Feeling even stronger

Another 6 hours sleep in the bag!  I'm on a roll.   And the best thing is that it didn't take me as long at all to fall asleep - probably half an hour.  Its like - because I slept better on Wednesday night, I stressed less about falling asleep last night - and because I stressed less about falling asleep, I fell asleep quicker!!!  (Probably doesn't make sense to anyone but me).  Another thing I'm trialling is staying up later.  Supposedly if you stay up past when you feel like going to bed, ie wait until you are suuuuuuper tired, you will get to sleep sooner.  So I stayed up until 10.15 last night! (yeah I know - what a rebel huh?) and it seemed to work.

My afternoon trip to the gym was great.  I really enjoyed training at a different time - and I DID have more energy.  Two problems though - 1; because I'd been drinking water throughout the day I could feel it slushing around in my stomach while I was jogging, making my stomach feel a bit yuk.  I pressed on though.  And 2; I forgot that when I train in the afternoon that my eye makeup slides down my face!!  Talk about "panda eyes" when I was finished!!  Eye makeup is pretty much the only makeup I wear, apart from a little loose powder to take the shine off.  (Cant stand the feeling of foundation, makes me feel like my skin is choking).  Anyway, I forgot that I would need to take it off.  Lesson learned!

This morning was legs, caught myself a couple of times saying to myself 'I hate leg day' - I dont know why this is... some weeks I love training legs, other weeks I dont enjoy it.  Anyway, its done now for another week.

So I'm feeling great.  Went to a work morning tea today - lots of junk food lying around, but I didn't have any, and actually didn't even want it.  The more you say "no", the easier it is to keep saying "no".  I love feeling so in control!!

Feeling strong

I'm feeling all strong and positive again... AND... I had 6 hours sleep last night!!  It may not sound like a lot, but its a lot for me lately.  It still took me a while to drop off, but I managed to fall asleep in a lot less time than I have been... so I'm feeling much happier!

Today I had to start work early, so I'm making sure I leave at 3.30pm and go to the gym.  Its been a looooong time since I've been to the gym in the afternoon, I'm kinda looking forward to it!  Normally I just automatically get up at about 5.10am to hit the gym in the morning.  Today is just a cardio day, so I'm interested to see how much more (or less) energy I'll have.  At least I wont have to fight the "muscle-heads" for a spot at the free weights.  The funny thing about training at a different time of day is that you feel like a "newbie!" at the gym!!!  People that train in the morning dont seem to train in the afternoon, and vice versa.

The gym is starting to get busy again - even at 5.30 in the morning!  I guess with all this warm weather we've been having lately, people are starting to realise that bikini weather is just around the corner (although its been sooo good to see some rain this week!).  The gym has 16 treadmills, 16 bikes and 8 cross trainers in our cardio section, and the other morning they were mostly all occupied - something I never thought I'd see!  Anyway, as long as they leave me some room in the weights area, I'm happy!

The rest of my training and nutrition has been spot on, I'm so glad to be back in this positive frame of mind.  I gave my calf muscles a flogging yesterday, so I'm hobbling around quite nicely today. :) 

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Turning over a new leaf

Ok I've had enough of worrying and not sleeping, so I've decided to turn over a new leaf - starting now.  I bought a book on Sunday called "Why you cant afford the luxury of a negative thought" - I've only read a little way through it, but already I can feel a difference in my attitude.  My daily goals are back in place, so watch out - I'm going to be back to my old self in no time!!!

So I had the last of my non-sleeping nights last night, tonight I'm going to sleep like a log.  I refuse to go on like this anymore! :)  On Saturday night I thought I would try the old knock-myself-out-with-alcohol-trick.... I drank an entire bottle of champagne myself - and STILL had a restless sleep.  Surprisingly I didn't feel drunk, and I didn't have a hangover on Sunday either, just achey joints. 

I have a meditation CD that I've put onto my ipod, so I'm going to give that a go if things dont settle down soon.

We had an open house on Saturday morning, and would you believe - we had nobody turn up... grrrrrr.... never mind, the right person will come along soon.  Still we had two separate groups come through the house over the rest of the weekend, but no bites yet.

Puffy-lips has stopped - I think I know the culprit... the glutamine that I'd started taking.  As soon as I stopped taking it, the puffy lips stopped.  When things are settled down again I will give it another try though, just to make sure.  At least thats one less thing to think about!

