Legs, butt, back...they all hurt

My legs are killing me. I trained legs yesterday morning and they are sore all the way around. The interesting thing about this hybrid program is that for some reason each week feels a little different even though I am doing the same exercises. I am assuming this is partly because I am becoming more familiar with the program and exercises. I was super shocked yesterday about the newly found strength I had as I did pushups off of 2 medicine balls. For the past couple of weeks or so I struggled with pushups from the medicine ball. Yesterday I cranked the pushups out without issue. I was bewildered by that. Hmmmm.... pretty cool stuff.

I was hungry yesterday, but I did not care about the hunger. It just existed and I did not give it any mind. I ate all my food for the day and that's it.  It felt good about not caring about being hungry.

My mind is all over the place this week. That is why I am blogging more than usual. Whenever my mind races past my usual, I need to try to slow my mind down. It is always in high gear, but at times my mind is in overdrive and reading and blogging helps me to just slow things down. 

I am a bit anxious about a few upcoming things and I attribute the racing thoughts to the upcoming events...even though my thoughts are not related to the anxiety related things. I need to meditate...well practice meditating. My mind needs that. Yep, I need to empty my mind.

Today I had to do an exercise with our leadership team where I work. We had to read this book about our leadership style and then all the leadership got together to share their leadership style. As usual, I am running a little behind because I got caught up with a phone call prior to the meeting. I walked into the meeting and and sat down as the facilitator was presenting slides about a specific leadership style. As I sat down, Steve whispered to me..."Annette, you are the only pioneer leadership style of the whole leadership group." He laughed and said something silly that I cannot recall and then I remarked, yep, I am the black sheep of our leadership family. We both laughed for a minute then I started paying attention to facilitator as she discussed one of the 8 or so leadership styles.

In my mind I thought, dang....the odd ball of the bunch again. Yep, that's me lol. I recalled the same feeling I had 16 years ago after taking the Myer-Briggs personality test when I was a supervisor. There were 4 quadrants, and again all the people were placed in the quadrant that they belong to. Amongst the team, there were a fair amount of people in a certain quadrant and then there was me...way out in the corner by myself. 

I laugh about this and started  singing the sesame street song in my head.....one of these things is not like the other. One of these things just isn't the same.... Check out this link

http://youtu.be/etuPF1yJRzg


Story of my life. It is a gift and a curse. I do beat to my own drum and I like it that way, but some people don't appreciate the sound of my drum...and that causes tension at times.

But when I start feeling a bit insecure about being the odd ball, or failing in something, I start singing this in my head....

http://youtu.be/4yMoMxcHTww

New subject... I took the picture below on Monday. I am not happy with the picture because I can see the IHOP and chocolate chip cookies and beer that I shamefully enjoyed over the weekend. Pitiful. No discipline.

 My coached posted the following link on his Facebook...
http://www.facebook.com/CoachScottAbel

If discipline and self-control create tension and pressure in you - then you do not understand discipline and self-control. What you are exercising and reinforcing at that point is your actual "resistance" to both - discipline and self-control are "freeing" in that they deliver you to what you want.


Wow...powerful and true statement.

I need to stop resisting and start doing!!!

I have a lot of work ahead of me to get where I want to be

Dayum Girl....I can't help but to stare in amazement....custom made jeans, eh?

Today I had one of those jaw dropping moments that made me stare in disbelief. I was in a beauty supply store in Toledo to get some moisturizer and hair color for my hair. I was looking at all the beautiful hair pieces and weaves when she walked by me. The aisle was small and I had to move out of the way so that she could pass by. I briefly glanced at her and then I did a double take when I saw the most jaw dropping booty I have ever seen in my life.


She was a beautiful dark skinned sister with flawless skin, amazing weaved in braids that cascaded past her shoulders all the way down to her butt. She had about a 24 inch waist and I swear..... about a 48-50 inch booty. Now what made her booty amazing was that is was super round, did not appear the least bit flabby and it was ummmmm just out there. It was cartoonish but beautiful at the same time. I really wanted to take my phone out and take a picture of that butt. Weird but true, lol.....cuz it was just crazy!!

