Kettlebell and Weight Update

I had a fantastic kettlebell class today. From the beginning I was a little skeptical about how much my body would develop lean muscle from swinging the kettlebell. It was hard for me to let go of the amount of weight training I like and that I am comfortable doing. I think I've been off/on weight training since I was 16 years old.

Today, Paul put me through a wonderful kettlebell workout that kept my body moving from cleans to presses, to swings, to squats. It was a tough workout. I have periodic thoughts lately of exchanging my weight training for kettlebell, even after the competition in October.

He and I were both commenting on how much more defined my arms are. I know that they are that way, because of kettlebell. Weight training has taken a backseat, even though I still work out twice a week with dumbbells.

Bathing Suits:
Both bathing suits arrived today. I tried both of them on. I like the purple one a little better than the green one. I'll try to take a picture this weekend and post it. My body is not quite at the place I want, but at least I don't look ridiculous in them.

Weight:
114.5 lbs. now. I have 4 1/2 pounds to go to reach my goal. Then I will reevealuate from there.

RsmKettleGirl
http://bikinicompetitor.blogspot.com
rsmkettlegirl@gmail.com

Home Schooling and Fitness Update

Well, I've taken the plunge. I have my paperwork and will turn it in to the district so that I may home school my children. I am excited and nervous. They will be going to Kettlebell class Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with Paul Daniels. Paul (from www.bodywarehouse.com) is so cool about allowing the kids to be with me and of course the kids like him so much.

I also reached the 115 lb. mark. I'm thrilled that I was able to accomplish what I didn't think I could do. It's been a long time since I was 115 lbs. My next goal is 110 lbs. We'll see if that works on this body.

Tomorrow, I think UPS is going to make a delivery of some face tanning stuff & the two bathing suits. I'll let you know how they fit. Maybe a picture too? (even though I'm not quite at the fitness level I want to be).

Keep on trekking if you are trying to lose that body fat too.
Don't give up!!!!!! It's not worth it....But you are!
Patience, Time, Commitment, and Flexibility.

RsmKettleGirl
http://bikinicompetitor.blogspot.com
rsmkettlegirl@gmail.com

Unexpected Changes

It's a wonderful feeling when things are going well. The nutrition and exercise and goals are being met. Then suddenly something happens in life that feels like everything has been turned upside down. In the past, being thrown for a loop could throw me off track with my nutrition and exercise. This time I was shaken up quite a bit, but not thrown off track. My commitment is strong and the rewards seem to outweigh the potential losses I would incur.

Now I'll tell you what has been going on for the past 10 days. My 7 year old daughter is on a gymnastics team. This summer the gymnastics workouts take up quite a bit of time, but we haven't had school, and we've had a pretty low key summer otherwise.

School is starting September 13th and the gymnastics facility wants to increase the hours another 2.5 per week. She gets out of school at 2:35pm and is supposed to start gymnastics at 3pm. She wouldn't finish until 6:30pm. Just the thought of her coming home around 6:45pm only to have dinner, do homework, shower, read, and then fall asleep all by 8:30pm 3 days during the week was a nightmare thinking about how impossible this routine would be.

As a parent, I want to support my daughter's desire to compete,  but down deep I knew this type of schedule would not work for anyone in the house. The other thought going through my mind was that for the past year I have been looking forward to school starting, because both children would be at the same school and I would have a glorious 3 hours to myself to do whatever I wanted. Finally a break I deserved and wanted.

To make a long story short, I knew some moms who home schooled their children and at one time I thought about it. Now I have revisited this thought, did my homework, interviewed the home school program, visited the home school facility, and have been thinking and thinking and thinking.

I am now 90%+ sure that I will home school both children. I never really thought I would do something like this, but for whatever it's worth I think it's the best decision. first and foremost it is vital that my older child has some time to think, relax, and not feel so busy all the time, and the new schedule was truly not going to give this child "time" that she needed to just "be." The kicker is that she wants to be home schooled!

I thought I was going to have a peaceful two months to just focus on kettlebell, cardio, and weight training, and everything was going to be about me...now it looks like I will probably do kettlebell while the girls are doing homework in the same room.

