Archive for the 'weight' Category

X-Treme Results Challenge

Published on March 23, 2013 in cellulite, competition, Diet, fat loss, Recipes, stubborn fat, Transformation, weight and weight loss. 0 Comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been dreaming about it for years and working on it for months – now it’s FINALLY official:

TheX-Treme Results Challenge is Open! <—Your HALF PRICE VIP Invitation!

What is the X-Treme Results Challenge?

I created this unique opportunity after listening to valuable feedback from my readers. Even though you exercise and eat well, many of you are STILL frustrated by lack of results.

You see, I’ve competed many times in body sculpting before,  so I definitely know what it takes to get lean. Better still, I know how to do it in the quickest, healthiest way possible.

In the X-Treme Results Challenge program I’ve taken only the BEST methods and put them together with my ‘insider fat loss secrets’ that you won’t find anywhere else. And, probably
the most valuable of all, you’ll get direct access to me.

To celebrate the launch you can join the Challenge for HALF PRICE (this week only) – PLUS you’ll get the bonus X-Treme Results Recipe book for f.ree!

Take Your Body to the NEXT Level! <—HALF PRICE this week only!

In the X-Treme Results Challenge you can expect to discover:

  • My unique carb tapering system (I used this diet to place in a National body sculpting competition)
  • The Ten Success Commandments (without these you’ll NEVER succeed!)
  • The fat loss ‘Miracle Sleep’ (when you experience this, the fat just MELTS off!)
  • Insider tips, tricks and info (some things just CANNOT  be made public!)

Finally, you can work with me DIRECTLY…

In the past many of you have asked to work with me personally but since having little Kyah I just haven’t had the time. But now she’s a little older, you CAN! I’ll be coaching all participants
via my dedicated forum and I can’t wait to help you take your body to the NEXT level!

Better yet, I’ll be doing the program right alongside you!

Here’s what you’ll get with the X-Treme Results Challenge:

*My X-Treme Results Diet Program that I used to place in a national body sculpting competition – the BEST I’ve ever felt when dieting down to low body fat levels!

*Two personally created and tested training programs to sculpt lean, lovely curves

*8 WEEKS of coaching, guidance, tips, tricks and insider info from me

*Weekly Quick Check Summaries (so you know what to do at a glance)

But wait, it gets better…

If you act fast, you’ll also have the opportunity to lay your hands on an extra bonus that I personally compiled to complement the program.

X-Treme Results Recipes

One of the most difficult things we face when dieting is the feeling of deprivation. With recipes like Coriander (Cilantro) Chicken with Tomato Salsa,  Pancakes and Chocolate Cake with
Vanilla Frosting, you don’t have to! You’ll get this recipe book f.ree when you purchase the XRC this week. All recipes include nutritional values so you can easily fit them into the XRC diet
plan.

Mark my words; the X-Treme Results Challenge is a SERIOUSLY valuable investment. You won’t regret it!

http://www.idealbodiesonline.com/xtremeresults Launch sale ends soon

Dream, Believe, Achieve!

 

Top 10 Tips to Get a Drop Dead Gorgeous Figure

Published on September 14, 2012 in Diet, fat loss, stubborn fat, Transformation, weight and weight loss. 1 Comment

In this day and age, if there is one thing EVERY woman wants, it’s to have a hot sexy body that is toned, shapely and drop dead gorgeous!

So how do you get a drop dead gorgeous body at any age?

It’s done via a two pronged approach – by increasing the amount of lean muscle tissue you have and burning off your excess body fat.

This process is not called ‘losing weight’ – it’s called Body Recomposition.

Whether you are a professional fitness model or a stay-at-home mum, if you want a nice firm backside, shapely arms and shoulders, a slim waist and some abdominal definition – your goal should not be just to lose weight; it should always be to improve your body composition.

So today I bring to you My Top 10 Tips for Body Recomposition.

TOP 10 TIPS FOR BODY RECOMPOSITION:

1. Train with challenging weights in the 6-12 rep range

Adding lean shapely muscle (called hypertrophy) is best achieved with challenging weights in the rep range of 6-12.

