Fitness Competition Prep Update: Day 20 & TRX Review

I'm just about at the three week mark, which seems to have flown by! I was diligent about my diet and workouts all week. Needless to say I was very excited to meet up with Jodi to get weighed and measured. Before we met up, I tried something new...

Saturday Treat: TRX Class
On Saturday, I was pumped to join my fellow Fit Mom, Janine, to take a TRX class at Premier Fitness in Nanuet, NY (where she also introduced me to my trainer, Jodi). She forewarned me that this class was not for the weak of heart and the instructor would have no problems getting in your face to push you. (In a sadistic way, this made me even more excited to attend! LOL!) You may remember last year I wrote about wanting desperately to see what TRX classes were all about in my April 2011 post What is a TRX Suspension Trainer?

Here's a great video with 25 of the best TRX exercises so you can see exactly how it works:


The class had about 20 people, a mix of men and women of various ages. I was shocked to even see a woman about six months pregnant. The class paired up so one half of the class did one exercise, while the other half did something else. You were cued to change exercises by the music, when a whistle would sound every 2-3 minutes.

Here were some of the grueling exercises that had me drenched in sweat and trying to catch my breath:

• Jump squats
• Chest presses using the TRX straps and your own bodyweight
• Lat pulls with the TRX
• Decline push-ups
• Planks
• Burpees
• Jump lunges with TRX

The preggers gals was instructed to do modified exercises to ensure her heart rate didn't skyrocket. On Sunday morning, I was sore in very odd places -- armpits and lats, sides and backs of knees and abs. I was convinced my legs would be mush. But I really think the BCAAs are a huge help.

Saturday Weigh & Measure Results

Drum roll please...my weight and bodyfat stayed the same <insert deflating balloon noise here>. UGH! All that hard work to not move either way. I tried really hard no to get down. But as you can imagine, it was hugely disappointing. However, I'm trying to take that down-and-out energy and get fired up to work harder. I'm only at the start and have a long road to go. 

Here are some of the changes Jodi had me make for this coming week, in an effort to drop some fat and keep building muscle:

• Cardio: moves up to 5x/week for 30 min. Heart rate should be at 135 (no intervals or HIITs)
• My fat-free Greek yogurt evening snack is now one scoop of protein powder with water for a shake

Fingers crossed this works! I'm scared to think what 2-3 weeks out will look like. Something tells me I'll be doing closer to 2 hours of cardio. EEK!!

Happy St. Patty's Day Cheat Meal

I'm going to start posting my cheat meals to ensure I'm having a cheat meal and not a binge-fest. I was tickled pink that St. Patty's Day landed on Saturday -- the coveted cheat meal dinner. Woohoo!! I thoroughly enjoyed my husband's corned beef, cabbage and potatoes dinner. I made sure to grab fresh Irish Soda Bread, which I had with butter. A few glasses of wine and some Thin Mints, courtesy of the Girl Scouts, topped off the meal. We also had a fire in our outdoor fireplace in the evening (the weather was crazy-beautiful this weekend), which means one roasted marsh mellow was also on the dessert menu. ;)

Stay tuned for next week's update. I'll also try to get a new bikini shot *gulp* so you can tell me if it looks like I'm making any progress.

3 Steps to Pain-Free Weight Loss and Healthy Body Image

Today's post is brought to you by Laura Fenamore. What’s more painful than chronic physical pain?

The pain that lives inside of us, that’s what. Can you imagine being 100 pounds overweight and living with all of the shame that goes along with that? Imagine the inability to buy a dress or the fear that goes with flying on an airplane at that size. Now, can you imagine losing all that weight and still coming up short? Still feeling deep inside that you are not good enough? Never believing for more than a few moments at a time, that you are beautiful and valuable?

Body image is how we see ourselves from the inside out, and losing weight doesn’t necessarily change this view in any real way. Interestingly, there are very few of us who don’t have a distortion in our “internal mirror.” Like the reflections in a funhouse, our image is out of whack. Obese people often live in eternal (and deadly) denial, and many times, thin people harm themselves with starvation, drug use, compulsive exercise, and purging. And there’s no easy fix to any of this. There’s no exiting the funhouse with a few laughs.

