How about that cookie.......

I was at work late today itching to leave, but I had some things that I wanted to check off of my checklist before I left. You know how good it feels to check things off of your checklist...haha. I had a package delivered that contained some cute shirts that I ordered that were on sale. I ordered the shirts to help keep my holiday eating in check. I am not on a diet per se, but I really need to keep my nutrition somewhat on point to keep from gaining the dreaded holiday spread that gets me every year!

So, I ordered 6 really cute shirts. Five of the 6 shirts are posted on this log and please note that it IS NOT ME WEARING THOSE SHIRTS!!!!

Prior to my package arriving, I contemplated heading to the cafeteria to get a couple of no-bake cookies. I told myself that I will hit the gym really hard, so what harm will 2 little cookies have on my physique?? Before I left for the cafeteria I got an email that my package had arrived and that Don will bring it to my office. So, I waited for Don and my package. Like a kid, I opened the package and to my delight the shirts were as cute as they were in the magazine....but they were kinda small. This did not surprise me because I ordered them small to help keep me motivated to eat clean. Now, what about that no-bake cookie awaiting my arrival in the cafeteria? Well, I passed on the cookies after looking at those small shirts, lol.I hurried up and completed the stuff on my checklist and headed home.

Package in hand, I headed straight to the bathroom to try these shirts on. The shirt listed above was UNFORGIVING! It hugged every curve and fat pad that I had. Whoa...pretty small, haha but soooo cool!

Let me try this one....



God help me. The same thing....I got some work to do to wear this shirt with pride.

Well maybe I can fit this one....



Damn!!! Now I am getting somewhat pissed off. Surely I can fit this one, eh? Nope, it is quite snug.

Okay...it must be the brand. Dereon is the brand of all the shirts listed above. It is Beyonce's line of clothing. Come On Beyonce' girlfriend...you are a curvy mama....what's up with these tiny shirts? So yeah....it must be the brand right?

Haha.....let's try Coogi!!!


Hmmmm.....better than Dereon but not by much...still freakin tight. I won't be wearing this anytime soon.

How about the Ecko brand......please, please, please let me be able to look good in at least one of the shirts, right?



Dang, dang, dang.... IT'S A NO GO!!!!

I can hear my coach saying one of his favorite lines in regards to my decision to not stick to his diet plan for a bit....

"how's that working for ya"

AGH!!!!!!!

Well suffice it to say, my dinner will be very clean and I won't be eating any cookies tonite either.

Time to hit the gym!!

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Eat, Drink, and be Merry Over the Holidays

I am excited this holiday season. I am approaching this season a bit leaner and smarter. I plan to enjoy everything this holiday season brings including the food.

I ate a bunch on Thanksgiving day and again on Saturday when I celebrated Thanksgiving with my in-laws.








I am not in any of these pictures because I am the the lady with the camera at all times...lol. But I will say that I had a great time and I had my fill of food and drink.

I got on the scale this morning and was up 5 pounds from all the wonderful food between Thursday and Sunday. The abs are gone, but I feel good....really good. This is the first year since 2007 that I did not feel guilty eating off the diet. The food tasted amazing and I savored every bite!

I am thankful for the gift of spending time with my family. I am thankful for the gift of food. I am thankful for the gift of knowing that food is not my enemy. I finally get that now thanks to my coach.

My coach feels that eating over the holidays is just fine. How cool is that? Now this dude rocks! I am really liking my coach lol. He posted a story on his facebook page and website that addresses eating over the holidays. It is cleverly written and should be read as if you were were reading Twas The Night Before Christmas story. I will add the link to the story at the end of my blog. Make sure you read it. It is good.

My training last week was good. Day 1 of my training was intense. Day 2 I only did 2/3 sets of each exercise. I was listening to my body and dialed things back a notch. Day 3 I had energy to hit it hard again and did all the sets prescribed. Day 4 & 5 I dialed it back again doing only 2/3 sets for each exercise.

Technically I should have taken Monday off from training since I trained 3 days in a row. But I felt strong and I felt good, so I listened to my body and trained my butt off Monday evening....leg day. One thing I am learning from coach is biofeedback.....listening to my physical, emotional, and mental self and aligning my training accordingly to my biofeedback.

Also, I am dialing my nutrition in for the next 3 weeks to lose the 5 pounds that I gained over Thanksgiving. I plan to eat drink and be merry on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day then eat modestly through New Years. Jan 1, 2012 I will post a comparison picture from last year to the now.

