Hip Raising

This post was inspired by Pint-sized Paparazzi  ( the photos i find after my kiddies have played with my phone) Uncanny, but I came across 2 pics of my bum about 4 months apart and 1.25 rounds of 12wbt between them.

Although I have been introduced to new ways to challenge my body in the past 1.25 rounds I have also learnt that with the correct focus and posture a seemingly easy movement can become so much more intensive.

Bum shot 4 months ago - pre hip raisers

 I never really got what hip raises were doing for me last round,except taking up my valuable time in the gym (my garage). I guess I must have done then wrong or did not have the necessary muscles turned on (or,most likely, I was completely spent from the workout and had nothing more to give)

Hip raises have earned my respect and a spot in my top ten favourite ways to spend my workout time doing.

Wow what a burn they serve and how wonderful to feel my butt and hammie working so hard to make my ass look good one day!


Seriously, not jokes, I discovered that by doing a few little tweaks to my form , I could get so much more out of the movement. By concentrating on the leg that is on the floor, foot as close to the bum as possible in starting position. Then when I went up for the pumps, instead of thinking about the foot in the air going high as possible, I focused on pushing into the heel  of the foot on the ground (This is the leg doing the HARD work plus, not forgetting Mich’s recommended squeeze). By doing it this way it soon became apparent that my bum and hammie were on fire.

The reason I changed my posture and began to concentrated on the push into the heel, is because I read an article on weight training at the hairdressers. This man (cant remember which mag or which man - sorry!!) Lets call him a weigh lifting guru,was saying that so often when people squat they shift their weight onto the ball of the foot, doing this does not engage the glutes and hammies as much as pushing into the heel. I have since read that this is true, however for squatting the ideal is to try push through the centre of the foot, for a more even distribution of the weight. (I will be able to clarify all this in a few months when I become a Personal Trainer) Anyways, I know I that was talking about hip raises and not squats, so bare with me...I am always on the lookout for new ways to make each moment during my workout count because I have limited time to train. So I transferred the tip about the squat over to my hip raises and it defintley raised my workout intensity.

I shared this new found knowledge on the Lean and Strong forum and just when I thought I had 'taken it to the max', one of my fellow 12wbter suggested putting a medicine ball on top of the working hip. That crazy ass mofo!! I did try it, with a weight plate, and you know what, my ass did not burn it combusted!!

Bum shot 2 days ago - post hip raisers

So this post comes with a disclaimer - try these at home, but beware, they have the strange potential to make you walk like John Wayne in the morning!

To Drink or Not to Drink

Alcohol - I am no stranger to this fun-fuel. I have enjoyed a few boogie nights, long lunches, debouched dinners and pub crawls over the years.  Let’s face it, the drinking culture in the South African youth was alive and well where I was growing up – pretty much like everywhere else I suppose? 

Drinking alcohol has never been a huge focus in my life but it has always been lurking around and has never been too far away. The longest I have not had ‘the booze’ was during my pregnancies and breast feeding days. It was not really and issue to give it up (My morning sickness was of such a nature that even a whiff had me gagging!) 

I had agreed to give up alcohol in the last 4 weeks of Round 4 2012 of the 12wbt, as part of the nutrition challenge. 

pic from polyvore.com

I knew I had a few red flag days – dinner at my Uncles house, 26^th Jan 2013 -Australia Day, I was going to become a citizen, book club dinner and some kiddies parties to attend all in the same month.

But it was quite simple; I did not even entertain the idea that I could have a drink, so I never wanted one. The hardest part was explaining to my friends why I was not having a drink. None seemed to mind and all were happy with the concept of a dry month. Quite a few were confused as to why I was doing this in the beginning of year and not in ‘Dry July’. I did not know that was a thing so when I first heard that expression, I was a bit confused, but it seems to be renown amongst the South Coast Aussies. 

So the month came and went and I have never ever felt better, better in every single way.

