Wendy’s BodyBlog

My boyfriend told me a story about a Marine officer who would order quite overweight newly enlisted Marines (am assuming men) to stand in front of the mirror and "play with it." It being the dude’s gut. And playing with it in front of the officer while watching himself in the mirror. Makes for a funny story, and it’s definitely one way to get people to finally accept the state of their bodies. I am feeling the same today. As in, just a moment ago, I was feeling the fleshy part of my inner thigh and was rather quite disgusted. I am not sure this is the healthiest relationship I could have with my body, but I’ll tell you something–my distaste for what I see in the mirror and what I also feel about my body are fueling my desire to change. That and being unhappy with the fact that I’ve been with Cathy for about a year now and don’t have much to show for it.  I am also beginning to think to continue to improve on our bodies, we must have an adversarial and ambivalent relationship with our bodies. Yes, I am blessed to have a healthy body, and I love my body for what it allows me to do, but damn it, I want more. And even when I have more, I will still want more.

I am down three pounds this week. Ok, well since Wednesday, I have lost three pounds. That would be three of the five pounds that I seem to go up and down, which is probably why it came off so quickly. I am still eating clean, per Cathy. My goal this week is to continue eating clean and in addition to log my macros. I didn’t do that this last week–baby steps.

I also enjoyed my cheats this weekend. Today I had a vegetarian calzone, which really wasn’t that bad–plenty of veggies, whole wheat tortilla, and a sprinkle of cheese. So I suppose the "cheat" was the chocolate-coffee milkshake (I think they add coffee beans in the blender!) AND a go-go bar, which was DIVINE! Coconut, nuts, chocolate… YUM! I love baked goods, and this place I went to does not use ingredients with trans fat.

I’ve also decided on my shows for this year. As many of you know, I will be moving down to Vegas in May or June. Vegas is actually a great spot for those interested in fitness. Plus, there are so many more photographers and coaches to choose from. The two shows I am doing are both in Vegas. The first is the NPC USA Championships, bikini division (since this division is new this year, anyone can compete in the bikini division at any of the shows) in July and Fitness America in November–I am not sure what I will compete in with that–bikini and/or figure, depending on how I look.  I would like to travel to do more shows, but being realistic, I am not sure I will find a job right after graduation, a job that does not involved taking little kids away from their abusive parents. There are plenty of those types of jobs open for social workers, but I really do not want to go that route. In fact, I refuse to go that route. Ideally, I would like to work in corrections–Yep, I *love* the criminals with mental illness–or in a clinical internship. Those two together would be perfect!

But I digress. I am not really the bikini type — I’m short, have short hair, and am not as well–um–endowed in one area as some other girls. Plus, I love pumping iron! But it should be fun nonetheless! And it seems like it will be a lot less of a pageant than other federations’ bikini or model divisions. Competitors walk to the center of the stage, do front and back turns, then walk off. That’s it! No prancing around!  I can handle that for my first show!

I am on day 5 of my 30-day clean eating challenge (with two cheats per week). And yes, I am already planning my cheats–an extra serving of my yummy yam protein pancakes WITH syrup–I usually go without. And pasta with one sausage and chocolate for dessert. Not too crazy, but enough to satisfy my cravings. Apparently I really do need to have to report to someone who will hold me accountable and give me a good talking to if I fail.

All of my numbers are going up at the gym. I managed to do 130 lb wide lat pulldowns, Bulgarian squats holding 35 lb dumbbells, incline chest flyes holding 20 ln dumbbells. And today I did 2×20 of 70 lb wide lat pulldowns with 20 sec of recovery AND 2 x 20 of 60 lb bench press with 20 sec rest. The shortened rest period was tough, but I made it! I remember when I could only do 70 lb pulldowns and 60 lb bench press for only 8 or so reps.

I am also on the hunt for suits again. I know that I want to go with a custom made suit. I *really* like Sylvia Tremblay and Passion Fruit Designs, but they are so expensive compared to other designers like Vandella Costumes (found a GORGEOUS suit on there for $350) and Lidia Conti.  I am also looking into Flaunt Swimwear. This girl only has a MySpace account, which I don’t have, so if I want a suit, I will have to set up an account just to contact her.  Decisions, decisions. And I have no idea what colors, cuts, etc would look best on me. Hope everyone is doing well!

