Flex friday!!

Show ’em if you got ’em!!!!

So part of this healthy lifestyle is learning to love me and my body. Harder than it sounds!! You want a rush, then post a picture of your least favorite body part on twitter!!

I’ve been going hard at the gym and haven’t had a day off yet (allowing myself one finally this weekend, I think) and slowly but surely some progress is coming. My legs are getting much more defined, my arms are slowly showing more definition – I’ve upped all my weights in everything, I’m benching 90 pounds, leg pressing 200 pounds, go big or go home!!! I’ve really been fining 110% every time I step foot in the gym. I’ve been eating really well and clean and haven’t had a cheat meal in a while (over a week)! I’ve dropped some pounds again (after feeling like I plateaued a bit last week) and know my body fat is getting lower and my muscle mass is getting higher.

The harder I work, the better I feel. The more results I see, the more addicted (and let’s face it, obsessed) I become. And with that, the stronger I feel and more confidence I have! I know I’m not only the strongest woman, but often the strongest person working out. I know my strengths and weaknesses and continue to push myself to get better at both. It’s so fun! And I’m not going to lie, I enjoy when other people tell me they want to be like me or they don’t know how I do it!

I’m wading out of town this weekend, so it will be the first test of my discipline this year. I will allow myself to enjoy, I won’t allow myself to get out of control. I won’t allow binging or wasted calories or making excuses to eat something I know I shouldn’t. Too you, that may sound extreme, to me, I know I need to keep myself reigned in. One slip and the whole weekend will be a big slip and then ill slip back into the self deprecation – that’s the last place I want to go back to. I’m planning on hitting the gym and running a few miles! I brought my protein powder along and am ready to be disciplined and strong willed!! I will be indulging in some wine tonight (again, the first time ill be drinking in a while) at my sisters wine club event – super excited about this!!!

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! And flex those muscles 😉

A little sass…

confidence…thank you Giuliana Rancic!!

Not sure if any of you subscribe to Fab, Fit, Fun or check out the tweets, but it is Giuliana Rancic’s blog/email/concept.  I really like what she had to say, so I’m copying and pasting it here — this is ALL her, not me at all (I wish though!! she’s awesome)

so have a read and enjoy 🙂 it’s all about confidence.  and luckily, with all the hard work i’ve been putting in and the strong people i’ve been surrounding myself with, my confidence is coming into it’s own…slowly. i’m feeling good and feel like i look good, and then i throw on my Lululemon wunderunders and really feel awesome since i finally have an ASS (thank you squats!!) to show off!!

 

That’s right, whether you’re at work, at a coffee shop, or on the red carpet, there is definitely something to be said for having a little “swag” (just ask the Biebs!). It’s that thing that makes you desirable, attractive, and screams “I love me and you should too!” (Without actually having to do that — yikes!)

But it’s completely normal to lose your mojo for a bit — so here are a few of my favorite tips to help you become courageously tenacious again. After all, there are a few things every gal should take with her wherever she goes: lipstick, a Band-Aid, and confidence!

Channel your confidence mentor: Remember in Crazy, Stupid, Love how Steve Carell lost his confidence and looked to the younger, charming Ryan Gosling to get it back? Well, I’m not saying that you should try to imitate Ry — but I am saying that you should look to someone you admire, whether that be your older sister, your work mentor, or a celeb. Just ask yourself, “What would Angelina do?”

Look the part: Think about it — when actors go into an audition, many of them dress the part from the get-go to make themselves more believable. And you can dress the part of a confident, secure woman. When getting ready for a date or event, try wearing your favorite outfit rather than a new outfit, which hasn’t been tested for any malfunctions (no nip slips here!).

Walk the walk: Having a confident stride is a great way to fake it till you make it. Just like Oscar de la Renta said, you should “walk like you have three men walking behind you.” (I assume he didn’t mean three creepy ones outside of a bar at night.) Be sure to wear your fave (comfy) shoes so you can pull it off like a VS Angel!

Create your own confidence mantra: Rather than posting quotes from other people, create your own! Get a picture frame and put a nice piece of blank stationery inside, then write your own personal mantra on the glass with a dry-erase marker so you can change it whenever you feel like it. Display it next to your mirror as a reminder that you are uh-mazing!

motivation, words, pics…fitspo!

Asshat.

Please excuse the not-so-positive-right-off-the-bat post, but this needs to be said…(it will turn positive, i promise!)

My ex boyfriend is an asshat.
(Excuse the repetitiveness for my friends and family…and no judging, we all make dumb mistakes as women in relationships we WANT to work that just never will)

After trying to be civil, (yes, “civil” would be my word of choice, his is “friends”) we are currently Facebook friends. My Facebook posts aren’t even as close to excessive as my tweets, but I do have some fitspo stuff on there.

So the idiot messages me seeing that I’ve been working my ass off in the gym and asks for a picture. Wait. What?? Seriously?? “If you have a picture ill take it.”