Hugo also did the no-booze with me (it was his own decision to do this) He had two pre-arranged evenings he knew he would have a drink or 10, so they were his drink passes for the month.  He too found it remarkable how great he felt after the alcohol reduced time.

So I did a bit of google-ing. 

The general consensus is that alcohol is not good for you, except for making you boogie like  a diva on the dance floor, there are lots and lots of horrible things it can do to your body. The interesting things I found out were mostly related to how reducing it positively impacted my life. I was not imagining these improvements I had experienced, it is all hard fact.

I woke up each day feeling more refreshed, vital and ready to go! (Alcohol increases wakefulness, especially in the 2^nd half of sleep, thus disturbing the quality of sleep)

I trained better. (probably due to my better sleep) and recovered from my session better (Alcohol stalls the recovery process)

I dropped body fat. (Alcohol increases stress hormone levels (cortisol) which encourages fat storage on the mid section. It is high in calories, giving your body a surplus to burn off and on top of that, your body metabolises the alcohol over fats and carbs. )

My skin looked better. (Alcohol dehydrates you)

Thinking clearly and positively. (Alcohol is a depressive)

Abstaining from alcohol had a pos-O-tive impact in the bed room too. (Contrary to popular belief, alcohol actually lowers the physiological signs of arousal and decreases the intensity of an orgasm. This is not to be confused with the effect that alcohol has psychologically which is known to lower inhibitions and increase sexual desire :) )

from themetapicture.com

 

So to sum it up, although the month has come and gone and I can now drink all I like, I still have not quite got my drinking mojo back. My new priority is my daily workout and I really don’t like anything to mess with that time and space.  

Fitbit Tidbit

I did the entire Round 4 2012 12wbt without a heart rate monitor and coped just fine, but I did think having one would have been handy. When I won my Fitbit, I ignorantly thought that it was a heart rate monitor of sorts – how wrong was I? 

Hugo set it up on the Fitbit website for me, I put it on and then soon realised it was not a heart rate monitor (I was a touch disappointed). It seemed to be a type of step-counter-gadget, a pedometer, with some bells and whistles. I did remind myself that Michelle Bridges thinks these are cool, so cool she has them as prizes, so I had better keep and open mind and give it a chance. 

That night I went to bed a little unimpressed with the fancy pedometer, I could not remember how the sleep ‘thingy’ worked so I left it next to my bed and went off to sleep. The posh contraption stayed there until I got back from work the next day :(

I had committed to giving it a chance – so I got into the swing of things and started to wear it. I started reading my Fitbit dashboard on the Internet and I kept it on me for my workouts. Below is an example of my dashboard.

(BTW I have since found out that there are on average 10 steps in a flight of stairs – in case you were wondering)

Here are two examples of the calorie detail data.

The first sample is of a week day. You can see that I do my work out early (Big up to the 5:45am Club!) and that the red lines show the spike in calories burnt. (warm up and final blast)

This second sample is from the Super Saturday Session of Week 1. Check out these red spikes. Crazy to think each of those spikes was 250 skips with a rope!

On night 3 of having my FitBit I activated the sleep tracker.

After synchronising the data with my computer the following morning – I was now impressed. The sleep tracking reports had me agog!! 

It told me; how quickly I had fallen asleep, how many times I had woken up during the night and of the time I was in bed, how much of it was actual sleep. This was interesting stuff. Take a look at one of my sleep graphs.

I was compelled to do a bit of extra reading about the sleep tracking and how it works. For the sleep tracker to be accurate the Fitbit should be worn on your non-dominant arm (in the wrist pouch that is provided). There are two settings, sensitive and normal.  The sensitive setting will pick up more changes and movement than the normal setting while the sleeping mode is active. Tossing and turning in ones sleep is a sign of restlessness, it suggests that one is not completely resting.  Arm movements are a good indication of how deep or light ones sleep is. The motion sensors in the Fitbit monitors movements and can distinguish between awake and asleep. I wake up on average between 7-9 times a night, I don’t remember every waking, but I have since learned that these wakings can happen in an unconscious state.  

