Thursday Sucks!

There is nothing good about carb depleted, calorie starving, dragging my arse, cold as a witch's tit Thursday except the very last bit before bed ...

when I ...
★ put 45g of real life cornflakes in a bowl ready for 0500h consumption
★ put 65g of oats to soak in water ready for 0800h consumption
★ put a fiver in my gym bag so I can buy a WW apple cinnamon muffin on the way home from the gym in the morning ready for 1100h consumption
★ defrost no less than 4 slices of wholemeal bread and make 2 slices into a chicken, mayo and cheese sandwich ready for grilling and 1300h consumption (the other 2 ready to make into a burger for dinner)
★ put a protein bar in my bag ready for 1600h consumption
★ defrost a lentil burger and check on supplies for the evening meal - potato wedges, lettuce, mushrooms, beetroot, bbq sauce, sticky date pudding, skinny cow and a caramello koala

Then I toddle off to bed early feeling like it's Christmas Eve - "While visions of sugar carb fairies dance in my head ..."

Maybe This Is As Normal As I Am Going To Get

What is Healthy?

I would love to live what is considered a 'healthy' life and I admire and envy those who do. It is an outstanding achievement to be able to consistently eat clean food, have a fit strong body and to truly enjoy living that life.

If I was that person, I never would have spent 40 years of my life being obese and hardly moving from the sofa. For me, eating healthy food and being fit is a new experience.

It has never been my intention to be a perfect example of that kind of a healthy life. If you know me, you will know of my numerous vices. I binge on sugar and fried food, I walk out of spin classes, and I sometimes stay up late knowing I'm going to be crap in the gym the next morning.

The only reason I share my view of the world is in the hope that there are some of you who are going through the same struggles as me, and can find something in my experience that helps you or at least makes you feel that you are not alone.

If you love chocolate and pizza and love seeing your abs, then maybe something I am doing will help you find a way to have both. If you don't have a Mad Monkey or Inner Gollum and you don't understand the orgasmic pleasure of eating cheesecake then you are probably going to find me a little disappointing.

The one thing I am certain of is that I am happy and I love my life. Maybe that is all I need to be healthy after all?

Why Compete (Again)?

or I'm So Freakin' Excited Today I Can't Keep My Secret Any Longer

Last year when I competed in my first figure competition, I was completely and utterly focused on that moment when I would stand on stage in the best shape of my life. I was willing to endure the constant exhaustion, overwhelming hunger and crying fits that I had seen other competitors go through. After all, I was tough.

What I didn’t fully understand was that along with the pre-contest pain came the post-contest depression that saw me spiralling into binge eating, gaining back all the weight I had lost and months of feeling like a failure when I couldn’t get my nutrition and training back under control.

The whole experience left me dazed and confused about who I was and what I really wanted.

It would be crazy to put myself through the same thing all over again.

But here I am once again planning on standing on stage in front of hundreds of people with nothing more than ½ metre of fabric and some high heels between me and nakedness.

My secret is that I will be doing this in 2 ½ weeks time at the INBA Brisbane Titles after all.

The reason that I have decided to do this now rather than waiting until I hit some arbitrary scale number is because my perception of competing has completely changed. In fact, there is not much competing involved at all.

When I walk out on stage on May 17 it will not be a competition with myself or anyone else, it will be a public celebration of all the things that have now become a part of my new life.

I will be celebrating the fact that I have been in the best shape of my life – physically, emotionally and mentally – for over a month and that this is just the first month of many more to follow.

I will celebrate the love, support and tuition shared with me by my friends in the bodybuilding world – Shelley S, Nicole P, Fern P, Kerryn W, Jo R, Lindy O and Liz N – that has equipped me with the confidence to ‘be’ who I always wanted to be.

I will celebrate all the decisions I have made and the risks I have taken in the last 6 months that have served me well, as well as the mistakes that have taught me what not to do. I will feel proud that I have formulated a sustainable life plan on my own (with a little help from my friends) by paying attention to what is right for me.

I will show to the world (or as many of them that fit into the auditorium) that I am beautiful, confident and proud. I will be one of the few whose joy, sparkle and enthusiasm have not been drained by weeks of deprivation and over training. I don’t even care much about the post comp dinner because I can’t think of any food I have missed out on.

Competition day is not the end of strict dieting and intense training (because I didn't do any of that to start with!). It is not the achievement of my primary goal, or the pinnacle of my year.

