BREAKING THE CYCLE

As some of you may know, I am currently six weeks into my diet for my very first fitness model competition! This is the first ever serious diet that I have embarked on and I wanted to share with you a few things that I have found so far.

            For those who are not familiar with bodybuilding, one of the aims each competitor will have before they step onto the stage is to be at a very low body fat percentage. They need to be very lean to show off all the hard earned muscle! There are many different ways to achieve this, but unlike regular diets, competitors need to ensure minimal muscle wastage.

            So six weeks ago I began my journey. Naturally my caloric intake was decreased, basically meaning I was to be eating less food during the day than I was used to. Before my diet began I had worked my metabolism up to a point that I could enjoy food pretty much whenever I pleased throughout the day. Majority of my food was always very healthy anyway, so I have not struggled in adjusting to eating different foods, I still eat the same foods, just a bit less. What I found to be the BIGGEST struggle of all was overcoming and breaking old eating habits that I had. Two of the things that tortured me for the first four weeks was that I could not eat out of boredom, and that I could not eat pointlessly late at night or constantly snack throughout the day. It was honestly a constant battle in my head at some stages. I won’t lie to you, the lead up to my competition has been very hard at some stages, however it has also been extremely rewarding and I know I am a stronger person from it all. Every time I overcame a craving or steered myself away from the kitchen late at night, I woke up feeling so thankful that I hadn’t undone all of my hard work. This may all sound very extreme, but diet is a precise science, and bodybuilding is what I now believe to be an extreme sport. I want to stand on that stage knowing that I couldn’t have possibly done any more! After all it was my choice to compete and this is all part of the process!

            It was in my fifth week of my prep that I started to notice myself not even thinking about snacks, cravings or late night eating anymore. It took my body a whole month to break its old habits and routines. I can’t tell you how much easier life is now!

            I guess the main point I want to make in this blog is that if you’re starting to make healthier changes to your lifestyle and they seem really difficult or impossible at first, don’t give in and don’t give up. Every single time you make a better decision you will become stronger and it will become easier to face that situation the next time it arises. Give yourself a few weeks or months and that old habit will be done and dusted and you will feel so proud of yourself for your progress. Whether you’re trying to quit smoking or trying to quit eating fried foods, the process is the same. Day by day, step by step, decision by decision. You can do anything you set your mind to, just have patience for yourself!

Finding 'Me Time'

The growing awareness about the benefits of a healthy diet and engaging in regular exercise is certainly very exciting! We are given so much information these days via television and social/printed media on how to better our health and quality of life. HOWEVER there is one very important element of wellbeing which can often be forgotten and lost within our busy lifestyles. I like to call it, ‘Me Time’. Whether it’s just a few minutes, or a few hours, the benefits of making time for yourself each day are proving to be invaluable. At the start of the day, look at your schedule and find time to commit to yourself. It can be as simple as 10 minutes sitting under a nearby tree on your lunch break. These 10 minutes of complete silence can greatly help you to gain clarity, perspective and a new approach to any difficult situations you may be facing. It is also important that we learn to feel content in our own company! Taking time to connect with yourself daily will help you to really know yourself and make better decisions whether it be in relationships, business or life. After all, your mind powers your body, so it should be a top priority every day! So today, take some ‘Me Time’ and nourish your most precious gift, your mind.

This weeks workout!

Hello again!!

Today i am just posting my weeks workout for anyone who is interested! If something sounds really foreign just type it into google and you'll most likely be able to find an explaination as to what it is! :) I hope it can provide some ideas of different exercises you mightn't have thought to try out! I keep my days very straight forward seperating each day into body parts. This is how i personally love to train. If you like the sound of something then give it a try! If you dont, thats more than ok aswell. All of my sets are done with the heaviest weight i can manage without sacrificing good form. IAnyway enough of my chatter here it is!

