Week 4 in the bag!

I ended week for with being at 100%! No deviations from my eating plan and I hit it super hard in the gym this week. The scale cooperated and I lost 2 lbs this week. That never happens to me, it is always 1 slow pound after another. I have about 7 more to go and I am 15 weeks out so I am in a good place.

My shoulders and triceps decided to come out and say hello this week. I am loving the way they are leaning out so quickly and I am wishing it was not so cold and I could wear short sleeves to show them off. There is nothing sexier than muscular shoulders and arms, I think anyway.

I truly feel like this is going to be my best show ever. Not only are a lot of my Diva team members going to be there but I can just feel it. I feel like my head is in a good place right now. I have changed my mindset to be constantly thinking like a competitor. If I don't feel like getting a workout in, I change my mindset and say to myself, "I am a competitor and a competitor does not miss workouts or eat crap so get to it sister" and it really works. May sound crazy but just try it and see. Even if you have never competed you can still get your mind to think this way. It is all so mental! So you can control your brain and it is free, what are you waiting for?

Week 3 down but.......

It so could have been better! I struggled this week with being stuck in the house for days. There was no school on Thurs, Fri or today. It makes me crazy! Dave has been home with me and I swear all he wanted to do was cook. We cooked healthy stuff but it was not stuff on my plan. I hope Mike does not ask for pics because I don't think I made much progress this week. This is a new week and the beginning of a new month. I love February. It is a short month and then March is Spring Break month. I love Spring Break, that is when I take all the boring stuff from my house and bring out all the bright and cheering colors and it just cheers me up!

I am like 15 wks out and have 9 lbs to lose so I am not too worried. I am sitting at a really healthy weight right now and I am not looking forward to my face looking super old again. That is what happens when I drop 10 lbs. It is terrible and my face takes a beating with all the up and down.

The snow has been terrible this year. The Colorado show I am doing is May 22 and I was scheduled to leave on the 21st. Now that we have make up days at school I am not sure how I am going to pull this off. I will figure it out but I am a little worried. We have had some terrible weather this year. I leave you with some snow pics.

Week 2 down

Well, since having surgery and taking a month of from the gym, I now have 2 solid weeks under my belt. I am back into my small jeans already so apparently there was a lot of bloat going on there plus the scale dropped about 7 pounds fast so definitely bloat! I am going to try to blog at least once a week so I can look back on this experience. I have had to ditch the idea of competing in the Liberty show but I will be ready to compete in Colorado by May, no problem. There was just no way I could be ready for the Liberty show in time.

When you take time off for whatever reason I think it is harder mentally to get back at it. I have struggled mentally with cravings and just wanting to be "normal". I know me though and I am not "normal". I like to be different so, I am back at it and got my new meal plan and workouts. I stuck to my plan for 2 weeks and I can tell slowly but surely it is all coming back. I will be glad to have 2 more under my belt. I am like 16 or 17 weeks out right now. I think it is good I am starting early though, I have some ground to make up plus it will not put me at my last few weeks and having to do brutal cardio.

I have always tried to plan my comps around holidays, birthdays and vacations just to make it easier on myself. I become anti-social for 3 months barely even seeing my family. I know Valentine's Day is not really a problem for me and we have decided on a June vacation right after the Tulsa show. I know the Super Bowl is coming up but I am aloud a cheat so I am going to be making some healthy snacks. I will leave you with one of the recipes. Enjoy!


Spinach-Walnut Dip

* 2 cups spinach
* 1/8 teaspoon Swanson Organic Garlic Powder
* 3/4 cup Greek yogurt
* 1/4 cup Swanson Organic Walnuts, chopped
* 1 teaspoon tarragon, chopped
* 1 teaspoon Swanson Organic Dill Weed
* 1 teaspoon cilantro, chopped
* 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
* Swanson Himalayan Crystal Salt, to taste



Puree spinach and garlic clove. Mix with Greek yogurt, finely chopped walnuts, chopped tarragon, dill and cilantro, red pepper flakes and a pinch of salt.

Makes 48 servings. Serving size 1 tablespoon.
Nutritional Breakdown (per serving):

Calories 7, Fat 0 grams, Protein 1 gram, Sodium 15 mg, Carbohydrates 0 grams, Fiber 0 grams

Tis the season... the competition season that is.

Yes, it is that time again! I actually love this time of year when all the holidays and stuff are behind us. It is nice to have a little break but it is so easy to get lazy and when you are surrounded by bad food constantly, it makes it really hard to stay on track. Add a surgery and no workouts for a month into the mix and, need I say more?
I have actually done pretty well considering. I tried really hard to eat clean when I could not work out. I ended up with 3 lbs on top of my 10 that I had put on after my June comp last summer. I had promised myself not to gain more than 10 and that is what I will do this season as well.
I think prepping this go around will be pretty easy. I am actually doing an NPC show in Colorado with some of my Diva peeps in May. I am about 15-16 weeks out I think. I got my official meal plan last Sunday and ended the week on a perfect note. When it says get all your cardio, workouts and stay on plan and you can have a cheat meal on the weekend, you can bet your sweet booty I will follow orders.
I ended up with homemade pizza and my homemade brownies. I only ate one and set back a few for Dave and sent the rest home with my mom today. She said she would give them to my brothers tomorrow. At least they are out of the house.
After the Colorado show I will be 14 days exactly out from the Tulsa show so I figured what the heck, I might as well. Then we are leaving for vacation which is TBA (to be announced). My little brother is getting married and it will either be a cruise or somewhere in Mexico but should know in the next month or so, so we can start planning that. I am waiting on them to make up their minds.
I am going to try to at least blog once a week to keep track of my count down to Colorado. I am super excited about this show and meeting everyone.

