Fun Friday - what a way to end a FAB week??

See picture to the left. This is kind of how I look at the moment - actually my belly is probably a bit bigger.

I woke up Thursday sans aches and pains (yay) but plus tummy cramps. Actually cramps would probably be a more pleasant version - whatever it is I woke up with has now been haunting me for 48 hours, comes on in waves of excruciating pain, and kind of has the sensation of being repeatedly kicked in the guts by someone wearing steel capped boots. Not that that has ever happened to me, but I am imagining if it did, it wouldn't be too much worse than this. Now with the cramps comes an increasingly swollen belly - basically not TOO bad on waking but by mid-morning it is pretty noticable - and by night time I have been looking approximately 8 months pregnant (I actually had someone ask me...) Now given I have been dieting for 9 weeks now - I should not have any form of belly right now!!

Not one to listen to my own advice, I went off to the gym yesterday given the muscle/joint aches had gone and I was feeling considerably stronger than Wednesday evening. Couldn't train as hard as normal and by the end of the weights session I wasn't able to push myself in the cardio arena so I went a bit lighter than normal, and only did one cardio session for the day instead of 2. Today trained back, and did 30min of OK cardio - was going to follow up with a boxing class or a walk tonight but feeling a bit crappy now (both metaphorically and now also literally, just in case you wanted detail) so not sure it is a wise move. I see Mike tomorrow though and because I am feeling so FAT due to this belly thing I feel like I should put the effort in and do some more. Man what a head f$@k!!! lol

To top my week off...I had a 5am start at work this morning, so I got myself out of bed at 4.15am, made breakfast, and figured I would take a thermos full of coffee to work with me rather than drink the rubbish one there. Not a smart idea. Combine 2 weeks of carb depletion with hardly any sleep, and what do you get?? Someone who decided to taste the coffee to make sure it was sweet enough, who managed to spill said boiling coffee out of thermos and down her chin / cleavage...result: second degree burns. Yep. On my chin, and in a straight line from the top of my chest, straight down the middle of my massive belly. The doctor loved me today.

Anyway I am hoping this weekend gets better than my week has been - esp with Mike's visit tomorrow... hell it can't get much worse at this rate lol.

I am really looking forward to this weekend actually, so long as this tummy gets better. I have one of my bestie's 30ths tomorrow night, her hubby has organised a cocktail party at their place for her, and Sunday arvo catching up with the FernSter and having another slumber party!! Yay!!

Anyhow better jet and make the official decision on cardio session #2...

Til next time, train hard & be good x

A Mack Truck drove right through my bedroom last night

Well one must have, because I woke up this morning feeling like I had been run over by one. Quite literally. I got up at 5.45am to go and get a pre-brekkie cardio session in, and initially I just felt like my muscles were heavy - which I put down to the extreme training I had done in the 72 hours prior, particularly in the lower body area. By the time I got my sorry ass to the gym I was starting to think that this might actually be the start of a bug of some kind rather than a mega case of DOMS as initially thought. I did 40mins total - which I struggled through - at a very low intensity, which was all I could manage. There was not going to be any hardcore intervals today, let me tell you.

By the time I had finished training and gotten home for my carbless breakfast (it's a weight-free day today which means also carb free) the aches had spread to my joints as well, and within an hour it even felt like my organs were inflamed (if that is possible!?!)

I dragged my butt to my first shift (Wednesdays is two shift day - one at one gym, then an hour after finishing there start at the other one) heavily dosed up on Panadol to get rid of the hot/cold flushes I was having (yep we is def gettin sick), got through the shift - just - and then took myself off to the second gym. Let me tell you not much got done today....was even feeling too weak to pick weights up off the floor, and stuggled to put things like 10kg plates away.

This is not good peoples!! lol
Am hoping it subsides a little with a good nights sleep tonight, as it's chest / triceps day tomorrow and I am not the type to skip training (prob not always so good - when I was prepping for my 1st comp I actually trained through glandular fever...which as a PT I know is insane but when it comes to myself I don't always find it easy to follow my own advice...)

I would actually like to put the question out there for other competitors - what are you guys like when you are not feeling 100% ? Do you push through and train anyway or do you listen to your body? I know what the right answer is but I want to know what you guys actually do yourselves - am I the only one that finds taking time off when not well hard to accept??