On Thursday evening I put the washing on, put the kids to bed, went into the kitchen and then had a sinking feeling...You know how they say "you don't know what you've got till it's gone"? Well, I realised that I had put my fitbit into the washing machine. I felt ill, already I missed it, I just assumed it was damaged. Nevertheless, I still found myself hurtling down the stairs and stopping the washing machine - there it was, a little wet, but working just fine!

This tiny little piece of technology has been multitasking all the while hanging from my hip. I love it. I don't need a heart rate monitor anymore. (Maybe if I start doing tri-athlons I will need one, but for now, I am so so thrilled with my fitbit, it is perfect for what I need!) 

I downloaded the pictures off my Fitbit dashboard on Fitbit.com

Where Oh Where Have My Boobies Gone...

Where oh where can they be?


Take at look at exhibit A:
This picture was taken on the 31 October 2012. (please don't ask why I have this picture,because I could not say for sure, let us assume that one of my kiddies were playing with my phone that day)

Exhibit A

Now, take a look at exhibit B:
This picture was taken on the 05 February 2013. I can tell you why I have this picture, it is cropped from one of my 'After' pics submitted for the 12wbt Lean and Strong comp.

Exhibit B

Can you see the difference?

I would like to state for the record; the lines making my 'cleavage'  in exhibit B are a little bit of muscle and my boobs are still round (not long as this picture might imply, it is what they call an optical illusion!)

I was compelled to do this 'fun' blog because I have just returned from a bra shop. I have not been into a bra shop for many years, 4 years in June, to be exact. I know this date because will be married for 4 years in June and the last time I went bra shopping was for my honeymoon.

Since then I have been pregnant and\or breastfeeding. In the last 3 months I have lost plenty centimetres off my chest, a direct result of Round 4 2012 of Lean and Strong 12wbt. I have been managing with my old bras, but I knew it was time to go bra shopping when the cup of my old bras do not even touch the flesh of my breast anymore. The cups collapsed under t-shirts and made the contours of my rack look like a a pair of flopped pavlovas. I have gone from a 12C to a 10A.

Previously I would have chosen the plunging neck line to show off my boobs. But now I can wear high neck line tops and dresses and I feel good in them. (Like the dress I wore to the 12wbt Final) I am fairly happy with my new little 'puppies'. I have joked that I may consider a boob job once I know for sure we are not going to have more kids - but to be honest - I don't think I could go under the knife. Is there media pressure to have a nice big set of boobs? I suppose there is. But right now I feel kinda sexy with my perky pair, this could be due to the fact they are new and still a novelty.

I should have taken a pic of them in my new bras - wow - a good bra can do wonders for posture and body shape. If anyone out there is wearing a bra that does not fit and you have a few bucks to go and upgrade, I urge you to do it. When your 'sisters'  are supported and they are comfy, you will carry yourself better and your tops will instantly look and fit better too.


To answer my own question, my boobs have been melted away from lots of fat burning, muscle building workouts!

Food for Thought on Weigh-in Day

Today was weigh-in day for Week 2, Round 1 2013. I was looking forward to doing this weigh-in because I have a new set of Tanita Body Composition scales (one of my wonderful prizes I won in Round 4 2012) which I had not used yet. 

I set it up (i.e. put the batteries in and set the date and time, not all the other personal deets because I have not been on line to check out the Tanita manual), took off my PJ’s and jumped on. I could be forgiven for thinking that there was a problem with my new scales.  It was before 6am and I only had 7h and 12min sleep (according to my new Fitbit, another wonderful prize I won in Round 4 2012, will do a blog on that another time)...I was 1kg down.

I jumped onto my old Kmart scale and it revealed the same number. 

I jumped back on my new scale and the number was unchanged. 

I had lost 1kg in 1 week. This shocked me. 