Hypertrophy is the process of increasing the size of cells within an organ or tissue (such as muscle tissue), thereby increasing its overall size.

If you train with higher reps you surpass this stage and train your muscles for endurance rather than lean muscle gain. But, DON’T be afraid of building huge many muscles – it simply can’t happen as women don’t have enough of the male hormone testosterone.

2. Train at least 3 x week with weights

You need to stress the muscles often enough to elicit the adaptation response. The muscle then gets stronger and bigger, due to the stresses placed upon it. Therefore challenging weight training 3-5 x per week is recommended.

3. Eat plenty of protein

Protein will also help keep you fuller for longer and it has a thermic effect within the body, meaning that it takes additional energy/calories in order to break down the protein to be digested and used. So it’s great for muscle building, recovery AND fat loss.

4. Reduce your intake of carbohydrates but don’t eliminate them

You can’t burn fat in the presence of insulin and every time you ingest sugars or carbohydrates, your body releases insulin.

Yet carbohydrates are beneficial for brain fuel and for muscle recovery and are your body’s preferred energy source – so don’t eliminate them completely. The best time to eat carbohydrates is around your training times – before, and especially after a challenging workout. If you do this, you can be sure your carbs won’t be stored as fat.

5. Eat more veggies

Not only are fibrous veggies low in calories and packed with nutrients but they also have a high thermic effect so use up a lot of energy just to digest. And, cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts even help to counteract estrogen dominance, an insidious hormonal condition that many ladies suffer without even knowing.

6. Eat enough food

One of the biggest mistakes women make is not eating enough to fuel their body and assist with their fat loss and lean muscle gain goals.

You need to eat regular meals packed with protein, some complex carbs, lots of veggies and some good fats. Starving yourself is only going to slow down your metabolism and see you gain
weight long term, making it harder to get it off and keep it off. Not to mention, it’s no fun being hungry all the time.

7. Get enough rest and sleep

Many overlook the importance of sleep, but if you don’t get enough sleep you can’t function properly – and this has two negative outcomes.

The first is that you are unable to work to your full potential or hard enough in your training sessions. The second is that when you are tired, it messes with your hormones making it much harder to resist cravings.

8. Don’t overdo the cardio

If you want to lower your body fat and gain lean muscle too much cardio is counter-productive – especially the popular long, slow kind such as long distance running or cycling.

Muscle wastage occurs when performing a lot of long duration cardio, so instead try 2-3 short, high intensity sessions and only add longer, more moderate sessions as a last resort. Metabolic resistance training is a great option especially if you don’t have a lot of time.

The aim should always be to do as little cardio as possible if body re-composition is your goal.

Excess cardio also makes you hungry, and you’ll start to compromise your diet by over-eating.

9. Throw away the scale

When you change your body recomposition for the better, you add lean muscle weight (while reducing fat weight) so you may not see a huge drop on the scale but you will definitely see it in the mirror and by how your clothes fit.

10. Be patient
If you’re wondering how long it takes to transform your figure, an excellent time frame to give yourself is 12 weeks. If you are looking for rapid ‘weight’ loss, you will most likely find yourself losing a lot more precious muscle tissue than fat, becoming unbearably hungry and wrecking your hormones in the process.

If you need help in the area of body recomposition and are looking for a cost effective, practical solution check out my Ideal Body Blueprint program.

For a more personalized approach to getting a drop dead gorgeous figure, with coaching accountability and support, check out our award winning Body Makeover Programs

 

5 Principles For The FASTEST Fat Loss

Published on April 26, 2012 in Diet, fat loss, stubborn fat, Transformation, weight and weight loss. 0 Comments

By guest blogger, Joel Marion

In Tuesday’s article, 5 Things LIMITING You From The FASTEST Fat Loss, we talked about just that—the 5 biggest fat loss “killers” present in most diet and exercise programs that are holding you back from achieving the most rapid results.  If you have yet to read that article, click HERE (page opens in a new window) to check it out as today’s article won’t make much sense without first having absorbed that content.

