ATTENTION ALL

Well I cant keep this to myself any longer. You are looking at my Trainer Extraordinaire for the 2009 comp season. I have acknowledged that I cant do this alone. I need direction. I need expertise. I need support. I need accountability but most importantly I need to do it. Its time to stop dreaming about what I want and start doing what it will take to achieve it....albeit again. The past is history and its time to look forward.

If you read "My Story" from a few weeks ago (around mid October) you will know what I have been through in the last 12 or so months. Its been a tough year in terms of letting my eating get out of control and putting on a lot of weight. Couple that with training sporadically and shifting my focus to a 12km fun-run and I'm well and truly back around Square One as I begin my prep for the 2009 comp season.

Yes folks I'm aiming to get back into good enough shape to compete again in September 2009. I need to put muscle back on and tighten up my legs BIG TIME. I have a LOT of body fat to lose but I have time (and Liz) on my side. The journey is about to begin and I'm excited and nervous about the next 11 months. I DO NOT WANT TO FAIL!!!!! or should I say I WANT TO SUCCEED!!!!!

So here I am now a member of Team Fitness Solution and ready to make Liz proud of me and not let her down ... and not let myself down. So between Liz and the lovely Adelaide Figure Girls (hello Kerry and Cheryl) I'm hoping the path I have to travel will be made that little bit easier. I'm so blessed to have such great support. When I'm deep in misery and battling the lowest self esteem I can count on being lifted up by one of those special friends. (Thanks Kerry!!)

Cheers all

Magda

CATCH UP TIME

What have I been up to since I last blogged?

On Wednesday night my WH and I had a night out to see/hear http://www.paul-young.com/ and http://www.tony-hadley.com/start.html perform at the The Gov here in Adelaide. If you're a Paul Young or Spandau Ballet fan from the 80s this would have been your ideal heaven. It certainly was mine. Tony Hadley's voice, which was good when he sang in Spandau Ballet, has improved out of this world. It is just incredible and even WH commented on how great it was. They did a fantastic show performing many of their old hits and some really good covers. And you know the best thing?? We werent the oldest people there LOL!! In fact it was more like "spot the person UNDER 35!".

So the late night on Wednesday really threw me out of whack with my training. I didnt get up at 5 on Thursday as I was just too tired. Training in the evening wasnt going to work as we'd been to mum and dad's for dinner and then had a heap of stuff to get done at home. I was still really tired on Friday morning and struggled getting up at 6.30 let alone 5.

Nutrition has been more "relaxed" than I've been aiming for in the last couple of weeks. Eating out on Wednesday night, toast for breakfast on Thursday, some small cakes at an official opening I was attending on Thursday morning, more bread at lunch time (didnt have a healthy meal packed) and then pizza at mum and dad's that night. Yesterday was still not back on track so the weight has spiked up again (it doesnt take much) and needs some serious commitment to get it down and keep it going down.

I would have liked a nice clean start to November today but its been hard to muster the strength to get 100% clean again (or at least 80% would be reasonable). Never mind I will not give up trying.

My next post will have an announcement that I have been keeping under my belt for a few weeks. But the time has come to reveal all.

Good night all

Magda

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE IN BETWEEN

Hi all,

So what was good today?

Training!! After a day off track I usually find that my overall motivation wavers, the excuses take over and training gets ditched. It almost happened this morning until Ireminded myself of the feel-good endorphins that would flood my body when I finished my training session. I did legs and abs as planned and it was just the right start to the day.

And what was bad?

My difficult HR issue at work took an unexpected turn for the worse. I'm now in a bad situation which could impact negatively on my personal life. I cant see a way out but have made time to speak to somebody about it before I take action. I'm hoping that an impartial viewpoint will help me find the right answer. Its eating away at me and at one stage today I could feel my stomach physically churning over this. (Fingers crossed that the churning was the worry worms feasting on my body fat - LOL)

So that leaves the in-between .....

Food today was OK. After an over-eating bonanza like yesterday I think the best remedy is to eat clean but only eat when you are hungry. If its a normal meal time but there are no signs of hunger then wait. When your body wants food, then feed it rather than stuffing more in when it clearly doesnt need it. I know some people disagree with this and advocate "just get back to normal eating as soon as possible" but I find myself eating out of habit then , rather than hunger. Anyway thats my opinion ... for what its worth. So food was OK as we all ate the same dinner tonight (unheard of in our household!!) which was lean beef meatballs, tomato and vegetable based sauce with pasta and a little parmy cheese. I kept my pasta serve very small and WH and I also had a large fresh tossed salad. Not too bad me thinks and BS ate pretty much the same as us so that was big win.