Anyway, I'm back on track and ready to have a KICK BUTT week!  I will be back later tonight to read what everyone has been up to!

sleep deprived

Hmmmm.... sleep.... whats that?  I havent had much of that for a while, my mind is just a whirl of thoughts and i dont seem to have an "off" switch.  I think I'm lucky to get about 4 hours sleep per night, and even then its more like a doze than a sleep.  Cant remember the last time I woke up and felt refreshed.  I've got a dull ache behind my eyes, which at the moment feel like they can barely open, but the mind is always active...

think I need to learn to meditate or something.  Why oh why wont my stupid brain shut up??!!  Anyone have any suggestions? 

Well, the puffy lip thing continues.  I thought I'd figured it out on the weekend when one night I had half a glass of vodka, and the next morning my mouth was puffy again. So I havent had any more vodka, and for the last three days in a row I've gotten up with puffy lips again, which now keep splitting and bleeding on the inside.  So I think its just stress related.  I hope it goes away soon.

So I feel like we're just marking time at the moment.  We cant move on until our house sells.  I'm sure it will happen, its just going to drive me crazy until it does!!

I've started a different weight training programme this week - just 'borrowed' a 4 day training split from "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" - so far so good, I love a change in routine.  Energy has been low due to lack of sleep, but I'm still getting muscle soreness, so I'm happy enough.  Tomorrow is legs!!  i'm a bit scared!

Had a chiropractic adjustment this morning, my chiro is fantastic, he's adjusted everything this morning, even my feet, and he said that this should help my body cope a bit better under all the stress.  Bring on some sleep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sorry for the whinge.  I sound like a bit of a basket-case dont I !!! hehehe

Saturday

Well I havent been around much lately, there is so much happening at the moment, but I've got no news to report!!

This week I've been training pretty hard, sore muscles every day which I'm loving. I'm in a 'muscle growing' phase at the moment, so I've changed things up a little. I'm having a hard time adjusting to having a few more calories on my lifting days, actually it scares me a bit. I have always weight trained on an empty stomach (at 5.30am) and now I've started having a protein shake with skim milk before training (with glutamine), and it feels weird!!!

Speaking of weird: after our BBQ last Saturday night I woke up on Sunday and my mouth felt raw inside, the way your tongue feels after you eat something thats too hot. Anyway, my the whole inside of mouth felt 'burnt'. It got better after a few days. Then on Wednesday I woke up at my usual time, half asleep getting dressed in the bathroom, when I looked up into the mirror and my lips were really puffy! Like hello - HUGE Angelina Jolie lips! What the...! They were so puffed up that the skin was smooth and tight, top and bottom - which caused the skin to split and bleed. Hmmmmmm. I trained anyway (although I must have looked pretty funny!!), and by the time I got home from gym they had gone down a bit. For the rest of the week my lips have been stinging and burning, but thankfully no longer puffy!

I assume I've eaten/drunk something that has reacted with my lips, but who knows what!! I have not eaten anything unusual. They seem to be slowly getting better, but its been very annoying!

We had an open house this morning, so we packed the two dogs and the cat up and took them to "survey" the new house. They had a ball. It still doesn't feel like home yet! I guess it wont until we actually move in.

Anyway, thats all folks. Happy Saturday!

Treats from the vege garden

This is some of the 'bounty' from the new vege garden! I think the carrots were a bit too small, but I had no idea how big they were until I pulled them out of the ground! Mmmmm mmmm home grown salads for me!!

It isn't fun....

... selling your house.

The guy buying our house has crashed the contract because he couldn't get the finance organised.  Bugger.

So we are back at sqaure one.  Some advertising will happen this week, we're probably going to have an open house on Saturday (joy of joys) and more people traipsing through the house.  Never mind, these things happen I guess!

Well my long weekend was BUSY!  Saturday was the usual cleaning, washing, groceries, plus I drove all over town trying to find two outdoor braziers for our BBQ that night.  Man was that a mission - apparently everybody in Brisbane wants to buy a brazier at the moment, and everywhere was sold out!!  Finally got some though, and then spent the rest of the day cooking and preparing for the BBQ.  It was a great night though, and a nice way to say 'farewell' to the house (even though it looks like we wont be moving just yet!!).