For those of you who have already read that article, today, I’m here to talk to you about the “fixes”. Let’s get right in to it:

Principle #1 – You must keep your body and metabolism happy.

As mentioned in yesterday’s article, dieting can do a number on your metabolism by screwing with important fat burning hormones like leptin, and rather quickly at that.  The answer to overcoming these adaptations lies in strategic high-calorie Cheat Days.

As you recall, leptin is heavily mediated by your calorie intake.  Decrease calories and leptin levels fall off, increase calories and leptin levels recover.

And while it takes roughly a week of moderate dieting for leptin levels to fall off significantly, it only takes one day of cheating, or overfeeding, for leptin to recover back to baseline.

By frequently resetting your metabolism throughout the course of your diet with strategic high-calorie Cheat Days, you can essentially have your cake and eat it too while watching your waistline continually shrink week after week.

Principle #2 – You must create a massive calorie deficit to lose fat rapidly.

There’s no way around it, a pound of fat is 3500 calories.  If you’re going to lose a pound of fat, you’re going to have to create a 3500 calorie deficit (while keeping your body in “fat burning mode” at the same time).  If you want to lose 10 lbs of pure fat, that’ll require a 35,000 calorie deficit.

SIDE NOTE: Please realize that 10 lbs of pure fat loss will probably equate to somewhere between 15 and 20 lbs of actual “weight loss” due to the simultaneous water loss that occurs any time you lose fat.

After a cheat day your body is uber primed for fat loss, and it’s prime time to take advantage with a mega calorie deficit.  On this day, we do two things:

1.  Consume minimal calories along with strategic supplementation to offset muscle catabolism.

2.  Ramp up activity to burn a ton of additional calories on this day

With this type of strategic set-up, it’s actually possible to burn a pound of pure fat in one day (considering that a pound of fat loss a week is deemed a “very good” rate of fat loss by most standards, that’s pretty awesome).

Principle #3:  You must tackle your fat loss goals synergistically through diet and exercise.

When you’re talking about the most strategic set-up and the most rapid fat loss, things get a little more complex than simply “do a lot of exercise”.  In fact, the type of exercise you do is just as important to your rapid fat loss goals as the frequency, duration, and intensity are.

With the Xtreme Fat Loss diet, you’ll see that there is a specific type or style of workout that we’ve purposefully chosen for each type of day to optimize and accelerate the results of that day.

Here is just one example:

Lactic Acid Training, which are very metabolically demanding, calorie-burning workouts, are performed on Depletion Days.

Because lactic acid workouts have the potential to burn more calories than other styles of training (because…they’re hard), they are the clear choice for Depletion Days when we want to create the largest caloric deficit.  Lactic acid training also depletes the body’s “energy reserve”, making them the ideal workout style for Depletion Days.

Principle #4:  You must avoid ANY positive weight gain.

When I first started teaching Cheat Days it was understood that there may be some positive fat gain as a result of a Cheat Day in order to yield MORE fat loss the following week (leading to a great net weekly fat loss).

For example, without incorporating strategic Cheat Days, let’s say someone is able to lose a pound a week (with each week’s weight loss becoming progressively slower leading to the inevitable plateau).

With strategic cheating that same person is able to now lose 2 lbs each week (with no drop off in metabolism and no plateau).  This is a result of a half pound gain in body fat from the Cheat Day and a subsequent 2.5 pound loss (net loss = 2 lbs).

Now, the latter scenario is obviously WAY better than sticking to the same boring, strict diet every day while achieving slower results, but it still leaves a half pound of fat gain resulting from the Cheat Day, which, if eliminated = faster results.

Within muscle tissue, energy is stored in the form of glycogen (carbohydrate energy) and triglycerides (fat energy).  With strategic training (like the lactic acid training mentioned in principle #3), these energy stores can be depleted or exhausted.

Why would you want to do that?

To make “room” for an influx of calories, carbohydrate and fat (for example, a Cheat Day)!