Competition day is merely an opportunity to celebrate with all my friends my renewed love for a healthy life in a lean hot body. It is as significant as a wedding day which marks the formal beginning of a bright, exciting, limitless future as a Figure Athlete that will sometimes challenge me but always delight me.

Now that is what makes all the hard work (past, present and future) absolutely worthwhile.

So Friggin' Cold

Recorded another LWE this morning at 57.2kg/13.1%. I am hoping to see the 56's this week. If I do, I will let you in on a little secret. Shhhhhhh ...

Slept In

Somehow I managed to turn off my alarm and sleep in until 6-30am. FUCK!!!!! As I have a 9-00am meeting this morning I couldn't go to the gym so I did my depletion workout at home followed by skipping intervals - 100 skips and 30 secs rest.

I felt like I could have worked harder and longer but had to stop to get ready for work. Very annoying! Maybe I'll do some more cardio tonight ...

What Will You Be Doing 3 Weeks From Today?

Had a lazy day today as I am very tired. Losing fat is exhausting!

I didn't go outside for a walk today because it was cold and windy. Went into town with Mr Katie instead and have spent the afternoon cooking chicken thighs and pork mince for next week. Had yummy prawns and pasta for dinner. After dinner I put in a measly 48 minutes on the treadmill before I got tired of it and stopped. I suppose something is better than nothing.

I Deadlifted My Bodyweight

Today I was cursing the public holiday gods who had decreed that the gym should not open until 1pm. I sat around all morning just waiting to train.

In that time I ingested 2 meals that delivered 78g carbs. I think the public holiday gods did me a favour because having the extra fuel in my system meant I smashed it in the gym hitting a personal best of 60kg on my deadlifts for 6 reps and 3 sets.

<- this is my new superhero 'Inertia' who has my dream body without unfeasibly large titties.

In other news, my husband has the shits with me because I choose not to eat out at the moment. He has gone to the pub on his own to sulk in his chicken parmigiana. Oh well ...

UD 2.0 Week One Results

This week I have doubled my average weight loss from -0.3kg to -0.6kg as well as losing 0.6% body fat. A fantastic result!

Today is re-fuel day. The last four days have been hard, but not that hard. I felt really quite good yesterday. I am not sure if it was having a rest or just getting beyond the pain threshold.

It is so nice to have three whole days ahead of me with more relaxed eating. It certainly stops the binge mentality creeping in which it does when you only have one day off before you are back on restricted calories. This new plan means I can eat tons today, a decent amount tomorrow and a little less on Sunday when I can sleep in and all I'm required to do is walk in the afternoon.

Loving it.

You Know You are Lean When ...

- your belt is done up on the final hole
- all of your trousers are baggy in the bum
- you have to take your bra off as soon as you get home because the wire digs in to your rib cage
- your shoes are too big
- your undies fall off
- you can take your favourite jeans off without undoing them
- you have a hole between your breasts
- you have a corrugated décolletage
- your rings fall off
- people who haven’t seen you for two weeks start their first sentence with “Oh My God …”
- your Polar chest strap needs tightening every couple of days
- your afternoon weight is sometimes less than first thing that morning
- you can see your abs without flexing
- you keep finding veins in new places
- you can’t clip your Blackberry on your belt because it digs into your hip bone
- your fitted T-shirts aren’t fitted any more
- there is an indentation the length of your backbone
- the skin inside your elbows is wrinkly
- your 6mm navel ring is too big
- gourmet cat food smells appetising
- when you sit down your stomach curves in instead of out
- your butt cheeks don’t meet
- you can’t stop posing in the mirror

Yipee!!

Taste the Power

Life Happens
by Olesya Novik

We're the new breed of women for a reason. Able to overcome it all on our quest for the self-satisfaction that comes with feeling great about our appearance and the healthy lifestyle we lead.

It's not merely stepping on stage and looking good in those bright lights. We transcend being judged by a few men whose opinions on what's attractive are dictated by nothing more than the political nature of various physique organizations.

To us, it's about taking the body to its most remarkable condition — a muscular, lean, sexy yet strong, incredibly curvaceous shape that we can maintain for as long as we live through healthy lifestyles and making intelligent dietary, training, and supplementation choices.