Sunday I spent most of the day oiling timber battens over at our new house. (these are for timber screening for the new fence), and Monday we started moving boxes of crap.  BF cleared out the whole garage, and I cleared out most of the wardrobes in the spare bedrooms.  I cant believe how much junk we have! LOL!

And with all that went on over the weekend I forgot to drink all my water again - and that just made me feel awful - dry mouth, tired, annoyed with myself!!  Anyway, I'm back on track with my small daily goals now so its all good.

I will try to post a photo later of some veges I pulled from the vege garden on Sunday.  mmmmmm we had a salad made from home grown lettuce, silverbeet, tomato and beetroot on Sunday night!  YUMMO!  

Does anyone know what to do with beetroot to make it taste good?!! :)  I boiled it like a potato, then let it cool.  Peeled the skin off, sliced it and put it in my salad.  And I have to say it tasted pretty bland, nothing like the tinned stuff you buy.  Think I might need to put it in some vinegar or something...?

Thats about it from me!  I havent been around much lately, but I'll try to catch up with everyone's blogs soon...

Why I love training

I love training, it always makes me feel better!  After feeling so stressed earlier in the week, I had a cracker of a leg session on Wednesday morning, even incorporated some "21's" into my squats, and came home floating on cloud nine!!  I was feeling so much better that I have decided that exercise is definetely the best medicine for me.  My mood improves, I start the day with a spring in my step, and if I get it done bright and early, then theres ONE less thing to think about at the moment!! LOL!

I'd never done "21's" on legs before, I've only ever done it with barbell bicep curls - but it got my heart rate up to 165bpm!  Basically you do 21 reps - 7 reps from the start point to midway, 7 reps from the midway point to the bottom, then 7 reps of the full range of movement.  All of that equals ONE set!!  I did 3 sets of barbell squats... ooooh that middle 7 is the KILLER - can you feel the burn????  Love it!

My legs are sore today, but I'm not crippled.  More 21's tomorrow on bicep curls!  Yippeee!  I've just thrown these in this week for a change, make it a little more interesting.

Anyway, I've got my 'moving/selling house' list together so I can stop stressing... hopefully.  Actually my list is a book.  I keep thinking of stuff to do, so I'm carrying the book with me everywhere, and when I think of stuff, well, into the book it goes.  I'm slowly crossing things off the list too - got the mail redirected today, cross that one off.   Seems to be working - each night I seem to be getting one more hour's sleep than the night before.  So on Monday night I got 4 hours, Tuesday was 5 hours, last night was 6 hours - so I'm looking forward to a big 7 hours tonight!!  Woohoo!  heheheh

Weekend will be busy - we've got a surprise birthday dinner to go to on Friday night, Saturday I'm hoping to get my hair trimmed, cleaning, groceries etc then packing boxes, then we're having some friends over for a BBQ as a sort of a "house cooling" party (ie the opposite of a house warming), Sunday will probably be moving boxes - and Monday - well that's my Ekka public holiday - so I'll probably spend it packing and moving boxes!!  Yay for me.

Hope everyone has a fantastic Friday, and a wonderful weekend!

Stress-head

Well - long time, no post!!  I'm a huge ball of stress here at the moment, luckily the buying of the new house all went through without a hitch, so we are now the proud owners of two houses ( = two mortgages) until our current house is sold.

I'm stressed because we actually have a contract of sale on our house, and the finance/unconditional date for the guy was yesterday, and we dont really know whats going on, this guy is waiting to hear what is happening with the buyer of HIS house!  Anyway, so we were planning on starting to move house over the next two weeks, but now I dont know what we're doing, because we dont want to move the furniture out of our current house until its sold (a house with no furniture is quite difficult to sell!).

So I'm trying not to worry about it too much, but I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment!  There are also a million other things running through my mind at the moment, all those fabulous things you have to remember to do when you move house... so I'm writing a list.  Get the phone connected, put the electricity in our names, change home insurance, change car insurance, get the mail redirected, get broadband set up on the phone line, fix the fence before the dogs move in etc etc...  I have been lying awake at night with all these thoughts just churning through my mind... grrrr sometimes I just can switch my brain off!!~!!