I guess the best thing about today was that despite the slip-up yesterday and despite the stress of my work issue, I DIDNT resort to eating more junk for whatever stupid reason. That is a big step forward for me :-)

Cheers all

Magda

MISSION ABORTED

I wasnt going to blog today. It wasnt a good day and I just wanted to sulk but I've decided to be a big girl, come clean and deal with it. Bare with me if I sound like an immature twit. I'm trying to find my way back to lean, fit and happy and its a winding road that I must travel.

I've decided that daily weighing is NOT for me. As much as that piece of metal just reflects numbers that have some questionable meaning, my relationship with those numbers is generally NOT positive. Especially when I have such high expectations for weight loss and am impatient for results. Numbers going up JUST DO MY HEAD IN.

So after 3 interludes with the scales I've decided to abort my experiment and go back to a weekly weigh around Thursday or Friday (NEVER on a Monday unless the weekend has been 100% perfectly clean). After reporting my fantastic one kilo loss last Thursday, on Friday I was back up .1 or .2. Why?? Dont know. So I weighed Sunday morning and I'm up some more and then another kilo during the day on Sunday (this I fully expected as my weight goes up during the course of a day). But this morning it was up again so you know that kilo I had lost ... well HELLO its back.

Now you deal with this, a difficult HR situation at work, feeling cold and tired, work falling behind due to staff absences and a family issue thats really bugging me and you have my perfect recipe for a bad eating day. Enough said.

Lessons learnt:

1. Weigh once a week and deal once with your feelings about the result of the weigh-in.

2. When the forecast is for cool weather DO NOT take a salad for lunch. Have something clean and healthy that can be heated up so you dont need to go and buy kung po chicken with stir fried noodles for lunch.

3. Accept that you cant be perfect at work. You wont get everything done on time or get it right the first time. Do your best and nobody should complain.

4. With the family stuff, either take it on 100% or drop it and resolve to not get into it. Stewing over it is wasted energy. You cant change people or force your values or beliefs on them. Different people have different priorities and perhaps its better to just accept that (even if you believe they are doing the wrong thing).

So now I've got all that cr*p off my chest I'll get my training gear ready for tomorrow morning and have an early night. If you're still with me ... thanks for listening :-)

Cheers

Magda

EXPERIMENTINMG

Wow today has been a full-on day - half of it spent lunching at my friend's house LOL

But there was training to do this morning and I pushed myself to increase the weights on most of my exercises. Small steps towards getting stronger but I'm moving in the right direction. After my upper body weights I did 30 minutes on the exercise bike and burned a few calories. After yesterday's disappointing run/walk this extra cardio today was just what I needed. Happy, happy after that.

WH asked if I'd mind being the driver today reminding me that "you wont want to drink much anyway, will you?" So how could I say no? Because I dont want to drink much so its only fair I drive and let him have a few. It was a good arrangement because after 2 slow wines I switched to water and was ok with that.

Lunch was really nice but oh so not clean. I made the best choice I could and ate a moderate amount. Normally I'd just hoe into anything and everything and have way too much so I was really pleased with how I handled it. Then as a treat I had a slice of my friend's home-made carrot and walnut cake with a thick layer of frosting on it. And I enjoyed every mouthful with absolutly no guilt.

I knew I'd done ok at the lunch when by around 6pm I was feeling hungry again and I could have a light dinner, instead of feeling so stuffed that you dont need food for the next 6-7 hours.

I've decided to do an experiment this week just because I'm curious as to what it will reveal. For 7 days I plan to weigh myself twice a day - when I wake up in the morning and before I go to bed at night. I'm under the strictest instructions to myself to NOT let any numbers do my head in. I just want to see what they do over a week to help me understand how they fluctuate in normal everyday life. I'm not sure I want to blog my weight (its emabrassingly high!!) but I will report on what the scale numbers are doing for those people who might be interested.

So its bedtime soon and I will check my sacle weight to see how much it goes up during a day. I'm expecting about 1-2kgs up from this morning, on a pretty average amount of food.

Good night all

Magda

TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT

Well yesterday's challenges feel like they are a world away now. Had a few today but decided to just chill out and stop analysing everything to the nth degree.

You see yesterday mum gave me some food that she knows I really like. I put it in the frij as I wasnt intending to eat it as its not exactly on my plan. But then I had a really busy morning out and about and was very hungry by the time I got to have my (late) lunch. So there was this meal in the frij just needing to be warmed up and eaten. What did I do?