Check out coaches story and learn something fitness fanatics

Scott's Christmas Story

God Bless!!

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Thanksgiving Fun

Monday was a day off from training so Tuesday was Day 1 of 5 of my MET training. Day 1 is LEG DAY and this day just wipes me out. I mean literally every muscle in my body hurts after leg day. So I completed my millions of reps of leg day pain on Tuesday.

Wednesday I could hardly get the motivation to train. I was trying to come up with every excuse in the world to not train and to maneuver my training days to be off Tuesday night. Well, I took Monday as a day off....I only get 2 days off a week. If I took Wednesday off that would mean I would have to train Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday....4 days in a row, which I am not suppose to train more than 3 in a row. So it was 11pm when I found myself training. I took the easy way out Day 2 and did only 2 sets of each exercise versus 3 sets of each exercise. I did that for 2 reasons, 1) I was training at the gym at 11pm at night ALONE and people can see straight into the gym and see me train. That creeps me out. Quick side story....I had this kinda scary looking guy approach me in the grocery store. He kept staring at me and he seemed to be following me from aisle to aisle. He stopped me in the water aisle and politely said, hey....you are the girl that trains like hell at night at the gym. I smiled and said, yeah that is me and walked away. Now I get creeped out at night training at the gym. 2) The other reason I trained lightly was because I was still feeling huge muscle soreness from the leg workout the previous day. I was hurting!!!!

Thursday was Thanksgiving and I did take that day off to eat laugh and be happy with the family. Tradition is to spend the holidays at my moms house so I popped the turkey in the oven at 0800 and by 1pm we were in the car driving 1 hour to my moms house. Hubby drove as my 15 year old and I acted like kids in the back seat taking pictures on her iPod.







When we got to my moms we were greeted by my sis and my nieces and nephews who traveled from Kentucky.



In this pic is me, my daughter, my sis, and my her son Kevin....my nephew.

Then I went to see my two nieces to give them a hug and to take pictures of course.




My sis kids Kandace and Karri-Lynn




These are the guys..... My sis's ex Karry in the grey and my ex Rick in the peach....lol. The ex's never leave the family.....they will always be family.




My hubby Bob




My beautiful mother-in-law

Then my daughter and her fiancé show up with my precious grand baby Karmen.



And of course, Kathy, King, and me are sportin' our 49ers jerseys



Then my daughter Jessica shows up with my grandson Cameron. Her hubby had to work unfortunately.






So we had family all throughout the house having a good time...



Hubby, my mom, sis, and Karry in the back room



My niece with Cam



My daughter asking her fiancé to do something that he did not want to do...lol




My 3 beautiful daughters....plus there is another baby in Kathy's stomach that is hiding under that 49ers jersey.




Rick with the girls and granddaughter



My niece, son-in-law, and daughter

And let me give you the low down of what I ate.....

My first plate was filled with BBQ Ribs, ham, turkey, dressing, cabbage slaw, sweet potatoes and mash potatoes. I ate it all

My second plate was filled with some more ribs, a roll, some fruit salad, more sweet potatoes and dressing.

A few hours later I had banana cream pie.

And the entire time I sipped on alot of wine.....lol. And let me tell you this, I ate it GUILT FREE and the food tasted better than ever because I was not worried about my diet!!! My hubby drove home and I laid down in the back seat with quite the tummy ache and mild wine hangover....lol.

I awoke this morning ready to train hard. I went to the gym and trained my butt off and then ate some junk. Tonite I am babysitting my granddaughter for the first time all night. She is 7 months old and this is the first time she is sleeping apart from her parents.

Tomorrow, I will be celebrating Thanksgiving all over again with my in-laws!! WOOHOO!!!!!!



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What I have learned so far....

2011 has been a good year for me. This is the year that I have finally caught up with myself and have somewhat quieted the revving engines in my head. Instead of being in overdrive all of the time in my world, I can honestly say that I am in overdrive 50% of the time. That in itself is a HUGE accomplishment for me.

This has been a year of growth for me in many ways. Slowing down and taking the time to smell the coffee at least 3/7 days has done wonders for me. I have paused long enough to appreciate the people in my life. I cherish being a grandma....I beam with pride holding my grand kids. I have an extremely close relationship with my kids (always have) and I have a greater appreciation and love for my husband. I can honestly say that I care about each and every one of my employees.....every one of them. Before this year, I was too busy to notice how awesome my staff is. I have a great boss too and a best friend at work. How cool is that?My mom, sis, and brother is a constant support for me....always been there for me. And I have a wonderful bunch of friends on and off line that care about me. I am blessed indeed. Last but not least, my new coach Scott Abel has been a godsend for sure.

