9 Weeks Out!

9 weeks out tomorrow….

SAY WHAT?!?!?!?! It can’t be! I still have so far to go! But how far I have come… now THAT is incredible.

I was discouraged earlier, but I decided I am not going to post about it – because I am no longer feeling discouraged. I am anticipating my diet changing this week, so I prepped my food and shopped according to what I feel like is going to be reduced macros.

I am ready. My training this week was a NEW plan and BOY did it hurt. Leg day? Talk about squats, deads, AND sumo deads. I have some pretty neat bruises on my shins, SEE?!?!? Battle wounds.

Also, fitting in 3 solid cardio sessions was a tad ahrder than I thought. i am not used to spending a solid 2 hours in the gym – this is including some serious stretching. Like, stretching how I used to. I miss the days when I had 45 min every night just to stretch. I stretch like how I did when I was a dancer – and that for me is calming, it challenges me in the best way, and I love it. I am so happy and i am going to fit it in 2-3x per week now. I miss my flexibility and damnit I am GOING to get it back!

This week is the last week of school, so it will be pretty low key and I can really focus on my new business and my training.

New Business? Stay tuned 😉

Right now I am pretty pooped. I have some last minute food prepping to do for this week and am eating my last meal and am waiting for a load in the washer so I can throw it in the dryer.

I wish I wasn’t pooped thought… I have SO MUCH MORE I need to talk about right now I feel.

This week in my progress pics I feel like I am tightening up more which is WONDERFUL. I also have noticed on my own that my muscles are starting to LOOK more defined all over – arms, legs, abs, you name it. I am definitely making progress. I hope Coach is pleased because I sure am. Check me out!!!

Last night I had some MUCH NEEDED girl time. This whole weekend I was pretty social – went out to a party Friday night and had girls night at a friends house last night and I think I needed it. I am feeling mentally recharged. I was going stir crazy for a while since it seemed I was so busy and everyone else was so busy and there was no time for playing, just working. Not to mention the last 3 weekends in a row I took stuff home for work. And I try my hardest to limit my homework so I can have a healthy balance and still enjoy my job. So I work hard during the week, use my time wisely, and stay on top of stuff enough that I can get it done! But, once in a while, the extra time does need to get put in and that is when you just gotta gut it out on your own time. And it was totally worth it.

I hope you had a restful weekend! I know I did – at least I had a mentally recharging weekend which was way overdue. I have LOTS more to say this week about LOTS of stuff so keep your eyes peeled!

SO MANY THOUGHTS, SO LITTLE TIME .

But I like it that way!

Crazy, Beautiful, Life

Phew! Life has been crazy lately.

Better crazy than boring right? Just a few things about my LIFE lately…

1. School We are nearing the end of the school year for my district, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! Programming and putting on a final concert, getting two classrooms packed up, 300+ final grades done, and getting my final evalutation things all organized has been going smoother than I thought. I did take some things home last weekend, and the weekend before, and will again this weekend but it makes it easier just to have the time. At school it is hard to get through some of these projects since there is always something. And yes, we get a prep hour, but any teacher knows that it usually isn’t enough time to get caught up. Usually, my prep hour is spent getting new immediate things out of the way that have to be taken care of in the NOW (ie discipline, responding to e-mails, phone calls, etc).
2. Family My nephew had his second birthday this last weekend, and it was wonderful to see all my family! My niece and nephew are getting so big. THis is the first time any nieces or nephews of mine have been in the same state, so seeing them get big is such a blessing. I get to go squeeze and kiss my babies and love them AND I get to see them grow up! It has been so wonderful seeing my brother take care of his family. He has become such a wonderful man and I am proud to call him my big brother! Speaking of family, I STILL need to call my godmother. My sweet nino and nina are so used to be being late with phone calls, but we always end up catching up. They are fabulous. I wish they didn’t live in Boise! My godmother actually has been in town recently, but for work, and she is so busy (as am I) so she always understand when we don’t get to talk right away.
3. Summer Getting ready for summer! Phew! I have a to-do list started already of FUN things and other projects I want to get done. I decided against getting a second job in conjunction with the music camp that I do in June- I would only be able to work part time for about 6 weeks anyway, and I have enough money saved up to get me through. I have a couple of employment opportunities that are exciting in the works for this summer. I would rather turn my focus towards these, but I’ll elaborate more on that stuff when I get more details. Many of the things I need to get organized are electronic… I got my new computer a year ago but haven’t done much in the way of getting things organized. I want to have a SUPER organized office at home AND at work. I love apps like Evernote and I am absolutely gaga for my iCloud stuff. I love things that sync and talk to each other and that I can access online from any computer if I needed to. It makes my life so much easier… BUT I need to get things organized and cleaned up first. I also want to work on some recipes! I LOVE finding new and fun things to do with food that make life just a little bit easier. My goal this summer is to come up with 20 IIFYM friendly recipes that are HEALTHY and DELICIOUS. I know it can be done, and so it shall be!
4. Prep My prep is going… well, it’s just going! Last week my progress stalled. I have been doing everything I can, but like I said in an earlier post I had some unplanned hiccups that affected my training and nutrition. It is frustrating because I am DOING EVERYTHING I CAN to keep progressing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!        I finally feel like I am back on track (and even saying ‘back on track’ pisses me off because I never lost motivation or discipline, just LIFE took over) and slowly gaining my progress back. But I am still frustrated. I wouldn’t be if I had decided to binge or not train just because, but I HAVEN’T DONE ANYTHING BUT WHAT MY COACH HAS TOLD ME TO DO 😦 Boo. Actually, I take it back. I was supposed to be taking creatine, but I didn’t have the extra moolah to get it when I found out I was supposed to be taking it. I opted for protein and BCAA’s instead since those are more staples of my nutritrion. As far as training and how many macros I am taking in, I have been following his instructions, AND I have been consistent with my vitamins and water intake. It is so frustrating.  Hopefully on Sunday I have some progress pics that actually SHOW progress, and my logs look good enough to not have too much food cut out. Coach says he isn’t too concerned, but that my body is taking a little longer than normal to get with the program. But the fact that I am slowly leaning out is a good sign.
5. Fire Season Fire season is in full swing! Those hot shots all around the country this year will not be without some devent overtime hours (knock on wood). Luckily, I am busy enough and independent enough to function with out Carl always being around. I LOVE him. But we each still have our own lives and own aspirations and own goals – if we keep on supporting each other and beign loyal and deserving of each other, our relationship will be A-OK. It isn’t something I am overly worried about. There might be 2-3 days where I won’t hear from him at all but stressing about it won’t make him get in contact with me any sooner. Missing him won’t bring him home any faster. Loving him and respecting him however will bring us closer together, and THAT is my focus.
6. Home Sweet Home Well needless to say the house a wreck.. and Stephie and I are pretty OK with it at this point. She is painting, I have some things to clean out, things to sell, she has other projects she needs to do, and same here. We are kind of OK with it being a ‘work in progress’ for a bit. We both are planning (at least from what we know about ourlives as they are) to stay put for a little while so we are trying to make our little home as US as possible.
7. FUN All work no play, you say? NOT ME! I fully intend to ENJOY summer break. Lake, river, BBQ’s, family, friends. I plan on filling my summer vacation with as much (or more) fun than I can stand! Yes I will have lazy days… ONCE in a while… But let’s face it, I am not the type to be able to sit around and do nothing for very long. But give me a good book and a cool spot in the shade and I am a happy camper! Speaking of which, camping is ALSO on the to-do list 🙂