I ate it. And even though it wasnt to plan (its a meal thats just about 100% carbs and there are no veges with it) I had some protein before hand and stopped fretting about it. And the best thing was that after I'd eaten it, life went on as normal. I didnt have any thoughts of "oh well I've blown my diet so I may as well eat whatever I want for the rest of the day", which always turns into an all-out binge-fest. Yep I ate off plan and didnt use it as an excuse to binge afterwards. Thats a win for me!!

For some reason, cardio today was a hard slog. I did it but it didnt feel like one of my better efforts. My legs felt heavy and tired and I seemed to drag myself through it. I'm looking forward to training upper body tomorrow and if I feel better I'll add some moderate intensity cardio as a bit of a top up.

We are off to a friend's place for lunch tomorrow so that'll be a BIG challenge. Oh the temptations of alcohol, nibbles, dessert just to name a few. Give me strength to not succumb into a big downward slide into slothdom and gluttony once again.

G'night all

Magda

CHALLENGES, CHALLENGES AND MORE CHALLENGES

OK so guess how today was?

Here's a snapshot:

6.30am: (Unplanned) meeting with the scales. Grrrr!! Up .2 for no reason whatsoever. My reaction?? ANNOYED!! Should never have gotten on them. Now I have to keep telling myself that it is just a normal fluctuation and it'll even out if I stay on track. I have this conversation with myself over and over during the day. Desperate to not just blow it coz whats the point!!

At work: Our admin assistant phones in sick ... AGAIN. She's been at work 1 day this week. There is a stack of important correspondence that MUST get out that she hasnt got to. We are a small agency so there isnt an abundance of other staff to call on so I spend the day correcting letters, printing on letterhead, indexing, photocopying, enveloping etc etc. Every bit of technology I approached played up and because I dont do these tasks in the normal course of my work, you could call me "administratively challenged". It was a trying time. And what does that mean?? I WANT COMFORT FOOD!!!!!

By lunch time I'm really hanging out for a glass of wine and I contemplate picking up a bottle and sharing it with one of my staff who has done an admirable job in helping me. I agonise over this for hours but eventually make a firm decision to NOT do it. Why?? Because I dont want to be seen as some-one who turns to drink at trying times. This could then become a standing invite to go drinking which is something I just dont want to get into. So I skip the early interlude with alcohol.

During my venture out at lunch time I'm almost salivating for a cake. I even detour so that I walk right past some cake shops and I linger so I can take in all the wonderful produce that I just want to stuff down. KEEP GOING MAGDA. KEEP GOING. DO NOT STOP TO BUY SOMETHING. YOU'LL REGRET IT. I pick up a Diet Coke on the way back to work.

The afternoon is a bit quieter and eventually I'm the only one in the office. Hmm ... what could I eat??? Chips from the charity box, corn thins with butter, maybe I could duck out and pick something up????? OR MAYBE I COULD JUST GET ON WITH SOME MORE WORK AND FORGET ABOUT FOOD. I survive the afternoon eithout food as I ate my snack before I went out so as not to face the temptations feeling hungry.

By the time I got home I had so many wins under my belt that it wasnt hard at all to limit myself to 2 glasses of wine, a moderate amount of raw peanuts (in their shells) and a very yummy and healthy dinner.

So today I felt like I ran a 100m hurdle race with so many obstacles to get over but I made it. I may not have been the fastest but I didnt fall over and thats a great feeling. Phew I'm tired after all that.

G'night all

Magda

-1 ....

..... kilo this week. Yippee :-) I’m starting to notice small changes for the better and this is encouraging. I can’t wait til more of my clothes fit. My wardrobe is so limited because I hate shopping when I’m fatter. Clothes never look or feel as good and I keep telling myself that the fatness is temporary so why waste money on stuff that soon won’t fit me. Sometimes the “soon” is not as soon as I’d like but my thinking never changes. So fatter = limited wardrobe.

I especially can’t wait to fit back into my nice jeans. I think they are a (largish) size 11 but I love how they look and feel on. The only jeans I have now are just FUGLY but they were bought in desperation when I reluctantly had to spend money on a bigger pair. I will happily donate them to a worthy charity as soon as I can.

Knocked off my legs and abs session nicely this morning with some increases in weights and/or reps on all exercises. I’m having some postural issues, which are making some exercises more challenging than usual. Nothing that can’t be worked around or fixed I’m sure, so I’m not stressing about it. I’m just making allowance for all this in the interim.