Hah. He must think I’m an idiot.

Oh, an no, we aren’t friends. I can tell you a handful of reasons why that’s the case, but trust me, we aren’t friends.

Lets rewind.

As mentioned before, this is the guy who called me fat…oh wait, that wasn’t him, HE just told me I needed to lose weight and workout (which I have done since I was five, I have ALWAYS worked out!). After I went into a week of starving myself. Good job, that was super healthy, way to starve your body and destroy your metabolism…but it was my coping mechanism for so long. Amongst several other humiliating and embarrassing moments that I will never forget and have a hard time forgiving, when he told me I ate too much of my dinner or got made because I ordered chips & salsa, yea and he’s so perplexed still to this day at why these things bother me.

Maybe it’s a flaw in my character that I can’t forgive that. But I can tell you every story in which someone has made a comment about my physical appearance, and recalling them still hurt just the same. So excuse me for not just being able to let it go and forgive so easily.

Anyway. Long story short. He doesn’t get it and never will. He doesn’t understand why those words still haunt me and hurt. Which means, he has no place in my future. If he couldn’t love me at my worst, as a fat cow who lost her job (and I swear, I wasn’t huge…I still was getting flattering comments from other people, it wasn’t like I needed a crane to be lifted out of my house or anything!!!), and yes, that was the deal breaker when life turned upside down he quickly couldn’t deal with me in so many ways, he certainly doesn’t get to be a part of my future. And what I really don’t understand, is if he had such a problem with my physical appearance, why in the hell was he in a committed relationship with me????

Now here comes the positive part.

Maybe I’m growing up (finally!! Haha) or maybe it’s just another result of my healthy lifestyle, but I’m dealing with stuff better. I bawled my eyes out for an hour last night, but woke up and was ready to take on the day. I didn’t binge or drink. I was even more motivated to kill my workout. He’s only made me want to work harder and be better and stronger.

As I said on Facebook today, “my strength doesn’t come from lifting weights, but from picking myself up after I’ve been knocked down…and if you have a problem with who I am or what I look like, that’s your problem, not mine.”

So thank you, yet again, for the painful lesson. I will never take fitness advice from a skinny prick that has never done a bench press in his life. And who cares if people think I’m too tall or too broad or too blonde or too nice or too much of a bitch. I am me. I am finally starting to like her a lot more too! So haters can hate all they want, they only push me to be better and work harder!!

And last but not least, I’m so thankful for the physical strength I have gained over the past few months, it continually makes me mentally stronger and I’m continually pushing myself to do things I never thought possible…like running laps with a 60+ pound punching bag — hell yea, I did that yesterday! 😉

Now I’m off to enjoy my kale chips!

Just saying…

Healthy Changes.

For the first time in my life, I’ve broken patterns of emotional eating. I know, that sounds pathetic. I probably sound like a middle-aged woman who sits at home at night eating a tub of ice cream. That’s not me. However, I’ve had patterns of having a bad day and going straight to the pantry to whip up a batch of brownies, while enjoying enough batter to make myself sick. Between that and the fact that I used to think I could get away with eating whatever I wanted as long as I put the work time in at the gym, I am working on changing those unhealthy habits.

Since the year has begun, I haven’t binged on anything, let alone anything unhealthy, and I’ve maintained my clean eating (with my free meal per week, which has ended up not being huge splurges either). My cravings have become comical…currently I’m waiting for my broccoli and asparagus to cook as I am enjoying a plate of veggies as a snack. Last night, instead of finding a high calorie, high fat food to feel sorry for myself with, I enjoyed a bowl of frozen grapes.

And I’m not suffering or craving the foods I once enjoyed. I’m enjoying finding creative new ways to make meals. And most of all, I’m enjoying how I feel!

I didn’t have a great workout today and was struggling to maintain my focus during bootcamp, so instead of being pissed at myself, I grabbed the jump rope and some med balls and did an extra thirty minutes of focused sweating and anger management!

I’m proud of myself for continuing to work to be the healthiest version of me!

I was in the middle of a post when I got an upsetting email and can’t shake this mood…as much good as I think writing about it may do, it doesn’t belong in this blog as I’ve vowed to keep this a positive place and I’m not feeling to positive.

So some quotes will do it from me today…

it’s not ok…(in relations to the toxic use of the “F” word!)

so i’ve been going over and over ideas on what to blog about today. lots of “feminist” topics continue to arise. along with my fit & health issues, most who read this blog know i’m on my “fitness journey” and lately that’s been a main focus of mine. (or as a friend said the other night, “michelle is on her health kick.” newsflash friends, it’s not a fad or diet or “kick” — this is a new way of life and i’m sticking with it! so apologies if you do find my over enthusiastic tweets annoying or my instagram pictures of my clean food makes your eyes roll, but for me to be successful i need to be 100% in it and surround myself with like-minded thinkers…and it seems the more i do obsess, the better i stay on track 😉

anyway, to piggy back off that statement a bit, my twitter account has become 75% fitness and health related. many people make anonymous twitter accounts when on their fitness journey so they can post progress pictures and tweet whatever they want with no worries about people KNOWING who they are. a) i’m not THAT talented to maintain more than one twitter account at a time (yes, i’ve tried!) and b) i actually enjoy this being a part of me and if i can get friends, family, or other random followers motivated to change their lives, then even better!! (i KNOW my sister MUST be completely annoyed with my rampid tweeting as of late as she gets my tweets sent to her phone…sorry ash, but you know how i get when i’m obsessed!) so shout out to the #fitfam on twitter…what an awesome group of hard working individuals of all ages and all shapes and sizes all over the world. dedicated and determined like-minded people working to better themselves in every way possible.

