Down, but not out!

Hello Everyone, I apologize for the delay. It has been a week of unplanned events. Going back to early last week I met with my trainer Sonya. She changed my whole diet and work out plan. We have approached the lean out phase. This usually happens a couple of months into training. In my case I needed to gain 10 pounds so she banned me from doing any cardio. I met my weight goal and now she has put cardio back into the program to loose the fat and expose the muscles. I was very happy to be doing it again, I LOVE cardio. Saturday Dave and I went to Bass Lake, CA for a little weekend getaway. Bass Lake was gorgeous and where they filmed the movie "Great Outdoors". The stay did not go as planned. Dave came down with a severe case of the flu and I was doing fine until this morning. I woke up and tossed my cookies several times. I had to cancel my session with Sonya and have been laying around all day drinking water and ginger ale. I am bummed about this, the last time I was sick with the flu was back in 1999. I hope to be back to my normal self in a couple of days. Talk to you soon.
Shayna

Future Decisions

This week was a week about thinking of the future. After my weight lifting work outs I get very inspired about the future, going into the Navy Reserves, doing figure competitions, it all sounds very exciting. Working out is wonderful therapy. I am pondering a decision about my future. I am not sure if I should go into the Reserves as an Officer or an Enlisted person. The Enlisted choice would be the easier choice. Being an Officer would involve going to Officer Indoctrination class, the PT sessions are what scares me. IN Navy PT their main thing is running. I just tapped into running again and I am worried I will not be able to run as much as they would want me to. My husband has all of the faith in the world for me, but I am scared to death. Another thing that scares me is getting on the scale and getting my body fat tested. My trainer is going to be doing that to me tomorrow. I don't think anyone enjoys getting on the scale in front of people, no matter how toned you are. I know I gained about 7 pounds, I don't know how much of that is muscle, we will have to see tomorrow. I hope I do not disappoint my trainer!

Shayna

Things Shouldn't be Easy

Well this week was a good and challenging workout week. One of the many things I've learned about weight lifting is if you want results then lifting should never feel easy. If you are lifting weights and the exercise is starting to feel easy or light you need to increase the weight or change up your workout program, otherwise you'll plateau. Personal trainers are not easy to fool, and I sure can't fool mine! When I first started doing walking lunges they kicked my butt, and over time they were getting easier which caused me to do them faster. My trainer was watching me do them on Wednesday and she brought me a 20 pound barbell and told me to hold it behind my head on the lunges from now on. I am also starting to slowly incorporate jogging back into my workout routine. I have been so nervous about running again given my surgical history. My Orthopedic doc has a great walk to run program for people who have had injuries, or surgeries. It felt strange to run again, but not in a bad way, strange in a different kind of way. I have been though 7 leg surgeries and every other time I tried to run afterward it never felt right and the reason is I never hit the weights first. After surgery your body looses muscle mass very fast. A person should never go right into high impact activity before weight training if they had surgery.

We'll see you next week.

Shayna

Out of Place

Hello, this week was busier than usual. I had a Life Guard class Monday through Friday 0900-1700, and I was the only person in the class out of high school, which made me feel "out of place"! I had to get up at 0500 to put in my two hours at the gym. My legs are doing better and better each week. I did 90 pounds on the leg extension machine, the most I've done so far. The days I do back workouts are my least favorite, I think my back muscles are my weakest part. I strained a muscle in my mid-back a few weeks ago, it healed up but I am always afraid that I will pull something. My biggest pet peeve about the gym is when the big guys leave several 45 pound weights on the plate loaded machines. To me those weights are very heavy and it is a pain removing them one by one. The really loud chatty people used to annoy me, but now I just take my Ipod everyday and just tune everything else out.

I have two competitions that I plan on doing. The first is June 27th and the second is August 14th. I may not be ready for the one in June. It is really up to my trainer, she said she won't let me get on stage if I don't look ready. I will continue to work really hard to show her that I will be ready by June 27th!

Shayna