Food continues to be good. Getting very low on veges at home but Saturday is the big replenishment day. The fridge will be groaning then with almost 2 weeks supply stuffed in there. I love a fridge full of veges when there is variety galore and meals are that much more interesting. WH gets a bit tired of salads so its good to be able to offer a few different types.

This Saturday I’ll venture back to Australian Muscle to buy my must-have supps. I haven’t been there since a year ago so I bet they’ll be surprised to see me. I went to school with Kim (the owner) and I feel proud going there because it makes a positive statement about the life I’ve chosen. Back in my high school days nobody would have thought that one day I’d be a figure competitor. I love surprising people or proving them wrong.

Roll on Friday and the weekend.

Cheers

Magda

OVER THE HUMP

There's something just a little delicious about Wednesday evening - and no its not a secret dessert that I'm devouring LOL - as we get over that weekly hump. Woohoo. Lets enjoy the downhill slide into the weekend.

Tracking well this week despite challenges I've written about in earlier posts. I spent this morning chained to my desk preparing reports for our new CE. As I'm still a relative newbie in this job, it took me ages to find all the information and pull it together. I finished just ahead of my deadline only to find another (blasted) template requiring another lot of reporting. EEEEEEEK. Copy. Paste. Copy. Paste. Edit. Submit. However I did make time to eat my morning snack - multigrain corn thins, low fat cottage cheese and snow peas from our garden. But by lunchtime I needed to get out, breath fresh air and MOVE.

This morning's training was cardio and I did my favourite session of walking one song and then jogging one song. This is so easy to maintain for a longer time as I dont get bored or too worn out or too cruisy. By the end of 45 minutes I feel like I've worked quite hard but if I had to go for an hour I certainly could. Tomorrow is lower body + abs and then I get a sleep in on Friday.

Gee I'm a bit lost for what else to post so rather than waffle on about nothing I'll bid you all good night.

Cheers

Magda

FROM CRANKY TO HAPPY

If there's one thing I hate, its when work interferes with your health and fitness goals. I mean, just having to show up 5 days a week takes such a big chunk of time out of your life. Time when you could be doing important things like training and preparing healthy and nutritious food. To fit everything in like travel, a decent work day and more travel, we leave at 7.30 in the morning and often get home around 6 in the evening. So to fit training in around this, I'm up at 5 and then in bed by 10 (on most nights). This is hardly my "ideal life" but seeing as this affords me my nice lifestyle, I better suck it up and just make it work.

Why this whingy post?? Because today I was in back-to-back-meetings from 9.30 til 1pm. I had 2 bites of a Musashi SLM bar around 11 am and that was all since breakfast at 7am. So how did I feel at 1pm? Very cold. Beyond hunger - I'm sure my stomach was digesting itself LOL. And cranky!!

I'm actually not cranky now - believe it or not - but I wanted to get this off my chest and share my gripe with you all.

Now onto the happier side of my life. I trained upper body this morning and had the lovely leaden arms feeling at the end of it. Will likely have some chest DOMS again as that is where I get it the most. Food has been good (apart from too long without it) and I'm currently enjoying lots of tabbouli, legumes, diet yogurt, low fat cottage cheese and snow peas, amongst other nice stuff. My protein intake would be moderate and carbs a little higher than ideal for body fat loss but I'm not getting all strict and hung up on it now. There'll be time for that down the track LOL.

Head space is good so success is likely to follow.

:-) Magda

CHANGING THOUGHTS - CHANGING ACTIONS

Instead of making today's post one of "I did this" and "I did that", I wanted to write about stuff going on inside my head cause we all know that is what instigates our actions, be they good or bad.

OK: Training this morning: I was really tired from lack of sleep and I lay in bed for about 2 minutes before getting up. What spurred me on to get up? It was the thought of taking another step and continuing to move forward. Just get up, get dressed and do some cardio. Once I'm out there, all is good. I LOVE cardio. I did 45 minutes of alternating from one song power-walking then 2 songs jogging. Good level of intensity without being really full on and enjoyable too. So what was I thinking at the end of it? Gee I'm glad I did that and didnt give in to sheer laziness.

