Wendy’s BodyBlog

Today was my off day! Whoo-hoo! And good thing, too, because I really kicked my own a** on Sunday working hams and glutes then doing a crazy sprints and plyometrics workout. I was going to do four intervals of the sprint/plyos workout, but decided to add in another one for good measure! I almost fell sprinting, my legs were so tired! I felt really great afterwards, though! And today, not surprisingly, I am SORE, and not just my legs but also my back and abs! Sprints are such a great workout for the core as well as the legs! Back to cardio and lifting tomorrow–spin class at 6AM! LOVE IT! AND I am meeting my friend tmw morning for this class!
I am not doing too well on the two servings of starches per day. I have been super hungry in the evening as a result, so I have added in more fats. Tonight was an additional serving of nuts, and last night was a scoop of almond butter. I think I will add back in the one starch and cut out the extra fat. With all the cardio and lifting that I am doing, I don’t think that one extra serving will do too much damage. I can always cycle my carbs as well.

Anyway… points for today.

Eating clean: 2 points

One new Bodyspace friend: 1 point

3.5 hours of reading btwn last night and today: 7 points. Sadly, all of this reading was for school. I will write a blog about what my thesis project is about later so everyone can get a good idea of what I am reading. (We are supposed to blog about what we read).  I wanted to read the novel I am working on, but had a tremendous headache so went to bed early.
One new word learned: 1 point. That word is panoptic, which is an adjective that means including everything visible in one view OR broad in scope or content. Makes sense if you think about the word panoramic–these words have the same root.
Also, between today and late last night, I responded to 4 blogs: 8 points

Today’s points: 19 points

Total points to date: 95

Today I tried out oatmeal mixed in with cottage cheese and 1/2 scoop of whey chocolate protein powder… It was actually pretty tasty but a little too sweet. Will probably cut  the protein powder down to 1/4 scoop–a little extra protein and a little sweetness, but not too much. Today is my first day of two servings of carbs, and I am HUNGRY! I am sure lifting heavy for my hams and then a HIIT session do not help with my hunger, either! I did have an extra tablespoon of all natural almond butter to compensate.
Anyway, I am pretty tired, so here are my In & Out points for the day:
Three new BodySpace friends: 3 points

Clean Eating: 2 points

1 weight session: 1 point

HIIT: 3 points

Yesterday’s 1.5 hours reading: 3 points

Two blog responses: 4 points

Total points: 16

Minus 2 points for NOT eating clean yesterday, as I had posted! I ate the fortune cookie! AND had some sushi with white rice! Not happy with myself about that. I was till hungry after the seaweed salad, miso soup, and 4 pieces of sashimi, so I ordered a California handroll and then tried someone’s else sushi! I did try to stay away from the deep-fried sushi, but ate sushi that had deep fried something in it accidentally! I didn’t see it in there…

The sashimi was actually smaller than I thought it would be. And my friend and I did not keep our resolve as we had planned. I did, however, stay away from the alcohol AND diet soda, even though everyone else was drinking alcohol. Am also trying to cut out the diet soda/artificial sweetners. I don’t consume them very often, but I *know* that crap is NOT good for you! My bf is a Marine, and guess what they use to clean their gun parts??? DIET SODA! I kid you not! That stuff is very bad!
Anywho, subtract 2 points for not eating clean yesterday: 14 points

Total points: 76 points

So, I might jump off of the Cathy Savage bandwagon and try someone new. Not sure yet, but the thought has been in my head for some time now. The good thing is that the program is affordable. I pay $45 per month for a new exercise program every month, and I have a nutritional plan (which stays the same).

What I am unhappy with is the last email I got from Cathy in response to my email telling her about my different fitness goals–yes, running being among them. Her response was basically that her company is a fitness/physique prep company and really questioning whether or not I should be doing marathons and the like and how imcompatible my goals are. Yes, I get it. Yes, there are different muscle groups involved with the training for a figure or fitness comp versus a marathon. Yes, at that time I needed to focus on the comp I was going to do. I get it. And I did let it go for a while, till I got a recent daily message from the company (they send out inspirational messages every day) from another Savage girl. The email quoted this girl saying how great it is to run a marathon, and how it really is mind over body, and how she encourages everyone to run a marathon because it will push you in ways you never thought possible.

