All Fanciest Up

The competition is getting closer.  I'm really not a girlie girl so getting my nails/feet done is not something I ever look forward to doing.  I asked the Vietnamese guy for a manicure, pedicure and wax.  So, we do the pedicure first. He did a whole lot of things to massage my legs, feet etc. However, I really wasn't in the mood for all of that.  I was thinking about all of the things I needed to do and I wanted to be in and out with quality work.  He asked if I wanted flowers or anything design on my toes.  Yeah, no thanks.  Let's keep it simple...

We walk over to his station to get my nails done.  I tell him I wanted a fill set out nails.  He shakes his head in understanding.  However, he continues on to do my regular nails.  I figure he knows what he is doing so I don't say much - until he starts painting my fingernail.  I stop him and tell him again that I wanted a full set of nails.  So he stops and take me over to another table where they start the fake nail. 

I remind him that I also want a bikini wax and he looks completely surprised.  He tells me the person that does waxes just left and wouldn't be back until the next day. Are you serious????  That was my main reason for selecting that spa.  I temporarily realized that there wasn't anything I could do about it.  So I pouted for a couple for seconds and then was over it.

They opened again at 10 this morning and I arrived at 10:10.  To my surprise, they were not open.  Please don't tell me I wasted yet another trip.  I waited about five minutes and up pulls all the workers at once.  Getting a wax is no joke. I won't go into the details about what all they do.  Let's just say it's not the best feelings in the world.  The chic did apologize after each yank, but that didn't make the tingling any less sensitive.  My 'stuff' is supposed to stay hair free for several weeks so I'm hoping it lasts until the last competition on April 12.

Now all I need is my makeup and the tan and I'll be ready to compete........... I hope!!!

Updated Stats

Body Fat Measurements  3/14/08

Chest 4

Abdomen 8

Thigh 8.9

Triceps 8.7

Biceps 2.5

Subscapular 6.4

Suprailliac  5.8

Calf  5.5

Lower Back 11.5

Body Fat Percentages 11.6%

Water in the Brain

Today started the final week prep.  One of the things I was supposed to do was drink 2.5 gallons of water each day for the next four days.  That is a LOT of water.  Well, I started the day trying to do just that, but toward the end of the day started to have a headache.  I emailed a doctor friend of mine to see if this was normal.  He said, "No" and that I needed to go get some Gatorade to drink right away in order to increase my electrolytes.  I don't think my body is large enough to drink 2.5 gallons so I am going to decrease that number.

I remember not too long ago a women died from drinking too much water while trying to win a contest on the radio.  The competition is not that serious.  I do cherish my life.  I really wanted to come home and relax in the bathtub, but the thought of seeing anymore water makes me sick!!!

My Body Is Tired

This time next week, I will be in the pre-judging part of the competition.  Julie emailed me my last week's final prep.  It should be interesting.  Starting on Sunday I am supposed to drink 2.5 gallons of water.  Wow!  That's a whole lot of water, which means a whole lot of peeing. 

After today I start to slow my workouts down.  My body is starting to get really tired and I come home pretty tired each night. I went over Larry and Charmayne's last night to get final advice on my posing.  They were so wonderful.  I practiced a lot at home, but they gave me wonderful pointers that I would have never thought about.  Who knew that holding poses could be so painful.  I have a feeling that the day after the competition, I'll be relaxing in bed more than anything.

I did the craziest thing yesterday.  I worked out at 5:00am.  I've started to become anxious about the competition. When I woke up at 3:30am to use the bathroom, I couldn't get back to sleep.  I looked at the clock at 4:45am and realized the gym opened in 15 minutes.  So, I got dressed and went to the gym.   I had a pretty good workout and even came home in time to sleep for an additional 2 hours.  

This final week is going to be all about me and the competition.  I decided to enter two more while I am in training mode.  One is April 5 in Cleveland (I'm using a free travel pass Phil gave me for Southwest).  The other is on April 12 in Cincinnati.  After that, I'll crash and enjoy Derby here in Louisville.

MY GOAL for each competition:  TOP FIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's Getting Closer

Last week I got my first tan.  I had been nervous about getting it, but it actually didn't look bad.  It increased my natural skin color and balanced me out all over.  I had to go over Larry's house to put the tan on my back and then I drove him and finished the rest.  By the time Sunday came around, most of it had faded away so I may need to apply 2 coats for the competition.  

Since I'll be heading to Cincy by myself, I need to try to figure out how I'm going to apply two coats up there.  You can't shower once you apply it, so I need to try to wait as long as possible before applying it.  The last thing I want is to be the stinky girl up on stage.