I Own My Body

Some wealthy head of a physique committee may have the power to dictate what's "appealing" by his standards through his judges' biased choices for Figure competition winners. A Figure Athlete, on the other hand, will never allow any one person's ideas or opinions to influence her control of her very own physique.

How absurd! I own my body. How about you? Your body's yours and yours alone to shape, mold, create, and live in. It's the only one you'll ever get, and no one but you has the power to decide how far you want to go in its development. You get to decide whether you want to lead a healthy, fit life where you're ready for a photo shoot within a few days' notice, or whether you'd prefer to have the kind of physique that's nothing but mediocre all year round and possibly pleasing to those few judges on the day of your occasional show.

To us, it's about so much more than competing on stage. It's about competing with ourselves, making the best of our circumstances, dedicating our lives to the iron, and then applying that commitment to our lives.

Think about it: How has the iron changed your life? If you can't answer that, then you owe it to yourself to take a good, hard look at your training program. Surviving four gruesome sets of twenty-rep squats is bound to shape more than just your ass; it'll strengthen your spirit, too. Think back to all those times when you wearily gazed at a loaded bar, the times when it almost had you convinced that you just don't have it in you to lift it, yet everything inside of you screamed otherwise. Then, as the weight shifted, those demons disappeared — and so did your weaknesses. You did it because you knew that you had the power to get your body to do anything you asked of it.

Taste The Power

There's no stopping someone who's tasted that power. Once you've experienced the privilege of shaping your body, your mind, your spirit, your life, there's no going back.That is what being a Figure Athlete is about. The control we have over every single aspect of our lives.

I'm taking every ounce of that power back.

Are you?

The Simple Ecstasy of Breathing

Better Bad Food

I am a figure athlete, only weeks away from competing, and I am very happy to still be eating 'bad' food.

I firmly believe that a calorie is just a calorie, and I can only achieve an ongoing calorie deficit if I eat food that I like.

So nearly every day I eat sugar free maple syrup, a low carb protein bar, low fat cheddar cheese, sugar free chocolate, fat reduced peanut butter, protein powder and sugar free ice-cream. I still sweeten my green tea with artificial sweetener and drink diet coke.

I can stand being hungry if I have delicious food to look forward to. No chicken and green veggies meal after meal for me.

When it come around to re-feed day, I don't crave sweets, cheese or chocolate, I have the carbs that I miss - oats, turkish bread, oven fries, pasta and WW sticky date pudding. Oh no, now I'm hungry again!

I have been on a 'diet' for 5 months and I am not sick of it yet. I love that the scales creep slowly down and my bones and muscles peek through a little more each and every day. I will not be feeling guilty for not eating mountains of broccoli any time soon.

Seriously Brutal

I have just finished my second depletion session and have officially joined the "Lyle McDonald is a pr*ck!" club. I don't think I have ever worked so hard in my life. I don't mind using my strength to push heavy weights, but enduring set after set of lactic acid burn is frankly fucked!

Fortunately, although I contemplated stopping several times, I was determined not to let it beat me. When I had finally finished, I thought I might do a bit of easy cardio on the cross trainer. I lasted less than 2 minutes and decided I needed to go get some food.

I actually had to buy a "V" in order to make the walk home. I kid you not - day #2 depletion is not for the fainthearted.

On a happy note, I recorded another LWE this morning at 57.9 kg with 13.4% BF. I still have 3 full fat loss days before refeed so I am extremely hopeful that I will lose some more fat this week. Looking leaner each day makes the pain all worthwhile.

Here's my bestest friend in the whole world ~ Miss Shelley xxxx

And So It Begins

This morning's depletion workout was challenging but not brutal. I suspect that I was a bit light on with the weights. I used the weights that I started NROL4W at (15 rep sets) but I seem to have outgrown them! Tomorrow I will up the ante.

It took nearly an hour to do all the lifting and I had burned 611 calories before I even got to the treadmill.

Protein pancakes and peanut butter rock!!

What Will You Be Doing 4 Weeks from Today?

Get an arse pumpin'
To stop your grumpin' ~ Mr KatieP

Loving the Pushup Action

I had a great carb up yesterday concentrating my carb load pre- and post- training and then for the last meal of the day. I had cereal and oats in the morning and then a vege burger on turkish bread with oven fries for dinner followed by a apricot danish and ice cream.

Kept my calories and carbs lower than recommended because I am still thinking I need to compensate for the blow out earlier in the week.

