Sweating the Stress Away

I woke up 30 minutes before I was supposed to (5:30 am) because I couldn't wait to get to the gym! Today was my first day to the gym with my new schedule! Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays I'll be hitting the gym before work and I could not be more excited about this. I'm definitely a morning workout person.

After getting myself and my kids up and ready and out the door, I was at the gym by 6:45 and jumped on the treadmill for a quick warm up. To my surprise, my first trainer, Kelly Gonzalez comes bouncing towards me and we had a nice chat and caught up on everything. She recently went Bikini Pro and she was also eager to hear all about my experience with the show. It was WONDERFUL to see her and it reminded me what I love so much about the bodybuilding community; they get it. They understand why you pour yourself into the workouts and put yourself on the strict diets and push yourself beyond the average person's limits.

After a HARD, KICK ASS workout. I felt like a million bucks. I was sweating, hurting, sick to my stomach, shaking and SMILING. It felt amazing. I didn't think about work, kids, deadlines, meetings, pressures...nope, I thought about flexing, breathing, 1 more rep, make it to the line with two more lunges; it was intense!

My entire day has been so much better. I have a clear head, I feel energized and motivated and so focused. Gotta love a morning workout!

Building your Immune System

After taking a month off of working out and clean eating, I found myself extremely sick. I've had walking pneumonia and it has NOT been fun at all. My first week back on track and I didn't even make it the full week before I found myself, coughing, wheezing, unable to breathe and curled up in bed.

The first thing my husband says to me is, "its because you haven't been working out. You've been stressed out and not taking the time to take care of your body." When I talked to, Blythe, she said the same thing!

I started doing research on how exercise affects our immune systems and of course there was no surprise how much exercise helps build our immune system and keep us healthy! It really is a cycle: exercise reduces stress, which stregthens the immune system, which helps keep us strong and energized to exercise and build muscle! Not exercising, reduces the ability to release stress, which then weakens the immune system, therefore allowing illnesses and disease to weaken the body and make it difficult to find energy to exercise.

So now that I'm feeling much better, I'm back to my routine. I don't like the way I feel when I'm not on a schedule with exercise and nutrition.

Yeah, baby!

So I hit it hard today! Back to my diet (modified) and I worked hard in the gym tonight! It felt so good; although, I know I'll be hurting tomorrow...and the next day!

It felt awesome to be eating clean again; especially after the holiday weekend and to be completely honest, my horrible addiction to s'mores over the last several weeks!

I do need to come up with a schedule/routine now that the school year has started back up. I am definitely a morning person when it comes to working out, but at this point, I'll take what/when I can get.

My plan right now is:

Monday-off
Tuesday- legs
Wednesday-off
Thursday- back and shoulders/cardio
Friday- chest and arms/cardio
Saturday and Sunday- cardio only

With nutrition, I'm aiming for about 50-60g fats, 50-75-125g carbs, and 125-175g protein each day. A gallon of water/day and I'll continue with my viatmins.

:o)

125 lbs

I've put on some weight in the last 3 weeks, and I will admit that I have mixed feelings about that. I wasn't really comfortable at my lightest weight (119 lbs) but what woman likes to see the scale go up?

I'm still wearing sizes 0-2 and they look pretty good. I know that this is a comfortable size for me. I hope that this is my weight/size that I can maintain for life. I feel good, confident and secure with myself and I couldn't really ask for much more. Obviously, there will always be things about our bodies that we aren't 100% happy with or that we wish we could change (for me it will always be those gorgeous stretch marks that I was blessed with- I'll call them my battle wounds that are proof my body worked hard to give me my beautiful children)

So for now, I'm on a maintenance plan; I will continue to eat clean, lift weights, get 3 days of cardio in and live a healthy lifestyle. :o)