We went to the new house on the weekend (its only the next suburb over) and I got to explore the vege garden - its HUGE!  I will have to post a pic (before it gets demolished to accommodate a new shed).  This vege garden is quite run down, but even so, there are huge cauliflowers, broccoli, carrott, tomato, capsicum, about 3 HUGE chilli trees, passionfruit, pineapple, mulberries, lemons, pawpaw, beans, spinnach, lettuce and cabbage, onion and shallots!  Because its been uncared for, a lot it has 'gone to seed' - but a lot of it is quite edible, and I'm so excited!!  BF has marked off an area where we will transplant some of the vege garden into (so that he can build his shed) - but I'm a bit concerned about moving it, because I reckon it will all die if we move it.   Also, I'm no gardener, and I have no idea how to keep vegetables alive.  It makes it even harder now that we cant use a hose to water (drought) - so I carried many bucket-loads of water to it on the weekend!  Oh well its all good exercise!

Last night the Real Estate shouted us to Gold Class movies, so we got to see Miami Vice, and were wined and dined - it was lovely!  I wouldn't really recommend the movie though - it was 2 hours long and I have to say it was pretty boring!  Even BF yawned all the way through!

Not much happening

Not a lot happening in my world at the moment!!

I have banned myself from using the treadmill at the gym, in the hope that my shin splints will ease up (and they seem to be).  I have discovered that there are a few different types of shin splints, depending on whether the pain is on the outside or the inside of the shin.  I always thought that there was only one type, which is the pain on the outside of the shin (anterior) - because thats the only side I have ever got them!

Well anterior shin splints apparently can be caused by a few things, running on the toes (guilty!), walking up hill (guilty on Sunday), walking faster than normal (guilty on Sunday - Elke was pulling me along) - also I have always had a problem with walking on the outside edges of my feet (think this is called pronate)... and of course having old running shoes doesnt help! 

So at the very least I should be able to buy myself a new pair of runners... in the interests of better health!  (hey that's a great excuse! - honey I need new shoes!!)

Eating and training are going well, sleep seems to be my biggest problem at the moment.  Its super stressful buying AND selling a house at the same time, and my sleep seems to be a bit disrupted. This morning when the alarm went off I discovered I had a dead arm (must have slept on it funny) so I rolled over and started flapping my arm all over the place, trying to find the damn alarm clock... no feeling in the hand at all... hehehee I had to chuckle, despite myself.  Finally managed to find the off switch!

One more day until the weekend!  I need a sleep in!

Shin splints...

... is what I've got.  Used to suffer from them big time about 10 years ago - havent had them much since... until yesterday.

I think I did the damage when I took the dogs for a power walk on Sunday - my legs felt like rubber - like I couldn't get any speed happening.  In fact Elke was pretty much dragging me along for the last hundred metres or so!!  Then yesterday I did a leg workout, and increased my weights in just about every exercise - felt great at the time, but NOW - while my quads and hamstrings aren't really too sore, my shins are screaming!!  While I was able to jog on the treadmill this morning, when I slowed to a walk, I had to get off, it hurt too much.

I think I'm supposed to use ice on shin splints??

My daily goals seem to be working pretty well... one of today's goal is to drink over 4 litres of water.  Normally I drink at least 3 litres, but I'm striving to do better this week!  I feel so much better when I drink more water, if I dont drink it I wake up in the morning with a terrible dry mouth.  My other daily goals have included not adding any extra food to my meals.  All those little extra's add up - and its surprising how many calories you can save by not adding extra's to your salad (except for mustard of course - lol!!), or not adding a bit of cheese or saying no to a glass of wine!!  Every day I have been able to add a great big TICK to my training diary, so I'm feeling good!

And the best news is I have lost the kilo that I had put on during my week off!!  So now I'm back to where I was a few weeks ago!

Our new kitchen

We've been busy little bees this weekend! And here is the finished product - our new kitchen!!

And finally I can report some exciting news...

1. we bought another house and it settles tomorrow!!
2. our current house is now for sale!

My poor boyfriend has worked like a trooper for the last two weeks to finish our house... so its been very busy here for a few weeks! Now its all done, its been on the market since Friday, so now we just have to wait and see what happens.

The new place settles tomorrow, so we can gradually move our stuff over and take our time. The new house is a 3 level split level, and needs renovating - which is exactly what we wanted. And its on 1600m2, so lots of room for the puppies!

Anyway, my weekend - we pretty much spent Friday night and Saturday morning sorting out the kitchen, cleaning etc, getting ready for being on the market. We had a VERY interested person come through on Saturday afternoon... fingers crossed!