I would love to hear from others (yes once again this is about the mental headspace that us figure/bb chicks get into from time to time lol)

Vic xx

Tuesday's rant

So here we are, at Tuesday - my hump day this week as am only working thru to Thursday (yay for a long weekend!!)

I am glad that last time I saw Mike we added an extra rest day (well an extra day off the weights in any case) on a Wednesday because it will be a fricken miracle if I can actually walk tomorrow. Since last post on Sunday (just after I smashed out a leg session) I have instructed a Spin class Monday morning, a THT class Monday night, and backed it up with another awesome legs session today followed by a split cardio session on the bike and stepper. Hmmm - not sure but thinking that the rower is the only piece of cardio equipment I may be able to use tomorrow - and that's only cos I do it stiff-legged!! Lol

So yesterday morning was a good morning, after Spin I had some brekkie, did some PT clients, trained shoulders & biceps, then onto my new PT client that I mentioned last post. Without going into the finer details she is a comedian and is bloody hilarious. I spent the entire session in stitches and can't wait to train her again next week - it amazes me that some people can manage to be funny when they are incidentally getting smashed!! lol

On my way home I got a call from that gym I went for the interview at last week - the one that has the awesome equipment...they wanted me in for a second interview. So I took myself there in the early afternoon, and not sure yet (they told me they would call me Wednesday at the latest) but I am pretty confident I will be offered a job there. Which means that I am gonna have to give up one of my other jobs if I decide to take it as it is basically Mon-Friday nights. More hours than the gym I am at during the nights as that is only Monday and Wednesday, and every second Saturday... anyway no point making any decisions til I know for sure...

Following that I went off to said Monday night shift, during which I had to instruct my very first freestyle class (THT) - other than Spin but that doesn't count, I find that very easy to instruct. Anyway it was all over the shop, I kept forgetting where I was up to and had to improvise. I am glad the classes before mine were running late and mine was the last one of the night so I cut a couple of tracks out...phew for that!! I apologised profusely to the class for stuffing up (which I might add was packed - I was told it wouldn't be that full as it's the last class for the night) and to my surprise after it quite a few of them told me that had I not apologised they wouldn't have known any better. Not sure if they were just trying to make me feel better lol

Did a little shift today at the other gym, Tuesdays is 'school day' - there are about 4 local high schools that come in on a Tuesday afternoon and so the gym floor is pretty much saturated by school uniforms. Can be both funny and painful - the boys like to show off to eachother (eg how heavy they can lift, which can result in someone being stuck under a bench press that they can't lift back off their chest and their mates can't either) and the girls like to sit on the machines and do absolutely nothing - or on the other hand some of them like to jump on the treadmills and crank them up as fast as they can until they go flying off the back of it. Unfortunately given there are usually about 120 of these kids and 2 or 3 of us on the floor - we don't always get to stop them before the treadmill behind them does!

Not much else to report on. I am very jealous of all those who are heading to watch the pro show this weekend!! Make sure you all take loads of pics :)

OK better jet, I have killed so much time on this bloody laptop today!!

Train hard & be good..
Vic

My weekend blow out

I have been debating whether to blog today or not, pretty much all day. Mainly cos my cheat meal last night turned into a binge session and I didn't want to actually post how bad it was - but that is the purpose of this blog - to document all my ups and downs as a figure athlete.

I started the day well, had my weekly weigh in - down 700g since last weigh in. Got to work at the gym a little early to get the day's 1st cardio session out of the way, that was great. By about 12pm I hit a wall, I was feeling very flat and the idea of training legs when I finished work at 2pm was sounding less appealing. Mike sms'd me to see how I went with my weigh in and seemed happy - told me to add a small banana before training each day. That perked me up a little - actually a small banana a day sounded like carb depleted heaven!!

I decided that training when feeling so flat was not going to do me any favours so again I decided to switch my rest day - and train today (Sunday) rather than yesterday. I actually prefer to train on a Sunday as I have my cheat on a Saturday night and don't like taking the day off when I have had a cheat meal the night before.

Anyway in the late afternoon me and my bestie, Meegan, went for a walk - I love having company when I do my walks, it doesn't seem so long and boring :)
I was trying to decide what to do for my cheat meal and was craving a big burger. Meegan's fiance (a triathlete) had not long been home from training - he had done a 180km bike ride - and just wanted to crash - so me and her decided to have a girlie night at the pub.
And this is where it begins.

