The new beginings: As of tomorrow I start a 6 month course studying Commercial Cookery at TAFE. I’m very excited about this but more than a little nervous. I’ll be the mature age student who’s vowed to pay attention. I remember how annoying this was when I was a snotty 18 year old fresh out of high school. I guess I’d better not be too annoying as everyone will have knives, and I’m in the South so they know how to use them. I’m hoping to gain vaulable knowledge on the commercial aspects of running a food business and then in the second half of the year you’ll see me hopefully launch my own food service. Exciting!

As for training, I’m taking the rest of the week off. I’ve been training pretty hard for a while now and have a few injuries and niggling things that need attending to.  Then I’m gonna start from the ground up and really get things rolling.

I’ve got 2 iPods, an older iPod nano 2Gb and an 8Gb nano which was an impulse purchase on the apple store when I bought my mac mini. I justified the 8GM because plays video and I wanted to video while I commuted to and from work. The older nano has been rattling around the house not doing much until I had the idea to turn it into the ‘lazy girl’s positivity pod’. I’d love to get up and meditate every day but some mornnings it just doesn’t happen. Some days I’m just too sleepy or running late. These days are the days I need to fill my brain with positive thougths the most.

I’ve managed to fill my 2Gb iPod with almost entirely free content to help attract positive thoughts. Here’s a list of the podcasts I’ve added:

Ajahn Brahm’s Dharma Talks (average length 1hr)- A light-hearted and funny take on life and Buddhism from the Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Guided Meditation Podcast (average length 30 mins)-Also from the Buddhist Society of WA, some are more secular than others. All are great for guiding your mind to a better place.

The Daily Boost (average length 1o minutes)- Scott is a bit full on but his ideas stick. Scott comes from a background as a fitness trainer and proffesional DJ and gets in your head real fast.

Motivation to Move (daily- 1minute, Weekly 30 minutes)- Another one from Scott Smith. I’ve been listening to this for nearly 5 years Fantastic if you’re just starting your fitness journey or getting back after a ‘break’.

Meditation Station (average length 10 minutes)- Anyone can commit to this amount of time!

My thought Coach (average length 5 mins)- This is going to be my manditory morning wake up. Not even going to the toilet until this is done!

People Building (average length 50 mins)- Appears to be more to do with NLP techniques. Not quite as polished as some other podcasts. I’ll take her on my dog walks and see how we get on.

A Quiet Mind (average length 15 minutes)

TEDtalks (average length 15 minutes)- Inspirational technology, education and design lectures from the world’s leading speakers

Weightloss and the Mind (average length 30 minutes)

Zencast (average length 1 hour)- I first downloaded Zencast for their ‘intro to meditation’ series. Gil has a beautifully unassuming way of speaking which draws you in and calms any fears. I’ve been listening now for at least 3 years.

Not free but excellent audiobooks I’ve listened to recently.

Brainsync – Only $10 US each, The Secret meditation is fantastic. I wake up feeling so different when I do this one. Winning is also great.

Paul McKenna’s Supreme Self Confidence- Pop this one into your friendly search engine and give it a go

The Biology of Belief- Bruce H Lipton (iTunes Store link) – A truly amazing look into epigenetics, a new stream of science linking consciousness to your body’s function at a cellular level.

Please add your favourites to the comments section so that we can all benefit.

It’s been a pretty unsettled week for me. Stephen went away to Melbourne on Wednesday morning and I had my Dad for dinner in the evening. We had the most yummy Thai salad, which I will share soon.

He brought bad news, that his Mum had been taken to hospital after her cancer had taken a turn for the worst. He was heading out to see her on Friday and to share her 90th birthday. It turned into a late night so I slept in Thursday morning because I didn’t have to rush home from work to spend time with Stephen. However, shortly after I got to work Dad rang with the bad news that Mim (his Mum) had passed away. She was an amazing woman. One of the first female pilots in the US. A high-school science teacher, who inspired thousands of kids. She was always full of energy. She was still flying planes and going to the gym 4 times a week this time last year. Her sense of humour has spread right through all our family and it’s so obvious we are related when we get together. The last 6 months would have been very tough for her as she always wanted to be doing things and meeting with people and her body wasn’t able. I am happy that her suffering is over and that she can now find a new body to have adventures in. I feel compassion for the people who where closest to her; my Dad, uncle and aunt and her amazing sister, Catherine who’s hearts are very much broken right now.

Much to my disappointment (and I’m sure Mim’s) I dropped the ball a bit for the rest of the week. Partaking in morning tea on Thursday morning, and a big meal out with my dad Thursday night. Followed by a few not to great meals out while I’m here in Melbourne. I am however proud to say I made all my trianing sessions. Squeezing in Thursday night in the last 30 mins before the gym closed. All my sadness made me strong and I did 3 sets of unassisted NG chins. Friday’s training was a bit of a comedown. My mind wasn’t on it and I was weak as a kitten. Flattened from the sad news, preparing for an important meeting and packing to travel. Saturday I ran stairs at our accommodation. 

Last night I had an idea I was going to hunt out chilli mud crab for dinner. It ended up being a bit of a Szechuan feast. This morning I woke and decided it was time to refocus and remember my goals. Look out world here I come.