A couple of times at work today the pressure was on and I was feeling a bit like I was racing against the clock and I wouldnt make it. These are my danger times where I almost automatically reach for the junky comfort food. Aha!! Time for a new thought pattern. I had a little talk with myself. Stop. Breath. Think this through and then act on it, no matter how small a thing you do. The answer will come to you and it wont be in the bottom of the paper bag holding the cake or biscuits. I shifted my focus from the stress I was dealing with to finding a solution and stopped entertaining thoughts of how much better I'd feel if I just had that cake or those biscuits.

Right now this is all a conscious effort that I have to work at. Often I have to stop, think things through, challenge my old beliefs/excuses/justifications and make a decision to act differently than I have in the past. But thats ok because these are just more small steps in the long journey I have ahead of me. The time will come when these actions become semi-automatic and I'll know deep down how far I've come :-)

G'night all

Magda

WEEKEND ACHIEVEMENTS

Just doing a quick end-of-weekend check in as its late and I need to sleep.

Adelaide Figure Girls caught up for brunch today and had a fantastic 2 and 1/2 hour gossip session talking all things training, dieting and competing. With the season over everyone was eating and really enjoying the food. (My breakfast was a bit ordinary but the company was great).

Last night we had SIL + BIL over for a casual dinner of jerk chicken done on the webber. What a clean and healthy taste sensation that is. I also made corn bread but didnt have any myself. Just had chicken and salad with some strawberries and low fat vanilla ice cream for dessert. Limited myself to one beer (only on a hot day!!) and one glass of wine then had heaps of soda with lemon in it.

So at the end of the weekend I have achieved:

1. All planned training. cardio yesterday and lower body + abs training today. Woohoo - I get Friday morning off as a reward.

2. A very moderate intake of alcohol considering we had company for dinner last night. Very happy with my efforts there.

3. Good choices made for all of my meals and I never overate to the point of feeling really stuffed. Whilst I'm certainly not dieting, I know that I'm eating quite well and the weight should come off slowly.

4. Feeling good about what I'm doing and just enjoying life. I have devoted a reasonable amount to time to playing with my BS and its been a lot of fun. He is growing up so quickly that I fear the time will soon come when he wont want to have much to do with me at all.

Cheers all

Magda

FRIDAY HIGHDAY

Heehee what a funny title but it describes very well how I feel.

This week I lost 2.3kgs. Now before you all cheer, this is normal for me. In the first week of clean eating after a bit of an indulgent time, I drop this amount easily. Its mainly water, bloat etc but I feel smaller and less bloaty so thats what counts - not the number on the scale.

Work was madly, crazy busy but I'm slowly starting to put the many pieces of the puzzle together and am feeling on top of (at least some) things there. I've not had many moments like this up til now so things are looking up. Having said all that, I've tried hard to not get stressed, overwhelmed or frustrated by work as those emotions often have me running for comfort food and when I start, I just cant get enough of it.

Training has been to plan. A mix of weights and cardio and a day off today. My plan is to train Saturday to Thursday and then have Friday off. After a week of getting up at 5, its nice to not set my alarm on a Friday. Its like a treat at the end of the week. The lower body DOMS has eased off and the upper body DOMS is mild. All ready for a cardio session tomorrow morning.

But the best thing about my day was tonight.

Normally WH and I would get home from work and we would open a bottle of wine or even worse, have drinks before opening the wine. The nibbly snacks would come out - (lots of) nuts, sometimes a small packet of chips, maybe cheese and crackers, rarely anything in moderate proportions. And we hoe into these with our drinks and chat away. Then we have dinner and continue on the wine. Sometimes dinner is clean and healthy but often its not and I ALWAYS eat til I'm really full. I've never logged these meals but I'm sure I would cringe at the calories, fat and alcohol consumed.

So why was tonight great?

I limited myself to 2 glasses of wine. 1 before dinner and one with my meal. WIN

Before dinner I had a small amount of raw peanuts in the shell. Cleaning them made me eat MUCH less than just shovelling in nuts by the handful. WIN

Dinner was superbly lean, clean and healthy: swordfish kebabs marinated in a little olive oil, lemon juice, continental parsly, oregano, cumin, smoked paprika and garlic. Then skewered with red onion, red capsicum and zucchini. Served with a tzatziki style sauce made with low fat natural yogurt, finley chopped cucumber, coriander and garlic. I also made my own tabbouli as I had continental parsly growing like mad which needed picking. My tabbouli was dressed just with freshly squeezed lemon juice. It was all really delicious and healthy too. WIN

And finally, I ate 2 of my kebabs with all the accompaniments and was satisfied so I left the last one for lunch tomorrow. Can you believe it???

My goodness, I may just have it in me to get this eating thing right!!