When glycogen and triglyceride stores are full, a Cheat Day is like pouring more liquid into an already full glass.  Some of that liquid is inevitably going to spill over and lead to a bit of a mess (in this case, fat storage).  But, if you dump out the glass and then refill it, there’s no “overflow”.

This is exactly what we do by performing glycogen and triglyceride depleting lactic acid training (while limiting carbohydrate intake) on the day prior to a Cheat Day.  We empty the cup making room for the following day’s influx of cals, carbs, and fat.

The result?  You get the same hormone-boosting, metabolism stimulating effect from the Cheat Day without the fat gain.  Instead, the excess calories and carbs simply go to refilling your body’s empty energy stores.  That, my friends, is what I call strategy.

And by eliminating any Cheat Day fat gain, you can easily increase your rate of fat loss by 25%!

Principle #5—You must maintain muscle mass to maintain metabolism.

This ties back in to some of the information I shared in Principle #3, the strategic combination of diet & exercise for optimal results, along with something else I haven’t fully touched on yet.

When faced with long-term calorie restriction, the body will choose to utilize muscle tissue for energy over body fat, leading to significant muscle loss and decreased metabolism for most dieters. Simply put, fat is more valuable to your body than “extra muscle” when it comes to survival, and it prioritizes accordingly in the face of long-term calorie restriction.

But, when you understand how to combine strategic cheat days along with high volume training to spark muscle growth even while you’re dieting, then you’ll easily be able to maintain (if not gain a couple pounds) of lean muscle throughout the course of only a few weeks.

Muscle = metabolism.  The more lean muscle you have on your frame, the higher your metabolism is going to be.  Muscle burns calories just sitting there.  Maintaining it as you lose fat is fundamentally important to continuing to lose fat at an optimal rate.

Another way this program helps you maintain muscle is via Principle #1 – keeping your body happy.  When your body remains in a “normal” state (instead of a “red alert” state like with long-term calorie restriction) over the course of a diet, there is no reason for it to resort to muscle tissue for energy.  By keeping leptin levels high week after week, you maintain your metabolism and program your body to continue to burn fat, not muscle.

Wrap Up

You now KNOW what’s limiting your fat loss along with my 5 top principles to overcome those limitations.  As you can see, it’s ALL strategy and every single piece of the puzzle makes a huge difference.

Thanks for the great info Joel!

Doesn’t reading that article make you excited about the fat loss possibilities that you are capable of? If you are ready to experience just how FAST fat loss can be when you unlock the power of strategic, synergistic program design, then next week we have a nice surprise for you! On Tuesday, May 1st, the discounted pre-sale will open and you’ll have the chance to get your own copy of the fastest fat loss diet in history. I’m even considering following this one myself.

Have an awesome weekend!

Sue

5 Things Limiting You from the FASTEST Fat Loss

Published on April 24, 2012 in Diet, fat loss, stubborn fat, Transformation, weight and weight loss. 0 Comments

By Joel Marion

Have you ever wondered what may be holding you back from the FASTEST fat loss?

Why you’ve only been able to lose fat at an “average” speed, if at all?

Well, the fact of the matter is this: there’s probably certain things built in to the very diet and exercise program that YOU are doing, things that you don’t even realize are inhibiting you from achieving the most rapid results.

Fortunately, you’re in luck, because that’s exactly what this article is all about—uncovering what I consider to be the top 5 fat loss “killers” plaguing diets and training programs alike, ultimately slowing down your results despite your most intense efforts.

Limiting Factor #1: Your Metabolism

In reality, it’s not really your metabolism that’s the problem, but rather the effect that most fat loss programs, particularly diets, have on your metabolism.

In order to understand this, we need to go back in time a bit to the day in which our “hunter and gather” ancestors roamed the Earth. For those individuals, survival was king, and in order to survive, they had to do the whole “eating” thing just like we do.


Unfortunately, things weren’t quite as easy for this group as they are today. No supermarkets. No drive-through meal deals. Instead, when our primitive ancestors wanted a nice steak, they had to go find it.