The simple truth is that getting out of that funhouse of distorted images starts with what we eat, how we live, and how we feel. It requires that we end our unhealthy love affair with self-criticism and create the room for self-care and self-esteem. And learn it and learn it and learn it some more. And if we cannot get it, we ask for help with that.

We can’t love ourselves and chastise ourselves at the same time. Well we can, and you tell me, how does that work for you? It’s got to be the whole shebang if we’re really going to change. And why not? Change is all around us. The world keeps revolving and WE need to move with it. Human beings are remarkable. We can survive. We have survived the most harmful of things. So, in honor of National Nutrition Month, why not tackle some of that pain inside of us?

Step 1: Start your day by remembering that you are both powerful and precious. On your knees, ask the power around you to remind you to love yourself today. Let every negative comment or thought simply float away. If you want peace, you must give up the idea of conflict entirely and all the time. This is now your new goal.

Step 2: Take the time to do loving things. How do you build self-esteem? You perform estimable acts. Let that materialize as loving actions toward yourself. We’re talking about the basics here – rest, good company, healthy food and nutrition, and physical movement. Those are the basics. How long since your day revolved around those things? Too long, I bet.

Step 3: Love is a two-way street. So treat yourself to time with those who love you. Cultivate a sense of childlike joy and run, skip, jump, climb, and play with those you love. Don’t deny yourself ice cream and other treats you enjoyed as a child. Just consider putting them in a fun Yum Yum Dish, so that you know you won’t overindulge.

The simple truth is that YOU have the right to be honored and comforted, fulfilled and LOVED today – from the inside AND the outside.

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About the Author: Weight Release & Body Image Coach Laura Fenamore is on a mission to guide women around the world to love what they see in the mirror, one pinky at a time, so they can unlock the secrets to a healthy weight and start loving their lives as soon as possible. Laura is the author of the forthcoming book Weightless: 7 Tools to Love Your Body (and Lose Weight For Good) and a frequent contributor to local and national media – including First for Women, Ladies Home Journal, the Dr. Pat Show and blog contributor on Betty Confidential, Daily Love and Positively Positive. Laura believes that self-love and self-care is where the transformation begins. Learn more about her programs, invite her to speak or contribute to your program or conference at www.OnePinky.com.

5 Tips for Energetic Spring Cleaning

Today's guest post comes from Elaine Seiler. With spring only a few days way, let's make way for the energy of spring!

As spring comes to the winter climates, we humans seem to come alive with vitality. We are suddenly driven to plant flowers, tidy our yards, and clean, clean, clean. As you clean out your closets, pack up your woolens and bring your spring clothes out of their storage places, remember it is important to clear the energies from those spaces as well.

Every person who entered that closet, every physical item that was stored in the closet, has an energy that left a residue or shadow in that space. Spring cleaning from an energetic perspective means clearing those old energies as much as it means tidying, dusting, folding and sweeping.

How do you do that? Here are some ideas:

1. Burn an incense stick with sage or frankincense to clear and rebalance the old energies that were in the closets, in the nooks and crannies deposited there from the emotions you held in the past.
2. Put a quartz crystal or amethyst geode in the corners of your home or closets and infuse them with a sincere prayer that they hold a positive energy throughout the spring and summer.
3. Visualize a pyramid of clear bright white light coming down from the other dimensions and settling perfectly over the closet or over your entire house. Do this exercise in your mind’s eye, knowing and trusting that when the pyramid settles over the area of your focus that it will clear, balance, renew and refresh the energies within it. Then, in the weeks to come, whenever you think of it, refill the pyramid with clean, clear energy. Ask your Guides or angels or the Beings of Light to keep the energies clear and as harmonious as possible to best support your process.
4. You can also use your body to clear and clean the energies in the space on which you are working. Imagine your body is an energetic vacuum cleaner or giant filtration device. Open up to the energies of the other dimensions; allow them to flow down through your crown charka, or the crown of your head, and pass through your body like a pulsating screen. Allow those vibrations to pass through your body and out into the field around you. The energies coming from the other dimensions are too fast to be utilized on earth, but our bodies have the ability to step the energy down to a rate or pulsation that is useable by us here on earth. The energy passes through our bodies and out into the field, changing or transforming the field and clearing it just as if it were a filter or vacuum as mentioned above. You can raise the energies if they seem too slow and dense. You can dampen them down if they feel too fast and intense. You can anchor them if they feel too wild and erratic. You can tuck them if they are too stretched out. Just use your imagination to play with and adjust the energies and trust that what you imagine is actually able to unfold. You more powerful than you ever imagined.
5. For the energies around you to be clear, YOU must be clear. Therefore spring cleaning means clearing and cleaning, balancing and harmonizing the energy in and around you. You can:

• Use sage or frankincense or another incense to clear the energies around you just as you used it to clear your closets.
• Use a crystal to clear your personal field just as you did your closets.
• Use color to shift the energies in your immediate field. Visualize yourself bathed in whatever color you intuitively feel you need, to either clean the field or to balance it. You might then feel the need for a second color infusion to bring you the frequencies you need after the space has been cleared.
• Use sound to clear, balance and refresh the field on which you are working – the sound of the human voice in an “Om,” the sound of a Tibetan bell ringing pure and clear, the sound of a crystal bowl, humming with vibration.

Any or all of these tools will assist your clearing process. So as spring comes knocking at your door, don’t let it knock you over. Face the March winds and spring flowers knowing that you can cope with whatever comes your way physically and energetically. You are in charge of your reality.

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About the Author: Author and energetics expert Elaine Seiler (SAY Sigh-ler) is at the forefront of explaining humanity's "energetic evolution" and how we can cope and thrive in the face of rapid change. Elaine is a life and career coach, researcher, mother and grandmother. In 1992, after 20 years of work as a career consultant and life coach, she discovered energetics, the study and use of multi-dimensional energies and their interplay with life on earth. She is the author of Multi-Dimensional You: Exploring Energetic Evolution and Your Multi-Dimensional Workbook: Exercises for Energetic Awakening. Learn more at www.transformationenergetics.com and www.multi-dimensionalyou.com. Contact Elaine at Elaine@transformationenergetics.com.

Competition Prep Update: Day 13

Starting point (25%) & where I need to get to -- 15%

Without further ado, let me share my progress for this week. I gained two pounds of muscle and dropped 1% bodyfat. While it's hard to watch the scale go up, knowing how well I've been doing on my diet makes me realize it's a good thing. My clothes are definitely looser and I need to grab size 4s versus size 6s when I try on clothes. I'm not complaining at all!

I started my journey on Tuesday, February 28, which means today is luck day #13. So far so good. I've learned a lot things about my relationship with food (or should I say obsession with food?) Here are a few:

• Unconscious eating -- I never realized how often I would pick from my children's plates while cleaning up dinner. It's become so obvious since I'm very limited in what I can eat and at what time. No more picking a noodle hear or there.
• Eating out of boredom -- I actually have to really think about whether I'm hungry, bored or thirsty. More often than not, it's usually not actual hunger. The only time I do get hungry is when it's time to eat, so every 3-4 hours.
• Eating out of convenience -- After taking my daughter to a friend's birthday, I was offered pizza and birthday cake. In the past, I would have gladly scarfed a slice of pizza and cake without a second thought. Again, being incredibly meticulous and cautious of everything I put in my mouth, I had to make an effort to decline.
• I'm surrounded by "fat heads." -- A fat head is a person who pushes food on you, even after you'd said no at least once. Beware of fat heads!!! They're everywhere, and they want you enjoy food with them! I used to be a fat head. If I was enjoying something tasty or fattening, I always wanted company. You're not a bad person if you decline food.
• Eating right takes effort. -- It's definitely not torture to eat clean, but it takes a concerted, dedicated effort. If I wasn't training for a fitness competition, I'm not sure I could be this committed or focused.

I met with my trainer, Jodi, on Saturday (and will keep meeting with her weekly). She was very happy with my progress. I'm sticking with the same diet and workout for one more week, and then she'll start changing things up depending upon what my body does. Fingers crossed for dropping another percentage or more of bodyfat. Stay tuned...