MONDAY- CHEST / SHOULDERS (small amount)

3x12 barbell chest press (incline bench)
4x12 flat dumbell press
4x12 cable flies (medium to high attachment)
3x12 pushups performed on bosu
3x12 seated chest press (using machine)

3x12 lateral raises using cable (3 sets each arm)
4x12 upright rows

TUESDAY- LEGS (focus hamstrings)/ Calves

4x12 seated hamstring curls
4x12 lying leg curls
4x12 stability ball hamstring curls
4x12 single leg weighted glute kickbacks (4 sets each leg)
3x12 weighted glute bridges (focusing on hamstrings)

4x16 standing calf raises
4x16 donkey calf raises

WEDNESDAY- BACK

3x12 Wide grip pulldowns
3x12 close grip pulldowns
4x12 single arm machine pull downs (4 sets each arm)
4x12 reverse grip bent rows
4x12 lat pullovers (with cable and straight bar)
3x12 body weight rows using TRX

THURSDAY- SHOUDERS/ Calves

4x12 single arm lateral raises using cable (4 sets each side)
4x12 upright rows
4x12 rear delt cable flies
3x12 seated dumbell shoulder press

4x16 standing calf raises
4x16 donkey calf raises


FRIDAY- LEGS (focus on quads)

4x12 leg extensions
4x 8-10 barbell squats
3x20 walking lunges with dumbells
3x12 split lunges with dumbells (3 sets each leg)
3x15 squats on bosu
3x12 Hack Squats
3x12 Leg Press
SATURDAY

Generally on Saturday i do a little circuit working on anything i think i need to improve or perhaps struggled with during that particular week! :) Most saturdays ill definately do another few exercises for back.

Aswell as this i have my normal Ab and glute routines which i throw in when i can about 3 times a week!

This is just an outline of how i enjoy to train and how my body responds best to :) Everyone is different and i train spcifically for my own body! I just wanted to share incase it could help anyone out there!

P.S, i hope that i've used the right names for the exercises haha!

DECODING NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION-the basics

About a year ago, before i had learnt how to understand and read a food label, i would look at that nutritional information and all that i could see was numbers, numbers, confusing numbers, long words, words i couldn't pronounce, and yes, MORE NUMBERS! Well there is good news people!!! I am going to try and help you with the BASICS of how to desypher these labels in the SIMPLEST way that i can. I suggest you grab a label now to refer to as we go through this! Also, im not claiming to be a nutritionist! Just simply pointing out the basics!

Lets start with the ingredient list. Firstly, on all packaging, ingredients are listed in order of quantity within the product. Whatever is listed first in the panel has the MOST volume in the food and simililarly, whatever is listed last has the least volume. Obviously if sugar or salt are one of the first ingredients listed, we would try to steer clear and make a better choice. We should also take into consideration the amount of ingredients listed. If something has a never ending story of ingredients, chances are its been highly processed and again, you may want to make a better choice. My last point is that if there are a whole lot of chemicals and words listed which you can barely read let alone pronounce most nutritionists would tell you to steer clear. We should aim to be eating foods as close to their natural form as possible!

Serving size. Alot of the time there is more than one serving in packaged goods. So simply check the servings per container/package or the size of the serving so that you can measure what you are consuming and be aware of this before you are six servings deep into a bag of potato chips!

Sugar. There are approximately 4 grams of sugar in a teaspoon. So next time you read a label saying a product contains for example 20g of sugar, just be aware and picture in your head that this is actually equating to 5 teaspoons of sugar. Some foods containing fruits will be high in sugar however they will be rich in many other healthy things so do not always avoid sugars. Sometimes they are good!

Sodium. We should be trying to keep our sodium levels below roughly 2000mg a day. If a food has an extremely high sodium content it is more than likely that combined with the rest of your diet for that day, you will be far over that healthy guideline.

Carbohydrate and Protein. Like i said i am trying to keep this simple, but carbs and protiens are both macronutrients which contain 4 calories per gram. Therefore when you are reading how many grams of carbs/protein on a package, you can multiply each by 4 to see exactly how many calories are coming from each source compared to the total amount of calories in the food. Everyones diet is different, but if you are a person who eats a high protien diet you would obviously choose foods where most of the calories are coming from protein.

Calories. Calories are not evil!!! They are a unit of energy! Love them, learn about them and use them correctly to nourish and fuel your body every day. Everybodies daily caloric intake and needs are different and specific so i won't expand too much here. I will just say steer away from foods which are super high in calories leaving you with not many calories for the rest of the day. We want to spread our calories out evenly throughout the day to ensure sustained, even energy! Again, by multiplying grams of carbs and protien by 4, and grams of fat by 9, we can see where most of the calories in the food are coming from and make better choices.

