juliet_virgo’s BodyBlog

Day 1, week 1, 16 weeks to go!  Can I do this through the summer?  I am always up for a challenge!  Summer is my favorite time to sit on patios and have a cocktail or 2.  This will be interesting and one of my toughest challenges yet.  Today I hit the gym at the RV resort to do my cardio, checked out my diet plan and I am ready to rock and roll.  My competition is Oct. 18th and I am gearing up for it.  I made the decision yesterday to go for it.  I think my shoulders and arms are looking a bit better so the key will be not to loose size.  Diet is tight so all I have to do is focus.  Its tough when everyone else is drinking cool cocktails.  That’s what seperates us from the rest!  Here I go! Peace. J~

This is the final week of GVT for me.  I do feel stronger and a bit bigger through the biceps.  Next week will be the start of the diet down if I decide to compete.  If  that is what I choose to do, then I will be setting up a maintenance program to try and keep what I have gained.  The biggest decision for me is dieting down during the summer months.  Do I really want to do that? Not sure if I am fully committed or not yet.  I have the weekend to decide.  Training time would be optimal as I have 4 weeks off over the summer.  the eating is the tricky part, all the summer fruit is coming in, nothing like fresh BC cherries, peaches, plums…yummy!  In the meantime, I am eating clean, feeling healthy and alive.  Peace. J~

Today was my first day of the second segment of this training regime.  I felt pretty strong so half way through incline presses I upped my weight.  It felt awesome and I definately worked hard.  Eating today sucked.  Yesterday with all the festivities I didn’t get a chance to make any meals other than oatmeal and eggs. Not great for training so hard.  I had some bars and shakes at work so by the time I got home I was starving.  Made sure I ate first, prepped all my meals for the rest of the week and outside I went to spend some time with my beautiful pup.  I just cut the lawn and he loves to roll on it right after.  He has really made me appreciate the smaller things in life the past few weeks.  He was diagnosed with cancer and only turning 8 years this summer (not that he will make it) What I have realized is that he has had the cancer since January when he first started a slight limp.  Old age, arthritis, sprained paw even blood testing for cancer didn’t show it.  3 weeks ago I had xrays done and it was found in his shoulder completely grown over his bone.  I could have had the leg amputated, but that would be just for me (and my daughter who is his best buddie and has grown up with him)  My thoughts were to leave it and let him live the last few weeks happy and as healthy pain free as possible.He is doing awesome.  Had we amputated they would do chemo on him, how sick he would have been!  This way he lives till it hurts to get up, no sickness from the drugs etc.  I am a firm believer when you open up the cancer it spreads like wild fire throughout the body. That happened to my last golden beauty who died at 8 of cancer as well.  Ive learned a lot about myself, my focus on training, my love for life and living it to the fullest all through my wonderful, faithful golden boy.  I am sure the next few weeks will be stressful with lots of heartaches and tears.  The training is helping me focus and keeping me physically strong.  But I am allowed to cry and have an off day and on his last day we will have the hugest bowl of ice cream together and celebrate life and health. Peace. J~

Yesterday was the last session of Part 1 German Volume training.  It was a fantastic workout!  The last 2 sets of arms were killer and the final set of shoulders I was completely DONE!  I finished off with 25 minutes of cardio and chalk that one up to a killer!  Today I rode for 30 min. at home before shift and tomorrow I will start phase 2.  Looking at it I believe the only real difference is different excercises.  This cycle lasts for 5 weeks and then I might go back to my other maintenance plan.  I really want to gain some size, I can tell this is helping with my strength.  I guess the only way to figure out if I am increasing is to have a body fat comp. done by my trainer and look at January’s results of LBM.  I am curious…..eating is going very well this week!   Peace. J~

Today is a day off of training, of course I still did my early am cardio.  My day will consist of going to my accupucture doctor. Looking forward to doing some electrodes and getting my muscles in my back to relax.  Last go around was really good.  The day off training today should be the best thing for my shoulder.  I definately feel yesterdays workout, it’s hard to determine if I am sore from the lifting or if my neck/shoulder are tight from the "injury".  Time off always heals.  I have a hard time taking a great amount of time off though, tomorrow is arms and shoulders.  Maybe later today I will have a better idea of where I stand with that. Until tomorrow….peace. J~

I love my new leg routine.  Today I increased my weight and felt super strong.  It is paying off baby.  I took 2 days off this weekend which was probably a good thing.  I had to squeeze in some extra workouts last week so I earned the rest.  Came back today and pumped it out.  I increased my leg press by 20 lbs and to be honest, next leg day I am going to increase it again.  Same goes for the hams.  I am working hard towards increasing my lean body mass.  I believe this is my last cylce of part I in German Volume Training and then I begin part deux next Monday!  Watch out Vancouver, I am gunning for ya in Spring 2009!

What a fabulous day, 5 am and the sun is up!  No ride today, no weights, into work early just means I get to leave earlier.   Day off of training, fantastic.  Although it has been a long week with lots happening every night I am feeling peaceful.  Tuesday night was a calmination of my career, I received a Chiefs award which is the highest recognition at work.  The last 2 years of time and effort I have put forth in my career paid off with this recognition.  It was amazing, this week I recieved a bunch of emails from friends outside my department who saw me on the news, being acknowleged for my efforts. That was cool.  Other things going on, retirement of a friend, birthday of a few close family members, finishing the week off on a high.  I am at peace, it’s been a great week of training and of life. Bring it on! Peace. J~

Yesterday was supposed to be a day off of training but because of my schedule I decided to train legs in the evening.  I had a half decent workout at home.  I am still doing the GVT to gain some size.  I completed 10 sets of squats and 10 sets of leg curls by supersetting them and taking a 90 second rest between sets.  By the end of it my legs are exhausted.  I can feel it today!  I am absolutely loving cardio at 5am!  That is definitely my time.  I am only doing 30 minutes which is short and sweet compared to 2 hours! Today I did back and chest.  I only had 45 minutes between classes (and then 15 minutes to change and eat).  Again the supersetting with 2 opposing excercises works well for me.  I completed 10 sets of lat pull downs with 10 sets of dumbbell press.  I was pooped out by the end but I wasn’t done quite yet.  I rounded it off with 3 sets of 1 arm dumbbell rows and 3 sets of incline flys.  I could already feel it in my lats.  Perhaps it was from lack of days off in between these and arms/shoulders on tuesday.  Tomorrow I am taking the day off, going this hard my body really needs time to rest and rebuild.  Going away every weekend camping just takes some creativity on my behalf to get the workouts in.  Plymetric training this weekend will be good and as well some cardio in the mountains! Can you say fresh Rocky mountain air?!?!?  Peace. J~

I am just finishing my second cycle of this GVT this week and feeling pretty good.  I am still figuring out the weight that I should be using as I have never done any 1 rep max reps in a very long time.  Right now I am just guessing.  I am having some numbness in my finger tips again.  This time it is my right hand.  I am not sure if it is from lifting heavy or from stress.  Weird how it has gone into my other side of my body.  Guess I need to go back to physio.  It is really getting annoying.  I don’t want to stop training.  It really acts up when I am at the computer. Today was a day off of weights but I completed my cardio this morning at 5am.  I ran into Miss Brigitte at coffee this am, both her and Wish2BFit are gearing up for a competition in the fall.  I couldn’t imagine strict dieting in the summer.  That is my FAT season.  Love camping and drinking red wine too much.  Although I always train and bring my weights/bench along, each night I enjoy my Shiraz a little too much to give up.  That’s what the winter months are for, aren’t they?  I like being fat and sassy in the summer! Peace. J~