I forced myself to stop staring and got into line to pay for my hair products. She got her stuff and also waited in line. There were a couple of other ladies in line and I looked at them to see if they were looking at that girl's booty....and indeed they were looking too. After all, this "booty girl" was sporting her stuff. She had some painted on jeans with a cool double belt similar to the double belts that were popular in the early 90's. She had high heel boots and a cool small clutch purse that matched her boots. She was amazing.

I found a picture that kinda resembles her shape..... Pretty darn close

Are you kidding me.....really???

As I headed home, I thought about that pretty booty girl and I began to smile in celebration of the beauty of our black women. I remember growing up in a white community with a handful of blacks. I was one of 2 black girls in my class. For the most part all my white classmates treated me well, but I often got comments about my kinky hair and I was not popular with the boys.... at all. I remember wishing that I had long straight hair that moved with the wind. I remember wishing that the boys liked me....but they didn't. I thought I was ugly. I remember playing on the playground when this mean little girl came up to me and asked me if I was a girl or a boy. I had ponytails and I did not think I looked like a boy, but after that comment, I thought maybe I did look like a boy and I felt even more ugly.

But I have a GREAT mother who saw that I was struggling with self esteem. She went out of her way to tell me how beautiful I was all the time. She always talked about the beauty of a dark black woman. LOL, she always emphasized the dark part because I was dark-skinned living in a white environment. So, I thought I was a BEAUTIFUL dark skinned black girl at home......and an ugly duckling at school.

Just an average home town girl

Well, I grew up....with confidence thanks to my mom. And I think black women are amongst the most beautiful women in the world.

Celebrating beautiful black women today with these amazing pictures :)

Erikah Badu....amazingly gorgeous

Honey brown skin with a perfect face

Flawless 

Provocative!!

Just dang cute

AMAZING

Love this pic!

I forget her name...she is famous

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THIS PIC

Ethnic beautiful lips that I admire cuz I have none!!

Radiant

My favorite pic

In a few weeks I will celebrate the beautiful white girls in the house :)

Oh yeah.....this is a blog about my fitness journey...lol. I have digressed...hehehe. I trained legs today and I am hungry :)

More truths be told....

I had an amazing training week. I am loving my hybrid plan and am feeling strong. While my training was strong and on point, my nutritional efforts were lacking to say the least. Actually my diet darn well sucked!! I sent my report to my coach feeling kinda shameful about my lack of discipline. The previous 2 weeks went well and I was feeling mighty proud of myself....and the last week everything just fell apart with my diet.

Coach wrote, " Well that's one problem right there- attaching  "pride" and the opposite of "shame" to all of this. It should be something that just "is"--as in, you have a goal- it takes X,Y,Z to get there and you do it. Attaching emotion to it in terms of self-judgement-(good me, bad me) just makes it more and more stressful and difficult and stress seeks release and relief." He is right. I can get myself so worked up over even the smallest things when it comes to diet and training. I beat myself up more than anybody does. I can be my own worse enemy.

My report was long winded...which is my normal response when I did not do everything I was supposed to do. Then I start to justify why I behave the way I do...why I don't stay on point. At one point I wrote...."I know in the back of my mind that I don't need to be "ripped" for the photos and I am using this excuse to negotiate with myself to eat off plan". Coach writes....Yes, that is very immature thinking "I can get away with this so why do my best?" That's weak.

Coach tells me like it is.....just plain and simple and I need that. I am not used to that actually. Most people tell me what I want to hear or sugar coat things. I think many of us are used to hearing the sugar.

I usually do not share my personal correspondences that I have with my coach and won't make a habit of doing so, but there are times when I feel things need to be shared to get a point or lesson across to others that may be experiencing the same thing.

I want to share one more thing that hit home for me in the face of my choices this past week. He wrote, "anyone can do what is called for when it is easy or when they feel like it. Time to step up. Be the person you say you are-and own this, because your actions always tell the truth.

When I told him that I wanna cry over my lack of discipline last week he wrote, Really?, over this you want to cry? Do you realize how blessed you are in your life "this" is the circumstance you have to cry about."

This is coaching at it's best.  He is able to help me look in the mirror at myself...my actions and see the real me...which ain't always what I wanna see.

I am blessed abundantly!!

My beautiful grand children......and one in the oven.

As for me.... here are my latest progress pictures....no progress at all this week...actually my pictures look worst....but it is what it is right? It's all good.