Caught up with some friends for dinner on Saturday night, I had a free meal and it was horrible. Beer battered fish - I only ate half of it, and I felt like I had my oil quota for the month... gross!

This morning at 1.30am someone kept ringing BF's mobile... over and over. GRRR After the 3rd time BF got up to answer it - and it was some drunk guy with the wrong phone number. So we're feeling a little tired and emotionally drained today, what with all the stress of buying AND selling a house!

BUT I am pleased to report that I've been extra conscious of drinking water this weekend, and I've been really good with my food - see what a little awareness does!! Today the meals are a bit out of sync though - because I slept in til 8.30am, then got up and took the dogs for a walk, so I didn't get breakfast until nearly 10am! Ooops!

Hope everyone has had a fabulous weekend!

Sooo hungry!

I am sooo hungry!! Wow it only took a day for the ol' metabolism to kick into high gear again - I'm starving! I try to eat every 3 hours, but I'm finding that after about an hour and a half I'm looking at my watch... trying my best to hang on for the 3 hours - LOL! Have not changed my portion sizes at all, must just be my body responding to being treated better.

Well since Monday I've been walking like I just got off my horse , hehehee! Embarrassing when you do a little 'stagger' because your quads are too sore to respond quickly! Did a pretty good chest and back session this morning, then cardio - only managed an incline walk on the treadmill for 25mins because my legs were too sore!! My heart rate monitor watch died yesterday, needs a new battery I think. Very annoying because I'm so used to wearing it that I feel strange working out without it! I even considered putting it on this morning - just because I'm so used to wearing a watch and a chest strap, and it felt 'funny' to go without it!!

I was thinking it might be a good excuse to buy a lovely new Polar one, they are just gorgeous... mine is an old black Polar one, about 3 or 4 years old - quite ugly, but very much loved. A dead battery is probably not a good excuse to buy an expensive (but lovely) new HR monitor, is it.... is it??? LOL!

Last night we got the beginnings of our new kitchen!! Very exciting! Begone pink kitchen... (seriously, even 25 years ago, was a pink kitchen EVER cool???)

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."-Aristotle

Where did my muscles go????

Spent the whole weekend trying to find/buy a new dining table (and trying to find one that we didn't need to wait 6-8 weeks for), seeing as our old one smashed into a million pieces (glass top) - long story - dont ask!!!!

After two weeks without weight training, my muscles have disappeared. I want them baaaaaacccck!

Last night I cooked a beautiful big roast chicken, and I decided to have a 'last supper' before getting stuck into eating clean and training hard again, so I went ahead and had some roast potatos, roast pumpkin and 2 HUGE yorkshire puddings with gravy... I was so full and bloated afterwards, yuk I hate that feeling!! But it was a fabulous roast dinner, and I had some red wine too...

Anyway, at about 11.45pm I woke up and just felt disgusting... my tummy really wasnt very happy with me, I felt sick, bloated and gross - and I was lying there thinking to myself "REMEMBER how gross you feel right now - next time you feel like eating like that - REMEMBER this feeling!!!" Bleugh! Not nice!

So I still managed to get up and hit the gym at 5.30 this morning - leg day! Again my stoopid knee didn't like it very much, but I think some massaging around the top of the knee cap will sort it out. Then I did 25 minutes on the cross trainer, which felt great!!

There has been a definite decrease in muscle strength - but hopefully it wont take long to get back some strength. I love feeling this energised and motivated!! Bring on the week!! Its going to be a great one!!!

Happy Monday everyone!

Time to knuckle down again

After giving myself a full week off training I'm ready to get back into it.  Luckily I havent ended up getting sick, so not sure what all the lethargy was all about.  Anyway my energy levels are returning to normal so I think its time to start dragging my butt out of bed at 5am again and getting myself back to the gym (although its been heavenly to stay in bed until 7am every morning!!) 

I'm going to ease back into it by taking the pups for a walk on the weekend (poor puppies have been neglected for a while).  I'm feeling quite lazy and bloated from not exercising this week, so I cant wait to hit the gym again!  I guess we all need a little break now and then, if nothing more than to fire up the motivation again!