Strangely though, I don't feel full of energy and enthusiasm like I usually do after a massive feed. Training was OK this morning, but I wasn't able to smash myself as much as I expected to.

It is wonderful to have Shelley staying and we have had a wonderful day. Training, eating, gossiping and then off to the Fitness Expo at Darling Harbour where we got show bags and caught up with Kerryn. I got some new training gear and some new 'little helpers' to try.

On the way home tonight I realised it is getting cold in Sydney now - I am not liking it at all when I have no meat on my bones!

The Curious Effects of a Binge

I am beginning to suspect that my body is at the point where it really needs a decent re-feed once a week. After eating over 4,000 calories of good and crappy food on Sunday, I have still leaned up over the past 4 days. The abundance of food on the weekend made dieting this week so much easier and I have even lost some weight [another lowest weight ever].

So I am going to shake things up and change my calories/carbs and training around to a 7 day schedule. The calories work out the same ~ 1400/2000 3:1 days [#1550 average] but I am doing 4 very low days, 1 high day and 2 moderate. The training is tailored to my energy levels because I am finding it very hard to keep up with NROL4W with no fuel in the tank [which is exactly what the book says]. My updated strategy is based on Lyle McDonald's Ultimate Diet 2.0.

Mon-Tue
1300 calories ~ 65g carbs ~ depletion training (high reps/light weight)

Wed-Thu
1300 calories ~ 65g carbs ~ low intensity cardio (or optional rest on one day)

Fri
2600 calories ~ 400g carbs ~ tension training (moderate reps/weight)

Sat
1600 calories ~ 150g carbs ~ power training (low reps/heavy weight)

Sun
1450 calories ~ 100g carbs ~ rest + optional low intensity cardio in the afternoon

Remember How Far You've Come

Today I did 40 pushups with my feet elevated on a step at 4 high. I squatted in the squat rack with 40 kgs on my back. I did step ups with a 20 kg barbell. Then I ran continuously for 30 minutes on the treadmill.

I have been training for over 4 years without taking more than 3 days off in a row. I am fit and in the best shape of my life.

Sometimes we concentrate so much on where we are going we forget to remember how far we've come. Turn around once in a while and gaze back at the place where you started, way off in the distance at the bottom of that valley. Look around and enjoy the view from this mountain peak. I know there are more mountains ahead, but it is time to take a deep breath and appreciate how much we have already achieved.

Exit Strategy

As competitions loom closer and figure girls are dropping from the tedium of counting calories and hours spent on the treadmill, now is a good time to think about your exit strategy.

You are now on the home run with everything planned from your suit to your tanning and carb loading schedule. You have probably already chosen the restaurant and booked a table for your post comp re-feed.

But what are you going to do the very next day? What is your plan for the week after your competition, and then the week after that?

Training
When?
(a) Monday morning
(b) Wednesday
(c) Next Monday
(d) F*ck that, I'm never going back to that smelly gym

Weights?
(a) Heavy weights, low reps, one body part per day - I wanna get f*ckn huge
(b) Same program, I'm just going keep going
(c) Something completely different - maybe BW full body circuits for a change
(d) The only weight I'll be experiencing is waiting for the pizza to be delivered

Cardio?
(a) More HIIT, less steady state
(b) More steady state and a few RPM classes
(c) Half as much as I was doing before (because I was doing it 2x a day)
(d) Cardio sucks - I'll run for the bus but that's about it!

Nutrition
(a) Same calorie range but with a cheat meal
(b) Slowly increase calories and/or carbs
(c) No logging - I'll just eat when I am hungry and stop when I'm full ...
(d) Mmmm donuts

Accountability
(a) I am staying with my trainer and will follow her program for the next 4 weeks
(b) I will weigh myself daily and publish my numbers on my blog
(c) I will make sure I can still fit into the jeans I wore at my new 'happy' weight
(d) I'll keep publishing my competition photos week after week while avoiding the scales and the camera until I decide to compete again

Goals
(a) I am running a marathon in 3 months
(b) I am booked in for a photo shoot 6 weeks after comp when I will look athletic and healthy which is different to competition lean
(c) I have a wedding to go to and I want to stay looking hot
(d) I am going to decide what to do next after I've had some carbs to fuel my brain function

Guidelines
(a) It is acceptable to try and maintain my 'best body ever' for as long as I can but I will most likely slowly gain some weight
(b) I will not gain more than 1/2 kilo a week. If I do, I will maintain at this weight until I am back on track. I know what my 'happy' weight is and I will take my time getting back there.
(c) I will set a 'screaming' weight which will not be exceeded
(d) No rules for me, I'll just eat clean with the odd treat, and train when I feel like it...

