I am 8 weeks out...Last week was a good week!...Pushed hard and on Saturday's weight in showed 4 lbs down and came in at 13.5% Body Fat.....Thank goodness all this hard work is paying off....Slow and steady....I feel leaner and definitely stronger. We took our progress photos and its amazing to see the small changes week on week......I will post progress photos after the show all 12 weeks. This weeks focus will be on getting those glutes tighter and I am sure it will be the focus for the rest of my prep. I don't feel discouraged as everyone has a problem area and this is mine....Yup!!!! I am bottom blessed...haha!
With the last reward meal out of the way its time to cook and prep food for the week. Luckily my husband Andrew is prepping with me for the same show. For some couples this calls for a difficult combination....somehow with us the food is not the issue....We certainly are a bit on the edge but not necessarily because of the food its more the strict routine that is getting to us....well at least to me.
Prepping together I feel is easier because we train together....we call it our date time and cook together every Sunday and Wednesday. We weigh and prep food for the week and Andrew packs it in our cooler bags every morning. This keeps us well to be honest me on track!!! I usually pick up groceries every other day so we have fresh produce and fruit on a regular basis. For proteins we make a bi-weekly trip to the US as its half price if not more some trips for organic meat. Chores are strictly divided day by day so there is no confusion who does what as the household and its maintenance cannot suffer because we are prepping.
I truly believe that my life runs more efficiently when my house is ORGANIZED....meaning clean and tidy, dishes done, laundry done and put away. This sets the tone for the day and the week.
Our daughter has been helping out with the chores. She's amazing! Her initiative to help and support us in this journey has been sooooo helpful! This is the toughest part of the prep as Veronica definitely eats like a typical teenager...and watching her eat pasta, chicken strips and ice cream is hard on any given day but during contest prep somehow I feel just a little more sensitive to the smell and visual distraction of all the goodies she indulges in....lol
Well this is it for now....time for a little date with the hubby!
Till next time and thank you for reading
Grace :)
Sunday 25 March 2012
Monday 19 March 2012
9 WEEKS OUT- Kelowna Western Canadians
Hello All
Past Saturday marked 9 weeks out from my first competition. Kelowna Western Canadians will be held on May 19th, 2012 and the decision to compete came not long ago for me. I was contemplating about competing for sometime and with Andrew taking the leap to compete first I have to say I didn't want to feel left out from this journey he was going on. Everyone always says but "You have to do it for yourself" Ya ok..... I totally call that B.S......How often do we do anything for ourselves? Exactly....Never or Very Rarely!!! He was my initial motivation to make the decision and he continues to be my little push to get my butt out of bed to do my cardio at 6 am. Not easy and I wouldn't exactly call it doing it for myself...lol
Yes the decision had to be mine and so did the commitment but there is more to it...
After the initial excitement wore off that "Yay" I am going to compete in a bikini competition at the age of 36 the reality kicked in that this is hard work and a bit extreme for an average girl who has been skinny fat most of her life but I have to say one thing this experience has taught me is to be disciplined and focused on my goals and not just in fitness. Life period!!!!
Work and family have been a challenge to balance with the double workouts and even before contest prep started, heading to the gym 5-6 days a week was tough to squeeze in. Meal planning, house chores, family time...Social life...? Wait.... What social life? Thank God for great girlfriends who understand this madness.
My best friend Marie has now been helping me with my posing....Seriously is this how we spend our Friday night Girls Nights? Her having a glass of wine and me trying to figure out my posing transitions....lol
We laugh together...so far I haven't had a food craving breakdown...just a little hungry....well shit maybe a lot but I am in it to win it....ha ha.... (Thanks Randy Jackson for the famous quote) every time I say it I hear his voice :)
Getting back to.........
Results and Food
Results since starting my Fit Life Journey came quickly. I started training with Leigh Brandt-Canada's First IFBB Bikini Pro and co-owner of BodybyBrandt.com in August 2011 and with strict meal plan in hand and a focused approach to my workouts and a month later BOOM!....I found myself walking through the isles of Olympia Expo held last weekend of September in Las Vegas each year....
