New Lease on Life

I don't know if it's the new floors or fresh paint...hmmm or maybe it's the paint fumes?...but I feel like I'm starting anew and I have a new lease on life. I feel free. Well, not totally free but quite free. Really I do.

My place is super clean and organized. I have a few things that I just don't know where to put them but other than that I've kind of got my place down to the essentials. Of course there will be even less items in my place after my July 16-17th Apartment Smackdown, brought to you courtesy of the 405 full closure on that weekend. It's all good by me though since I know there will be much to do in my apartment and at the end I will be ridiculously organized.

As I think you all know I have decided to give my body and mind a break. I'm not planning my meals, counting my calories, weighing myself, or training on a regular basis. I just realized that all that "structure" was not good for me. I had months and months of that structure before my contest prep, during my contest prep and for quite a while after. So I'm off the grid. As for working out, I haven't done any workouts at all. After all the moving back in on Thursday, I just got all unpacked and enjoyed my new digs. Besides the fact that my elbow is still not quite right so lifting is out of the question. I really want it to heal before I load it with weight.

I may still do a bodyweight workout tomorrow or maybe HIIT. It just depends. Can't lift, pull, push...hmmm...anything left? So you see my frustration.

As for food I've been eating what I feel like eating and I've had some really delicious food. It's a funny thing this listening to your body thing. I feel good and I'm eating a large variety of food. I haven't been overeating in the least and I feel not only satisfied but calm. It's so weird. After planning, prepping, writing a new plan, preparing new food, etc. it's just nice to let all that go. For example, what did I want for dinner tonight? For some reason, Kabocha Protein Waffles. So I made up a batch of those and had them with almond butter and some honey, side of unsweetened almond milk. It was delish and satisfying. And that's how all of my meals have been lately. I like that feeling. I wait till I'm hungry to eat and then I make what I want and eat that and then I'm satisfied for a while. And when I get hungry again I eat again. This is turning out to be about 5-6 meals a day. It feels GREAT! I feel GREAT! I feel lighter and already much healthier. My body is happy and I'm happy with my decision.

It's going to be a long road to find MY way to live. I'm not trying to gain weight, lose weight, add muscle, lose body fat...none of that. I just want to feel my way for a little while. As the time goes along I will find my way, see how I feel, write a plan for myself eventually I'm sure. But for now I'm just relaxing into my life and my body, giving it love and caring for it and taking care of it. I'm grateful for my body, what it's done for me and what it continues to do so I'm going to show it gratitude and give it what it needs.

New lease on life, new lease on my body! What more could I want? Can't wait to see what happens and where I am in a month or so. I'm sure I'll be happier, more relaxed and enjoying my life even more! I believe that wholeheartedly!

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.” ~Seneca

Home Sweet Home

Yippee! I'm back in my place. Nice new floors (well, newly redone...let's not get ahead of ourselves here.) Nice fresh paint. It's great. Almost completely unpacked in about a day. That's pretty good. Feeling pretty tired now but LOVING that I'm back in my place. I love having my space, my place to do whatever I want.

My food has been way off as have my workouts. But I had to cut myself some slack since I wasn't in my own home, am still suffering with some pretty good elbow pain and yesterday my back was hurting. Today I feel better but I'm wiped out after going like a crazy maniac to finish unpacking. I just figured the sooner it was done the better. I have a couple more boxes to unpack. Then I just have to clean the new floors and clean my kitchen floor and then it really will be home sweet home! Yippee! Can't wait.

It's been nice to have my place redone and it looks really good. It's not like they laid a brand new floor but hey, it has character and it looks really good! And it's nice to have wood instead of carpet. It just feels cleaner. Yep, I"m liking my "new" place!

Onto other news...I don't know how many of you live in Cali but if you do you've undoubtedly heard about the 405 being shut down for an entire weekend. Ahahahahaha! Yeah, I think someone or several someones lost their minds with that one! One whole weekend of craziness. And yes, I thought that was bad but I didn't realize that the weekend before is the "Royal Visit" of Kate and Will! WHAT THE HELL?!? That's it! I'm going to just stay in my fancy new digs all through the month of July! It's going to be insane! How can a freeway that normally handles half a million cars in the 53 hours that it will be shut down survive? How are we, the people, expected to live and function?!? it's going to be absolute mayhem and pandemonium. And considering I live about say...oh...less than a football field away from the craziness my neighborhood should be nuts! As my friend said...time for some home projects. So it's great that my place will be all new and that way I can completely clean out any remaining cabinets and I will just be the most organized person this side of the Mississippi. Yep, it will be impressive!!!

That's about all the rambling I have for you now. I'm going to get it together over the weekend so watch out for Monday! It's going to be on! WOOT WOOT!!!!