This inevitably meant that there were plenty of instances in which our yester-year counterparts went without food for days at a time. And at other times, namely during the winter months, their bodies were forced to get by on very little food and calories each day.

And the reason why they didn’t die? There’s only one—the body’s natural defence against starvation.

Don’t get enough calories for an extended period of time? No problem, the body simply causes ”bad” hormones, fat storage enzymes, and hunger to all increase while “good” hormones, metabolism, and fat burning enzymes all take a dive.

Enter “starvation mode.”

Friend to our ancestors; anything but to the dieter.

You see, dieting, although planned, is nothing more than a lesser degree of premeditated starvation.

Go on a diet—any diet—and it won’t be long until the body begins fighting for every ounce of your body fat. You want to lose it; your body wants to keep it. And guess what? Your body wins every time.

Sad scenario, I know.

Limiting Factor #2: Inadequate Negative Calorie Balance

There’s no getting around the fact that if you want to lose fat as fast as humanly possible you have to create the greatest negative calorie balance possible.

But, at the same time you’ll need to do it WITHOUT pissing off your body to the point in which it shuts down and begins to fight against your fat loss efforts (i.e. the “starvation mode” that we just talked about).

Indeed, it is a thin, fine line in which, unfortunately, almost all diets fall somewhere to the left or the right.

You have those diets that create a moderate calorie deficit, leading to moderate results (at least for short while). That’s OK, but if we’re talking about the FASTEST fat loss, the deficit simply isn’t great enough.

And on the opposite end of the spectrum we have “crash” diets and other severe diets which fail to take in to account ANY knowledge of the body and the regulation of human bodyweight and metabolism. A week or two on any of these approaches and you’ll likely:

1. Lose muscle
2. Lose a bunch of water
3. Lose a bit of fat
4. Destroy your metabolism
5. Set yourself up to quickly rebound back beyond your original bodyweight
6. Achieve a “skinny fat” physique in which you’re still carrying substantial body fat, only now with no muscle.

Awesomen’t. (And by that, I mean, not awesome.)

Limiting Factor #3: Zero Synergy Between Your Diet And Exercise Programming

I honestly think this is the most overlooked area of fat loss. Most people simply pick a diet and then pick a training program, or vice versa, without ever really thinking how those two programs work hand in hand, or if they DON’T provide any additional benefit to one another.

Allow me to illustrate my point with a few mathematical equations:

1 + 1 = 0
1 + 1 = 2
1 + 1 = 3

And believe it or not, I actually did graduate first grade.

While not true in the absolute mathematical sense, all three of the above equations are representative of the results people achieve from their diet and exercise programs.

In each equation, think of the first number as diet, the second as exercise, and the third as the result achieved by the combination.

Or simply, Diet + Exercise = Result

So, in the first equation, Diet + Exercise = Zero Result. Unfortunately many people are stuck in this boat because of damaged metabolisms and some of the reasons we’ve shared previously.

In the second equation, we have Diet + Exercise = The expected result (and additive effect of the two).

But in the third equation, this is where the magic happens—when diet and exercise team up to achieve a greater result than the additive effect of either of them alone. That’s synergy—when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Unfortunately, most diet and exercise programs are represented by one of the first two equations, because they simply aren’t designed to work together in every aspect.

Limiting Factor #4: Positive Energy Balance

Positive Energy Balance simply is any point in your diet in which you consume more calories than you burn, ultimately resulting in those surplus level of calories being stored as fat.

This could be the result of a dietary “screw up” in which you fall off your diet completely or a “planned” cheat day which results in positive calorie balance.

Naturally, any time you are gaining fat on a fat loss program you are moving in the opposite direction of your results and in some way, shape or form, slowing your progress.

Limiting Factor #5: Muscle Loss

The unfortunate reality is that 99% of diets result in a significant amount of muscle loss. This has several big time consequences:

1. You’re not going to achieve the LOOK you want by losing muscle. Most men would agree with that statement right out, but for women, allow me to demonstrate its truth:

Those are both size 2 bodies (size 6 in Australian sizes). The difference? The one on the left looks OK while the one on the right is smokin’ hot. The REAL difference? Muscle.

