In the Closet

Just rediscovered this video. I remember when it came out I liked it a lot and loved the use of sepia tones. I also loved the sensuality of the video. I never really paid much attention to the words (especially Naomi's) until watching it again. I've added it to my IPOD. Maybe it should be the kindgom's new national anthem. :hehe:

Quote of the Day.

The greatest pleasure in life, is doing what others say you cannot do.

Friday, July 10, 2009

I had a fabulous time with my girlfriends last night. We celebrated my birthday which was July 1. As usual, we pretty much shut the place down. I haven't laughed so much and so hard in a long time; great company, great food and great conversation. Details and pictures coming soon.

Since the other entry was so long and so detailed, I decided to delete all of the specifics and just repost the following summary for the sake of brevity.

So boys and girls, here's the the end of this very sad but very true story of two people's lies and deception...................... after unceremoniously dumping all of her friends without as much as a wave adieu, a flip of the curls, or a text goodbye, the fair Princess Magic Powder and the handsome Prince Chippendale von Absolut blackberry messaged off into the sunset together and lived happily ever after….err….lived happily for the next 6 months until the handsome Prince Chippendale von Absolut discovered that his curly locked Princess Magic Powder had shared all of their deepest and darkest secrets with others throughout the kingdom and banished the fair Princess Magic Powder from his land and crowned the brand new shiny Lady-in-Waiting, who had been patiently waiting and dutifully fulfilling her role as the prince's gatherer and presenter of information from kingdoms that were outside of the prince's span. So let this be a lesson to you boys and girls, always remember, "People may forget what you said, people may forget what you did, But people will NEVER forget how you made them feel."...Maya Angelou

So in the words of the late great Mr. Paul Harvey, “and that my friends, is the rest of the story.”

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive”

Originally I had planned to keep this journal strictly about my fitness journey, but the journey to become an overall better person can take you down many paths and include many things. I posted a day or so ago about changing my training and my overall attitude due to some personal changes that were going on. These changes have affected both my physical and my emotional well-being, so I do feel as though I need to include as many details as possible so that when I do reach the end of this journey i can look back and reflect upon everything that has gone into shaping that person whom I long to become.

Much more on this tomorrow.

I took a long vacation from my job and from life in general a few days ago. For the most part it was fantastic, had a few bumps along the way, but things happen for whatever reason I guess. I celebrated my 40th birthday while I was out, visited family and friends and most of all took a nice long mental break to just relax, regroup, get organized and just think about things. I took a lot of time to reflect on who I am as person, where I've been and most importantly where I'm heading. In the process I was forced to re-evalute long standing friendships and the people I have/had in my life. It was and continues to be quite eye opening to say the least. I'm not sure what the lesson learned in all of this is, but I have no doubt it will reveal itself to me at some point. The important thing with all obstacles, mistakes, failures, etc. is to not be bitter but use it as a learning experience and move on. One thing that I will need to readjust is my diet and training. Unfortunately in this latest transition process, I lost a person who was both one of my closest friends as well as my trainer. Well, let me rephrase, I will need to believe in myself and adjust my accountability and make myself accountable to me vs. someone else. Personal accountability is definitely the key because regardless of who tells you or acts as if they believe in you and want you to succeed, you have to believe it yourself in order for it to work. Situations and people may change, but if you have a strong foundational belief in yourself (which continues to be a work in progress with me) changes will not shake you, rattle you or move you away from your goal.

I have been very fortunate in the past work with people/trainers who were and continue to be very knowledgeable in the fitness and nutrition arena. I have so many great plans that have worked in the past and since we as a society are moving to a "greener" world, why not use this knowledge to invest and improve upon myself? What's the slogan...."reduce, recycle, reuse" So many times we do not invest in and/or take advantage of the human capital and the resources that surround us. What I need to do more of is to expand my circle in the training and nutrition area, ask more questions, become more knowledgeable, and most importantly, take a more active role in my success instead of relying upon others to rally and cheer me on. Sometimes it's important in life to be your own cheerleader. Rah, rah, rah!!!