At that point, I thought to myself, Wow, wouldn’t that be nice if that were Cathy’s viewpoint? YES I want to get into fitness modeling but I don’t want to sacrifice the other physical activities I enjoy for it. YES there is a time for running and all the crazy outdoor sh*t I like and YES there is a time for kicking my butt in the gym. YES, THEY CAN BOTH EXIST! YES, maybe not in the same season!!!  So now I think to myself what I am really paying for–Basically I am paying someone to put together a weights workout for me. That’s really all. And I actually could really do that for myself if I actually had the time in my life to figure it out.

Anyway. Enough ranting.  SOOO long story short, if anyone knows of a cool, practically priced, online trainer out there, let me know! I did send a PM to jphillips17 already….

I decided to drop my starch servings to just two per day, one right after I workout and the other sometime in the morning. This is all about experimentation to see how my body responds. I really do want to look awesome for my photo shoot, and I’ll do what it takes to get there! Ok, maybe I WON’T do 2x day cardio, but everything else, I will. Ok, and even that, I MIGHT do 2x day cardio about two weeks away from the shoot, depending on how I feel I am looking. Today is 5 weeks out, so I still have some time to fine tune.

I am going to dinner tonight with some friends. One of my friends and I looked at the menu before hand and decided what we are going to have–we are even going to split a 9-piece sashimi plate, and we’ll each order a cup of miso soup and seaweed salad. That way, we are accountable to each other in terms of what we eat… I think this plan will work nicely.
Anyway, I know today is not over yet, but I am going to post what I have so far.

Clean eating: 2 points THAT MAKES FIVE DAYS OF EATING CLEAN! And don’t worry–if I slip up, I will be sure to subtract these points.
Group activity (dinner tonight): 2 points

Weight session: 1 point

Reading last night for 1.5 hours: 3 points

Responded to 7 blogs between last night and this AM: 14 points

One hour cardio: 2 points

Today’s points: 24

Minus 5 points for "double dipping": 19

Total points to date: 62! Whoo-hoo!

As I am not doing the competition, I am selling my suit for $290 and S&H. For more information, go to this link.

I had a really great workout today–heavy weights for the quads and glutes and then a functional, total body high intensity cardio workout. My legs were burning at the end, but it felt really great! My chest will probably be sore too from all the pushups I did but I’ll deal. (Have to work chest tomorrow). Ever since I have taken my cardio to a new level (no more low intensity cardio here!), I have noticed that my muscles feel tighter, and I think look better as well. Now that I am not doing the show, I think now is a good time to experiment with heavy lifting with a 4 day split and sprints, plyos, spin, etc. Plus, these cardio sessions are so much more functional, which I really like. The cardio classes and workouts I am doing now have definitely re-energized me. I find it much more interesting to work out because now not only is it a physical challenge but a mental one as well–Can I run faster? Pedal harder? Jump higher? Even though my legs and lungs are screaming for mercy? LOVE IT! (Have I mentioned on here before that I am cardio-whore, born and bred?)
I decided today that I am not going to eat bars anymore. The other day I had a Luna bar but forgot that includes one serving of starches for the day, so I had four servings of starches instead of 3. And today I had a a Zone bar. Again, four servings starches instead of three. So not only do they include one serving of starches when I would much rather eat brown rice or oatmeal or quinoa, but bars are OBVIOUSLY not close to nature–very processed. So, no mas on the bars! Unless, of course, I am out on a long trail run or hike, then I can. It’s difficult to carry chicken with rice in my CamelBak!

Oh, and Juls said NO DOUBLE DIPPING on the points, so I will have to revise mine. I included things like my group cardio like Spin as group under spiritual AND as cardio under physical/body, but I suppose that’s a no-no… I’ll be sure to do that soon.