I am a blessed woman!!! I did not mention God did I? Well, I did mention God indirectly because I see God in each and every one of the people that has touched my life.

Well, the holiday season is among us and I have one goal....and that goal is to maintain my weight between 135-137 pounds. I am not looking to lose any weight, but I don't want to gain weight either.

Jan 1, 2011 I weighed in at 151 pounds




My new years resolution was to get down to about 130 pounds without losing too much muscle. My second goal was not to yo-yo and regain all the weight that I lost back. So I entered a challenge and lost 25 pounds by April 26, 2011



This pic was taken around mid March 2011










The 2 pink bikini pictures were taken April 26, 2011 and I was 126 pounds.
After that, my weight even out at an average of 135 pounds.

When I behave and eat correctly, my weight stays around 130 pounds. When I am bad and eat off the diet, I maintain my weight between 135-138 pounds.

Since I have been training with coach, I have relaxed my diet....alot. Actually I am not on a diet at all. I am training hard, but eating pretty much whatever I want. I have put on some pounds for sure, but I try to keep things in check according to the mirror. If my abs disappear completely, I back off of some of the junk food until they come back. This weekend I did not see any abs so I need to cut back on the junk this week. The last photos I took of myself in a bikini was the end of October.



Nothing to brag about for sure, but I am maintaining my weight between 135-137 pounds and I do have some nice improvements in my shoulder and back muscles. Considering I am eating....ummmmm....pretty bad, I am looking ok. I went from a size 10 to a size 6. Last week I bought some new dress pants that are a size 6 with some wiggle room and all my tops and dresses are a small even at 137 pounds. That is pretty cool stuff in my opinion.

I will take my next pictures the first week of Jan 2012 to compare them to Jan 2011 and see if I met my second goal of maintaining my weight loss.

The training routine that Scott has me on is doing wonders for my strength and endurance. My God, if I did my diet like I am suppose to, I would probably be pretty lean indeed! Maybe after a few things settle down in my life, I will add the diet component back into the plan. I have two big stressors happening right now and, so I have chosen to relax my diet while I work on some of these stressors. I think a better word for stressor is challenges. I am being challenged in a couple of areas of my life. I welcome the challenges because I see these challenges as growth opportunities.

This year I have learned not to sweat the small stuff and just relax and love life and everything it brings. The BIGGEST thing I have learned this year is the LAW OF ATTRACTION. My life is a true reflection of my inner thoughts and my soul. I look around and I see all that I have created....both good and bad. Powerful stuff.


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Still stuck on Monday on Wednesday

Don't you love aha moments? I am still stuck on Mondays leg workout standing in awe about how a simple change in the first exercise of the entire quadplex changed the whole momentum of the entire workout. That really got me thinking. So how hard am I really working? Last week I would have told you I was killing the workout. This week I am thinking, was I really killing myself last week during my workouts? Was the fact that I decreased my time on 4/5 workouts really prove that I was training harder?

Hmmmmm.... Was I just focusing on the reps and not the quality of my training? Truthfully speaking...yes and no. It depends on what set I was on in a particular quadplex. By set 3 I am cussing Scott out and I have a bit of an attitude and I am freakin tired. I just go through the motions most of the time on the 3rd set. Also quadplex 3 I struggle through the entire thing. Let me explain the training.

Quadplex 1
1. Exercise A
2. Exercise B
3. Exercise C
4. Exercise D

Repeat the entire quadplex 3 times without full recovery between the exercises and a little recovery between repeating the complex.

Quadplex 2
1. Exercise A
2. Exercise B
3. Exercise C
4. Exercise D

Repeat the entire quadplex 3 times

Quadplex 3
1. Exercise A
2. Exercise B
3. Exercise C
4. Exercise D

Repeat the entire quadplex 3 times

Quadplex 4
1. Exercise A
2. Exercise B
3. Exercise C
4. Exercise D

Repeat the entire quadplex 3 times

So.....4 Grueling Complexes a total of 16 exercises and repeating each exercise 3 times....and get this, alot of the reps are around 15-20 each exercise!! Grrrrrr......

I get a huge sense of accomplishment following each workout and I like the results I am seeing with the training, even when I cheat.

