Monthly Archive for March, 2008

Ideal Bodies Online’s lovely Kristin Gleeson features in this month’s Oxygen mag, it should be out in stores now, or very soon.  I’ll be heading up to Cairns at the end of this month to spend some time with Kristin, and then, having a lovely week in Palm Cove!  I cannot wait.

Training

I’ve been told that I must GYST.  Get yer shit together, basically.  Need to get into more of a schedule.  I need to train at the same time every day and eat at the same time every day.  I’m a bit all over the shop at the moment.  So, unfortunately I won’t be training with Jodie anymore, unless we can get together on the weekends.  10.30am is the preferred time for me to train according to Sandy, so, I have made this my gym time.  It means I will have to work later into the evening, but, can’t be helped.  Cardio will either be first thing, after training, or, early evening.  I’m not allowed to run or do high intensity so I will be doing mostly walking for my cardio and I’m not too unhappy about that, as walking is the best form of cardio for me when my adrenals start to play up from overdoing it which is impossible to avoid when competing.

Today I trained back.  Great session, this time with the wide lat pull bar.  I like this so much better than those Nautilus machines.   I was able to do a really heavy set of reverse shrugs.  I’m starting to notice a bit of a difference in my upper body.  I put on a kilo whilst I was in Melbourne, not training, and eating pretty crap.  So, have gotten rid of that kilo, which is good.  I have about 5kg to lose in 14 weeks, the last kilo and a half will be water.  I am enjoying my meals at present, hope I can keep losing at a decent rate so I can keep eating like this for much of the prep.  Loving the MRM Low Carb Protein with walnuts, that’s my last meal of the day, nice ‘dessert’ to finish up with.  I have the same breakfast every day, cottage cheese and oats, then other meals are usually chicken, beans, rice, sweet potato, asparagus, zucchini, tuna, lamb, salmon, maybe some eggs here and there.  Tonight I had lean beef mince with beans.  Today was 3 carb day so not hungry at all.  Back to 1 carb tomorrow but, I actually like these days as I get protein and raspberries as a no carb meal and get to add some fat, ie nuts/avocado to my protein only meals.   Makes for a change, and then I am back to 2 or 3 carbs.  Training arms tomorrow, and will walk home from the gym again as cardio.  It’s nice on days such as today, and now the weather has cooled down a bit, late morning is a nice time to be doing it.  I walk home via the riverfront which is quite relaxing.

Energy levels have been reasonable, except for yesterday, I had a really weird day.  I reckon it is the colder weather.  I am sure it affects my mood and motivation.  I spent a lot of the day in and out of bed, felt very flat and drained.  Much more myself today.  Sleeping has been going reasonably well, no worse than it was when I was taking pills anyway.  I still have trouble switching off but eventually I go to sleep. 

Just chatting to Jo Rogers now about my bikinis.  Going for a different bottom this time around and so getting some made to match my other suits (that I haven’t worn yet).

MRM supplements have been going absolutely ballistic, every month sales are increasing.  That’s because they have some awesome product lines, and great tasting protein powders!  I will give people a tip – those of you who love the Response Bars, buy up quick.  More on that when it comes to hand.

Tomorrow I have one program to finish off as well as answer some questions for a newspaper article.   Then training, cardio, and probably a nap!  I died in the butt after I got home from training/cardio today and slept for 1.5 hours!  After that, a movie.  We picked up a few movies today, watched Groundhog Day tonight.

I have a birthday coming up (again!) soon.  As the years zip by it certainly makes you contemplate and reflect on a lot of things about life.  Like, why did I waste 6 years of my life with that loser and numerous other things.

Ezza, my comp blog is old, and don’t think I will write in it this time around.  Will update on here instead   Thanks for being interested. 

I have lots of friends to catch up with – Kimmy, Ali, Kerry, I really have to email you girls!  Ok, must go, it’s bed time.

Tammy and Eleni – I’m so sorry to hear you have both lost your dads too

Hi Kimmy (and Margie) nice to hear from you.  I hope things settle down and allow you to get back into your program.  Thank you for the good wishes re Damien.

Today was nice and relaxing – not a lot of email happening over Easter.  I had a great sleep last night – oh, didn’t tell you about the other night where I did not sleep ALL night!!  I ended up getting up at 3am and starting work!  Was back in bed by 7am, and up again at 10.45am.  That was a long day!  I do believe I have only ever once before not slept at all, and that was the night of my July 2006 competition.  I was so hyped up on sugar that my heart rate was out of control – it was thumping all night.  Hence, could not sleep.  Usually when I say how well my sleeping is going I have a crap night, so I won’t say anything today!

I trained arms today – it was a bit disjointed because I got chatting to someone at the gym and I had way too long a break mid workout.  I was happy with how I lifted though.  I am sore again in my hip and back.  Bad sore, not good sore.  Well, I’m good sore too, but I am feeling my injury again.  Not sure why.  It seems to flare up no matter what I do.  I am good sore in the lats from doing floor pull ups on the smith machine though.   After my workout today I walked home – 55 min walk.  Today was 3 carb day so that is always nice.  For dinner tonight am having lean lamb fillet with roasted zucchini.

It’s raining!!  Poor Rexy is not impressed by the thunder and lightening however.

I took Jodie’s skin folds for her today – some excellent progress there!  Great work Jode, 9kg in 12 weeks!  Damien hadn’t seen Jodie for awhile and was floored by her weight loss.

Tomorrow I train shoulders, will try and train same time as Damien as Jodie can’t make it.  I think I will sit down and watch footy in the arvo.  It is also a relatively normal day of work for me I can’t forget!

Ok, think it’s time to cook some dinner.