Super Dieter's Tea Update

Well, I followed the directions on the box and pretty much nothing happened. According to a friend of mine I didn't make it strong enough, so I will be trying it again at a later date. The directions said to pour 12-oz of boiling water over the tea bag and let it steep for 2 mins and then drink 6-oz of the tea and save the other half for the next day. I probably should have either let it steep longer or drank the whole thing because my results were dissappointing to say the least. I figure since I'm taking an all day cheat for my birthday tomorrow, tomorrow night will be a good time to try it again. I plan on leaving the tea bag in the cup and drinking the entire 12 oz. Tally-ho!!!

Most who know me know that I can't pass up a bargain whether I actually "need" the item or not. Well, I was at a Rite-Aid that was closing and their entire inventory was 50% off. I found some Laci Le Beau Super Dieter's Tea. I had read a few things about it on some of the boards I post on so I thought, "hey why not" and it's half off to boot. Luckily I'm on vacation this week, so this will be the perfect time to try it and not have to worry about being caught in Atlanta traffic if this stuff kicks in with a quickness and we all know what "kicking in" means. I'm not even sure why I'm intrigued by this stuff but I am. I don't have any expectations of dropping x number of pounds overnight with that stuff. The days of finding a miracle diet cure are long gone. Proper nutrition and training are the only things that work over the long haul, and I'm in it for the long haul, but hmmm..I guess a good "cleaning out" won't hurt me. So tonight I'm having my first cup and I'll be back tomorrow night with an update.

Randomness

I hate Jon and Kate Plus 8, but this picture does my heart good. This kid has needed this since 2005. That's right Kate, tear that little butt up.

Boobs and Belly Account

I started an ING Direct savings account a few days ago. I love ING because you can open an account with as little as $5 and it earns a lot more interest than traditional savings accounts at bricks and mortar banks. I named it my "Boobs and Belly" account. I know that once I get down to my desired weight, a few things will need to be "enhanced" One doesn't lug around an excess of 200lbs for several years without some type of "battle scars". I'm saving to get the "girls" put back up where they belong and the belly lifted and tightened too. Ideally, it would be wonderful to reach my desired weight at the same time as I make my last deposit, but I'd say knowing my income, expenses, and spending habits, I'll make weight quite a while before I reach the amount of $$ needed. I need a car too, so that will be coming out first as well. A friend recommended a clinic down in South Georgia. Her chimichangas look fabulous so I'm hoping mine will turn out that way too. I checked his website and I was very happy to see that he has done work on African-American patients. This is important because African-American skin tends to scar more easily and can develop keloids which are basically raised scars. My goal is to make the lift w/implants and tummy tuck my Christmas present to myself in Dec. of 2010. Having said that, I'm working right now on creating a budget for myself as well as bring in more income. I'm going to do as much as I can through ebay since it will allow me to work at home, but getting a part time job isn't out of the question as long as I don't allow it to affect my training time. I'm still working on all of those pieces of the puzzle. Maybe I can just strike it lucky and hit the Powerball lottery.

Yes, I actually train SOMETIMES!

I went to the gym yesterday to train with some friends of mine. I debated going at first but I'm so glad I went. Isn't funny how you always feel better AFTERWARDS? I wish that feeling could be bottled for those times when you really really don't want to go. Anyway, it was a fun day. I debated posting the video because I look so FAT. Wait, I look FAT because I am fat, but who's fault is that? Oh well, at least I'm doing something about it and everyone has to start (or restart in my case) somewhere. The clip isn't long because I had already finished my training before I realized that I had forgotten to ask someone to video me, so I'm kinda tired. By posting this, I think it will be good to come back to look at later when all of my fatness is nothing more than a bad memory. One thing I did notice is I think I'm holding the bar a little too high on my neck, but I'm happy with the depth of my squats for now.

