I really needed that...

Hi again!

I'm popping back in for another post! I'll probably be posting twice a day now leading up to the competition. I figure since I'm now doing cardio twice a day, I may as well post twice a day, too!

I got back from the gym a little bit ago after a fantastic shoulder workout. I'm workin' shoulders and glutes twice a week now because that is what I want to "showcase" the most. Well, and abs if they would PLEASE come out of hiding. Sigh. Seriously, that is the one thing I'm most paranoid about, but I know it comes down to leaning out a bit more. So, hence the reason I'm doing cardio for 1.5-2 hours a day JUST until the competition. Then, I'll go back to doing HIIT 3-4 times a week and call it a day. (A great day, if you ask me, since I loathe cardio hehe!)

Anyway, after my workout I was ravenous and ate the following (too fast, apparently, because I didn't even have time to take a picture OOPS!:

• 4oz. chicken with 1.5 tbsp Mild Organic Salsa
• Two organic brown two cakes topped with a little SF Davinci syrup and cinnamon. (I brush a little of the SF syrup so that the cinnamon will actually stick to the rice cake. My little "creation":)
• 1 tsp Carlson's Cod Liver Oil (lemon flavor)<-- best stuff ever! Highly concentrated fish oil!

I will go back around 8pm to do 30-40 minutes of cardio. I'll probably read a book or magazine on the bike. Speaking of, I haven't received my Oxygen magazine for November. It better come soon- it's my morning cardio lifesaver HA!

Anyway, I wanted to share with you a few "perks" I had today. It's AMAZING how a few kind words can make all the difference and can spark a small flame to become a raging wildfire within you. Ah, the power of words! You see, when I woke up and saw that I was up 2.2 lbs, I felt SO discouraged. It's just amazing how many calories I burn working out and how few calories I eat, creating a mega-deficit that I was almost certain would allow me to shred this fat. I don't go below 1,200 calories and always have a higher-carb day during the week, and really just trying to figure out my body and what I'm doing wrong that is causing my weight to come to a screeching halt.. As I said earlier today in my first post of the day, I think my body is just getting used to being at this weight. I probably haven't weighed this amount since middle school. Yeah, middle school. That's a looooong time ago.

Anyway, on top of feeling discouraged about only having 19 days to make some major improvements in my body, we got the news that it will cost us nearly $1000 to get our Mustang GT fixed. So. Not. Cool. There goes our vacation to Disney World in February...sigh. Anyway, since we're down to one car, I made Hubby lunch and took it to him around noon and he told me that two of his co-workers were talking about me today. He happened to see them in the lunchroom earlier and they both were commenting on how "awesome" I looked. They hadn't seen me in nearly a year, so I'm sure seeing me on Saturday night at the Halloween party nearly 25lbs lighter sure surprised them. Anyway, it was really nice to hear those compliments, especially when I'm, personally, not feeling so "hot"...

The rest of the afternoon I was absolutely dreading going back to the gym to work shoulders. I was just so flippin' tired. Come to think of it, I've been so flippin' tired for 3 months now. Ever since I started this prep. Sheesh! I wanted a nap so badly and even tried to talk myself into taking today as a "rest day". Um, yesterday was my rest day, so I'm glad I told my little shoulder-devil to beat it! I popped an OxyElite Pro and headed to the gym determined to "get it over with".

Well, about two exercises into my workout, I started to get my mojo back. I'm so so so excited to have graduated to 25lb shoulder presses and was happy to increase weight doing four sets of 12, 8, 7 and 7. YAY! I was starting to feel better and more energetic and glad that I didn't "give in" to my discouraged feelings.

After shoulder presses, I started doing Rear-Delt Flys when I got a tap on my back from this girl (who I thought was a trainer the first time I saw her because she was an AWESOME physique.) I took out my ear pieces and she said, " I just wanted to tell you that your arms are looking awesome. I've been noticing these past few weeks." I said, "Thank you so much" and she then asked me, "Are you competing?" I told her my plans to do Fitness in the Spring, but that "yes", I would be competing in Bikini this month. She was so encouraging and told me just to be natural and that I had a good attitude about my competition-- just to do it to gain experience and see what it is like. I couldn't believe someone put "competing" and "you" in the same sentence in reference to 'lil ol' me! Ya'll, I felt like I could cry because 6 months ago NOBODY would have ever asked if I was competing...unless maybe in a hot dog eating contest HA!

By the way, this is just ga-ross!

Anyway, that felt SOOO good to hear! I told her that it was "one of those days" and that I really needed to hear that. And, please, please, please know that I'm not writing about receiving a compliment because I'm bragging in any way. Trust me, that could not be further from the truth and if you knew what went on in my head all day long, you'd know that certainly wasn't the case. I'm not sharing this because I want compliments, either. But, to tell you the truth, today I sorta-kinda needed to hear it. I guess today was "the day" to receive such compliments and it just made the rest of my workout THAT MUCH better and I pushed THAT MUCH harder knowing all this work really does pay off. I just wish I had gotten her name, but I see her a lot so maybe she'll be my first gym friend! :)

Also, YOUR comments and encouragement means the world to me, too! I just want to give each and every one of my readers a giant, Texas-sized hug! Truly, my heart has "smile lines" from reading your comments. Sometimes a comment is just the "perk" I need to head to the gym. Thank you for that!

OK, enough with the long-winded post... HUGS! :)