I am going to work on increasing the intensity of my training. Instead of concentrating on completing the reps and getting done faster, I am going to focus on each rep and do it as fast and explosively as I can...without cheating. I plan to make every rep count. I am going to do this tonite and I will let you know the results tomorrow.




I bought this outfit yesterday...the pants and sweater and wore it to work today. I got alot of compliments on this outfit.







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God Don't Like Ugly

God don't like ugly. My mom used to always say that phrase whenever unfair circumstances hit me or someone was just being darn right mean! If I was being mean or unfair, she would say it to me. Now, I find myself saying it at least 3-4 times a week.

Now....the God don't like ugly saying is a very popular saying in the black community. I don't hear many white people saying that phrase except my best friend at work. Amy and I have been hanging together for almost 18 years at work. We share alot of our successes and challenges together at work. Actually, we are pretty close. Well after all these years, Amy has picked up some of my black sayings and the God don't like ugly is one of the phrases she says just as much as I do. Her birthday is this month and so I was looking to get her something for her birthday. I don't usually get her squat for her birthday, but I was feeling giving this year for some reason. Well I found the PERFECT GIFT!!! A long sleeve black tee with the saying God Don't Like Ugly!! I bought me one too...haha. Well she loved it and that made me happy. She sent me a picture of herself with it on....



She would so kill me if she knew I posted this picture of her on my blog. Haha....I don't think Amy knows what a blog is, so she will never find out. She hates the social network stuff. But Amy sending me this picture made my day.

Training was a bear this morning! I trained legs and changed up my routine just a little bit....well so I thought was a little bit. I just added several pounds to a Full Squat and did 3 sets of fifteen prior to my quadplex workout. Just this one move made the already grueling workout somewhat unbearable...lol. I had to force myself to complete the entire training.

My butt and legs already are killing me from the workout.

Diet for the day...... ummmmm, hmmmmm......I want to avoid that conversation all together.....but then I hear the coach whisperer whispering this in my ear.... "Fear is what lurks behind "perfectionism"- but volition is what stands in front of "excellence" - choose excellence!" I did not choose excellence....I chose the quarter pounder with cheese and fries for lunch. I could feel guilty for not being true to my diet, but where will that get me...right?

Okay, I will choose excellence and discipline tomorrow.

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I feel my age today.....

You know the saying, you're only as old as you feel? Well, let me tell you this, that may be true mentally, but physically....well whatever.

I was doing day 5 of the Ultimate Figure Workout and man ole man I did not feel 20 years old...like I feel mentally. I felt every bit my age! Every bit my age and then some. FORTY-SIX YEARS OLD.....ALMOST FORTY-SEVEN!!

Started doing my squat jacks...OMG...then the jumping jacks....ugh....then the freakin Burpees.....help me.... and then the mountain climbers. I am tired and that was only set one of 3 in this quad complex. And guess what I have 3 more complexes equally as taxing that I cannot imagine that I will complete.

I felt like crap the very first complex today. Wow!! I have been doing this workout 6 weeks, but today I was feeling every bit of it. I wanted to go home and rake leaves or something.

I somehow got through the workout giving it my all. My joints felt old. I felt mentally old after the workout too.

Sometimes I feel like I am super woman. I can keep up with the twenty-somethin babies and then reality hits me square in my face. No I can't lol.

Even as I type this blog my eye sight is not 20/20 like it was even a year ago. It seems like my eyes went from fine to needing freaking bifocals over night. What the heck? I need to make an appointment with my eye doctor this coming week. Yeah, I know what he will tell me. I am near sighted and have been for years, but this is the very first time that I can not see clearly when things are close to me....like reading. So, I will probably have to add the LINELESS bifocals to my glasses. CRAP.

And the gray hair!! Yeah, I cover it up with hair dye....but now I have to cover it more often. I can deal with that, BUT now I am getting more and more gray hairs in areas that I won't mention that is simply pissing me off. Face it Annette, I am getting old!

Now back to training and nutrition for my boy, thecitylive....who really can care less about my whining about age.

I am proud to say that my cheat day on Saturday was the best cheat day I have ever had in the sense that I did not go crazy. I had a cheat meal only!! My cheat meal was at a buffet where I chose to eat a good amount. I had baked chicken, some shrimp, garlic cheese bread, and bread dressing. I also had about 1/2 serving of banana pudding, 1/2 serving of bread pudding, and then a normal slice of chocolate cake with some coffee. It was good. So instead of an entire cheat day, I just had one cheat meal. I am proud of myself.

