staceinspace’s Focus BodyBlog

I am leaving tonight for the great up north of Michigan under and over the bridge and already I got burned today while swimming.  The burn you don’t know you have until you take your shirt off at night and wince, and then step into the light.  Yeah..its that bad!

Well I decided to take the week off from being a fitness and nutrition freak and just try to swim and relax and not eat like a human garbage can.  When I get back August 4th i hope to start right back into my 12 week transformation.

Have a nice week all you fellow body builders!

As always, thanx for the support.

Stace

Had to order pizza for my son’s friends when they were swimming but I am proud to say I did not eat one piece of that pizza!  I ate..are you ready for this?  I ate veggies and yogurt instead..whoohoo I am so proud of me.

I dont want to eat poorly anymore.  I feel so much better eating cleaner.  I cheat now and then..i dont like that word as food is food…but i eat what i want in moderation now and then.

I am finding i want food less and less and want to be thinner more and more.  I like that saying i see here all over bodyspace and that is nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

Workout today was decent:

1 mile running on treadmill

75 crunches

8 sets 8 reps 10 pound weights curls

6 sets 8 reps 10 pound weight flys

7 minutes of aerobics..

Had a lot to do today so that is all I could manage to cram in.

Dear God, I watched Tom Venuto’s (From Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle program) link to a video on calorie intake and how most people grossly under report how many calories they consume.  It is something else.  Like one cup, people usually go over the rim measuring something like oatmeal and when it is weighed on an electronic scale it is 100-200 calories over what they think they are consuming!  Then the peanut butter by tablespoon too and people licking spoons with peanut butter or other condiments or sauces or spreads and how those calories never get reported either.

I will TOTALLY pay attention to every little thing now, and make sure when I measure it is UNDER the line not at it  or over it.

An eye opener to be sure!  It was a woman named leigh..showing her measuring food on a digital scale after she put in food in a cup or tablespoon and then put it on the scale..

I was wrong in my previous post.  I thought I was running with a 25 pound weight but I was actually running with a 35 pound weight.  Check out my progress pic and see me holding that bad boy.  I have no idea how to connect a picture to this blog and have tried many ways many times always unsuccessfully.  Shit.

Anyhew..back to working out like a demon:

1 mile of running all out on the treadmill

24 wind sprints with 35 pound weight

100 crunches

12 lunges each leg

8 sets 8 reps 10 pound hand weights arm curls

8 sets 8 rep 10 pound hand weights flys

dancing 15 minutes

wind sprints outside 10

I will do more each time but I have so much work to do and have to get my yard in order before my neighborhood loses their mind.  Got to mow and trim and mulch a little bit more and finally this shit will be done. I have a paper that I have been up four days straight trying to write…

Looking forward to my vacation starting Friday..camping and being a slob. Gonna get up at 6 AM and run around the campsite and the lake and bringing my hand weights too so I dont get too lazy.  I’d bring the 35 pound weight but dont want people to think I am insane in the campground.  Cause some people like to actually do nothing when they camp..heeheeheeheehee  Not me..I am a shark.  If I stop moving - I die.

Although I am strong proponent for exercise everyday I had to take today off as my body was screaming to rest.  I ate more than usual but felt a bit  better as the day wore on.  I am getting used to listening to my body and knowing when to put the weights down and get off the treadmill.

So, here it is..the ultimate test of weight loss.  The full length department store mirror while trying on summer clothes.  Boy did I feel good to be able to fit into a junior large in JCPENNEY and not have to have bought a top in the plus size section.

It is so brutal on the body and the mind psychologically and physically to always be dieting and exercising.  So when days drag on and you feel deprived sometimes and so tired of waiting for the weight to come off..a size smaller comes along and makes it all worth the hassle!:)

I can’t wait to go on vacation in a week camping with my family and have some quality time with my kids and nature and the in laws.  I want to relax if that is possible when I am a mother of three teenagers, a full time doctoral student and am going back to work at least part time after a few weeks hiatus from a grueling and horrible federal job.

I read so much (see the books stacked up behind me in my profile picture) and somehow all that reading makes me feel alone when I am covering philosophy, religion, science, systems theory, and structural inequality.  Too much swirling around in the head and trying to figure out the two main questions that have kept existentialists, puritans, scientists and atheists up all night.  What is the meaning of life? and "IS this all there is?"

Whether we have a spouse, are single, have kids or not, have a degree, don’t, work, stay home, believe in God or a higher power or not..I think the one thing that unites all the people here is the self motivation, drive, willpower, determination, sisu as the Finnish say or whatever to get some sort of control over at least our bodies.

I love the people here on this site.  These are my people.  When Parents, siblings, spouses, kids and friends and coworkers and neighbors think women in body building are weird, I come home here where it is not only normal but celebrated!!!

LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!

Back to working out in the AM so I am off to get some ZZZ’s!  Thanks for all the support from my fellow hard working body builders and I wish you every success and more that you wish for me!

P.S.  One of my most favorite things on this site is reading all the inspirational quotes…they are so personal to each one of you so I take a little from them as well, sometimes right before a workout!

Gnight,

Luv Stace as always in space zzzzzzzzzzzzzz (hopefully!)

I was so motivated by others workouts and blogs I worked out until I almost puked!

I did 35 minutes of power walking on the treadmill

ran 15 windsprints (there and back) with 25 pound weight

ran 15 windsprints there and back without weight

30 step ups on stairs

75 crunches in a row

15 jumping squats

15 lunges

15 minutes of dancing

I feel like a god!  Am convinced I can get my eating down to my workout buddy Kelly’s 1200 brutal calories a day.

This body is going to accept the change I will force on it! Weight is going going gone!

"People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy."-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi from the book Flow

…achieving control over the content of our consciousness…"

I like what this book discusses.  Happiness is not something attainable through trying but an indirect result of working towards goals. Optimal experience..

I was watching a fellow blogger’s awesome you tube videos on variations of the 300 workout and I think I shall try these.  300 reps of a lot of those easy to do exercises (as per level of difficulty) not easy to do so many will have to make some changes in my weight loss.  I also think I am going to workout twice a day when I can.  Once in the morning and once in the evening.

Boy, I was talking to my daughter today and before I realized it a 50 minute period had gone!  I will try doing this again!  I was able to run after that pretty hard. I got on the mean old scale this morning and what did I see?  A loss of 3 pounds off this  body!  Yah!  That felt awesome!

Sometimes I get the scale and sometimes (most the time) the scale gets me!

What do you know..after 4 weeks of running (wore out my shoes) I finally got some pounds to come off!  Geeze, wonder how much I will have to run to get 40 more pounds off??????

Run Stacey run…hee hee hee