My exit strategy is going to be a reverse 12 week challenge. I am going to do before and after photos - before being comp day, and after being at a lean weight I can maintain. My diet and training will basically stay the same except with maybe a little less time in the gym and a few more calories on my 'low' days. Food will be logged, training will be Polar-ed, and daily scale weighing will resume.

What are you going to do when it's all over??

Bit of Both to Keep Me Going

The measure of wisdom is to learn something from your mistakes. I am learning that I don't handle carbs very well at all [even though I LOVE them]. In future, I will make sure that my carb intake is always accompanied by protein and fat - no carb only snacks on re-feed day [apricot danish and ice cream! or even cereal and milk]. Alternatively, I will have my carbs either pre- and post-training or last thing before bed.

I think I have come to this conclusion before. I should listen to myself!

Highs and Lows

Yesterday I started the day on a high. A new lowest weight ever and the achievement of my major milestone for 2009. By the end of yesterday I felt like I had ruined it all.

My eating was out of control. I didn't have enough self discipline to stop shovelling crap into my mouth from lunch time until I went to bed.

This morning I have a carb hangover, a bloated belly and I am seconds away from bursting into tears. I totally fucked up.

Hopefully, this doesn't put me back too far. I have just run for a punishing 90 mins on the treadmill to try to undo some of the damage.

I just wish I could stop doing this to myself.

A Milestone

I nearly forget - today is the first day of 2009 where I have achieved my goal.

I am at my happy weight and here (or less) is where I will stay.

Hiding from the Bunny

another LWE with a huge BF% drop in the last 4 days

Gotta Live or Get It Done?

Losing fat is not a pleasant experience. When your body is in deficit it fights hard to get the fuel it wants. You are starving and your energy goes in the toilet.

The question today is: Is it better to just put your head down and get it over with as quickly as possible or should you make it as painless as you can and take it slowly and sanely?

The problem with just Getting it Done is that the pain and madness are sometimes overwhelming. It requires great strength, courage and will power to survive day upon day of low calorie eating and high intensity training. You need to put most of your normal life on hold. But the results are significant and immediate. You can achieve large losses on the scales every week.

The problem with the Gotta Live approach is that a small caloric deficit mean that fat loss is painfully slow. Your results are masked by hormonal and water fluctuations so sometimes you feel you aren't getting anywhere at all. It requires faith, persistence and patience. But there is bearable pain and minimal madness along the way. Your life can continue while the fat slowly melts away.

I think Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is the perfect program for me because it combines the two approaches. For three days I am Getting it Done - eating 1400 calories and keeping my carbs under 100g a day. I am continuously hungry the whole time and slightly bonkers. By the fourth day I can't take it much longer and I have just Gotta Live. I eat 'on plan' for most of the fourth day but I have either more food or a re-feed meal and dessert. My calories and carbs are high and my deficit is small [if at all?]. But the hunger and the madness stops just long enough for me to regroup, re-energise and refocus on the next three days of fat loss mode.

I have been on this program for 15 weeks which is the longest I have stuck to anything. In that time I have lost over 5 kilos when I wasn't overweight to start with. I realise that this is only 300g a week, but in my world, 300g consistently is a huge success.

I have the strength, courage and will power to survive being in a deficit 75% of the time, and I have the faith, persistence and patience to keep going when the scales don't move or even go up. I have been losing fat while still enjoying meals out with my husband and friends. I have had Christmas dinner and because today is a re-feed, I could even have Easter eggs if I wanted [but I am not that fussed as I eat chocolate all the time and I'd rather have cheesecake].

Most importantly, I appear to have finally got control over my bingeing.

Would you rather just Get It Done or do you Gotta Live?

Good Bad or Ugly

Here is my new 'do'.

I am glad that I don't have kids because there is no Easter egg or hot cross bun temptation in the house.

I hope you are all having a wonderful long weekend.

LWE and WWD

It has been interesting making the decision not to stand on the scales multiple times a day. It has made me focus on eating well and training hard without any feedback from the scales.

I have noticed that no matter what the scales say, they mess with my already messed up head.