Hmm..video is acting kinda wonky and skipping a lot. Not sure what thats all about. I'm going to try and get a better copy. Grrrr!!!!

Woohoo!! It's Friday. I swear I live for Fridays. My boss is on vacation so my work load is considerably slower, so I'm finding myself having to do little things to "look" busy until my boss's boss leaves. It's times like this that I'm glad I don't have a BodyBugg because I think I would be so depressed by the number of calories I burn sitting on my butt behind a desk all day. I really wish I had a more active job. I'm really working on finding out what my true passion is, so hopefully it will be something that allows me to be a lot more active. I have really high expectations for myself as I coast into my 40's. My 20's and most of my 30's were depressing and a huge struggle, so I'm excited about creating a better life for myself as I start this new decade of my life.

I've been following my diet and training consistently for the past few weeks now and I do feel more energetic. I'm not seeing the changes in my body as quickly as it seemed like I did in the past, but I'm not giving up. I know they will come. I started doing tabatas this week as my cardio along with weight training and MIIT. My first attempt at videoing myself doing them was a big fast bust. I thought I was standing far enough away from the camera to get my entire body, but nope, nothing but my head bobbing up and down and me panting, sweating and grunting like something from a bad porno movie. I'll try it again this weekend. I may go train with some friends and have them video some of my basic exercises (squats, dl's, bench press, etc.) so I can see my improvement over time. I need to post my measurements too. I haven't been able to to find my tape measure since I moved a few months ago, so I trip to the sewing section of Walmart may be in order.
On another note, my boss (who happens to be the coolest boss in the world and no I'm not just saying this, since she doesn't even read blogs) has the best gym bag in the whole world. I'm in love with it and she better keep an eye on it because I might steal it since I'm having a hard time believing I'm actually considering spending $75 on a gym bag. My current pink New Balance one was $10 at either Marshall's or TJ Maxx. Here are a few pictures of the latest object of my affection. It's called the Sherpani Meta.

Ughhhh, off to a very frustrating start today. To begin with I slept horribly last night which caused me to oversleep big time this morning. I woke up at 7:38 and have to be at work at 8:00am. Of course traffic didn't cooperate. I got behind every slow moving, left turning driver in the greater Atlanta area. Now I really can't complain about my commute, especially for Atlanta. On a good day when everything is moving smoothly I can make it to work in 8-9 minutes, but of course today wasn't one of those days. Today took 15 which is still fabulous by Atlanta standards, but not so fabulous when you leave home at 8:05. I did manage to get to my desk around 8:20-ish and that was with the elevator having to stop on EVERY floor before I got to mine. Today's just one of those days I need a do-over. In my mad dash out of the house I didn't grab my cooler so I have nothing to eat that's on my plan until I can go home at lunch and true to form EVERYBODY wants to chat this morning and I'm just not in the mood. In fact, I'm doing this blog entry right now because hopefully it looks like I'm feverishly cranking out an important email and people will think I'm busy and leave me alone until I shake off the morning's yuckiness and ease into my morning a bit. Please let it work because I really don't want to be rude and tell someone to STFU so early in the day. LOL.

I realized about a week ago that beginning June 1, 2009, I am entering the last 30 days of my 30's. On July 1, 2009 I will be 40. I'm actually pretty excited about it. My 20's and 30's were nothing to write home about, so I'm ready for some really positive changes to happen in my 40's. I'm pretty much over the cliche of "40 is the new 30". I wanna vomit everytime I hear it. It's right up there with "touch base" , "thinking outside the box", "stepping up to the plate" and all of the other tired cliches floating around. I never got the whole being depressed about being a certain age thing. I mean yeah, I have some regrets, who doesn't, and I'd like to be further along in several areas of my life, but it's nothing to fall into a deep depression about. It's not like a can change the past anyway. All any of us have is right now.