Ok, today’s points:

Eating clean: 2 points

HIIT: 3 points

1/2 hour session weights: 1 point

Reading 3 hours (includes last night’s reading): 6 points.

Today’s points: 12
Oh, and BTW - my reading is not the pleasurable kind. Well, some of it is. I like to read novels before I go to sleep, but that is usually about a half hour or hour. The rest of my reading is journal articles for my thesis. I find it interesting, actually. Big nerd that I am!

Responded to four blogs today: 8 points

Spin class: 2 points

1/2 hour weight lifting: 1 point

1/2 hour cardio: 1 point

Clean eating: 2 points

Reading 3 hours (including reading last night): 6 points

Total points today: 20 points

Total points to date: 32 points

I might read more tonight. I usually do before I go to bed. I also emailed Juls about whether a group cardio class can count as a group class AND cardio. We’ll see. The clean eating is going well. It is day 3 of eating clean… only 37 more, LOL!

I figure it will be easier for me to track my daily points because I KNOW I will forget half of the stuff I did by the end of the week!

Two group classes (abs & shadow box)= 4 points

1 weight session = 2 points

Ab workout = 2 points

Cardio = 1 Point

Clean eating = 2 points
Day one total: 11 points
And I might read later, but we shall see. I won’t post that till I do it…

I will be competing in the In & Out Challenge (see julofthenile’s blog for more information). My goal isn’t really to have the most number of points, even though that is the whole point of the challenge. I just want to see how many points I can get. What would be interesting is to do the challenge again another month to see how much I can improve.

In addition to this, because of my photo shoot on November 8, I am not going to have ANY CHEATS from today till after the photo shoot! No alcohol, no ice cream, no chocolate (unless it is a TINY piece made from 75%+ cocoa) no pizza, NO CHEESE! Generally just eating as close to the natural form of food as I can, so limited bread, pasta, etc.  We shall see how this goes.

I will also aim for 6 cardio sessions per week. I have four cardio sessions down already, split up between two Spin classes, one plyometrics class, and one "boot camp" class. In addition, I will do ALL of my weights workouts EVERY week (this is four times per week). I am usually pretty good about the weights, but on average, I tend to miss one or two weights workouts per month.
We will see how this goes for me and what sort of condition it gets me into.

I am waiting at the airport for my flight to take off. And it doesn’t help that I arrived about two hours early, LOL! I am on my way to Vegas to see John and I can’t WAIT to see him. I SHOULD be working on my homework but am WAY too giddy to do that! It has only been two weeks, too, since we last saw each other, but it feels longer than that. What can I say, I am a woman in love!

Workouts have been going alright. I have not really been in the mood to lift much lately. I get a new schedule every month. It is the same exercises but different set/rep schemes, so by the end of the month, I am pretty bored of doing the exercises. I also wanted to do cardio EVERYDAY this week, but it looks as though it will be only five. I was just too dang tired and busy to make it two days. I will be squeezing in some cardio classes while I am in Vegas.. Every bit of my spare time has gone to reading journal articles, researching journal articles, or writing a paper based on those articles! I am actually loving it, but it is very time consuming.

Today I got on the StairMaster (which I actually hate) and did that for about 50 minutes while reading a novel. Yes, a novel–NOT ARTICLES, lol!  I hate the stairmaster because it is HARD work, and that is also the reason I do it… I read somewhere that you should choose the cardio machine that makes you sweat the most, because that means you are getting the most bang for your buck. For me, that is definitely the stairmaster and the arc trainer. They do also work the glutes and hams A LOT, so that is good for me!

This weekend I will be relaxing my diet some. Not too much. Today at the gym, I gave myself the critical eye in the mirror. There was no one else in the locker room, and I really assessed my body and where I want it to go. We don’t have a full length mirror at home, so I like to take full advantage when I do come across one. I do think I have come a long ways–I am so much more muscular than I have ever been, but at this point, I want to lean out even more–especially for that dang photo shoot!

Anyway, better try to get cracking on that paper, get at least some of it done so I am not doing homework all weekend while I am in Vegas!