SO MY POINT TODAY (sorry…this is my scattered brain way of getting to what I’d actually like to write about, which hasn’t even come up yet!), i follow a bunch of healthy, fit-freaks like me and there’s been a few girls/women/fitties who i have seen tweet about being called “fat” or “ugly” or “chubby” by friends, family, or even worst, boyfriends. it breaks my heart because i get it. i’ve been there. i was that girl who was called “fat” by my ex. i AM that girl that has a HUGE body complex and am hoping that ONE day i can be happy with what is looking back in the mirror at me.

so i’d like to start by saying, as much as we are ALL guilty of it, the word FAT needs to be erased from OUR vocabulary! everyone’s vocabulary at that. the dreaded “f” word is 100% worst than it’s 4 letter counterpart of an “f” word. it’s way more destructive. the only time it comes out of my mouth is when i’m having a shitty day and feeling bad about myself. so, that’s it, the word FAT is gone from your mouths and shall never be said in regards to anyones body shape.

got it? good!

secondly, who are WE to judge ANYONE? who are YOU to judge? who am i to judge? don’t we all have enough problems and issues and drama in our own lives to be too busy to be judging everyone around us? i mean, just based on everyone’s facebook statuses alone, i don’t think you have the extra time in your day to judge me or anyone else. as women, we are SO quick to judge and be catty or rude…it’s so much easier to turn that negativity into something positive and help someone out or smile! i finished my workout today at bootcamp and instead of gloating or sitting down like i deserved it more than anyone else still training, i grabbed a new lady to our bootcamp and finished the workout with her. i can’t stand women who walk around like they are better than you because they wear a size two and don’t sweat while working out (oopps, yes, that’s me judging a bit, isn’t it??), but you know the people i love? the ones who see you are working hard and are willing to help you get there. the people who include you in their workouts or encourage you to finish your last lap or are genuinely there to see you succeed! those are my kind of people…

anyway, i’m getting off topic, mostly because i’m worried i’m going to get on a feminist rant.

i worry that men (or boys) think it’s OK to call women “fat” or “ugly” because they see us do it to eachother, or even worst, they see us do it to ourselves. well, it is not ok. those are words that never leave us. you think i will ever forget how my ex grabbed my arm and said “your arms are big, you could use some work there” — there’s no way in hell that i will ever forget those words or how it made me feel. you think i will ever forget him telling me i was “fat” when i was the one who went to the gym and worked out? nope. and when i brought it up and said it’s not ok for him to say those things about me, do you think i’ll ever forget how he began to laugh hysterically and say “it was just a joke!” no way. it is NOT ok. i don’t even need to go into a reason why, it just isn’t ok. it isn’t ok to make anyone feel absolutely horrible about themself. it isn’t ok to tell someone who already thinks they are the size of an elephant that now the person they love thinks that too. (i really can get into it and go into bullying and all that, but i’m going to keep it at this)

newsflash, there actually isn’t enough GOOD in the world. there aren’t THAT many people going out of their way to make strangers smile. we have shootings and suicides and violence and hate daily. and it’s NOT ok to put people down and make them feel bad. (why is this SUCH a hard concept for people to get?!??!?!) it absolutely guts me everytime i read “my boyfriend called me fat today.” Did he think that was going to put a smile on your face?!? Did he think you weren’t already self conscious about what you looked like?!?! did he think that was going to put you in a super happy lovey dovey mood?!?!?!

i apologize for the rambled post. i just feel quite strong about this and think men and women alike need to be nicer to each other and themselves.

and for any female in a relationship with a male (OR vice versa!) who puts her down in one way or another, i pray that you have the strength to realize that you deserve SO MUCH BETTER and you do not deserve to be told those things. looking back, i was stupid, and believed him. why i didn’t leave his skinny (never-goes-to-the-gym) ass right then and there disappoints me today. i don’t know YOUR relationship, but i do know that anyone that puts you down is NOT the right person for you…even if you do love them. and as hard as it may seem to leave and cut them out of your life, know that you are worth so much more.

it’s toxic.

and it hurts.

and allowing it to happen isn’t ok either.

so be strong, stand up for yourself, and know that you are beautiful and deserve nothing but the best!

Tone-up Tuesday