While the exact same size, the physique on the right is comprised mostly of dense, shapely, tone muscle, while the image on the left…isn’t.

If you just want to be “thin” while still hiding behind your clothes because you’re not 100% proud of your body, then losing muscle is a great way to get you there. But if you want to look great naked, believe me, you want to hold on to every ounce you have as you lose fat.

2. Losing muscle = decreased metabolism. Muscle burns calories at rest; essentially, it’s the fuel that keeps your metabolism operating at full blast. When you lose muscle as you diet, not only does it slow your week to week progress by decreasing overall metabolism, but it also sets you up to easily and quickly gain back lost weight as a result of the cumulative decrease in metabolism over time.

A “smaller” version of the same body, decreased week to week progress, and long-term metabolism issues?

Count. Me. Out.

Do you want to overcome these 5 limiting factors and begin achieving the FASTEST fat loss?

Joel will be back in a couple of days with advice on how to overcome the above 5 factors. Stay tuned!

Blow out

Published on April 12, 2009 in sick, Uncategorized and weight. 5 Comments

Yes I thought that would get your attention!  Unfortunately it’s true, I did have a bit of a blow out last night.  It was just one of those nights where I was consumed by the hunger monster.  I put it down to two things.  One, it was leg day and I caned my quads that morning, along with biceps and abs.  Two, I’m pre-menstrual.  Those two things combined with walking the edge as far as keeping a balance goes, just tipped me over.  I trained well, had plenty of energy for the session.  Came home, ate, and did some work.  About an hour later, started feeling a bit exhausted, kind of dizzy/dazed/wiped out feeling that I get which I believe is an adrenal reaction.  I also felt very hungry again.  So I ate my 3rd meal, together with lots of sea salt, and had a sleep.  I zonked it for an hour and a half, and when I woke, as has been the case a lot of late, I felt so groggy and drained.  I cannot wake up properly and really struggle for the rest of the day.  I pushed myself to go for my cardio, which was only a walk but it was hard yakka.  I knew it was going to be a struggle.  I managed to last out the rest of the day, but dinner time came, I ate.  And I ate.  And yes, I ate.  I had two of my allocated meals one after the other, and even that did not satisfy me.  I then attacked more chicken, a half avocado with some cheese, and not one, but two, yes two – bowls of protein powder and raspberries!  Then to finish off, I ate the head off my Lindt bunny!!!  So Kathy, I doubt I shall bring half a bunny to Adelaide with me :)   But I do still plan to have the other half intact by then!  So, there you have it, warts and all.  I think you guys appreciate me being honest and not pretending I am perfect!!  Anyway I could have berated myself and beat myself up about it but I just went to bed – it was still early, about 9pm!!  I was just totally exhausted.  But satisfied!!  As I do, I weigh myself every morning and was a bit hesitant after my efforts.  However I was quite surprised I was in the 110′s still.  I am hoping it doesn’t catch up with me over the next few days but I think I should be ok as I was really really good today with my diet, and also did two really good cardio sessions.  I’m weighing in the 110′s tonight (so I’m a serial weigher – but I find it interesting), so I expect to possibly be my lowest weight yet tomorrow.  See what happens. 

I caught up with my good friend Julie today, who is here for Easter, from Melbourne.  Her first comment to me was ‘gee you look thin’ so at least she noticed something different since last time!  We went out for coffee and a good old chin wag this arvo.  Tomorrow I am catching up with Lisa (a past client and Body Blitz winner, and now friend) for coffee and then we are going for a walk.  It will be good to have some company for my cardio!

I think I am getting a cold :(   Nice timing, not.  I have the sneezes and a snuffed up nose – not blocked just sort of itchy.  And feel a bit crook in the guts – to put it eloquently.  I always load up on Vit C powder as soon as I feel anything coming on, so I hope that will help me get over it quickly.  Unfortunately I can’t rest though.  Tomorrow it’s back to training, gym is open only in the morning so will train shoulders, back and triceps then, and walk with Lis in the arvo.