The pub is an old fave of ours, when we used to live together we used to go up there once or twice a week and everyone would always end up back at our place for more drinks. They have awesome food up there too.

So - the part I have been dreading. I had -
A burger (with the lot, except bacon) with chips and salad, followed by sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce and icecream.
We shared a bottle of red too.
OK so that is a pretty decent cheat - I wouldn't feel SOOO bad if I didn't then stop at the servo and buy an almond Magnum on the way home.

There, I wrote it.

I actually felt sick when I got home - had to go to bed to get rid of the nausea. It was horrible.

BUT on the upside the energy I had in the gym today was insane. I smashed out 6 sets of leg extensions, 5 sets of leg curls and 8 sets of squats - every set was 20 reps. I followed that with a kick-ass cardio session. I was seriously sweating like a MOFO at the end of it.

Anyway I know I shouldn't dwell on what is in the past - it can't be changed so I guess the best thing to do is move on from there.

On the upside I have finally got my place organised now - bout time, I only moved in like 5 weeks ago!! Lol...I have been waiting to move some stuff I had in storage at my parent's place and it all made its way over here this afternoon. I finally have a proper spare room, my office is now being set up cos it has a desk/bookshelf/filing cabinet, my boxing equipment (punching bag, speedball etc) is now here so I can set it up to train clients, and do boxing sessions myself at home, and loads of clothes that I had at their place - some of which I had forgotten about - is here now too...it was like Christmas!! lol

Anyway I better jet, I have to be up at 4.30am to get to the gym to teach spin and do some morning PT sessions...OH nearly forgot to mention - prob the most exciting thing of my weekend - I called the gym I am working at on Monday mornings to check what clients I had scheduled for the morning - and found out I now have my first celebrity client booked in every monday morning with me :) WOOT!!! Go me!!!

Til next time, train hard and be good xx

What a week!

WOW - what a week...I am pooped!! I went from having hardly any work hours at the beginning of the week to now struggling to fit all the work hours into my days!! lol

I am on day 4 of carb depletion and really feeling it. Wednesday (no carb day) wouldn't have been so bad - given it's a rest day from the weights - if I didn't have to work 12 hours...and this week coming up is no different. Carb depletion makes me quite clumsy and I managed to drop a weight plate on my foot at the end of my first shift on Wednesday. It took a few seconds for the pain to kick in (I knew it was coming) and OMG did it hurt - I initially thought I had broken some bones and all I could think was about not being able to compete. Lucky it wasn't that bad, it still hurts a little but it's just really bruising etc by the looks. Would have been in trouble if it were a 20kg plate instead of a 5kg one, given I dropped it from about chest height.

I worked an extra shift today at the new job, 5.15am start....ouch that hurt lol. But was only a 5 hour shift so it went pretty quickly, and I trained when I finished. This afternoon I went to a training session for the 14 year old footy team an old friend is coaching - some of them are pretty unfit and my mate asked if I could come down and do a fitness session with them, and whip their butts into gear. I had pre-warning that a few of them had made comments like "as if a girl can break us!!", which only made me more determined to whip their asses into action lol. They were dying within the first 10mins of our hour long session - but it was awesome. Marty (the coach) asked them all at the end if they wanted me to come back and they all pretty much said yes - so I have managed to convert them to believers that maybe girls can train them properly!! lol So looks like I have me a regular gig training a footy team haha how fun!

On the way home - not sure what possessed me, maybe carb depletion making my brain not think properly - I decided that it would be a good idea to stop at one of the gyms I work at cos I knew they had a boxing session on tonight. OMG not the smartest idea I have had lately but what an awesome workout. I think I have definitely earned tomorrow night's cheat meal....I am hanging...thinking about 3kg of pasta would be a good idea to prepare me for another week of carb depletion!! lol

Not sure what is on for the weekend - too exhausted to do anything tonight, besides I am working tomorrow!

Anyway on that note I will love you and leave you all. Hope you all have a great Friday night and for those in Sydney who are heading to Mardi Gras tomorrow night have a ball!! Lol

Til next time, train hard and be good :)

NEED....CARBS....