Seeing as how my last 12 week challenge fizzled at the end, I've decided that I'm going to go for daily and weekly goals instead of a BIG 12 week goal which I tend to lose sight of halfway through.  The goals are mostly going to be 'task' orientated rather than 'weight' orientated, as I tend to get sooo caught up with what the scales say that I forget about the mental progress I'm making.

Some of those goals are going to be relating to my weekend habits - like the fact that I usually forget to drink water on the weekends and might be lucky to get a litre in rather than my goal of 3 or 4 litres.  Also on weekends I have a habit of forgetting or not being prepared/organised for meals, then eating too much at the next meal because I'm so hungry!!  So these are some of the things I'm going to work on and get under control.  I feel like if I get some of my habits under control, then everything else will fall into place.

Anyway I'm looking forward to some nice muscle soreness next week... time to re-hash my weight training programme again I think!

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!

Tired Wednesday

I think all the excitement of the weekend has caught up with me... I'm shattered!! I've been soooo tired for the last few days, no energy, headache, sore eyes etc that I've given myself a few days off training. Not sure if I've picked up some sort of bug from the plane or something. I dont feel SICK as such, just really tired! Could be just my body is just doing a good job of fighting it off??? I slept 11 hours on Sunday night, 8 hours on Monday night and 9 hours last night (and a normal nights sleep for me is about 6 hours) and I STILL feel sleepy and sore around the eyes.

Had to drive to Murwillumbah again today, which did nothing to wake me up. Bit scary actually when you have to drive a long way and battle to keep your eyes open.

Hmmm anyway I'm still eating lots of good clean food, lots of veges, rice, chicken, fish - so hopefully I will start to wake up soon! I am craving sugar, but doing well so far in staying away from it. Should probably get myself back to the gym I guess.

Two exciting things happened Monday... one - I bought a blender, and two - my Myoplex Lite arrived!!!!! So guess who's been blending up a storm of protein shakes?? I'm still experimenting getting the proportion of ice/water/berries etc right, but it usually comes out like a sort of ice-cream texture - YUM! Perfect for dessert - and I'm pretty sure my body is needing those extra calories right now. I'm enjoying one now actually!!

Enjoy the rest of the week!

More photos

Friday coffee - Ali, Sue, me and Kerry...

Me, Rae and Ali

Lygon St party

Kimmy and Sue celebrate

Di, Kimmy, Damien & Sue
The morning after - Sue, Jodie, Kimmy, Di, Ali, Kerry, Margie and me

Phew what a weekend!

Wow wow wow is all I can say about my fabulous weekend in Melbourne! I had such an amazing time!!!

Firstly, congrats to Sue for placing third in her division - she looked fantastic, gorgeous and full of confidence and style. Kimmy came second in her division, which was so exciting because we all knew how nervous she had been! Rae won her class, and she looked great, very classy and graceful. And Jadey did so well in sportsmodel, it was such an enormous field and Jadey just looked radient on the stage.

I stayed in an apartment with Ali and Kerry, and I have to say that they were the best room-mates you could ask for. Fabulous company, wonderful ladies with such big hearts. We all had lots to chat about, and I felt like I had known both girls for years!! Thank you both for being such great room-mates!!


It was wonderful to finally meet Sue, she is such an amazing person who has made such a huge impact on my life. Sue is absolutely gorgeous, both inside and out. I felt like I was meeting my mentor!! I loved meeting Jodie too, such a nice girl and I felt like we had a lot in common. Kimmy was amazing - so focussed but at the same time stressing out! Margie was an absolue legend running around and helping Kimmy, and the gorgeous Di.

Margie, Kerry, Kimmy Ali, Jodie, Sue and me

The comp was HUGE!! It was a lot different to the WFF/NABBA comp that I saw on the Gold Coast. The pre-judging in the afternoon made for a pretty smooth running evening show too. It was great to catch up with Bella again, and to meet Lia. I was very sad to hear that Em wouldnt be joining us - hope you're feeling better Em - food poisoning isnt fun. It was lovely to meet Lisa, who works for Sue and is also this months Body Blitz winner, and also Beate who came 2nd in Sue's latest New You Challenge. I took lots of pics of the girls on stage, but unfortunately most of them came out blurry or dark. I was having all sorts of trouble with my new camera trying to work out the best setting for getting good pictures (without much success). Everyone on stage looked amazing, well done to everyone!!

