smorgan1227’s BodyBlog

Ok, so I am committed to May 9, NPC in Hayward, CA…

I have been researching and learning as much as I can.  I think I have the right posing ideas, and I have begun to practice.  After watching videos and reading articles I have decided to take the focus off of building muscle in my legs and pay more attention to my back, lats and shoulders.  I will do crazy cardio the last few weeks or so and lean out my legs.

I have dyed my hair brown because:

1.  It is my natural color so I can go without make-up easier.  This will be important when i am working out more than once a day.

2.  It is not as hard on my hair as bleaching it.  This will be important when I am washing it so often.

3.  I was just plain ready for a change..

Five months out.  Seems far away but I know it is just around the corner.  I am really excited!  Any training or eating tips would be awesome.

I want to take a moment to look at the dark side of me.  My number one pet peeve… people who refuse to take care of themselves, even at the cost of those around them.

I have been mulling these thoughts in my mind again because my dad is currently in the hospital.  He is only 64 and has congestive heart failure.  He is a little guy, and I always thought he was in good shape.  My mom was a nurse, and she is basically a healthy person.  But my dad was a wild seed. He wont admit it, but he had many good times at the cost of his health.  He is not a drug addict.  If he were, he would have been gone long ago, because he doesn’t do anything half way.

A couple years ago my dad almost died in the hospital of congestive heart failure.  The doctor said,  "that is it, no more drinking and smoking cigars.  You need to take your medicine!"  Here we are two years later.  Dad was good for a while, but then slowly went off the meds and started drinking again.  Slowly put himself back in the hospital.

This reminds me of another person who has been very frustrating in my life.  That would be my first husband.  We met in college.  He was a handsome, smart, outgoing baseball player.  We dated and got engaged.  In order to graduate and get married he took 28 units his last two semesters and  gave up baseball his last year.  We had been dating a year and were engaged a year before we got married.   During our engagement he slowly gained weight.  I don’t mean a little weight.  He went from 185 to 350 lbs.  I am not a shallow person so something like that was not going to stop me from loving him.  We got married and within the first few months he was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes at 22….  Now if this were me, I would have gone on a strict diet and brought my life back into control.  But he never did.  He just kept eating what he wanted and got sicker and sicker…..  The sicker he got, the meaner he got…  Over the years I got more and more angry with him.  I got sick to my stomach every time he covered his plate with ranch dressing, or got a monster size bowl of ice cream covered in fudge topping and whipping cream.   The size portion that should feed a family.  I got to where I hated food and his love relationship with it.  I don’t know of many things harder than watching someone you love slowly kill themselves.

Needless to say, that marriage ended.  I didn’t bother him about how he ate.  I would never have let him know how discusted I was on the inside with his eating.  But as he got sicker and meaner he became abusive.  He was angry all the time and unhappy.  I have since gotten divorced and remarried to a wonderful man.  However, I have three children with my first husband.  He is passing on to them his bad eating habits.  He is 39 years old and has an insulin pump.  Still he bakes brownies and desserts all the time "for the kids".  If they are for the kids, why does he eat half the batch in one sitting?  Come on….

I am not afraid of dying.  But I want to really live.  I don’t want to have a hard time walking, or running, or breathing or spending time with people. I don’t understand how people can be content to feel like crap all the time!  I hate being around people who complain about how sick they feel, and yada yada yada…. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!  Now if you have no control over how bad you feel, or whatever ailment you have that is understandable.  I have sympathy for those people.  But when it is your own fault wake up to reality and make a change….Stop slowly killing yourself.  Your killing the relationships with people around you in the process…

I haven’t endulged in 7 months.  Yesterday I had a lot of dessert.  Half a cookie here, sliver a pie there, little bit of chips and dip here.  Man, I feel like crap today… It was worth it, but I think I will go ahead and eat clean at Christmas.  Maybe just one or two pieces of fudge…

One thing I have learned from my short exploration into the world of fitness and bodybuilding is that there are two ends to every decision.  For example, you should eat more fat and less carbs, or you should eat more carbs and less fat.  Another example, You should do very little cardio, or you should do at least an hour a day to lean out.  The list goes on and on.
Now as a newbie… this can be very complicating.   To be or not to be, that is the question, lol… So what am I to do?

What I have learned after 7 months or so is try it all.  I have tried carb cycling, low fat, high fat,  no cardio, lot’s of cardio, lots of protein, no protein, Heavy free weights, low weights lot’s of reps…. The list goes on and on…

The lesson I have taken away is that my body doesn’t know what my brain thinks.  It doesn’t know the science or even the logic behind every argument.  Sometimes it defies reason and leans out when it is not supposed to.  I would never know what worked for me unless I experimented.  There is nothing sadder to me than seeing the same people go to the gym every day and workout hard, but never change.  They have the same beer gut, or the same saddle bags.  They are so unwilling to change their routine, even at the cost of remaining stagnant.