I finally got my kitchen completely finshed, pot rack hung, hardware on the cabinets and it looks so good. The rack holds like 25 pans but I did not hang that many on there. It sure did clean out 2 large cabinets though that I can use for other things. I have used the crap out of this island. We have no regrets for the amount of money we spent on it. I think it will be a great selling point if we ever decide to sell. Here is a pic, it is hard to tell how large it is in the pic but trust me, it is super heavy and ginormous. Dave had to get in the attic to reinforce it on the beams. Everything turned out exactly like I had it in my mind too.

HO HO HO Back to work I go.

Well, today is my last day of Winter Break and with the surgery I have been off for 3 weeks. Dave has been off the entire month of December and will be going back to work tomorrow too. We have had the best time together, well at least I have. He might not be saying that since he is the one that did the entire honey do list over the break. We got so much done though. Notice I said "we". I tried to help a lot but probably was not worth a darn.

I have never been so ready to get back to working out in all my life. I feel like such a blob. I have one more week to go so I am really getting anxious. I know I will not be able to go in there and start back where I left off, no way. I still have some pain just vacuuming . We spent the evening with friends, there were 14 of us and they are all teacher friends. My friend Janet who had her gallbladder out last year says it was a piece of cake and she was back to work in a day or two. I was out 5 days with it and she has 15 yrs on me and a little over weight and out of shape so WTH? This has been harder for me than I ever thought it would be. I thought I would be back in the gym in a week or two, HA, no way!I feel like such a wuss.

I will let you know how the workouts turn out. I am suppose to be getting new workouts and diet from Mike this week. I go back to the doc this week and I have to get my tooth drilled on tomorrow and HO,HO,HO back to reality I go.

Sometimes I feel like such a scrooge!

I know I suck! I said NO to Mexico but you guys do not understand, I look like I was about 4 months pregnant at least! I am so much better now but still have bandages on my stomach. I so would not have had a good time but after this blizzard we got over the holidays I think I should have said YES! I was stuck in the house for 2 days straight. I cooked a ton of food for my family and they all had to cancel. Nobody could get out on the roads, all interstates were shut down and the airport. It was awful and we are not used to that here at all. We got 14" of snow which never happens. I walked outside and it was just about to my knees in some places, super high drifts from the 50 mph winds.




I have about 2 more weeks and then I can begin my workouts again, I can hardly wait! I feel like such a big blob but I have been hitting the cardio a little heavy. So far my plans are, a April show, a May show and a June show if I can talk hubs into all three with 2 of them being out of state so the expenses are pretty high and since this is just my hobby I have to put my lower lip out a little further so he will go for it.

Here is my island, not sure if you can tell but it is gigantic and I love it. I have room to do everything on it. We put a flat screen tv on the wall in front of it so when I am home alone and cooking at least I can watch tv while I do it. I can also watch my favorite cooking shows while I am in the kitchen. I spend a lot of time in this room so I wanted it to be perfect for me. I was in for a rude awakening when it came to buying the hardware for my drawers and cabinets. I am going to have to spend about $350 more just for the hardware. The drawers are so large that it will take at least a 12" drawer pull and those sucks are not cheap! UGH! I may have to just buy one at a time at that price. So, there is no hardware on it yet so it looks kind of plane but you get the idea.

Getting back to normal

Well it has been 12 days since surgery and it has been a slow process. Everyday is a little bit better with the first couple of days being the worst. At least now it does not hurt to sneeze. My weight is all over the place within 5-6 lbs depending on what day of the week it is. I am still really bloated and I have read a lot about this and it is due to them having to fill your abdominal cavity with gas to do the surgery. It has really messed with me mentally though because I am used to having a very flat tummy and now I look like I am about 4 mths pregnant. I cannot button any of my clothes, it is just too tight in the waist. I started back doing cardio yesterday and made it 35 minutes before starting to hurt a little so I called it quits. Today I made it to 40 min so I am slowly getting back into it but still have two weeks to go until a weight workout and then I am sure I will have to ease back into that.

Dave actually wanted to take a little weekend trip to Mexico over the holidays and I said, hell to the NO! I would never put on a swimsuit in this condition, I mean I still have bandages all over my tummy much less looking pregnant, I nearly fainted when he suggested it. He took the whole month of December off so he has been a great help around the house. He does a good part of the cleaning like vacuuming and stuff that I cannot do right now. He has done so much around the house and I am loving it.

My kitchen is done other than getting hardware for the cabinets and drawers,don't even get me started on that. It is not as easy as it sounds. I wanted to post pics but my battery is dead on my camera and I left my charger at school so either I go buy another charger or just wait until I go back after the first of the year but either way I will post pics soon. I love, love, love the kitchen!

Thanks to all of you for the cards and emails while I was recovering! It really did cheer me up on those long days:)