I got a new toy a few days ago. I haven't played with it much, but I think I'm going to enjoy it. I caught a really good deal on a FLIP camcorder. I found it on Amazon for less than $50. I was excited because I've only seen the ones prices over $100. Mine only shoots 30 mins of video, but that's fine for me. I'll be trying it out soon doing some VLOG postings. I think it will be a cool way to chart my progress. I also know for me, sometimes it's easier to sit down and just talk vs. writing everything out in an entry.

My Feel Good Song

Morning Has Broken done by Cat Stevens is one of my favorite songs. It makes me happy. I like to listen to it in the morning when I'm getting ready for work. I'm not a morning person, so it makes them more tolerable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TWd3skb-Rw

This is the same song done by Aaron Neville. I love them both.

Is you is or is you ain't?

Why is it so hard to let go of things that we know don't work? I ask myself that question a lot because I tend to get into a pattern or a routine that's "safe" when I know deep down that it's not good for me and it's not allowing me to reach my full potential. I think the answer is just that, it's safe. We are creatures of habit, we do what we know, whether it's in our best interest or not. Learning something new and adapting to it is scary and it's sometimes hard especially while we are still in the learning curve. Being in a learning curve is challenging because everything takes longer than what you normally do. Meal prep takes longer, training takes longer, even laundry takes longer because you have more clothes and towels. When your old routine is leaving work, coming home and plopping down in front of the computer suddenly changes to leaving work, going to the gym, prepping food, repacking a gym bag etc. it's normal to rebel, even though you know what you are doing is good for you. Why? Because it's different and while you're in your learning curve you feel out of control, like you're never going to get to enjoy the things that you once did, like spending 3 hours a night on Facebook. Sometimes I find myself throwing a tantrum worthy of a 3 year old because after working 8+ hours a day I just want to go home like "normal" people, but the kicker is..I don't want to look like" normal" people. I don't want to be 200+ lbs. I want to buy clothes that a like and not just settle for what fits and a host of other things that aren't achievable by going home, sucking back a pint of B and J's, hanging out with my online friends for 3 hours and then going to bed. Geez, I'm whining again aren't I? Oh well, that's ok, it's my blog and I'm allowed. I think a healthy dose of whining is good every now and then as long as it's accompanied by an even bigger dose of "doing"

Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays are my least favorite days in the gym. Why?? Because those are the days that I do HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). Yesterday I did 30/60's 20/40's are actually my favorites and I'm building myself up for 60/120's but those are a long ways away I think. HIIT is not one of my favorite things, but I do have to admit, I feel awesome after everything's over and I crawl back to my car. I was reading an interesting article yesterday by Craig Ballentyne about HIIT and why he feels it's superior to longer steady-state cardio and it did make me feel more excited about doing them. I still do steady state, but I can say that I have seen the most fat loss and cardiovascular improvement from intervals. I do my intervals on the bike. I don't think my bum knee could handle the treadmill anyway, but I don't think I'd ever do them on the treadmill or stepmill even if I had great knees. HIIT on these two things just scream "if you even think of trying HIIT on me, I will make sure you hurt yourself, trip and fall or in some other way make you look like a complete and utter fool. Step away from me and get your butt back on that bike." :lol: Today is lifting and maybe 20-30 mins of steady state afterwards....a much better day. I kinda enjoy lifting once I get there and get in the groove. The hardest thing is definitely making myself go after work. The funny thing is, I.AM.STRONG. I remember the very first time I did lat pull downs I started at 75lbs, which not bragging are some people's PR's. The hardest exercise for me to gain strength is the bench. I started out benching just the bar and am still at only about 75lbs. I have this mental block and this fear of the bar falling on my throat. :lol: I'm very conservative with my Ass-to-Grass squats too every since I hurt my knee over a year ago. I swear if I ever feel that pain again, I will just shoot myself right there on the gym floor. I was doing jumping jacks and when I landing with my feet out, my knee just caved inward. I guess my poor knee just couldn't handle the massive tonage called my bodyweight that was being forced upon it. Poor baby. It was the worst pain and has taken forever to heal, which was my fault because I didn't see a doctor and tried to rehab it myself. Yeah, bad move I know, but I had my reasons at the time. I still baby it. Now deadlifts are a different story. I love me some deadlifts. I love my pink lifting straps too because my grip strength cannot accomodate the amount that I can lift. RDL's are my favorite. Oddly enough but I think due to my knee as well, I lift more on RDL's than I do CDL's. My goal this year is to break the 200lb mark. I cant wait to see what's underneath all of this fat muscle-wise once I start leaning out.