I talked to my coach this past weekend about my frustrations with my diet, so she challenged me to eat clean for 30 days. WITH HOWEVER, two cheats per week–one each on Saturday and Sunday. I am on day 3, and only once yesterday when I was at the store and hungry did I want to buy a bar of chocolate, LOL! I got a salad instead. I also am supposed to email her every week about my progress with eating clean. I am also cutting out all nibbles–just sticking to 5-6 meals per day–no handful of peanuts here or there or one or two or ten chips between meals. NO MAS!

I took progress pics the other day, and I am not even going to bother posting them on here. It is the same old. I go down by 5 pounds, I go up by 5 pounds. This has been me over the last year. Well, this year it WILL stop! I am so tired of selling myself short, of being less than what I know I am.

I am gearing up for school to start next week. I am trying to adopt a kick-a** mentality instead of approaching it with dread and anxiety. Only four more months of busting my butt–totally do-able! Hope everyone is having a great start to the week!

Actually not a whole hell of a lot, LOL! Though I have been absent from this site for some time, I have been reading many of your blogs, even if I don’t always respond.
I finished up my semester just fine, and am currently staying in Vegas with my bf for the past 2.5 weeks. I have another half week before I have to return to Reno, and then another week after that before I return to reality–meaning school, internship, that damn thesis. I didn’t get approval from the human subjects board, by the way. I have to resubmit a new application, which is a little more than frustrating considering that I met with that office to go over my application word for word BEFORE I handed it in. Ain’t bureaucracy grand?

During my stay in Vegas, i had a chance to meet up with Trixter and Miss GJ. We had lunch and talked shop (fitness, of course). Meeting with GJ reminded me how nice it would be to have a girl friend who is close to me to talk shop with and plan for contests together.
Fitness is on track. I have scheduled a photo shoot for early April, so am dieting — I only had about a month and a half to enjoy the offseason (and I did, very heartily, I might add!).  I am actually 12 weeks out from the photo shoot tomorrow. I also scheduled a time to talk to my coach about preparing for the photo shoot, as I want these shots to be part of my modeling portfolio.  I am not sure what types of shots to add.

More than the usual fitness, school, work, internship, vacation bit, I have been thinking a lot about the status of my spirit and my mind-body-spirit connection.  I think part of this reflection is due to the fact that I am turning 30 in March, and I am taking stock of where I have been, where I thought I would be, and where I would like to go. I have noticed that I stop myself from achieving those things that I most want–those dreams that keep me going day after day. For me, those dreams are being a professional writer and fitness model, and becoming some sort of advocate for the chronically mentally ill–that last dream is still in the making. At the top of my list is writing. While I really wanted to write, I chose social work as a safety net. Plus, I figured that I would have something to write about in an educated manner, and social issues are very close to my heart.

And so to take stock of what is stopping me from achieving my dreams, I did sentence completions, a technique I learned in school this past semester. One of my sentence completions was "If I were to achieve my dreams, then…" and then finished the sentence as many times as I could without censoring myself. I highly recommend this technique to anyone who wants to uncover deeper fears or reasons that may be stopping you. Anyway, so I had of completions from that one particular sentence stem, and there were themes. One of those was loss–loss of friends, loss of comfort, loss of life as I know it, and the other theme had to do with fear of being a one-hot wonder, so to speak. Now, I didn’t say that these fears and beliefs are rational–mine certainly aren’t–but that these fears and beliefs do stop us from achieving what we want.

I suppose I have gotten to the point where I am tired of not living my best life, especially since I have blessed with the ability and means to do so. I think my fitness journey over the last year exemplifies this–I started, would fall off the wagon, get frustrated, start again, fall off the wagon, get frustrated, start again, etc. It’s an awful cycle that needs to break this year. And this is the year for it–as of late April, I will be done with school, done with my internship, and hopefully have passed the licensing exam. There will be no more room for excuses come post April.
My life seems to be one of a cycle of frustration and renewal, and I have become so tired of this cycle. When I get to feeling this way, spirituality becomes very important to me. I am not a religious person, but I am a spiritual one. My faith has aided me in getting through the darkest parts of my life. Believing that god–god him- or her- or itself and god acting through others–accepts me as I am brings me comfort.  Believing that  helps me to accept myself as I am, that I am worthy of all the gifts that have been bestowed upon me. Though I do not necessarily believe in New year’s resolutions, this year, because I will be three decades old and can no longer tolerate my pitiful excuses, will be a spiritual journey. I want to be ever more mindful of the mind-body-spirit connection, and I want to nurture and heal those parts of me that thrive on fear…