I love all the differing opinions.  I enjoy reading the articles and trying out the theories.  If I had never tried eating clean I would have never realized my bodies potential.  I don’t want to miss out on any of the other "big secrets" that are out there.  Thanks to everyone who contributes.  I love all the information bb.com offers.

The hardest part about it all at this moment is trying to figure out what competition and what association to get involved with.  I am not sure how important it is for your first competition.  I would like to compete in Northern California, but will go to So Cal if I need to.  I also want to win if I compete.  I am sure that is a high hope for my first competition, but if I don’t have a chance at winning there is no purpose for me.  My mind just works that way.  If anyone has any ideas about how I should go about picking a competition please let me know.

Ok, so this blog is mostly for the women.  Monday morning is always my superset day for legs and abs.  This morning I woke up with cramps from my stomach down my thighs.  My mind was screaming, hell no we are not going to the gym for leg day.  However, somewhere deep inside me there was a little voice, it was kinds squeeky, but is was saying, just go and do your best.  Somehow that small voice won out.  As I warmed up with leg curls and extension I thought I must be crazy.  I started to sweat from the pain.  Luckily endorphines kicked in.  Soon I was working out harder than ever.  My squats increased in weight.  I had a great workout.  So glad I went.  And to just make everything even better, someone at the gym asked me if I played a professional sport because I was always working out so hard.  That was a goal of mine when I started getting  back in shape, was for people to mistake me for a professional athlete.  Thank you little voice.

I can’t believe that I am a part of Andrew Oye’s Body survey.  You need to go check it out!  lol… The questions are hard to answer.

http://www.myfittribe.com/oye_body_survey/sonya-morgan

When I used to open a magazine and glance through the pictures of all the beautiful people I would think, wow, they are so beautiful.  If I just bought that skin care product, or lotion, or lipstick, etc. then I can maybe look like them.  Then there were times when I would look at a picture and wonder at how a human could have such flawless skin?  Amazing!

Once my brother became a photographer and asked me to help him with his shoots, my thinking changed.  I started to realize that there was a lot of smoke and magic going on.  500 shots are taken to get the one perfect shot. So, I started thinking to myself, how hard could this be.  This is easy!  HA…. Once again my thinking was all wrong.  I went from thinking it was this crazy impossible thing to something anyone can do.

It was about this time that my brother cornered me into have a shoot of my own, "for fun".  I have had a few shoots since then, and this is what I have learned.

Getting ready for a photo shoot is VERY hard work.  I am a very athletic person.  I have competed in numerous sports.  I have played in the several championship games.  The mental and physical preparedness is no where near as hard as getting ready for a photo shoot.

Perhaps it is just me.  Being physically strong and fit is much easier than looking lean.  I suppose a photo shoot is up their with all the cutting sports like wrestling and boxing and bodybuilding.  The more you have to cut and bring your body under submission the more difficult it becomes.  One must have great constitution to torture your body.  It goes beyond being fit into the realms of the unnatural.

I was so sick Saturday night after my photo shoot that I was throwing up all night.  Trying to rehydrate myself slowly feeding my body proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated.

I am glad that I have experienced this.  It helps me to be a better assistant to my brother with his models.  Also, I have an overflowing amount of respect for those who bring their bodies under such great lengths of control as to compete in bodybuilding an fitness competitions.

Never again will I see a picture in a magazine the same.

I had my photo shoot today.  What a relief to have it over with.  I came home and cheated by eating popcorn rice cakes after 8:00 and having a couple glasses of brandy.  Tomorrow I will be back to clean eating.  But it feels good to relax after such a hard couple of weeks getting ready.

The shoot was fun.  We went for the Oxygen Magazine cover model look. It didn’t take too long.  I was happy that a make-up artist was there.  I can’t wait for y’all to see the shots. Lots of fun.  Now I need a new goal.  Next week I go to Fitness Model International to watch.  Perhaps my goal will be to compete the next year.

Sorry, two blogs in one day.  I was just reminded of something I heard the other day.  I was doing laundry and passing through the living room.  My children were watching TV.  Apparently a commercial was on.  I heard the words that were being spoken in the back of my mind when suddenly they came screaming to clarity.  I know that commercials feed sumbliminal messages to our brains.  However, this was an outright shock to me!  I believe it was an IHOP commercial.  I know their slogan is "Come Hungry, Leave Happy"  But I swear I heard the TV Say, "Come Hungry, Leave FAT!"  I stopped in my tracks and looked at my husband.  I said, "Did the TV just say come hungry leave fat, or am I hearing things."  He said, no your not hearing things, I think it really said that.  I can’t believe that we live in a society that wants to be FAT!  I live in the Central Valley of California.  We have the highest amount of Fat people per capita than anywhere else in the United States.  Interestingly enough, we also have the most fast food restaurants per capita also.  The city I live in is named Manteca (stands for Lard, or fat in spanish) Then just for another odd statistic, we are also a major center for forclosures.  Hmmm…. Fat, greed, laziness.  I thought these were things to be embarrassed about, not proud of…