Finally THANK YOU to all you lovely ladies for your beautiful comments, my head is getting a bit big over it.  Not really of course but I do appreciate you stopping by and your support and encouragement.  If any of you live in Adelaide and would be interested in seeing the comp let me know!  I started re-learning my routine yesterday.  Took about 5 minutes before it started to come together – I will do some practise every day so I can do it without thinking.  At the moment I’m very proppy as I still have to think what comes next.  I will be thinking about how to approach the final week over the next few days.  I don’t think I will do a carb deplete or load, might just leave that as is and rely on the water and sodium to do the job.  Not quite sure how to approach the training, probably just keep doing what I’m doing, but a light workout that final week.  I believe I will still need to cardio unfortunately, would be nice if I was ready enough to have a rest from that.

I hope everyone enjoyed a couple – just a couple - of chocky eggs and are all back on track tomorrow!  For anyone who is interested, we currently have a really good special going on our Full Suport Programs – 12 weeks at less than $34 week – that’s $100 off the normal price.  For a limited time only!  See home page for details.

Catch ya :)

Icy cold

Published on June 10, 2007 in sick, supplements and weight. 2 Comments

I still haven’t had my last supper! Was feeling a bit average last night so we didn’t go out for dinner. Tonight we had a dinner function to attend, and it was soooooo cold in there I did not take my long wool jacket or my scarf off all night! We left by 9.30pm, couldn’t stand it any longer – not with my cough getting worse by the minute! My feet and hands were like ice and I was hugging my knees sitting at the dinner table! Am all toasty now, with the reverse cycle air , flannel jammies and my woolly bed socks. So, tomorrow night is my real last supper, the one I have been looking forward to, although I must admit I could easily go without it. My appetite has been so bad, I’m really surprised as usually I like to eat ALL the time. Yesterday my diet was, Myoplex Lite, turkey on 3 thin corn cakes topped with tzatziki, 3 glasses of wine and 2 bits of pizza and garlic bread. I actually had to force myself to eat the pizza – very weird. I want to have Mars Bar cake for dessert tomorrow night :) And a nice piece of warm crusty bread with butter. Really, that’s all I ask :) Maybe some cheesy gnocchi would be nice but I don’t think they have that where we are going.

My weight was 114.8 the other day – haven’t trained for a week. I expect my weight to actually go up in the first few weeks, when I start training and eating 6-7 meals a day again. I will weigh in the morning after my free meal and you watch the difference :) Tomorrow I will clean out the fridge and cupboards, though there is really nothing much in there anyway – and I will do a big shop – in particular for chicken. We have this awesome chicken shop that has the best chicken. Eating supermarket chicken is like eating rubber now. This stuff melts in your mouth. I will get about 5kg of it, and bake a batch (enough for a few days) and freeze the rest. I am going to be eating a lot of egg whites too.

Going to test out MRM’s Alpha Lipoic Acid for awhile, see if it has any effect on cravings – it’s meant to regulate blood sugar. That as well as it is an antioxidant, and I’m low in those. Too many free radicals (probably caused by intense training – and cigarette smoke!) roaming around my body. Am taking one now that is costing me $80 for a month’s supply – pine bark and bilberry, and grapeseed, in powder form. They say taking a mix of different ones is best. I must also get regular taking my Vit C powder again too. I’ve written up my supplement schedule – it’s pretty crazy. I’ll post it here one of these days. Kim wants me to use a digestive supplement too, and I was able to get some MRM Digest All from the US (thanks to my sponsor) so will have that next week. Also using MRM’s Smart Blend EFA’s. And, BCAA’s +G, Chrysin and Arginine. So, if I’m not training, eating, cooking, food shopping, drinking water, going to the toilet, driving to the gym, showering after cardio/training, posing – I am taking supplements. I tell you, it’s all a huge committment.