That happened totally by accident. Andrew had a work conference in Vegas and we had planned to extend the trip for some R&R....and it was my best friends B-Day so we decided to go together to celebrate her day. With Marie and her boyfriend Matt (follow Marie @missymariek and Matt @DoubleLDoubleT on Twitter ) and another couple joining us for some good times we knew the trip would be a blast and with our trainers attending the show as well we decided to go to the Expo and check it out. It felt a bit surreal I must say....and Crazy!
Here's a fun pic on one of those backdrops for a magazine....FUN!
We had such a great time and my love for fitness grew stronger from that day!
When we came back from Vegas I took a few weeks off from training and in late November started training 3 days a week with a Leigh and 3 days on my own with Andrew.
I have been pushing hard since then while tightening my meal plan to figure out what works for my body and what doesn't the results have been slow but steady! I am happy with the progress and a little amazed how far I have come.
I will write about food on another day but I can say one thing that is true and that I live by now:
"ABS are made in the KITCHEN"
Mine are there and that speaks volumes to say the least as I love food and saying NO is hard at times.
Till next time......
Thank you for reading
Grace :)
Past Saturday marked 9 weeks out from my first competition. Kelowna Western Canadians will be held on May 19th, 2012 and the decision to compete came not long ago for me. I was contemplating about competing for sometime and with Andrew taking the leap to compete first I have to say I didn't want to feel left out from this journey he was going on. Everyone always says but "You have to do it for yourself" Ya ok..... I totally call that B.S......How often do we do anything for ourselves? Exactly....Never or Very Rarely!!! He was my initial motivation to make the decision and he continues to be my little push to get my butt out of bed to do my cardio at 6 am. Not easy and I wouldn't exactly call it doing it for myself...lol
Yes the decision had to be mine and so did the commitment but there is more to it...
After the initial excitement wore off that "Yay" I am going to compete in a bikini competition at the age of 36 the reality kicked in that this is hard work and a bit extreme for an average girl who has been skinny fat most of her life but I have to say one thing this experience has taught me is to be disciplined and focused on my goals and not just in fitness. Life period!!!!
Work and family have been a challenge to balance with the double workouts and even before contest prep started, heading to the gym 5-6 days a week was tough to squeeze in. Meal planning, house chores, family time...Social life...? Wait.... What social life? Thank God for great girlfriends who understand this madness.
My best friend Marie has now been helping me with my posing....Seriously is this how we spend our Friday night Girls Nights? Her having a glass of wine and me trying to figure out my posing transitions....lol
We laugh together...so far I haven't had a food craving breakdown...just a little hungry....well shit maybe a lot but I am in it to win it....ha ha.... (Thanks Randy Jackson for the famous quote) every time I say it I hear his voice :)
Getting back to.........
Results and Food
Results since starting my Fit Life Journey came quickly. I started training with Leigh Brandt-Canada's First IFBB Bikini Pro and co-owner of BodybyBrandt.com in August 2011 and with strict meal plan in hand and a focused approach to my workouts and a month later BOOM!....I found myself walking through the isles of Olympia Expo held last weekend of September in Las Vegas each year....
That happened totally by accident. Andrew had a work conference in Vegas and we had planned to extend the trip for some R&R....and it was my best friends B-Day so we decided to go together to celebrate her day. With Marie and her boyfriend Matt (follow Marie @missymariek and Matt @DoubleLDoubleT on Twitter ) and another couple joining us for some good times we knew the trip would be a blast and with our trainers attending the show as well we decided to go to the Expo and check it out. It felt a bit surreal I must say....and Crazy!
We had such a great time and my love for fitness grew stronger from that day!
When we came back from Vegas I took a few weeks off from training and in late November started training 3 days a week with a Leigh and 3 days on my own with Andrew.
I have been pushing hard since then while tightening my meal plan to figure out what works for my body and what doesn't the results have been slow but steady! I am happy with the progress and a little amazed how far I have come.
I will write about food on another day but I can say one thing that is true and that I live by now:
"ABS are made in the KITCHEN"
Mine are there and that speaks volumes to say the least as I love food and saying NO is hard at times.
Till next time......