Congratulations Kellie Robins – 2008 Grand Champion Body Blitz Winner!

Another Ideal Bodies Online success story!

Had almost forgotten what it looks like   Trained shoulders with Jodie.  It wasn’t our best effort, or at least mine anyway.  We had a lot to catch up on so we did a bit too much talking between sets.  I have been instructed to lower my weights and concentrate on engaging my core.  I concentrated on it tonight and found that I do it automatically most of the time, but perhaps it’s when the weight gets heavy that I get a bit sloppy in that regard.  I had my appointment with Sandy’s physio while I was in Melbourne who was quite shocked at how tight my upper back was.  My hip pain has all but gone now, same with lower back so am hoping I am over it.

Sorted out my diet today.  As I overindulged yesterday I kept my carbs low today but will go to my plan as of tomorrow, which is 3, 2, 1 carbs.  No free meals anymore, and cardio increasing to daily, but only short sessions and all low/moderate intensity.  Tomorrow I plan to do 2 training sessions, trying to catch up and do a full week this week as last week was a write off.

Big Pud has his motor going full time, I only have to touch him to get a purr.  He’s definitely missed his mum. 

I so wanted to see Kiss in concert in Melbourne!  I was there, about 10 mins away, and couldn’t go!  Same for PHAT Camp.  I heard it was very good (of course), and it was very well attended.

Well, I must admit I feel very tired tonight.  I slept beautifully last night, absolutely drug free!  I had 3 nights in Melbourne drug free, but a couple of nights I did resort to some help but I think it was warranted!  These are my first absolute drug free sleeps for about 10 years, I kid you not.  Yep, I am very impressed with myself

Thanks for the messages Gill, Doris, Zeets, Jools, Hils and everyone else who left messages or emails over the past few dyas, you are all very lovely ladies and I truly appreciate your thoughts.

I’ve got to say, I’m astounded by some people’s lack of capacity at compassion and empathy.  I had a situation where I needed urgently for a fax (written by a doctor at the hospital) to be sent to Rex Airlines so that we didn’t have to forfeit our flights that we had to change at the last minute due to medical emergency.  The girl at the counter treated me like a bad school girl.  It was 8pm at night and I was just leaving my husband who was to have pretty major surgery the next day.  we had just been in tears in each other’s arms.  I went in to emergency where they had a fax machine, and asked very politely, the girl behind the counter if she would mind faxing this urgent letter through for me.  I got the bad bad attitude.  ‘This was written yesterday so why couldn’t you have gone to a newsagency or something before now’.  ‘you can’t expect us to just fax this off for you’ (I’m thinking like, ‘why not, haven’t you heard of courtesy??).  She certainly wasn’t busy, there was nobody in there and she was sitting at a desk doing nothing.  I tried to explain we’d been back and forth from accommodation to the hospital visiting specialists, how sick my husband was, etc etc, but the bad attitude remained.  There was a tornado building up inside, believe me.  Instead of letting fly, I managed to (just) hold it in, so I said ‘forget it’ and snatched the paper from her hand and walked off.  Then we had to drive to a 7-11 which had a fax but the guy didn’t know how to work it, then tried and IGA, no luck, and then, finally after 20 mins of trying, managed to get it done at the motel reception.

Thanks to you lovely ladies who have left blog messages of support, emails and text messages.  Wishing Nate and Shelly positive vibes too, a lot of things going on at the moment everywhere.

Update:  Operation done, and a success, polyps cut out, nose looks good as new, cyst drained, cut around eye with stitches and black eye.  Have not talked to doc in person yet.  Staying until Monday as they need him to stay longer.  Had issues trying to find accomm due to grand prix and also trying to sort out flights home.  Logistical nightmare.  He wasn’t very well tonight, still has this psychosis issue, we have psych docs coming tomorrow to try and sort it out.  I feel so very helpless   I hated leaving him tonight.

Damien called me from the Emergency rooms at the hospital earlier this arvo – he sounded terrible, had some sort of psychotic reaction to the drugs he’s had to have in preparation for his surgery.  For Damien to go to the hospital off his own bat it had to be pretty serious.  I rushed up there and he really was not good.  Of course we were worried it was his cyst playing havoc with his brain but he spoke to 2 of his doctors, one in Melb and one in Adelaide and they seemed to think that wasn’t the case which was a relief.  So he was sent home to bed.  He came good and has now gone downhill again.  I can’t wait until this operation is done and he is on the road to recovery.

I’ve been working most of the day, I got up too late to meet Jodie at the gym for our session.  So, I went at 4pm, trained arms, then 20 mins on the bike.  Good workout.  Last night we trained shoulders – I’m actually a little sore today.  I am going to ask Sandy if I can change shoulders to the first upper body workout so I am not tired/sore when training them.  The order of my workouts hasn’t been ideal lately and this week coming I don’t want to be worried about having to train in the city when Damien is in hospital.  So, I plan to train for another 3 days in a row, meaning I haven’t had a rest day for awhile.  Will do legs tomorrow, chest Monday and back early Tuesday before we leave.  Then Wed off, Thursday shoulders with Sandy, Friday off to come home, then Saturday, arms.

Hils, yes I sucked up to Big Pud for the rest of the day – he forgave me after about half and hour and was back on the desk for pats.   Just after I wrote how well I was sleeping I had a shocker!  But, I felt really good the day after so that was ok.

Apparently my diagnosis for my back pain is SIJD – sacroiliac joint dysfunction.   It’s interesting reading up about it.

Had friends around for awhile last night and got some good info on Cairns and Palm Cove.  Will do a bit of sussing out as soon as I can.  Kristin has also given me some great advice/options.  I can’t wait, it’s really not that far away!

Time for a shower, I’m a bit smelly.