Cheers all

Magda

THE FIRST FEW STEPS

So you all know that I've had a difficult year. I havent won many of the struggles I've faced. My actions have not aligned with my goals. My headspace has just been SCREWED for a lot of the time. But deep down I knew that the tide would turn, the burning desire would be back and that once again I would be moving towards the things I want to achieve. Not just to compete again but other personal things too.

Quietly and without anyone knowing, I was making enquiries about how best to achieve my gaol when the right time came (City 2 Bay had to be done first as that also was an important goal for me). I thought about things over and over and am really happy with my upcoming plan.

I acknowledge that once again I have a long journey ahead of me. There is a lot of body fat to be burnt off before I'm lean enough to stand confidently on stage. There is literally tons of weights to be lifted before my muscles return and hopefully, surpass their previuos size. There is a lot of emotional work to be done to change my beliefs about myself, my thinking about food and diet, my handling of stress, boredom, frustration and other negative emotions. But deep down I know its time to change and I've accepted that and have already started to do some small things differently.

After coming back from holidays I found it hard to get my diet back in order. A few more days of poor food choices and too little exercise saw the scales register my 2nd all time highest weight (a smidge off my highest ever which was after 3 months of overseas travel and eating ANYTHING I wanted).

But then last Saturday the brakes went on and my eating has been pretty good. I'm not weighing or measuring food and I'm not recording or tracking everything I eat. I'm just making better choices at each meal and snack time. I'm drinking enough water and have cut right back on the alcohol. I've trained every day since Sunday alternating cardio with weights and just alternating a brisk walk with a walk/jog session. Weights is just lower body and upper body work for 3 sessions a week. I have SERIOUS lower body DOMS (again!!). Small steps to begin a long journey. But as long as I keep taking them I know I'll make it.

WH is on my side and that means a lot to me. We had a great honest discussion while on holidays and I'm feeling positive about the year of prep I have ahead of me. Things may go a bit skewiff as the comp gets closer but deep down I know its all good and we will be fine. I have a couple of small details to sort out over the next week or 2 and then its all systems go in November.

Eleven months and counting. I hope you enjoy sharing my journey with me.

Cheers

Magda

MY STORY - PART 5

So this is where I am now. As heavy (+ about 2 kgs) as I was before I started prepping in November 2006. Its hard to tell but I'm sure I've lost a fair bit of the muscle I worked so hard to build as well. Hello Square One!

Cut to October 2009 .......

........ she wakes in excitement and anticipation, feels the ripples across her torso "yep they're still there". She jumps out of bed. The day has finally arrived. Lets get it underway. Shower, breakfast and then the first coat of dream tan. Luuurve the smell of dream tan.

At the venue its registration time and then drug testing before some down time. Doing hair and make-up is such fun. After 30 years of experience there's no need to have them done by somebody else. Her helper/trainer arrives and its time to put on the itsy bitsy glitzy bikini. More tan is required and lets not forget about the all important carb loading. Then its time to pump, pump and pump some more. Looking good. Good condition. All the hard work over the last 11 months has paid off.

She thinks back over her 11 month journey. Smiles at all the 5am starts and outdoor training even through the thick of winter. Chuckles at some of her crazy training sessions. Breathes a sigh of relief that diet wise it wasnt actually THAT hard. She has come a long way. Life is more even-keeled. The frequent and severe binging from previous times is fading into a distant memory. "woohoo woohoo oo I've got a new attitude" she sings to herself.

Its finally time to step onto the stage. As she comes into the audience's view she smiles like she's never smiled before coz the time has come to SHINE. Relaxed pose. Front symmetry pose. Quarter turn. Side symmetry pose. Chest pose. Triceps pose. Quarter turn. Back symmetry pose. Back double biceps. Quarter turn. Side symmetry pose. Chest pose. Triceps pose. Quarter turn. Front symmetry pose. Front double biceps pose. Ab and thigh pose. Relaxed pose. Shuffle competitors around and do it all again then file off. Routine time and its perfect. All of those hours of practice have paid off. Feeling great and having a ball.

All competitors file back on and the announcement is made. Third place. Second place. And the winner of the WNBF 2009 Miss Fit Body Masters is ......


.... well I think you know what my 2009 goal is.

The End.

BTW Its not actually my goal to win. Its my goal t0 get back into good enough shape to be able to compete again and I think I've got the right approach for how best to achieve it.

MY STORY - PART 4

Post comp.

