Do It Like A Dude

Ladies, I want you to take a look at your work out and tell me what it looks like.  For you competitive ladies, I know what it looks like but what about the rest of you?  Are you pushing yourself to top last week's weight or are you robotically lifting the same 10lb weights that you have been for the last 8 weeks?  Snap out of the fog and do something different! Have you ever thought of working out with your man? Not only will you be challenged to lift heavier you'll have someone to push you harder and spot you when you can't push anymore. Don't have a man? Than lift like a man on your own!

So many women STILL think that lifting heavy is going to cause them to spontaniously combust into a masculine looking version of themselves. Where have you been lately???? Nevermind lately, how about even the last 5 years??? With magazines such as Oxygen, and Muscle & Fitness Hers, there is straight up proof that lifting will get you nothing but that sculpted body your 5-10lb weights never will.  That being said I am in no way knocking the girls who are starting out using those 5-10lb dumbbells. But CHALLENGE yourself each week to beat the last weight you lifted.  Track it in a note book or on your iPhone or iPad which I now do. (and have made fun of in the past lol) You're going to be sore as heck the next day which means you're growing those lovely girly muscles and on your way to getting the bodies you have posted up on your motivational boards. 

Lift heavy, eat clean, grow girly muscles. In the words of my favorite Canadian comedian Russel Peters; "Take it and go!"

It's BBQ Season!!

For you competitors in the south I'm sure you get your BBQ on year round, but for us cold blooded Canuks you'd have to bribe us with a trip to Mexico just to get the BBQ shoveled out of the snow bank on the deck.  Unless you're hard core, and I know there are some of you out there, in which case BBQ on!

For me, though I could eat BBQ'd chicken all day long and NEVER get tired of it, it still isn't a driving force to break out the snow boots and BBQ in -40C.  Which is why I am currently SO excited about the bounty of BBQ gracing my tastebuds!  Chicken, steak, and my all time fave BBQ'd yams!!  We cook them just like a potato, in foil, but we cut them in to 1/4 pieces and wrap them in the foil that way it doesn't take until fall for them to cook. ;)

So if you're currently getting completely disgusted by your baked chicken break out ye old BBQ and get grillin! If you don't have one, stoke up the fire pit, grab an oven grate and have at it! Or if you're completely desperate, I've seen a shopping cart gets the job done too. ;)

Happy grilling!

How The Carb Zombie Got Her Groove Back

Don't let anyone ever tell you that things are easy post competition, because they're not. Not even for the people who have sponsors for everthing from their supplements to their underwear and spend all day working out.  The difference between those people and the rest of us folk is that they're paid to eat chicken and tuna and workout 5 hours every day while I'm paid to sit at a desk, filling orders from customer who phone my company. 

What I'm getting at is that the "beautiful people" have a driving force to keep eating clean, to keep hitting those workouts long after the tan has worn off.  As where we go back to work, back to life, and in most cases back to slacking off and eating crap.  This is where I'm currently at.  I lost my groove so I had to go find it.  I decided to go look in an actual gym with one of my jacked girl friends who is less than 2 weeks out from competition.  She kicked my ass all over the place and my groove was found!  I think some time in the future I'll get myself a gym membership simply because I'm limited with what I have at home and to keep things different and motivating so I don't get bored.  In the meantime, I'll still pick up heavy things and put them down in my basement but take the occasional trip outside of the cage with a friend or my hubby. :)

Any at home lifters out there? What do you do to keep yourself motivated?

The (wo)Man In The Mirror

Do you ever stop and think about what keeps you from doing the things you dream about? The things that consume most of your conscious and probably all of your unconscious thinking?  Would you believe me if I said YOU were the problem?  Not your parents, not your job, not even your significant other. It's you. 

Being a true procrastinator this fact took me a long time to figure out. Only over the last 2 years have I put this knowledge in to practice and even so it's something that is easier said than done.  I mean how do you tell yourself day after day it's your own fault if you're not getting up in the morning to work out or that it's your own fault for not prepping food and instead ate pizza all week?  (that last one has no reference to me fyi lol) Staying in your comfort zone is safe, it's easy, and it requires no risk.  It also can leave you horribly miserable (and full of pizza) because you feel like you're going no where.  

Now I can hear some of you saying "I can't do this. I have (insert the best excuses EVER) holding me back"  This is where you are completely WRONG. Remember what I said at the beginning of this blog? The problem is what?? Oh right, YOU.  So since you're the problem who can fix it? That's right, YOU!  My favorite quote that I like to think I made up myself but very well may have paraphrased from something else is:

The moment you believe in yourself is the moment ANYTHING is possible.

Take a good look at yourself, listen to your own excuses, laugh at them, and move forward.  Start small and slowly progress towards your goals whatever they may be.  When you start to believe that you in fact do have control in your life, you'll be amazed at where you can go. :)

I speak from complete experience on this matter. Like I said it's taken me a while to accept this reality and have only recently started putting it in to practice but I have managed to do some great things since I have.  Try it out, the only thing you really have to lose is your fear of the unknown but you have so much more to gain.