Dating Is Not Good For Training

It's been a couple of weeks since I've written so I need to catch up. Being a single woman, I still go out and meet attractive/intelligent men that I'm interested in getting to know. Unfortunately, many of these men would ask me out to eat and I'd have to graciously decline and say "not until after March 22". I asked my trainer Julie if there were any 'safe' restaurants that I could go to that would still keep me within my meal guidelines so I could enjoy being courted. Surprisingly, she wrote back and said that most restaurants are fine, I just need to make sure I tell the waiter exactly how I want my food cooked. WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My first stab at this was on Valentine's Day. I saw a friend of mine at the gym and we went out to eat afterwards. Chili's was the chosen location. I ordered off the healthy eating section and ordered salmon and vegetables. I thought life was still good. Saturday I went ice skating with a different male friend. We stopped at Applebee's for a quick bite. Once again, I looked at the healthy people's section of the menu and ordered shrimp and broccoli. I felt I was still eating the things I always eat, it was just prepared by someone else.

The next weekend I flew to Baltimore/DC to visit one of my old college roomates. When we got to her place that Friday night she made sure she cooked something I could eat. She grilled some shrimp with green and yellow peppers and then had green beans on the side for me. For lunch the next day, we went to Ruby Tuesday's and I ordered some type of fish with a brown rice combination and broccoli. I made sure I had my protein shakes with me and continued to take supplements with each meal. Saturday night rolls around and I have a date with a guy that attended my college (although I didn't know him well in college). We go to the movies (oh, that smell of popcorn) and then he made dinner reservations at Indi Blu. It was some type of Indian American restaurant. It was one of those menus with limited dishes so I was worried at first. However, I found a salmon dish and was able to ask the waitress to just give me a plain salmon and some broccoli on the side. The broccoli didn't look like real people broccoli, but it was still good.

I left to fly back to Louisville that Sunday. My flight was delayed three hours so I arrived back later than I wanted. As soon as I landed, I drove over to Larry's house to get measured. I was somewhat disappointed with the results. While the majority of my skinfold numbers went down, my overall bodyfat percentage decreased only slightly. The measurements in my hips increased some also.

SOOOOOOOOO...... since my workout was the same and I didn't cheat on any meals, I feel that eating out (even though I ate healthy) stunted my continued progress. In the end I had to make a pledge to myself not to go out on any more dinner dates until after the competition. Even the movies, and popcorn, are tempting so I'm staying away from there as well. In other words, dating and I are taking a break from each other for two more weeks!

There Is Food EVERYWHERE!

I thought that once I surpassed the two-week hump that life and temptations would be easy. Boy was I wrong. The commercials are increasing. I went to the movies for the first time this year and the smell of that popcorn kept running past my nose. (I snuck in a sugar free pudding to the theatre). I thought I was doing big things!!

I had a staff meeting that lasted for two days. The meetings are somewhat boring. So, to keep folks alert, there is a plethora of junk food. It starts in the morning with doughnuts, and then throughout the day there is your fix of candy bars, chocolate cookies etc.... Some of my co-workers go out to lunch so they'll bring back their food that I love oh so much. But all I could do was look as I pulled out my protein shake and carrots and green beans.

This was my first week injury free and I was able to complete all of the exercises. Due to meetings, I had to go to the gym at 7:00am this morning just to make sure I took full advantage of all the days.

I know that after the competition that I will try to maintain healthy eating, but I can already forsee some of the exciting meals that I will eat within that first week of being able to eat freely. As long as I look in the mirror and see the results (everyone says I look more tone) I continue on this mission!

Booty Be Gone

This workout plan has been no joke!  The past two weeks have been hard.  My neck injury was a major setback.  Although my chiro and regular doc have said I can workout, I still feel a great deal of pain each morning I wake up.  Food has been tempting.  I never knew how many food commercials there were on tv until I realized all of the foods that I haven't been eating.  All I can say when I see them are, "Mmmm. That's looks good!"  

I have noticed a change in my figure.  I appear more tone.  HOWEVER, I am also starting to lose some things that I have always treasured.  My big booty that has always made a name for itself is slowly starting to disappear.  I used to be "big butt and a smile" but soon I'll just be "smile".  I'm losing an important black woman's asset.  The other thing I'm losing is something which I never really had a lot of.... breasts.  My small breast are getting smaller, which I didn't even know was possible.  I guess since they are both composed of fat, they too would have to decrease for increased progress.  It's all in the name of fitness.

NOW THE GOOD NEWS!!  I had my first measurements since I started training.  It's been exactly two weeks.  I was nervous to see if I had made any progress.  I was esctatic at the numbers!  My trainer friend, Larry, will be the person that updates the numbers every two weeks and he too was surprised.  Leaving his and Charmayne's house let me know that I was on a positive road of accomplishing my goal.  Time shall always tell.

