Ok this is a blog written in panic. Just been to the Naturopath.. At lunch I really fancied a milkshake. I have not had one in about 3 years. So the whole dont have dairy thing blew me up like a balloon. So Naturopath puts me on the scales.. I am now officially my heaviest weight EVER! I feel very frustrated. She really doesnt understand the whole BB thing so is always telling me to eat less protein. And also says I have enough muscle. I think I dont. I know i am holding a very large amount of muscle but still disheartened by the number on the scale.
New game of attack.. I will now watch my portion sizes.
Breakfast - 3/4 cup oats with berries, flax and 1/2 banana, protein shake
Morning tea - Leafy salad (quantity?), 50g sweet potato, 50g chick peas and 90g tuna
Lunch - 3/4 cup rice, 120 g chicken, 1 cup veg
Afternoon tea - Protein Shake, 12 Almonds
PW shake
Dinner - 150g protein, 2 cup veg

Comments?? Anything Im missing or are my amounts off? I guess I want to drop some weight - not in a hurry and want to do it slowly.
I guess I am alittle unsure of how much I should be eating.. Is that strange - after years of measuring out amounts I have no idea what amount to eat.
Also there will be walks in 4 x 1 hour walks each week.

Thoughts?

Well past the halfway mark this week. Not that im wish away my life. But cant wait to have some down time. Ive had a very busy week with work Mondayand Nana's 71st Birthday Tues. My parents are knocking down their house to rebuild so are going through all the old 'stuff' you accumulate over the years. I was dragged into help last night which turned out to be alot of fun. We went throught all my old dancing costumes.. Really should not have tried to squeeze into my old tutu. Didnt look good when I was 12 - and sure as heck doesnt look good at 25 let me tell you! LOL.

Weight training has been good all week and did some great increases in my tri strength yesterday. Tonight im hitting back with my new fancy straps.. Should be interesting - im a little unco when it comes to the little things and think straps will be one of them. AND im going to do 30 min walk after weights.. I have done no 'cardio' all week and think a few sessions of walking wont kill me nor prevent serious muscle growth.

Saving legs for Coach Cayli on Saturday morning. Im going to definately regret that! Haha.. nah love training legs. might be my fav muscle group. He said something rediculous about taking pictures this week. It is going to be my 'before' picture.. Not sure i like that. I dont like to think of myself in 'before' condition.

Thanks for all the info on Organic foods. I will be at the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers Market on Sunday morning. A little concerned about the lovely homemade icecream I have heard about.. walk away from the icecream Cheryl!

Have another appointment with my Natropath today. i have been on a gluten free and lactose free diet for a few weeks now (with a few slips) to see what is causing all my bloating. I conducted an experiment yesterday (by accident) and had cheese on my gluten free wrap. My last night my stomach looked about 4 months pregnant. Enough for my Mum to say 'Please tell me your blowing your stomach out'. But woke up today with flatness back (well not flat.. but flatter :)) Im thinking it might be a dairy problem.

Well im off to meet my buddy Janelle and her beautiful baby girl - who im going to have words with for not letting her mother sleep!

And remember..

"You haven't been given life to test the waters. You're here to make waves"

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.

Love the people who treat you right.

Forget about the ones who don't.

Believe everything happens for a reason.

If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands.

If it changes your life, let it.

Nobody said life would be easy.

They just promised it would be worth it.

What a great weekend! Freezing but great. Yesterday was the Figure girls brunch. For those that dont know about it, every month a few of us get together and chat about how we are all going with Food, training, significant others and anything else that comes to mind. Not even sure how it started now but I can tell you these ladies (Tania, Kerry and Magda - are the regulars) are a god sent. They pick you up when your struggling and kick you up the butt when your being lazy LOL.
After brunch headed to our WNBF posing practice. Hayzer (the president - but who i call Coach Cayli) puts on practice each week which is so great for the sport because so many dont know how to pose. I think it is also great to meet up with the other girls who are competing - it builds some comradery(sp?) amoungst us. It was great to see you Jaimee-Lee and congrats again :). I got up and did a few rounds of posing but soon sat down. I guess I felt upset with myself because I am no longer competing. The sentimental part of my brain thinks I should have just kept going and i would be 4 weeks out from comp and the logical side knows that I made the right decision on sitting this year out.
I do love watching the girls go throught their poses. It is great to see the changes in them all each week even if they cant themselves see it. Cant wait to see the show even more so because I have seen the progression. I will be screaming my lunges out at both the WNBF Mildura show and the Adelaide show.
On a completely different topic I have decided that I would like to start introducing Organic food into my diet. Heading to the Central Market this week to pick up some fruit, veg and chooks. Yumm! And you will be all pleased to know that the only tiny blip in the food this weekend was the Birchem musli and Coconut and Apricot toast at brunch.. And I am A OK with that cause I loved every bite!
XX Cheryl