I was completely aware of the pitfalls that many competitors face after the comp season is over. The urge to eat anything and everything. The feelings of being lost with no direction. Maybe feeling tired, moody, emotional. Probably others that I havent listed. So I was prepared for all this. You know, indulge a bit, ease off, keep doing some exercise (but not like comp prep), retain many of the good habits formed over the last year.

So what happened?

The wheels fell off for me some time in November. When the urge to refeed struck, it just took over my life. Having what I hadnt had for so long was heaven when I ate it but hell when I started to gain weight. And boy did I gain weight. And with every kilo gained back, I became less confident, less motivated, less happy and caught in a negative downward spiral.

Over the year I made various attempts to rectify my situation but I just couldnt put my car into gear, get it going and keep it moving for any length of time. I stopped and started so many times that I may as well have just parked the car and not worried about trying to move forward. To rub salt into the wound (or maybe it was sugar and fats LOL) every time my car stopped moving, I would gain a bit more weight. Over and over again.

I have analysed myself the nth degree and here are some of the issues which challenge me at these times:

1. I have a "sin now - pray later" attitude. You know, "a little bit wont hurt" or "never mind, I'll diet tomorrow" or "I'll work this off tomorrow". But for what I ate at times, NO amount of praying was going to stop it from making me fatter.

2. The heavier I got the more my thinking went towards "well I'm fat anyway so having ???? wont make much difference". No it wont Magda, just another kilo and then another. Thats not much difference, is it?

3. And I'm an "all or nothing" person. So a bit of treat food automatically becomes a lot of treat food. And when you add points 1 and 2 into the equation, well the recipe for failure is pretty much set.

4. Finally I must confess that I enjoy a drink, or 3-4. And with those drinks I enjoy "nibbly snack foods" like nuts, chips, cheese and crackers etc. (I'm almost drooling as I write this LOL). Oh and after a long, hard week at work (coz I work in the salt mines you know LOL) I DESERVE them.

You see where I'm coming from....

2008 just wasnt going to be my year. Sometimes your head just isnt in the right place and mine was certainly revelling in "Fat Girl Paradise" where it was determined to eke out a nice existence. My body followed and yep all the hard work of last year was undone. No point crying over spilt milk. There is only one way to fix this broken thing and achieve some of my remaining goals.

To be continued...

Magda

MY STORY - PART 3

Well as you probably already know, I made it to the stage in October last year. The road to get me there was very bumpy. I fell off the wagon so many times but I never gave up. Those words "make it count" were always there to spur me on, along with my own determination to succeed. I loved competing. I loved tanning up and doing my make-up and hair. I had no idea about how I should look on the day. I just followed Josh's instructions and pumped up like crazy and I think I came up OK. Being on stage was just the best experience. I remember being nervous before going on but once up there I was smiling ... NO .... I was BEAMING!!

I competed in WNBF and being its first year last year the comp was pretty small. I won first place in both Figure Novice and Figure Masters. Lucky me!! I went to the Nationals, for the experience and am so glad I did. It wasnt as much fun as Adelaide but I finally met the lovely Deb (Splice) and Miss Tank, who cheered for me like mad. In Sydney for the Nationals there was a major turning point for me. You see my comp prep had caused some problems at home. WH didnt share my passion for it, in fact quite the opposite. In that sense it had been a very difficult time. But in Sydney, standing outside our hotel, waiting for our taxi to take us to the show, my WH said to me "next time we'll do this better" (referring the dumpy hotel we were staying in).

WOOHOO he was now on my side. Life would be so much better. He confirmed this on Xmas Day when he told me that he would support me the next time I wanted to compete because he could see how much I loved it and that I wanted to do it again. I could not wait for 2008 to begin so I could continue my journey.

To be continued...

Magda

MY STORY - PART 2

So there I was - the woman who had dieted, lost and regained weight more times than I could ever possibly count throughout my life - taking on one of my life's biggest challenges. But there was a fire in my belly and a very quiet determination to succeed. I had looked at my wonderful and charmed life and realised that I had rarely been tested. But along with never being tested was a feeling that I had never "achieved" either. Being over 40 and realising that I didnt have another 20 or so years to think about it, I decided that I wasnt going to die wondering "what if".

However 2006 wasnt to be my year. Not long after I had made the decision to compete in Figure, circumstances had us preparing to move back to Adelaide (much to my delight). With the move likely to be in September I knew that I couldnt handle the dieting, training and orgainising everything needed for the move (including selling our Brisbane house and buying a house in Adelaide). Com prep went on the backburner. The time was not right.