Training wise, I killed it all week, working hard and challenging myself with the quad complexes.

This morning I noticed some more shoulder development as I looked at myself in the mirror. I am proud of that. I am loving Scott Abel for that. And even cooler than that, I was doing some cleaning this morning when my daughter said, mom, I can see your six pack. I did not notice a six pack in the mirror, but it is there I suppose. Forty-six year old lady with a six pack. Now I feel twenty something again...lol.

Before I headed to the gym I updated my facebook status that I was heading to the gym. One of my friends posted, I wish I had your discipline. I did not write back, but what I wanted to say is that you do have the discipline inside of you. You just have to make a decision to just do it, even when you don't want to.

I am hungry today....really hungry. But I am going to behave.

The picture above.......Isn't the maple tree in my back yard beautiful? Fall is such a gorgeous season.





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Reporting my progress to my coach.....omg

I submitted my first training and nutrition notes to my trainer this past Monday. I did not have anything special to report. Actually my report was blah....... I did not follow the diet for a week.

I took all of last week off from my diet and ate whatever I wanted. I had a few stressors that I was dealing with last week. I have been making some gigantic life changing decisions and I was just emotionally paralyzed and so I chose the easy way out. I ate all the chocolate, cookies, and cake that I wanted during the stress as if somehow the chocolate was going to make the stress less noticeable.

Well of course towards the end of the week all the crazy cheating and crap just added to my stress and anxiety as I got on the scale to assess the damage. Haha...it was bad and I reported the ugly numbers to coach. On a positive note, my training had been spot on and I was proud of my training report.

Well coach was great. I submitted my report around 0730 Monday morning. By 0800 I had a response to my report and we made just a few adjustments to my training plan. He was honest and straight to the point about some of my issues and in regards to my cheating, I am going to have stress in my life and I need to develop ways to deal with the stresses without indulging in unhealthful habits. He suggested that I read his new books....which I had already purchased but did not open....titled "Food Issues and You". There is a workbook that could be purchased with the book which I had and so I opted to read the workbook first. I did all the exercises in the workbook during this week. I found the exercises to be very powerful and helpful and now I am reading the book.

For the first time I am going into this weekend without a huge desire to cheat. Normally I look forward to Friday to start my cheat fest. And Scott does allow me to have 1 cheat day a week. But today, I focused on eating healthy and did two of the exercises to help me work through 2 moments of mental weakness when I wanted to dive into a couple of no bake cookies. The exercises worked. I have managed to get through Friday with 1400 calories of healthy food. Imagine that!! Now we will have to see what happens tomorrow. I can have alot of fruit after my training tomorrow if I want.

My training has been the same....alot of metabolic training. I do 4 quadplexes a day for 5 days. Within the quadplexes there are 4 exercises to perform without any rest or minimal rest in-between sets. Of course the exercises are crazy hard and I have to dig deep within myself to push through the sets. I do 3 sets per exercise within the quadplexes. That is alot of exercises and my goal is beat my previous time using proper form. I have accomplished that. When I conquer that, Scott will probably add on....who knows what.

I miss traditional weight training, but this MET training that I am doing is definitely bringing me results much faster than the traditional weight training programs I have done in the past. Heck, I am starting to see some shoulder development and I am seeing cuts in my back that I have never seen before even in a depleted state.

Nutrition wise I am eating ALOT of carbs! I think that if I would do Scott's diet on point seven days a week (like I should) I would be leaner than I was when I was not eating many carbs. My goal is to try to stay on point a minimum of 6 days a week consistently until Thanksgiving. I will take 2 days off of my diet for Thanksgiving.

I gained 8 pounds during the 9 days that I did not do the diet. I ate off plan on Monday and was up 8 pounds Tuesday morning.....YIKES!!!!!!! that was 3 more pounds heavier than my reported weight gain to Scott on Monday. I stuck to my diet Tue/Wed/Thu and was back down 8 pounds this morning.
And the beautiful thing about this is....I AM EATING ALOT OF CARBS!!

I read a great article that I found on one of the websites that I am a member of. It motivated me to be mentally tough. Here is the article.

Mental Toughness Training

I also visited a few of my friends forum journals for inspiration and motivation. And of course, my coach Scott Abel's website and facebook keeps me motivated. Scott Abel's Face Book page is full of words of wisdom

Scott's Webpage

Scott Abel Facebook

Scott Abel's Life Coaching Blog

Scott Abel's Blog Spot





My grand babies Halloween Costumes :)



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