Wow!! Was that an amazing game yesterday or what?? I'm not a huge football fan but that was a great game. I went to my first SuperBowl party and hung out with some friends of mine. I took a little break from the dieting and enjoyed some of the food that was there; you know a nibble of this, a taste of that. I had Rotel dip which is one of my all-time favorites and this buffalo chicken dip that was sooo good. I could have eaten the entire bowl easily. I was actually suprised I liked it since I'm a wimp when it comes to spicy stuff. Mild is usually more of my speed. I'm making an effort to be more social these days. When you are heavy it's easy to isolate yourself or as I call it become "an army of one". It can be especially hard when many of your friends are competitors or very lean. Remember that song from Sesame Street, "One of these things doesn't belong here, one of these things just isn't the same"? Sometimes I feel like that lone apple in the group of bananas. Hahahaha!!! Anyway, I digress.

I think that I'm one of those people who does best when I have a goal or some kind of date to look forward to. My first short term goal is to be below 200 when I go see a friend of mine and go to the Jr. USA's in Charleston, SC in May. It's a totally doable goal as long as I stay focused and stick to my diet and training. Sometimes when you have so much to lose looking at the big picture is overwhelming, so little goals make you feel like you are still accomplishing something even though the Big One is still a long ways off. I try to attend at least one national level show a year, sometimes more if possible. Seeing these athletes at their physical best is so motivating. The energy is so positive at these shows. I really enjoy them..local ones as well. In 2008 I was fortunate enough to attend two national shows..Jr. USA's in Charleston and Nationals in Atlanta as well as one of the local smaller shows in the Atlanta area. I'm a people watcher so I really get alot of bang for my buck at these shows, not to mention I always walk away with a renewed motivation to do better with my own diet and training. Ahhh..if I could just go to a show every weekend I'd be set.

Ahh, nothing gets my blood flowing like a good bargain. I love workout clothes but I hate workout clothes prices. Maybe one of these days when I'm a lean mean muscle machine I won't mind paying $65 for a pair of workout pants, but in the meantime, this makes me happy and it's in my favorite color.....PINK!!!

Jockey workout pants.....$10 at Marshalls

Hot Pink matching top.....$3 at Walmart

Water, water everywhere and too much to drink.

Isn't it funny how we sometimes stuggle with the "little" things when it comes to diet and training? Right now for me, it the water that I'm struggling with...4 liters per day to be exact. Sometimes I'm just not that freaking thirsty and I really really have to push myself to drink even CLOSE to that amount. I keep telling myself how much better my skin and hair looks when I'm hydrated, not to mention how much more efficiently my body is working, but still my taste buds just ain't having it. For the past few days I've gotten in less than 2 liters and my body is letting me know just how uncool this is. I can remember back in the day when 2 liters was GOOD. Sadly, most of that 2 liters came in the form of full sugar Dr. Pepper. Ahhh..the good old days. All is not lost though, sugar free Hawaiian punch drink mix with a packet of Equal is the new love of my life these days. I love, love, love this stuff and for $1 a box at Wallyworld, you can't beat it. I don't drink my entire 4 liters in Hawaiian Punch but it does make the process more enjoyable most days. Oh well, back to the bottle...16oz down and a looooong way to go.