But I used the time to research how I would train for the comp. From reading all the blogs I had a reasonable idea of what was required but I didnt want to go it alone. So based on the outstanding work he had done with Deb (Splice), Lia, Alicia, Katie (Spartze) and others, I chose Josh Dickinson (Physique Essentials) to train me. Before signing on with Josh and committing the money for the training , my WH made one profound comment to me. "Make it count" and those words often kept me going through the tougher times (of which there were many).

So in November 2006 I began my journey with Josh and what a ride it was. I can honestly say that it was a rollercoatser ride of emotions, energy levels, training intensity and commitment to dieting. There were highs and there were lows. There were tears and there were celebrations. There was a real love / hate happening but I was hooked. I even rememeber a few months into the prep (I prepped for 11 months in total) loving it so much that I had already set some long term competing goals and I hadnt even been on stage once.

Oh to just get up on stage .....

To be continued.

Magda

MY STORY - PART 1

Its a mad, crazy time around September/October with all the comps happening and I'm in a wierd place emotionally - you know - not part of the comps - assessing where I'm at, where I want to be and how I can get there. So I thought I'd take a bit of a stroll down memory lane and share with you my story of why I wanted to compete.

I've been blessed with a very fortunate and wonderful life. I have no bad childhood memories or experiences that would have scarred me for life. There were no silly rules or beliefs that instilled bad habits into me (you know like "finish up everything on your plate coz there are children starving in Africa"). I just had a good healthy appetite and I wasnt "gifted" when it came to sports. Warning. Warning. Potential recipe for weight problems.

And thats just what happened. I ate lots and didnt do (hardly) any sports. By 12 years of age I was a "big girl". Not necessarily fat but certainly large and very well developed. So not long after that I tried my first diet and that began the roller coaster ride of losing and gaining weight over and over and over again .... you get my drift.

OK cut to 2005. WH and I were moving to Brisbane. He was getting a fantastic promotion and all our moving costs were going to be paid for. I would take leave without pay from my government job and would upgrade my qualifications and work as a PT. (I had been an aerobics instructor since my late 20s). "Hmmm I better get in good shape again" I thought so I entered the Body Blitz 12 Week Challenge and started it just before I left Adelaide in January 2005. Over the Challenge I lost about 8kgs and was looking MUCH better (72kgs - 64kgs). But life in a new city was tough. I wasnt working as BS was 2 years old and I didnt have access to childcare initially. I was studying whenever I could. I knew no-one except my ILs who lived 40kms away. It was stinking hot and our new house didnt have air conditioning. I spent my days .... ??? ... looking after our son and studying (if possible). I trained at home as I had no gym membership and I had very little time in which to fit it in.

In my loneliness and boredom I discovered the internet (I hadnt been into computers at all before then) and would look at the Ideal Bodies Online website. This led me to Sue Heintze's blog and then other blogs from there. I became a lurker and during 2005 I followed various blogs of figure competitors. I read everything. I was fascinated. I was shocked. I was amazed. I was HOOKED. I started to wonder whether I could do it myself (having just lost 8kgs). Deep down I wanted to give it a go.

It took me ages to get up the courage to take the leap and call INBA to enquire about competing. Sadly I regained quite a bit of my lost weight in the meantime but that didnt deter me. I told WH about my dream (cant remember his initial reaction) and I called Lorraine Pacullio (not sure if thats spelt right) to help me get started.

When I attended one of Lorraine's posing practice sessions on the Sunshine Coast I met a girl called Cathy who was competing in the 2006 INBA Female Only show on the Gold Coast in 4 (or so) weeks time. She was doing physique. Well I could not believe how good she looked in her tank top and little denim skirt. Very lean with the most beautful arms and LEGS TO DIE FOR.

I was going to get me some of that. I knew I would have to train like a trojan and diet like I'd never dieted before but I had a vision, a dream and I was going for it.

To be continued...

Magda

POST HOLIDAY BLUES

Well the fantastic holiday is over.

On the Sunshine Coast it was warm - hot and sunny. In Adelaide its absolutely arctic.

On holiday I slept in nearly every day. Today my alarm went off at 5.30am (and I didnt get up to train because I was tired after a very late night and it was freezing cold).

On holiday I exercised when I felt like it (which was on most days). Now its early mornings when its cold and I dont want to get up.

I'm overdue for a trim and colour. Feeling ugly.

The scales are screaming a horrible number at me. Feeling fat.

But every cloud has a silver lining ..... watch this space.

Magda