Never before had I experienced such a dramatic loss in one week during my 12wbt journey (not even during the ‘Getting Ripped’ phase last round). I am supposed to be building muscle and supposed to even put on a bit of weight during this current phase of ‘Hard and Heavy’.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not disappointed, I am fine with it, I don’t mind...I just wanted to know why? Why this week? If you read my last post JFDI - Good Vibes for Week 2, you will see that  the past weekend I had an icing blowout...something I can’t imagine assisting weight loss, butter cream icing to be exact. 

While I was driving into town this morning, I remembered that another one of my wonderful prizes was the Natures Way Figure protein shake, the Michelle Bridges one.  It states on the label that it  "trims and defines muscle tone", and Michelle is quoted "high protein, low carb".  I started using it last week Friday. Could this have made the difference to my weekly weigh-in?

The protein shake I have previously been using was the Instant Natural Protein from Nature's Way – I chose to use that one because; of the options at my local woollies, it was the one with the least ‘scientific-scary’ ingredients and seemed to have a high protein ratio per serve.  It tasted great and I have really enjoyed it – but perhaps it was also keeping me from any dramatic weight loss. 

This afternoon I took some time to compare the ingredients.  There is green tea in the Figure. So I read up on green tea. It definitely helps with energy expenditure and fat metabolism which means it assists weight loss. It is quite high caffeine.  The fat and energy per serve were similar in both but was astounding to see is that my original shale has 6.5 times more cabs than the Figure and the Figure also has 4.2g more protein per 100g than the original one.

I am considering stopping the Figure for now and sticking to the  Instant Natural Protein for these next muscle building 6 weeks and when it come to the getting ripped phase, I will pull out this 'uba' trimming shake.

Anyways, I thought this was rather interesting. 

BTW my body fat read 18.8% on my Kmart scale and as I have not properly set up my fancy new Tanita scale yet, I don’t know what it would say about that.  I will have to get it ready for next week’s weigh-in.

JFDI - Good Vibes for Week 2

Just thought I would share these 12wbt pics of my kids; sowing some good vibes for Week 2...I needed some positivity to kick off my new weeks training.

When I feel low or slow - I think of these happy little faces saying 'JFDI'.  It usually gives me a smile and a boot in the right direction. I then remind myself that I am on this program because I want to be here, and that usually keeps the momentum going forward!

"JFDI"

"JFDI"

I went to bed last night feeling stuffed - like Christmas turkey. I should state for the record, I usually eat moderately and I don't usually go for desserts and sweet things; I am a starters-and-mains-kind-a-gal as opposed to  a mains-and-dessert-kind-a-gal. (Except for my weakness for certain ice creams :))

We had a delicious pork spit roast at a friends birthday dinner, accompanied by superbly baked veg, coal cooked potatoes and healthy salads, plus a birthday cake...I ate like a king.

But I was surprised my internal conflict between what I would prefer to do and social etiquette. To eat the cake would be polite, but would not be doing what I want for myself. The end result was that I did not have the cake but I still felt guilty for not sharing in the celebrations. (I suspect that the host and hostess were unaware of any of this 'awkwardness' and most probably did not care if I had cake or not) So all and all it was a good result, but it is alarming that my self talk even goes there.

When I got home my self discipline took a turn in the wrong direction.

I had to ice my daughters birthday cakes...I had a few tricky corners to navigate and was constantly scraping the excess icing off to get it just right. Each icing scrap was effortlessly popped into my mouth - It was so soft and sweet and creamy...I was working to a deadline and it was late, I was focused on the cake and not so much on me. Once the cake was done, I was done too. I really did not like the way the butter cream icing made me feel. (You know you have has too much sugar when your tongue hurts) I drank a glass of milk - thought the protein would balance off all the sugar - not sure of my logic, but it did make me feel less gross.

This is not the best way to end a day, but I woke up to a new day and another chance to make it a good one...I started by thinking of my JFDI mascots and headed to the garage (read: my gym) and 60min later, I was done, this time though, it was a super good kind of done.