“He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home” 

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Metabolic Damage?

WOW! Okay, this is what I've been thinking and have eluded to in some of my posts. Boy, oh boy, does this hit home? I found this article on Kellie Davis's website Mother Fitness. It's written by Elaine Morales of Not Just a Daydream. In the article there are several links to the "phenomena of metabolic damage". These are the links:

Scott Abel: http://scottabel.blogspot.com/2008/03/well-im-posting-this-up-few-days-early.html
Tom Venuto: http://www.burnthefat.com/slow-metabolism-problems.html
Erik Ledin: http://leanbodiesconsulting.com/blog/metabolic-mind-games-/

The reason this article and subsequent supporting articles intrigued me is because ever since my contest prep, my competition and the months that followed I've had a theory that my metabolism is somewhat destroyed. It has bothered me immensely that I can't seem to grasp what "normal" is and where I should just let my body be. I'm still obsessed with macronutrients and meal timing, eating enough meals and what I should and shouldn't be eating. This has been a HORRIBLE thing for me because I was born a foodie and lived a healthy foodie life for a looooonnnng time before I competed. I would read recipes and if they sounded good I would make them. Now I look at the calories, sugar content, protein, etc. and wonder if I can reengineer the recipe to resemble something with similar calorie and macronutrient counts to what I "normally" eat.

"The desperate need to get back in shape because you don't like what you see can really mess you up and prevent you from ever pulling yourself out of the hole you're in."

I do also want to say though that while reading these articles and I saw myself in a lot of them. My nutrition wasn't whack I don't think. I actually ate quite a bit. But the reality is that I was working out about 3 hours a day 7 days a week for a long long time. That's an extreme load on your metabolism no matter how you look at it. I felt that was the only way but I see from reading there are better ways to do it. And while my calories weren't that low, they were certainly very low for the amount of cardio I was doing. At the time and for several months after I didn't see how it had affected me negatively. Now I do.

A little while ago I wrote about reading a recipe and making it at least once a week, in hopes that I would just be able to enjoy that again. But since I posted that my life has been a little crazy and I haven't really had time for perusing recipes. So in a few more weeks my life will settle down and I will ABSOLUTELY commit to doing this. I need to get back to loving food for food. The other thing that I have decided to do is to give up "sugar free" items. When I bake I use stevia but when I want a sugar free popsicle it's always made with Splenda or sucralose (same thing). And of course there's my protein powder which also has sucralose. Right or wrong, my personal belief on sugar and sugary items (honey, molasses, brown rice syrup, maple syrup, etc) is that it can't be that terrible for you if you're not over-consuming. Actually my take on any particular "whole" food is that it can't be bad for you in moderation. I don't do processed foods really and I don't think they are good for you. I haven't quite decided how I'm going to address the protein powder issue but I may have to do some research for a protein powder that has some form of "natural" sugar. Or just get some plain protein powder and add the flavors I need. Not sure about that yet and obviously have tons of research to do so for now the protein powder will stay in. Or, like anything else, in moderation it may be just fine.

I don't really have an eating plan right now. But I do have a plan to just let some things go. I know what's healthy and what's not. And if you listen, truly listen, to your body, it always always tells you what it needs. It's meant to. That's its job. However, when you do a competition or something extreme as far as working out or changing up your diet, you go deaf to what you need. I haven't totally gone deaf but I have noticed that I have a harder and harder time knowing what I want to eat and when. I used to be really good with knowing what I was craving and I think that all has to do with listening to your body. So my plan is to listen to my body, observe it, stop condemning myself, my eating and my training and to feel...truly feel. Check in with myself often and notice what feels good and what doesn't. Before I eat I will consciously figure out what it is my body is asking for. And then I will give it whatever it's asking for.  There will be no "bad" foods and there will be no calorie or macronutrient counting. There will just be listening, observing, and letting go.

Now while this may strike fear in the hearts of many a figure competitor, it doesn't to me. The main reason being that this is how I used to eat. I would truly listen to my body and it never steered me wrong. I think the fear comes from being left alone in the house with a jar of nut butter. Haha! The truth of the matter is that when you truly listen to your body you don't want to eat a whole jar of nut butter or an entire gallon of ice cream or (in my case) a whole bag of chips or a few orders of french fries. Nope. You don't. It's that simple. How many of you have ever tried this? Did it work for you?

I'll keep you posted on my progress. I know there will be progress. I have no doubts. I can't wait to get out of this world of self-doubt, beating myself up, constantly questioning every single move I'm making. Yes, freedom! That's what I'm looking for. Freedom to feel good about myself, make my own choices, free my mind and grow! So goodbye self-loathing and dissecting my body in my mind. And HELLO to a very HEALTHY HOME for my body and mind. Welcome! This is going to be great.