(1) LWE - Lowest Weight Ever
When I see a Lowest Weight Ever number I often move into binge/sabotage territory. I feel either frightened that I am losing lean body mass or I feel that I am doing so well that I can afford a few extra calories, carbs or junky treats. As mentioned before, I have negative motivation - I am motivated NOT to be fat so when I see concrete evidence that I am actually not fat anymore, I lose my drive and determination.

(2) WWD - Wrong Way Dickhead
When I gain weight on the scales for no particular reason, it completely depresses me for the whole day. I question my diet plan, my calorie range, my training strategy and my mental toughness. I am reminded that whatever I am doing isn't 'working' so I spin out of control futilely looking for an alternative plan that will deliver constant linear weight loss. I see cellulite on my arse and fat rolls inside my legs. I am often overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness.

So it would seem that I am f*cked no matter what number comes up on the scales every morning, afternoon and before bed. It is a relief to be free of the burden for a while.

But I am starting to get freaked out by what I see in the mirror ...

Eating Consciously

It has been said that people on a diet spend their whole day thinking about food except for the time when they are actually eating and then they think about something else.

I know that I am guilty of shovelling my food in as fast as possible to try and stop feeling hungry. I am usually sitting in front of the computer (at home or at work) or in front of the TV when I eat.

I am working on improving this by slowing down. I ate my oats this morning with a teaspoon and waited until my mouth was completely empty before I took another mouthful. I didn’t do anything else but eat.

I have just finished my morning protein bar [My name is Katie and I am a protein bar addict …] and I ate it slowly and consciously. I didn’t keep working while I was eating [although I got a bit bored and started reading the wrapper at one point], and as I ate I tuned in to totally experiencing the taste and sensation of the delicious food. I also took the opportunity to tell my sub conscious “see, I am in charge here … I am giving you nourishment … there will always be enough food … there is no famine … I am not going to starve you … “

Why don’t you play along at home?

* Sit down at the table to eat without a book, laptop or TV to distract you.
* Put down your knife and fork between each bite.
* Chew each mouthful 20 times.
* Close your eyes and focus intently on the taste and texture of your food.
* Feel it filling your stomach and sending energy to your muscles and organs.
* See how long you can drag out one single meal.
* Remind yourself that you won’t ever starve because you eat more than enough healthy nourishing food every few hours [keep saying it even if you don't feel like it is 'enough'].
* Recognise the diminishing feeling of hunger and the increasing feeling of fullness.
* Finish eating before you are completely full and leave something on your plate [note: does not apply to people already on rations :)] to remind yourself that you are the one in charge.

Let me know if it makes a difference to the enjoyment and satiety of eating.

Got the Chop

Last night I got all my hair chopped off really short and went very blond. I will post a photo when I am not covered in sweat!

I bought some Dymatize Elite Cream Butter Toffee as suggested by Charlotte. It is absolutely delicious with oats. YUM!

A Holi-Holiday

Last week I took a week off strict dieting. I increased my calories and ended the week with a HUGE re-feed. It involved burgers, chips, cheesecake, pizza, ice cream and licorice. Probably as a result of my body going out of starvation mode, my digestive issues have improved, I have energy and my period arrived early yesterday.

Behold the results - 1.3 kg lost in the last 4 days.

Breast Man or Leg Man?

Chicken breast meat is highly overrated. It is usually expensive, stringy, dry and has little taste. We eat it because someone said we should always eat lean meat.

Chicken thigh meat is delicious. It is cheap, moist, tasty and satisfying. If you grill it you can drain off some of the fat and reduce the calories. As far as I am concerned, I would rather eat a smaller amount of thigh meat for more taste and satiation than a larger amount of breast meat.

How about you? Are you a breast (wo)man or a leg (wo)man?

Fear and Love

"The Actual Truth is that there is no such thing as fear. In fact, there is no such thing as any emotion, other than one. All the other expressions are re-packagings. There is only one emotion, one energy, in the universe: the energy, the emotion, that we call Love. When you know this, everything changes.

Now I know all this may sound a bit "airey-fairy" or "new agey" to you, but when you know why there is nothing but Love, everything will become clear and your life will feel ... can I use this word?... healed. Remember, experience is produced by emotion, so understanding that everything is a demonstration of the emotion called Love can alter your entire experience of life.