Oh blissful Saturday - how I love Saturday. Saturday is the day I am greatful that I have noone that takes up my much loved relaxation time.
Worked till midnight last night and thought I might actually cry I was so tired. In future maybe avoid doing legs the same day as I need to walk around for 6 hours. Anyway finished work and fell into bed. Had to get a good night sleep today for my session with the H man.
We trained back and abs. he was very impressed with my form which is good to know after having trained without a trainer for a while now. The session went greast until the last exercise he asked me to do was crunches.. Ok now confession time. .. I cant do crunches - never have. There is a sticking point that I cant get past. I can do the lower part or the upper part but cant get from the bottom to near the top.. Does that make sense. Anyway - it was very amusing that BodyBuilder Cheryl who is meant to be strong cant do crunches.

So now training is done and I have no plans till 6 tonight when I have to work again.. Dont even need to clean cause it all done. I feel a sex in the city marathon coming on. I hope everyone has a great weekend with the perfect balance of rest, hard work, sleep and laughes.
XX

Big thanks to everyone who has left comments. This is very exciting for me.

Just posting to let mark day 1 of eating clean and healthy for serious muscle gain. No more junk - i dont really like it and the idea of what it is doing to my body kind of grosses me out. So went for a lovely 1 hour and 5min walk with Miss TC and had a great chat along the way. Fridays tend to be slack on the training front because I work my day job till 5 then go straight to my second job and work until 12. This is when I tend to drive past a take away shop or that darn Villis cafe which is open 24 hours.. I might put my photo in there and tell staff not to serve me :)
So today I stopped making excuses and went to the gym in my lunch break. Got my leg session done which means I am back upto date with training. Ok so Ive put together a new program and I had to have some serious talks with myself to get through it. Possible too many sets for a few of the exercises. I have started doing 4sets of everything. Here is what I managed..

• Deadlift @ 30(I think I need to have someone watch me do this.. Not sure if im using my back too much or maybe my lower back is just weaker then my legs so i feel it more??)


• BB Squat @ 35 (had to drop the weight on the last set)


• DB Single leg lunge @ 7.5 (only made 3 sets)


• Leg ext @ 30


• Stiff leg Deadlift @ 27.5 (Pretty bad effort but I was stuffed and forgot my straps)


• Lying leg curl @ 20 (Did I mention I was stuffed)


• Back Ext (3 sets)


• Abductors and Annducters (I always made fun of girls that do this exercise until I saw Viv, a women I greatly admire do them) - felt a little silly.

Any comments of my session are more then welcomed.

Now im back at work and just want to curl up and sleep and I have a very long night ahead of me.

So as per Blogging rules - honesty is required.. so... Last night I was invited to the Australian Hotel Awards night and I misbehaved. Im not one to drink - I easily dont drink through 6 months of comp prep without a second thought. Not only for health reasons but also after years of working in bars, I am slightly sicked by drunk behaviour. That being said I thought this would be the perfect night to have a few champagnes. Note now my tolerance for the odd drink is very low and the drinks knocked me for six. I would like to take this time to say thankyou to my wonderful roomie for picking me up, making me a sandwich and stopping me from drowning in my cup of tea. But I loved getting all dressed up (I looked great even if I didnt by the end of the night). Will post pictures this weekend.

Waking up today (late) I realised how much of an effect wine has on a body. I feel terrible and hungry. And the will power to stick to clean eating flew out the window. Safe to say I will be giving the gym a miss tonight. The idea of training legs and being under a heavy bar doing squats just does not seem like a safe idea. So tonight I will restock my house full of nutritional food, do some much needed cleaning (maybe) and prepare for a better day tomorrow. Starting with a nice hour brisk walk with T. T is my old (not in age) training parter.

Also training with H on Saturday so should hurt me good. This weeks training though is taking me ages to recover from. My chest and bis still ache from Monday nights session. Not sure what thats about but possible need to do more (some) stretching.

Stepping out from Lurking

Hi all.. so finally decided (thanks for the friendly push) to start blogging for the reason to be accountable and give me time to reflect on it all..

So background.. im 25 and live in my lovely apartment with my roomie. I work full-time in Finance, part-time in a hotel and study part-time to finish my degree in Finance. I have a dancing background but was always chubby which ballooned out of control when I lived overseas for 3 years. I became miserable both physically and emotionally. In Canada I started training with a PT and fell in love with the way I felt and my new muscles. On returning to Adelaide I set my eye on competing in Novice Figure show INBA last year.

I loved the experience of competing and being on stage (natural show pony) and got straight into comp prep for this year.. which is where I fell down. I have had to not compete this year due to bad binging due to having a overly restrictive diet. The decision was made that if I want to compete I need to do it in a sustainable, healthy and balanced way.

So my aim this year is to develope a healthy relationship with food and learn more on effective training. Build some arms to match my legs and slowly wittle down my weight so I am in a better place to hit the stage next year as a natural bodybuilder.