day 2/3 of the no caffeine, no chilli, no AS (in addition to my other no wheat, no dairy) and I’ve failed on the no AS and no chilli fronts. When no chilli means, no paprika or chilli I’m just stuffed. Lemon juice, salt and smoked paprika are my staple chicken seasonings. I’m going to have to check how much paprika counts. The no AS (artificle sweetner) is something I would have thought would be a breeze; and it would be, if it weren’t for Xtend. I tried taking BCAA capsules instead but the Xtend has all sorts of other goodies which are just to nice to avoid. Again I’ll be querying this one.

On the no coffee front, I think this was an excellent idea. At 6am I thought it was a lousy idea, but I have slept really well the last few days and anxiety levels are right down. I think I was getting really used to the caffeine and thermofuel wasn’t as fun as it was when I started. Hopefully this means when I’m back on it in a month it will all be magic again. In the meantime my new pre-workout stack is BCAAs, glutamine (must buy more), tyrosine capsules, acytle L-carnatine and creatine. Without a scoop of Xtend in this mix it’s truely gag worthy. I’m also trying to get back on the green tea and have just started taking spuralina powder.

This morning’s workout was only so-so as I didn’t really get enough sleep last night; quality- excellent, quantity-poor. It took me the whole workout to figure out why I wasn’t on the game, so sleep is back on my priority list. After my workout I picked up some berocca high performance, which is what I’ve been using as my multi-vitamin. In all the fandangle of my other sups I’d run out and forgotten about it. The combo of a berocca and a pot of green tea was just what i needed to get my energy back and I’m very glad I didn’t cave on the coffee.

Reading the results from last year’s SA INBA show I noticed that there is an award for ‘most potential’. Normally I squirm at such things, but I really want this one. This is my goal. My body is looking awesome, but I just don’t know where my left delt is going to come from. So my plan is to step on stage absolutely smokin’ and get that award….. That or they need a new category for most deformed!

Tonight, it’s back to Dr Frank for more crunching, poking and worried looks. He does claim to have a plan for my left delt, but (un)fortunately he only works on a whole body basis (kinda why I chose him). I donated blood at the Red Cross yesterday in an effort to find out my blood type. I won’t know this until next week and then he’s going to start blood typing my diet. I’m not sure how I feel about this, but anything is worth a shot and my body is my science experiment.

"Wow, this has 1.2g protein in a serve, that’s really good. Right?"
"Yeah, that’s really high"

The quinoa I was buying had more protein in it than that so I had to look. It was a carton of oat milk. I really wanted to say something, but held my tongue.

On a side note the almond milk I had this morning on my buckwheat porridge was lovely. I had no delusions of protein in that meal. Strangley enough I noticed that I was suffering from congestion afterwards. How can my body not like buckwheat?! I’m getting stuck for carb sources other than vegies.

A quick update after a relaxing weekend.
Friday night I was doing my head in. I was a tightly coiled spring, so I decided Saturday, I would try to think about something other than competing. I stuck to my meals and did a quick bit of cardio (jumped rope for 15 minutes) and that was it. No crazy sprints, hours of planning diet on CalorieKing I was just a normal civilian eating a lot of green vegetables. By the evening I was tired but feeling so much more recovered. It was lovely. I really get worked up sometimes on account of having to work all my diet and exercise out myself and then not being so sure of my plan. As if by magic (or maybe a drop in anxiety levels) my weight nicely dropped Sunday morning and I was given a double booster as I could already see great progress in the mirror.

Sunday, hound and I had a lovely 45 minute walk through the hilly parts of our neighbourhood. We took a new route and found a nice walking trail in need of further investigating. I then stocked up on my vegies and eggs at the farmers market. I love that while I have to eat so much crazy food for my lifestyle I can be responsible for where it comes from. I tried my best to do my quads and biceps workout that afternoon, but I just couldn’t get my left arm to co-operate with front squats and moved on to angled leg press instead. I slaughtered it. I’d knock out 15+ reps put on another plate, and easily another 15. I think I wound up doing almost double what I normally would. Weird. Mentally I really wasn’t there and this wasn’t getting me fired up. There were also these 2 (weedy) guys absolutely screaming at each other ‘****in pull mate’ etc. etc. jerking weights about and throwing them to the ground at the end of every set, it was driving me and everyone else in the gym crazy. Halfway through my leg extensions I cracked and turned into gym bitch from hell. Apparently they work out like that every day and no one had ever complained before. The guy look like he wanted to hit me. Gawd I love being a chick!

This morning I went back to the same gym to train chest (my gym has multiple locations and I prefer different ones for different days), luckily they weren’t there, but the heating was cranked up to maximum, making for a very off-puting workout. I really struggled to bring my mind to the game and couldn’t channel a huge amount of strength. I played around with a combo of DB work, hammer strength and cables and eventually decided I’m due a refeed. Good thing I’ve got one scheduled for tomorrow. Bring on the carbs! I’d totally not left myself enough time to do cardio and had to knock out 15 minutes of inclined sprint intervals. Running felt really good and I would have loved to have gone for longer but I had an appointment with a new member of team Michelle, Dr Frank. Dr Frank is an osteopath/chiropractor/accupuncturist/kineisiologist/natropath and general body guru and I’d read and heard good things about him. He gave me a thorough quizzing about my entire medical history and then very matter of factly dictated my defects to his assistant. It seemed like I have a lot of defects, but he really seems like the guy to fix them Again, we was worried about the atrophy of my left delt. He treats lots of BB’s and want to work really hard with me to get it sorted. I so want my shoulders back!

I was poked and prodded inside and out (he poked around in my mouth and now my sinuses are clear). He did that horrible thing that chiropractors do to your neck, which makes you vow never to see one again, but it wasn’t so jerky so I’ll forgive him. In general I left wishing I’d got onto the whole thing sooner. His whole body approach made so much sense and is so much better than the patch-up work I’ve been getting done. I’ve got 2 more sessions this week and then have to visit him regularly for a total of 12 sessions at least. By the end of today’s session he’d made my neck and shoulder feel a fair bit better,  cleared my sinuses and made my hips feel like I actually have control of them (I’m very flexible and they cause no end of problems to me). I really do feel as light as air.

Dr Frank also furnished me with a little guide book of tips and how tos and asks all his clients to go wheat, caffeine, orange, pork, chocolate, peanut, dairy and spicy food free for 1 month. I was doing fine until this point, but no coffee and no chilli make Michelle go something, something (go crazy? don’t mind if I do). Also no artificial sweetners. At this point I wasn’t really sure which of my supps I have left. No Xtend, no whey, no fat-burners; oh my! I promised him I’ll do my best. I also have to find out my blood type so that he can fine tune my diet. A-types don’t do so well on red meat apparently; and blood type  might help explain my rice issues too.

Looking forward I’ve got a huge week, tomorrow, operation monster shoulder begins with Joe. Wednesday and Friday I’m back to Dr. Frank, Thursday posing classes and tomorrow lunch fish and healthfood shopping on my lunch hour. Good thing I don’t have too much on at work!