Thank you for reading
Grace :)
Thursday 15 March 2012
Getting to know me!
So.....here it is! My first blog. I have been contemplating on writing a blog for some time now and there is never a good time to start....
Work-Family-Life
Something is always happening!
So why now?
Well I decided to make some changes in my life. New outlook on life I guess you could call it that. Health and Fitness have been a huge part of my new life in the last year or so.
My daughter will be 14 this year so she is somewhat self sufficient....If you can call a teenager that! So with that came a bit more free time for myself and my hubby who is on this life changing journey with me and we decided to focus on health and fitness as a part of becoming better people.
Being out of shape isn't easy especially when you loose track of whats happening to your body and we decided together that we wanted to make a change. We started to work out in October 2010 using in home videos on a daily basis and eating clean so we thought....I will elaborate on this part later :)
We used the in home videos for a few months and started to see some great results....so we thought....I will elaborated on that later as well :)
In August of 2011 I was on THE Twitter....lol checking things out and was adding to my not so long list of people to follow that were in the fitness industry to get some motivation as the videos and the scale can only take it so far. Anyhow I decided to look for people that were more local other than all the California Beauties (as I call them!) and we'll just leave it at that. As I was in search of some local people I came across a local personal trainer and he had a post about a free personal training session he was offering. I thought hmmmmm maybe this is something to look into and explore for me and my better half. Later that I talked to Andrew my hubby and mentioned the tweet to him...long story short it did take me a couple of days but I did contact Dean of Body by Brandt to get in on this offer of free training session.
Dean replied to me same day and said on Saturday August 13th, 2011 I have 10 am open.... Andrew will train with me and you will train with Leigh my wife....Short and sweet and a little scary but we were in and committed to see what it was all about.
We showed up nervous a little as we didn't know what to expect. I will speak for myself and I am sure Andrew will agree with me that it was a full body workout and a kick A$$ one at that!
I could not move for days. We have not looked back since and have both lost over 30lbs and are prepping for our first fitness competition May 19th, 2012 in Kelowna....Who would have thought?
The workouts are tough and have not gotten easier one bit!
In my next blog I will get back to the results part and clean eating
Till next time :)
Grace
Work-Family-Life
Something is always happening!
So why now?
Well I decided to make some changes in my life. New outlook on life I guess you could call it that. Health and Fitness have been a huge part of my new life in the last year or so.
My daughter will be 14 this year so she is somewhat self sufficient....If you can call a teenager that! So with that came a bit more free time for myself and my hubby who is on this life changing journey with me and we decided to focus on health and fitness as a part of becoming better people.
Being out of shape isn't easy especially when you loose track of whats happening to your body and we decided together that we wanted to make a change. We started to work out in October 2010 using in home videos on a daily basis and eating clean so we thought....I will elaborate on this part later :)
We used the in home videos for a few months and started to see some great results....so we thought....I will elaborated on that later as well :)
In August of 2011 I was on THE Twitter....lol checking things out and was adding to my not so long list of people to follow that were in the fitness industry to get some motivation as the videos and the scale can only take it so far. Anyhow I decided to look for people that were more local other than all the California Beauties (as I call them!) and we'll just leave it at that. As I was in search of some local people I came across a local personal trainer and he had a post about a free personal training session he was offering. I thought hmmmmm maybe this is something to look into and explore for me and my better half. Later that I talked to Andrew my hubby and mentioned the tweet to him...long story short it did take me a couple of days but I did contact Dean of Body by Brandt to get in on this offer of free training session.
Dean replied to me same day and said on Saturday August 13th, 2011 I have 10 am open.... Andrew will train with me and you will train with Leigh my wife....Short and sweet and a little scary but we were in and committed to see what it was all about.
We showed up nervous a little as we didn't know what to expect. I will speak for myself and I am sure Andrew will agree with me that it was a full body workout and a kick A$$ one at that!
I could not move for days. We have not looked back since and have both lost over 30lbs and are prepping for our first fitness competition May 19th, 2012 in Kelowna....Who would have thought?
The workouts are tough and have not gotten easier one bit!
In my next blog I will get back to the results part and clean eating
Till next time :)
Grace
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