May I be free from mental suffering.

May I be free from physical suffering.

May I look after myself. well.

I’m just back from Sunday arvo meditation with the buddhist society of SA. Tara led a lovely Metta meditation which is what i really needed.  I aim to do a lot more meditation this week. A calmer mind will help me understand some of my big challenges in the coming weeks.

What the hell am I talking about?
Like the rest of all y’all out there I set goals back in January. Mine are pinned to my pinup board above my monitor. I see them everyday. Yep, I’ll get around to that… and that. My focus really has been set on returning to the stage to compete in figure again this September. It’s the sum-total of all my other goals I’ve been ignoring. I had this crazy idea that I could put up a better package without a calm and focused mind, well rested body full of good nutrients and a partner who supports me. Sure, in 16-20 weeks time I could haul my carb-deplete, far from optimally functioning body up on stage. I’d even have a bucket load more muscle but I won’t have gained anything in the journey and I’ll have caused at least small amounts of damage to what’s important to me.

In addition to this, what I’ve barely touched  on here however, is that I’ve felt like absolute dog poo most of the year. My imune system has been weak, hormones all over the shop, thyroid function less than optimal and tired. So tired. About a week before my birthday, I finally started to feel GOOD. Jump out of bed and swing kettlebells for fun good. Walking around with a big grin on my face good. Looking forward to EVERYTHING good. Kilo’s finally started to shift that had been piling on and I was eating LOTS of good food. I’d finally found a way of living that had me in tune with my body. We were so on the same page. I stumbled a bit over my birthday and then started to set my focus on comp prep. That feeling dissapeared and I again felt like I was pushing against a brick wall. The feeling I felt on stage last year was AWESOME but just didn’t match the EVERYDAY good feeling I’ve tasted from listening to my body and treating it right.

Two more thing cemented my descision over the last few days. Today I SMASHED my (16 month) dumbell bench plateau (counting shoulder downtime). 30% increase in the last 4 months. Made me think I’m doing something right. And yesterday, I had a quick chat with a local contest organiser and longtime-encourager about something I’d been tossing over in my head. Physique. Truth be told, I’m just not buit for figure. I’m blocky, not long and lean. It’s not an excuse to not be lean. So for now, I’m pushing the bikini to one side and drawing inspiration for ladies like Krista and Renee.

I want to be wicked lean, wicked strong but also something others would aspire to. This means not just living a ‘healthy’ lifestyle but actually being healthy. No wonder none of my nearest and dearest are inspired to change their live because of me. I’m tired and cranky and often sick. 3 weeks ago I started a 12 week challenge. The challenge was see how much I can do to change my body and mind in 12 weeks. This means listening HARD to my bodies feedback and working hard to challenge old beliefs. In the next 9 weeks I will become a LEVEL 2 master. Only then can I start to tackle level 3 goals.

“You can motivate by fear and you can motivate by reward. Both of these are temporary. The only lasting thing is self-motivation.”

Found in the Australian Red Cross Blood Service branding document, but too true to many things.

…remember that  joy is free

David O’Doherty- Comedian

One of the cool things JB mentions is defining your values. JB’s idea for defining your values  is to think about the things that you’re really passionate about. If you’re stuck there, JB suggests, listing the things that really piss you off. I started thinking about things and realised defining values is a concept I’ve always struggled with. I’m highly critical, of myself and others but these critisisms seem to come from self-doubt rather than a solid value structure. This has got me interested further in investigating the motivation behind things that I react negatively to. An intersting tangent anyways.

I’ve still got 3 more days of self-imposed R&R so I spent the afternoon preparing food and watching the INBA SA titles. It fueled the fire in my belly and also got me thinking about my posing routine. I’m excited about competing again, but the what if monster keeps playing out in my head too. What if I keep getting sick? What if I can’t drop this weight without going down to evilly low calories? Well, I can put a greater focus on recovery, keep on top of my sups and make a good solid early start, THAT WHAT IF! The worst thing that can happen is I get healthy then! I have decided that there will be no wheat for the next 12 weeks. It makes my legs turn into great big water balloons. Too bad, that naan on Friday was well tasty.

With all this in mind here’s my food for the week:

M1: 1 cup egg whites/125g roo, Spinach, 1/2 cup pineapple, 3 fish caps
M2: 1x (65g) Thai chicken pattie, Zucchini, capsicum, 15g walnuts
M3: 125g roo/beef, salad greens, artichoke heart, nashi pear, capsicum, 15g walnuts, 3 fish caps
M4: Another chicken pattie, carrot and brocolli salad with 15g pepitas
In WO: 20g malto, 14g Xtend, 10g glutamine
PWO: 20g malto, 35g WPI, 5g creatine, 10g glutamine
M5: 125g beef/lamb/roo, vegies, walnuts/pepitas/olive oil, fish caps
M6: 1/2 pkt tofu or 1/4 cup yoghurt, pea/rice protein, ladyfinger/100g raspberries. The yoghurt isn’t making me gassy but is not great for congestion, hence the tofu.

I’ve also started a whole new stack of suppliments, more on that later.