I am by NO means complaing about everything going on (with the exception my slow progress maybe). I would rather have a happy, full, busy life, and be exhausted for all these wonderful reasons, then have nothing going on and too much time on my hands. I thank God that I am capable – physically and mentally – of being the person I am and doing the things I get to do. And things are only going to get better from here!

TGIF

Teeny Tiny Abs!

Just before I hit the hay… My abs are starting to show through! 🙂 just the uppers, but hey it’s something!

 

It’s a Numbers Game

One thing that is amazing to me is the change that can happen in your body… your weight can stay within a 5-7lb range, but you can achieve a significant amount of physique change by altering your body fat percentage. Here are my stats as of now…

May 3013: 143lbs, 23.4%BF (33.5lbs of my body weight was fat, the other 109.5lbs was muscles)

April 28th, 2014: 137lbs, 17.7% body fat (24.2lbs of my body weight is fat, the other 112.8lbs is muscle.)

In about a year, I lost 9.3lbs of fat and gained 2.5lbs of muscle. I am excited to see where my stats are come show time, and how they pan out 3-4 months post show. Woo!

The other thing I have gained is strength. When I started lifing regularly again in May 2013, I was so weak! Bleh. Even before that, I was never very strong. I didn’t quite udnerstand HOW to build my strength up. Week after week I would push as hard as I could, even if my body was saying “PLEASE STOP.” This caused me to hit some plateaus and I wasn’t sure how to break them. Because you are supposed to hit it hard every time, right? While that is a good mentality to have, to maintain longevity of your activity you need to put in place a program that also caters to resting and building and listening to your body.

When I mentioned to Coach one of my goals was to get stronger, he put me on a custom lifing plan that included deloading and working at percentages.

These are my original 5 rep max weights for my chosen power lifts:

• DB Shoulder Press: 20×5
• DB Flat Chest Press: 30×5
• Cable Row: 80×5
• Squat: 145×5
• RDL: 145×5

Now here is what I can lift:

• DB Shoudler Press: 25×5
• DB Flat Chest Press: 35×5
• Cable Row: 90×5
• Squat: 165×5
• RDL: 145×5 (no change here 😦 )

There are other things I gained strength in as well, but these were the specific ones I was working percentages on. Woop!

I LOVE progress photos. They really show the change visually. But having the numbers really solidifies your progress. I am a fan of keeping track of things. No – the numbers do NOT overshadow what I have gained mentally and emotionally, but it is cool to see the physical progress put to paper 🙂

Keeping track of the numbers is always important if you are going to set goals as well. Having a goal weight, a goal lifting max, a goal body fat – these can all help you to REALLY focus and fine tune your efforts. That way instead of flailing around in the gym or on the treadmill day after day, you have something to work towards. Keeping track of the numbers will help you see when you plateau and allow you to make the necessary changes to meet those goals.

Don’t forget about the the most important part! Your mental and emotional health. The numbers are great, but make sure on your journey you are becoming the best version of yourself that you can be .