MEASUREMENTS:

Height:  5'3 1/2

Weight before: 117, now 114

                          Before             Feb. 13

Chest                 33                     31 1/8

Waist                27 3/4              26 3/8 (almost an inch baby!)

Hips                  37 7/8              35 1/2 (check that out! What!)

Right thigh      20 3/4              18 1/2

Left thigh        20 3/8              18 1/2

Right calf        13                       13

Left calf           13 1/8               13

Right arm       10                       10 1/4

Left arm          10                      10 1/4

SKIN FOLD:

                          Before            Feb. 13

Chest                5.8                   5.2

Midax.              8.4                   5.8

Bicep                                         3.2

Abdomen         12.6                 9.8

Supra...             6.5                   7

Thigh                17.4                 12.9

Calf                                            5.8

Subsc..              11.1                  9

Tricep               12.1                 9.5

Lower back                             13.3

BODY FAT 

                Before                 Feb. 13

                  16.4%                  13.84%  (WHOA BABY, WHOA!!!!)

Physical Setback

Well, although I'm just getting started, I've experienced my first set back.  Several years ago it was discovered that I had a reverse curve in my neck.  While everyone else's neck curves backwards, mine curves forward.  My chiropractor and I have become friends over the years and I go visit him every couple of weeks.  Before I started this plan, I consulted him about it and he said "Go For It!"

So last night I was at the gym doing delt exercises.  It was my first exercise.  I felt a slight pain in my neck.  No problem, I thought, I'll just go get readjusted tomorrow afternoon.  My neck continued to be a little sore during the workout but it was nothing major.  After working out, I even went to a Zumba (latin dance aerobics) class. My body and I were good and I was able to shake what my mamma gave me.

Once I got home, my neck started to stiffen up a bit.  I applied heat to each side and knew I'd call the chiro first thing in the morning.  Well, morning came earlier than expected.  Around 3:00am I woke up with sharp pains in my neck.  It hurt to roll over on any side and there was excruciating pain to sit up.  I almost felt as if my neck were paralized but I had full use of my body.  My neck would not move.  All sleep ended there.  

My chiro didn't open until 3:00pm today so I left a message with my doctor's office to see what to do.  I listened to the voicemail on my chiro's office and he left an emergency number.  I called him.  To me, this is an emergency.  He told me to meet him in 20 minutes.  When I got there, he popped me, popped me and popped me some more.  He said I pulled something good and it will take several days to heal.  He said that as we get older and we start working out harder this can sometimes happen.  (he didn't tell me to quit).  He suggested I not go into work, keep ice on my neck every hour and come back again this afternoon to get readjusted one more time.  I will be sore for a couple of days, but it will get better.  He also suggested I now sometimes put heat on my neck before working out.  Life is all about challenges and finding ways to solve them.  I can either sulk that I'm down for a minute or instead take pride in the fact that I can read John Grisham's latest book and get some much needed laundry done!

Temptation At Its Best

I was surprised because my supplements arrived yesterday.  I take 2 of a Lean Out pill before each meal, 2 Muscularity pills with each meal and 2 Ultra 40 pills with each meal.  WOW!  That's a lot of pill poppin. I also received my protein drink.  It's my favorite flavor, cookies-n-cream!  I felt it a treat the first time I drank it.  

Well, last night a friend of mine wanted to go out to eat at the Homemade Pie and Ice Cream Kitchen. This place has the BEST homemade desserts.  You salivate just looking at the selection!  I knew I couldn't eat what was there, so I brought my own dessert - fat free pudding.  Yum!  It actually wasn't too bad.  I looked at my friend's desserts in awe, but knew I had a much larger plan and goal I was trying to accomplish.  My will power must be stronger than one dessert - and it was.

Later last night I went out to two parties to take pictures for my website.  One was an "all white" attire party and the other was an "all black" attire party.  Man, what's a girl to do?  Do I change between parties?  Do I rock the boat and wear red?  Do I wear my stocking where one leg is black and the other white?  I ended up changing outfits between parties to support the causes.  While at one of the parties I met a guy, a nice guy.  In a club setting you can't really talk in depth because the music is so loud.  So, he asked if I were interested in going and getting some breakfast somewhere to talk more.  Breakfast?  Pancakes? Sausage? Hot maple syrup?  The visuals were killing me.  I told him about the competition and that I was on a set meal plan.  I'm not on a diet to lose weight, but I watching what I eat in order to gain weight, positive weight through muscle. He understood and we went to hang out somewhere that wasn't tempting with food.  However, the visuals of pancakes kept running through my head.  As the night wore on and I became sleepy I was good again.  I arrive home excited to wake up in the morning to go workout!  The gym is my friend!!