Dinner on Saturday night at Lygon St was a hoot. The champagne was flowing, the food was plentiful. We got a variety of dishes and just had a bit of a smorgasboard, which wa great and then Sue and Kimmy could have a little of everything. The desserts were to die for, but I think we all overindulged and started feeling a little ill!! I ended up with a very bloated tummy and felt quite sick, so I can just imagine how Sue and Kimmy felt!! But it was all good and I'm sure everyone enjoyed the celebration.

Then Sunday morning we were all headed off in our different directions, and I came home. After such an exciting weekend (with not much sleep) I was absolutely exhausted yesterday. I went to bed last night and slept for 11 hours, and boy did I need it!! Today I'm off work, got to do all my groceries, washing, go to the dentist etc, so I suppose I'd better get off the computer and get cracking!! I'll be back later to read more blogs!

I will upload some more photos soon, blogger is playing silly-buggers at the moment!

One more sleep

Well its off to Melbourne tomorrow morning bright and early.  I have seen this morning that its going to be a maximum of 13 degrees in Melbourne today... a bit of a shock to the system I think for me, as we've been having overnight minimums of 11 degrees, and maximums of about 22.  I think I'm going to be cold!

I started to pack some gear last night, only to come to the realisation that I do not really have any good winter clothes!!  No time to shop now, so I'm just going to have to go with layers this weekend!  Luckily I do have some gloves and a scarf though!!   I am one of those people who, no matter how many times I check my luggage, I'm sure to forget something!!  Its usually not until I'm sitting on the plane halfway to my destination that I realise - "Do'h!  I forgot my hairbrush/toothpaste/deodorant"!!!  Luckily I've come to realise that MOST things can be bought anywhere - with the exception of maybe my glasses and contact lenses... so as long as I've got those essentials, I can get by!!

I've been the cardio queen this week - lots and lots of interval jogging, cross trainer, and I've even ventured onto the bike this week to try and vary the workouts a bit.  Been drenched in sweat after each session, and I mean dripping... yuk.  Its all good though, I feel less bloated this week.

Last night I had forgotten to get meat out of the freezer for dinner, so I was at a loss for what to have.  Anyway a few weeks ago on a whim I bought these Birds Eye Steam Fish Fillets, this one was in a Thai Coconut Curry sauce - microwave for 5 minutes and its done.  So I had that with salad and I have to say, it was soooo yummy!!  Only about 160 calories, 23g protein, 4.3g fat and 3.4 carbs.  Not too bad for those nights when you dont feel like cooking anyway.

So thats about it from me.  I'll post again on Sunday or Monday - hopefully should have lots of photos from the comp!  Cant wait to meet everyone!  Hope you all have a great weekend!

Tuesday update

Well it was an interesting renovating weekend.   By Friday evening I couldn't use the kitchen, so meals were either makeshift, or the dreaded takeaway.  By Saturday we were knee deep in floor sanding, puttying and vacuuming (actually I mostly supervised... lol!!)  Developed a tickle in my throat and a chesty cough from inhaling all that sawdust, not fun!

We got this fabulous satin-finish floor paint that is water-based, it only took 3 hours to dry between coats, and had no noxious smell.  So Connor the cat stayed home, locked up in one of the bedrooms for 3 hour spurts, with everything a cat could need... bed, litter, food, water, toys!  Much better than having to relocate him (and us) for a few days.  Anyway, by Sunday lunchtime we had all the coats done and all the furniture back in place - it looks like a new house!!  I love the lighter colour of the floor now - not bad for a day and a halfs work!

Yesterday I had to drive to Murwillumbah in northern NSW for work - what a long tiring drive that was!  Took about an hour and 15 minutes each way, of straight highway driving = a very long day!  So didn't get to train yesterday because I had to leave home so early.  Did a pretty good cardio session this morning though.

Today I decided to start using Fitday again, havent used it in over a year, but I think I need it to focus on my daily nutrition.  Its surprising how many calories you consume when you dont pay close attention to what you're eating.  Anyway, today I've pulled it in at 1720 calories, 20% fat, 45% carbs and 35% protein.  Didnt realise I was eating so many carbs!!  Gonna have to watch that I think.

2 more days of work and then I have 4 days off - woohoo!!  Really cant wait to get to Melbourne on Friday... although the 4am start isn't going to be very nice!

Happy training everyone!