Whether I will ever compete again or not, I'm not sure. For now my goal is to get my mind back to a semi-normal state, find some balance in my body, eating, training, etc. and just "normalize". And if I want to later, I may compete again. For now that is not my goal.

Congrats to YOU if you got all the way through this mighty long-winded post! Hope it will spark some interest, thoughts, and/or conversation.

Awww...I've got the KEYS!

You know how they talk about the keys to success? Well those keys, my dear friends, are NOT the keys I'm talking about here. I have keys to several people's homes that I have acquired in the last week. It's great. I have 3 new keys that I didn't have just one week ago. I could just run amok in L.A. and no one would know. It could be great! But unfortunately it all has to do with my floor redo. So much fun!

I'm still currently homeless (to be exact I am still without my OWN home), living out of several people's homes. I'm fortunate to have people that are taking care of me and letting me crash at their places. Thank you good people! But I really miss my "me" time, my down time, and my "I'm going to do whatever I want and no one will ever know" time!!! Particularly the last one! That's the one I miss most!!

I am trying to stay on track with my eating as much as possible but again that's hard when you're not in your own space and you thought you would be back in that space today. :-( No worries though. I'm just doing the best I can with what I've got. I eat better in a "controlled" environment...let's just say that. But this is life. And life isn't always smooth. It's a little bumpy at times and you appreciate the smoothness more after the bumps, right? I'm sure. I'll let you know after all this craziness is over and I'm back in my place with my "things".

I still got my workout in at 5:30 this morning so GOOD JOB ME!!!! I'm still sore from Friday's workout but not as badly as I was on Saturday and Sunday. My elbow is still bothering me and all the moving and not having my own place, stuff, remedies isn't really helping. But onward and upward. It's the only way to go.

My workout this morning was lower stress than my workout Friday. I wanted to do some higher reps and less weight to give my body a break while still keeping it alive. It worked out well. Mostly bodyweight lower body and some weights upper body. I also found out today that I can't do assisted pull ups with my elbow feeling the way it does. DANG! I just want all my body parts to function well together. I'm glad I have the ones functioning that I do. That's all I can ask for for now.

I've got a batch of Jamie Eason's Meatloaf Muffins in the oven along with a white sweet potato and purple yam. I've never tried either of those but thought I would try them since I saw them at the Asian market. I love the Asian market field trips. They're awesome! So much to see and try! Half the time I have no idea what I'm eating but that's okay. I don't think it will kill me. OH MY GOODNESS! They had a bread there that I MUST and WILL have at some point. It was like a huge danish and it was called Coconut Milk Butter Bread. Let's break that down...First, coconut milk - need I say more? I mean the creamy sweetish goodness that just makes everything taste better. Second, butter - yep, that's my friend for sure! I've written about it on numerous occasions like here and here. And finally, bread. Mmmmmmm...WHOA! I just drooled on the keyboard. So imagine this soft danish style bread with sliced almonds on top. Holy cow! DYING to try but I think I have to have a good 4 weeks of eating right and working out before I deserve it.

The meatloaf muffins are out. I realize now that NO, I didn't put the oats in! Aargh! They still look surprisingly good though. I'll let you know how they taste. I'm just waiting on the sweet potato and yam so I'm going to read something. Then it's off to slumber land if I want to get some workout in tomorrow. So until tomorrow or whenever I find myself back here again, have a nice evening. Hope your week is off to a great start! Goodnight! Sweet dreams!

WAHOOO!!! I'm back!

Hello hello!!!!! Yes, back in the blogging world. Let me just say that of all the things of the self-imposed hiatus that I missed the most, it was definitely the blogging. The other things are nice "accessories" to my life but the writing was the thing I missed most.

Let me get you all caught up. First of all I was having some kind of tennis elbow issue last week, like the beginning of tennis elbow. Well on my way to my chiropractor on Wednesday out of nowhere this one spot on my wrist started hurting me. I didn't say anything to my chiropractor or masseuse because I figured it would go away as quickly as it came. It was just an incessant pain that was bothering me all the time except when I was asleep. On Friday it was still hurting and I couldn't be in pain all weekend since I had to be packing and moving boxes for the big floor redo in my place. So I went back to the chiropractor. She couldn't really figure out what was wrong. But she did some ultrasound and massage and then adjusted me. She also told me to wear a carpal tunnel brace. So I did that all day Saturday and most of Sunday. And come Monday the pain was completely gone. Still no idea what it was but I'm glad it's gone.

Needless to say I haven't worked out much between the elbow, wrist and moving. So yesterday was my first workout in about a week. Today I feel it! My glutes and quads are killing me today. It's all good though. I actually didn't think I would be that sore but I am.