But how can change be a demonstration of Love? Didn't we just say, haven't we been saying for quite a while now, that fear is the emotion most people feel surrounding change—even change for the better? Am I seriously suggesting now that fear does not exist?

Yes, I am. That's exactly what I'm saying. Because (and here comes a wonderful revelation) ... fear is a demonstration of Love.

If you did not love yourself, you would not fear for yourself, you would not be afraid of anything, because you would not care what happened to you. You would not even care if you survived. The "survival instinct" is nature's way of expressing love.

If you did not love another, you would not fear for another, or be afraid of what might happen to that other, because you would not care what happened.

Simple, isn't it? And so we see with impeccable logic that Fear and Love are the same thing, expressed differently. Likewise, every other emotion is love in another form. There is only one emotion. That emotion is Love, expressed in a thousand different ways."

Neale Donald Walsch

Weigh In Wednesday

I had the most brilliant weekend full of fun, laughter, sweat, relaxation and good food. I am ready to smash it this week.

It has been pointed out to me that I might be letting the scales undermine my very real progress so in the interest of taking a risk to see what happens, I will not stand on the scales until the morning before my re-feed every fourth day. No more headf*ck numbers or percentages several times a day, just once every carb cycle.

I picked up my competition bikini that Jo made me and it is another masterpiece [thank you Jo, you are a genius]. It is a million times more beautiful than even I imagined it would be. I absolutely love it and I am determined to wear it looking in the best shape of my life.

When you visualize a great dream of yours coming true, what do you imagine?

Do you see yourself jumping up and down, doing the happy dance, looking to the sky, and shrieking, "THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!"? Can you feel the skin on your face stretch as you smile from ear to ear, or the palm of your hands sting as you slap more high-fives? Can you feel the phone in your hand as you dial your best friends?

Happy tears running down your face, tasting their salty bouquet when they reach your lips?

Yeah, I think you should.

Life is Too Short to be Miserable

★ sub 60kg | BF less than or equal to previous day | deficit +600

I am off to Brisbane for the weekend today to spend some time with Shelley. See you on Monday if not before. x

A Line in the Sand

I am effortlessly maintaining my weight sub 60kg
My body fat is the same or less than yesterday
Yesterday's calorie deficit is >600 calories
My body fat is between 7 and 8 kg
I have passion for life and enough energy to train 6 days a week
I treat food with restraint and my body with respect

Ask anyone who has lost a significant amount and they will tell you the exact date that their life changed. For me it was 1 January 2005. My life will be divided into two halves - the 'before' when I was obese, unhealthy, unfit and miserable, and the 'after' when I was devoted every day to becoming lean, healthy, fit and miserable happy.

The interesting part is that this date is not the date that I achieved some magical pre-determined number on the scales, nor is it the date when I stood on stage in my first figure competition. It is the day that I committed to clean up my diet and started lifting weights.

I didn't have a gym membership, or a set of scales. I didn't weight my food or log my calories. I didn't follow a prescribed diet. I just set out to make better eating choices and worked out for 10 minutes a day. Nothing earth shattering, just baby steps.

Why not make today your line in the sand. You don't have to do anything or be anything other than you are right now. All you have to do is to decide to make changes from this day forward. Why not make everything you've done before this moment the first half of your life, the 'old' you and from now on devote yourself to becoming the best you can be.

All the Important Things Covered

I am effortlessly maintaining my weight sub 60kg
My body fat is the same or less than yesterday
Yesterday's calorie deficit is >600 calories
My body fat is between 7 and 8 kg
I have passion for life and enough energy to train 6 days a week
I treat food with restraint and my body with respect

You will notice that my spreadsheet has changed a little. As I have no way of actually knowing what my calorie burn [TDEE - total daily energy expenditure] is for the day, I am now tracking my deficit. In Calorie King, I have put my calorie target at 1400 (which I am guessing is my BMR) and then adding exercise and taking off food (energy out/energy in).

This means (a) I adjust my eating for training days vs non-training days (b) I can track the results of a greater/lesser deficit.

My goal at this moment is to eat more and burn more to up-regulate my metabolism.

I didn't have a re-feed yesterday because I didn't feel I needed it. With more calories (and therefore more carbs) I am not getting as drained so quickly. I may just move to a maintenance calorie day once a week depending on how I am feeling. I am going to Brisbane this weekend so I am saving up for some delicious food indulgence with Shelley.