Needless to say, life is certainly not boring!
Just when we think things are going as planned and expected, there is always something that comes up to shake and rattle the status quo. But don't let it take you off course! It won't help things anyway.

One can never say "life is boring."
(...and yes I'm scared and nervous, but that's okay)

RSMKettleGirl
http://bikinicompetitor.blogspot.com
rsmkettlegirl@gmail.com

A Slow Process

Losing fat and gaining lean muscle just to the way I want to be 9 weeks from now is a slow process. I haven't had any cheat days since I started focusing on my goal. I haven't missed a workout. Everything has been right on track, but still I have so much to firm up on the lower half of my body. There's no doubt that my body has changed, become tighter, and smaller. However, when I have to think about going on stage, under bright lights, in a bikini, the body still needs time to make changes.

9 weeks doesn't seem like a long time now. It will go by fast. So everyday is absolutely crucial that I work my best in every area. I'm still losing weight on the scale, but it seems much slower now. It's good and bad. It's good, because it means my body probably doesn't have as much fat to lose now and the ratio of muscle growth is probably more than the ratio of fat that is lost.

I ordered two competition swimsuits. It may be a few more weeks before I get them. I don't know if they will fit or look good since I ordered them online, but I'll just have to see when they get here.

I realized tonight that I still have a long way to go mentally. It's been wonderful to be thoroughly committed and consistent, but I'm not fooled into believing that it's just second nature to me. I think I still need at least another year to maintain similar consistent behavior. Patterns take a while to develop and change. It's a process of practicing the behaviors until I rely on the new patterns more than the old patterns. So, regardless of the contest, the change must be more than a single moment in time.

I always welcome comments or questions.
RsmKettleGirl
http://bikinicompetitor.blogspot.com
rsmkettlegirl@gmail.com

Food Logging

Over and over I read in my favorite magazine that logging what I eat is important. It's so laborious writing down everything I eat. I'll just eat well and rely on my judgment. Unfortunately, not writing down what I eat can be problematic. How many times does a little bit of this food or that food sneak into the daily caloric intake? Or how large was that portion in comparison to what it should have been, even if the food was nutritious and balanced? It's easy to do and easy to ignore those little yummies or increasing the portion size.

Here and there I've heard women say "I've tried everything and I can't lose weight", "I exercise and eat well and I still can't lose weight." I'm not convinced that these statements reflect the entire truth. If there is a medical condition then it may be true. If one is gaining muscle faster than losing fat then that also may be true. I think if all of us were to log EXACTLY what we ate for one month and not "cheat" on the diet log I think it would accurately reflect why the fat is or is not coming off. There is no way around it. Losing fat will require hard work.

The other day a woman said she eats 1200 calories most of the time and no more than 1500 calories, runs, and still can't lose the fat. She's been doing this program all summer, but can't seem to lose the weight. I said "wow...you mean you never have just a little bit or little something here and there that is not on your program?" Then she said, "well...I may have a few bites of this or that, and when we go out to eat I probably eat a little more than I should."  I think this example reflects what I have done in the past too. Not exactly telling the whole truth makes one feel better and less depressed about working hard most of the week while having those weak moments.

It's not that easy being accountable to oneself. When I work hard all week exercising and keep the diet in check, but then have a few off-meals during that week, why in the world should I expect my body to drop fat when I am not consistent? It's a hard reality to face up to what one is or is not doing.

In order for my body to drop the fat I must stay consistent and deal with the fact that EVERY DAY must be a good day of eating well, eating the right amounts, and exercising properly.

Action may not
always bring happiness,
but there is no happiness
without action.
-Benjamin Disraeli. English Statesman and Writer.

RsmKettleGirl
http://bikinicompetitor.blogspot.com
rsmkettlegirl@gmail.com

Bored with the same meals

It doesn't look good, but it was very tasty

Sometimes it get's boring eating the same foods over and over again. Tonight my husband made dinner. That was special and rare! He made a delicious and interesting salsa for the fish. The salsa was made with tomatoes, corn from the cob, black beans, cilantro, parsely, chipolte peppers in adobe sauce, and a few other ingredients. It was so good. I always keep homemade salsa fresca in the refrigerator, but I really loved the new change. Tomorrow I will have the new salsa with some chicken for lunch.