I still have no home as they continue to work on my floors. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to move back in or possibly Monday. I don't know yet. One other thing I learned through all this moving though is that I really have a HUGE gratitude for my bed and my home. I miss it when I'm not there. I'm staying with my brother for now and then with my BF tonight. It's been crazy. It's weird to me how much that little downtime and being by yourself makes all the difference. I haven't had my lunchtime naps and downtime and that makes me a little cuckoo! HA!

I got to read more while I had my hiatus and bought a few books yesterday that I will be reading. I was discussing my "digital allowance" with my brother yesterday and I was telling him that I was thinking of one hour. He asked me "ONE hour? I would barely get through my emails in one hour." I thought about it and decided he may be right. So I have pumped up my daily allowance to 90 minutes to include all "digital" nonsense. That will include blogging, emails, twitter, facebook, WWF, online shopping, etc. I think that will not include my TV watching though. That I will limit to 2-4 hours per week. I really don't watch much TV but I like a couple of trash TV shows and every once in a while I just want to sit in front of the TV and let it entertain me for a minute or sixty!

My workout from yesterday was as follows:

FRIDAY WORKOUT
3x12 Seated Wide Grip Lat Pulldown 70#
4x10 DB Incline Press 25# DB
3x12 Seated Cable Row 85#
3x8 Sumo Squat with Barbell 65# x 1, 85# x 2
3x10 each leg - Bulgarian Split Squat 25# plate
3x8 each leg - Single Leg Hip Thrust - bodyweight only
3x15 Ab Crunch on Decline Bench w/ 10# plate

As you can see I'm moving more and more away from body part workouts and more and more into full body. It's a nice change and I prefer it so I'm not in the gym every day or for a long time. The weights look low and they are because I'm coming back from injury and crazy moving. It just felt good to get my workout on! I missed that!

That's about it! I will keep you posted on my life again. I'm so happy to back in the blogging world! WAHOOOOOOO!!!!! Hope you have all been well and can't wait to get caught up with all of you and your lives. Have a great weekend!

Chocolate PB Protein Shake Video - Final Post Before Hiatus

This is my final post before my self-imposed hiatus! Donloree over at Bikini or Bust posted this video today and wanted us to respond with videos of our own shake-making shenanigans. So this is my answer to Donloree's video...in 2 parts. Shake recipe is below videos. YUMMY!!! Hope you enjoy! I'll be back in a few days right after my hiatus is complete!!! Wish me luck!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Shake

1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk

1 scoop low/no-carb chocolate protein powder

2 T peanut butter (you can sub PB2 if you're in contest prep!)

8-10 ice cubes

Blend all together. Adjust ice accordingly. Pour into glasses and enjoy!

Must take a hiatus (My vow of digital silence)

So after having yet another incredibly unproductive day today I've decided that it's time for me. Time to take a digital/electronic BREAK. I need it badly. I'm so wired that all I do is wired (or should I say wireless) type of activity almost all the time. I need a break. I need a break from the computer, the ipod touch, the texting, the emailing, blogging, tweeting, facebooking. Yep, the time has come. I know when I need a break and what I need a break from. And NOW is the time and any electronics is the "what".

So to any of you that regularly read my blog I apologize. I'll be back and I'm sure renewed and refreshed mentally. In the meantime I'm bound to get LOADS of stuff done so I'll have so MUCH to report when I come back.

My hiatus (or vow of digital silence) will be as follows:
Start date: June 2nd, 2011
End date: June 10th, 2011 (back to the digital world June 11th)
Items I will not be allowed to touch at home:
* TV
* computer
* ipod touch
* phone for texting/emailing/social media
Activities that are banned at home AND at work:
Facebook
Twitter
Words With Friends
Texting
TV
Internet Surfing
Emails (except necessities)
Online shopping (except necessities - probably there will be a Vitacost order placed somewhere in there ;-0)
YouTube

Okay, wow! Now that I read the list I wonder what exactly I'm going to do. This may be weird but I think I'll actually have time to read, write and enjoy some breathing in a quiet and peaceful environment. I will still be allowed to talk on my phone so those of you that want some one-on-one phone time, grab this opportunity and run with it!! (I'm sure now my phone will be ringing off the hook!!!!!)

This is certainly going to be a challenge for me but it will all be worth it in the end and I'll probably feel pretty relaxed and rejuvenated when it's all over. In the meantime I'll be able to figure out how much time exactly I should be spending on digital amusement anyway. Oh boy....I'm scared...heehee...no, seriously!

Everybody stay safe and watch over one another. I'll be back and we'll be headed in a new direction. THANKS for supporting me as you always do. I LOVE my readers!