OMG! I am on day 2 (yes I am aware it's only 7am) of carb depletion and I think I am dying!! lol

Clearly Mike isn't wrapped that I haven't been dropping much and he emailed me my new diet on Monday arvo. Today is a non-training day which means pretty much ZERO carbs (aside from veges but they don't count if you ask me) and the other days include a tiny bit of oats for brekkie (and I mean tiny - he's even cut them down) and that's it. Can I tell you how much I was looking forward to my post-training shake last night!!! lol how SAD!!

It's only temporary to give me another kickstart but (scuse my language) FUCK ME!! I was dead last night - not a good way to be training legs given it's my mega session (I love smashing legs lol)

ANYWAY enough of my whinging.

So I went for that interview the other day - and on the way there, I got a call from another gym I had sent my resume to, wanting me to go see them. So I went to the first one, and it was bloody unreal. It has state-of-the-art equipment, including a range that was imported from OS and I have never seen this gear in any other Aussie gym. It was bloody unreal. The owner got me to try it out and I am in love (can you say that about something like a lat pulldown machine??) Anyway it all seemed to go well, the owner told me he liked me, I was the first person they interviewed, and said he would give me a buzz in a few days.

I then rushed off to the second interview and got the job on the spot - quite literally - I started there yesterday!! I am working there today too from 9-3 then start at 4 at the other gym I'm working at and work thru til 9pm. Lucky Wed is my newly included 'rest' day from weights - I think I'd struggle to train otherwise. As it is I was up and on a run at 5.30am to get cardio session 1 in for the day - then back to have brekkie, cook food for today, BLOG, and at 7.30 going on a half hour walk so I can fit it into my day!! Wednesdays are going to be hectic by the looks of things.

BONUS - cos I got a job so quick - was able to tell the lady that screwed me over then rang to apologise - thanks but no thanks. Good feeling.

Anyway better jet, have some washing to hang out before my walk then it's go, go, go for the day. On no carbs. Wish me luck lol.

Til next time....be good & train hard :)

Vic

Sunday night - my least fave time of the week (unless it's summer, off-season, and I'm sitting in a beer garden eating a good burger with a coldie in my hand). 

BUT I'm hanging with the TANK so it's all good :)

It's been a pretty low key weekend which is nice - have been enjoying the relaxing weekends lately, doesn't happen that often so lapping it up.

I ended up getting a call yesterday from the owner of the gym that screwed me over job-wise (see initial blog I think it was for details), apologising for what happened and basically offering me a fair amount of work. Within about 10 mins of that call I got another call from a job I recently applied for (awesome gym) asking me to go in tomorrow for an interview. Lol when it rains... I am really hoping to get the latter one - so keep your fingers crossed for me.

I didn't go the Thai for my cheat last night. I had dropped by my parents' place in the afternoon (mum had gone away for the weekend though) and dad was going out last night but asked if I wanted to go out with him for dinner first. We went to a local Italian joint that does awesome food, and I had a combination of my 2 faves - pasta and pizza....was so good. And was so nice to spend time with dad, don't hang out with him that often and I really enjoyed the company. After dinner was going to catch up with my bestie, and we decided we would have dessert - so I stopped at the local servo to pick up some ice-creams YUM!! I was procrastinating on what to get and then decided on the Cappuccino Magnum... combination of ice cream, coffee flavour and chocolate - how can you go wrong!! Had never had one before and I enjoyed every single bite!! 

Worked today then headed to Miss Ferny's place this arvo. We went for an awesome walk in Bondi and then had dinner, Fern cooked us fish & salad, was YUMMO - and so nice to share a diet meal with someone else for once!! lol

We've just been hanging out and looking at some of Fern's old piccies - comp stuff, holiday stuff....and a nice video of her Vegas wedding to a member of her Contiki tour group lol

It is awesome just to hang and have company - it's weird, I am loving living alone again for the first time in years but it makes me appreciate just chilling in front of the tele with someone. Oh and that someone who is creative enough to have made dessert out of plain coffee!! Lol how good is freezing your fave things when you are dieting!! (ever tried frozen protein shake? it rocks!!)

K time for me to jet, the Fernster is out of the shower and I am being a rude guest hogging her Mac!! hehe

Til next time - be good and train hard.

Vic xx