The key is to change things up before everything else in the refrigerator I don't want to eat starts to look more appetizing. I love flavor, so I try to incorporate Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Mexican, or Italian flavors into my core meals. I think that's why I love browsing through cookbooks and online recipes. I'm always looking for new flavors and recipes to incorporate into what would otherwise be boring meals. Earlier today when I had a few minutes I was browsing through Thai recipes and I came across some soup recipes that I wanted to make. They are very low fat. Some ingredients were foreign to me, but I could click on the ingredients and read more about what they were and see pictures. Then there was a store locator link that told me where I could buy these exotic ingredients.

I have a few ugly pictures of my meals, but they were delicious. One meal is chicken breast with steamed broccoli, but I put 1 TBS of Soyaki on the broccoli for more flavor. It was very tasty. The other meal I cut Bok Choy and steamed it in 1/4 tsp of toasted sesame oil, and at the very end put in 1 TBS of the Soyaki. The Fillet of Sole was cooked in lemon pepper. Yum.

By the way, I love my new food scale. I used it tonight to weight the cooked cod. Knowing how many ounces I was consuming was much easier and better than guessing.

Tomorrow, I may talk about an issue I think most of us face -The truth about what we are eating on a daily basis.

Never give in!
Never give in!
Never, never, never, never-
in nothing great or small,
large or petty -never give in
except to convictions of honor and good sense
-Winston Churchill. British Statesman and Prime Minister

RsmKettleGirl
http://bikinicompetitor.blogspot.com/
rsmkettlegirl@gmail.com

Getting Started

My daughter was taking a picture of me at thecomputer.

Sometimes getting started after weeks or months can be hard. I know that even a few weeks off from exercising can be incredibly difficult to start up again. Gaining weight just makes the body feel sluggish, uncomfortable, and exhausted when the process of working out begins yet another time. Beginning the routine again is difficult and is made worse by the fact that the diet hasn't been exactly perfect either. So now there are two battles to tackle.

July 2009 I began by simply omitting some foods in my diet and committing to an exercise program of 30 minutes 3 days a week. Back then, my goal was to establish some type of realistic program that I could practice and maintain to develop consistent behavior patterns. It was always easy to start a program, but maintaining it was always difficult. This time, I didn't want to become overwhelmed by doing too much when I had numerous family obligations and responsibilities to attend to daily.

I remember going downstairs in the evening to workout and saying to myself that "it's only 30 minutes...and then I'll be done." It worked. Sometimes I fought it, cursing initially, and making up lots of excuses, but I did it anyway. Afterwards I always felt accomplished and proud and reminded myself that "it's only 30 minutes."

I eliminated cheese, white bread, and reduced portion sizes and sweets. Those few changes along with the 30 minutes 3 days per week made a huge difference. After a month I eliminated other foods, added healthier fats and other foods and increased the number of days I worked out. I was set on not changing how long I worked out. 30 minutes was all I was willing to workout, unless I went to Paul's Body Warehouse classes.

I told myself what I needed most was to maintain new and consistent behavior patterns before I made any other changes. July of 2010 I decided I would make more changes to my nutrition and exercise programs.

Even though I am working now towards entering a competition, I couldn't have come this far without establishing some consistency this past year. The practice of "doing it" has made a world of difference in being more mentally tough and sticking to it on days when it feels unbearable to continue moving forward.

Just the few changes that I made initially with my diet and exercise and consistent behavior allowed me to drop a few pant sizes. That felt good, especially since I didn't need to burn myself out with crazy unrealistic goals of working out an hour at a time or cutting calories drastically. In fact, I never counted calories until recently (working towards a competition is a much different scenario). A good rule of thumb I used was stop eating when I'd had enough, not wait until I was full.

A few changes goes a long way.

FYI: I was going to post pictures of my face dolled up with make up this week, but I never got around to it. I'll try to post one next week. I ordered some dark competition foundation, so that way I could practice applying make-up over it. I'll let you know when it comes in.

"To will is to select a goal, determine a course of action that will bring one to that goal, and then hold to that action till the goal is reached. The key is action."  -Michael Hansen, American Mathematician

RsmKettleGirl
http://bikinicompetitor.blogspot.com
rsmkettlegirl@gmail.com