Fats. Last but not least is fat! Listed will be total grams of fat. Multiply this number by 9 to see how many calories in the food are coming from fat. (9 calories per gram of fat). 25-35% of our diet each day should be made up of HEALTHY fats. The label will then list what types of fats the product contain being either monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, saturated or trans fats. If the product is mainly trans fat then it is highly processed and your body is going to have a really hard time processing this type of fat. It is the worst so put it down. Expect to see saturated fat in all animal products from dairy to meat to eggs. Polyunsaturated (walnuts,flaxseed,fish oil,salmon) and monounsaturated (avocado,almonds,olive oil) are seen as good fats and are ESSENTIAL in your diet. Fat can be your friend too!

Basically a good guide is to try and eat foods which are as natural as possible. The less preservatives and extra additives the better! I hope that this has helped you. Like i said i have tried to keep this to basics and as SIMPLE as i can. I hope you feel more confident in reading a label and making aq more informed and better decision for your body! You only get one body so respect it and take care of it as much as you can. Happy eating!!!

Fighting the fear of the dreaded weights section.

Signing up to a gym or fitness establishment can be really daunting for alot of people! I know when i first joined my local gym i was freaking out. What am i doing? What do i wear? Why is everyone so serious? Are people judging me? How do they all know what they are doing? And of course, the most commonly thought question, What on earth does that machine do?! For people who are on their own, the easiest and most common thing to do is of course, power walk straight to the cardio area avoiding any eye contact to where we can plug in our headphones and walk like hampsters on a wheel for the next half hour without being bothered. Seriously, im sure this is what 90% of us all did on our very first visit!
      
Now i'm not saying that cardio doesnt have its benefits, because it does! Any activity is better than no activty at all right? Cardio is great for your cardiovascular system, and you may be suprised to learn that in Australia heart disease is at the very top of the diseases which kill women every year. So make sure you are incorporating it into your workout plan. However! I cannot stress enough the amazing results and benifits you will recieve from taking a deep breathe, doing some research, stepping off that treadmill and making your way over to the WEIGHTS SECTION. All those fit and sexy fitness models havent achieved their bodies through hours of cardio, they've been over in those squat racks and using those cables. The benefits of weight training are practically never ending, Higher metabolism, Increased energy levels, better posture, makes day to day tasks easier, better mood, stronger heart, decreased risk of diabetes and the list goes on.

      

 'I dont want to lift weights, I dont want to get to big'

I can almost 100% PROMISE you that you do not have the capactiy to get 'Big'. Majorty of females simply do not have the testosterone in their body that it takes to build large amounts of muscle. Sure for a few months when you first start training weights you will see changes provided that you are nourishing your body and eating a good amount of lean protien, but these changes do not continue to come at that rate forever, believe me. Progress will slow and soon you'll be aiming at maintaining the gains you have made. And all gains can be lost, we need to work to keep our muscle, therefor if you stop training you will go back to how you were before you started very quickly. But to achieve a tight and toned healthy looking body, you need to create some shape by lifting heavy weights at least a few times a week. For someone who is just beginning id suggest that your break up your workouts into body parts, we need roughly 24-48 hours of recovery before we should train muscle groups again as they need time to repair. Hop onto youtube and search 'leg workouts', 'back workouts' 'chest workouts' etc. This is a great place to start and youll learn more by observing the people around you. Bodybuilding.com also has alot of great information on training and nutrition for all bodies and all levels of experience (not just bodybuilders girls).

Every single person in the gym was nervous on their first visit and even for weeks/months later! None of us have built in knowledge about how to train, we must seek the knowledge through others and the internet! Knowledge is power, and it will help you to achieve all of your fitness goals! Don't fly blind, ask for help when you need it. 99% of people from my experience are happy to help and are even flattered by people asking for their advice. Lets help eachother to become the best we can be! Do your body a favour and LIFT!

Welcome!

First of all i'd like to thank YOU for taking the time to jump onto my blog and have a read!

I want to create a space where girls can come to be inspired and motivated to live a healthy lifestyle and learn to love themselves from the inside out. Because YOU are beautiful! I want to share tips and tools to help you create the best you that you can be. I'll be posting things that inspire me, healthy recipes, workouts and tips for the gym, wellbeing and nutrition information and of course, cool workout gear. My aim is to help as many girls to feel incredible in their own skins as i can. There are so many pressures in this world, so lets all help eachother, share information and grow!