You Know You're a FIgure Competitor When...

I came upon this on facebook this morning and thought I would share!




1. For a few days each year your toilet seat is brown and this time it ins't the husbands fault.
2. You can honestly say you have spent more on a bathing suit than your wedding dress.
3. Five inch clear hooker heels are your footwear of choice in your own home (and not just in the bedroom).
4. Someone asks about the man in your life and you tell that Gym is fine!
5. You have two sections in your wardrobe. Contest-season and Off-season. And they aren't mix and match.
6. Your top three priorities on any given day:
A. Workout.
B. Eat Clean.
C. Check the fitness forum board.
Not necessarily in that order.
7. You can name any pro figure competitor by seeing her butt alone.
8. When someone wants to take your picture, you immediately spread your lats, tighten every muscle in your body, point your fingers and SMILE!
9. You take more pills daily than your 80 year old grandmother.
10. Your idea of dressing up is taking your hair out of the pony tail its been in for a week.
11. If you have had someone close to you, hide food from you in your own house.
12. An easy day is lifting and only 1 cardio session.
13. Instead of carrying a Gucci pursue you accessorize with a Coleman cooler.
14. Waking up so sore you can barely move puts a smile on your face.
15. You cant do any work because you are to busy counting down the seconds until your next meal.
16. The faint smell of Pro Tan gets your heart pumping faster than your man's cologne.
17. You leave a little trail of Splenda packets, tupperware, and empty water bottles everywhere you go.
18. Your hubby makes you pee in the guest bathroom because every meal includes asparagus.
19. You consider Beano an essential part of your supplement regimen.
20. Your jaws are sore because you can't stop chewing sugar free gum!
21. You spend at least 5 minutes grilling your server at a restaurant, and another five minutes re-writing the menu until you've got a meal that meets your diet's specifications, and then you devour it in less than 60 seconds flat!!
22. You consider a day when you only have to make ONE trip to the gym a luxury!
23. You think about having relaxed hands and sticking your butt out while standing in line at the grocery store.
24. You consider condiments and diet coke taboo!!!
25. And your neighbors start gossiping that you've had lipo cause there is no way a girl could get that fit in 12 weeks!

We are off to Laval!!!

The nails are done, the hair is done and I have 2 coats of spray tan on...I am just finishing my breakfast , packing up the car & we are hitting the road to Laval! It is a 7 hour drive so we are hoping to be there by 2:30/3 at the latest with stops.

It is now just myself and 3 kids making the trek ( Taryn. Tyler and Taryn's friend Ellena). They are none to thrilled that I will be rooming with them now and I'm pretty sure poor Taryn had nightmares about the prospect of tanning my ass again but what can ya do?

Reigistration is today from 1-5 at our hotel and there is an mandatory athletes meeting 6. After that I am hoping to chill and get a GREAT nights sleep as I sure didn't last night. Hopefully I don't have  repeat of the Ottawa show and toss and turn the entire night!

Pre-judging is at 9 am tomorrow, followed by the night show at 6:30. I will try to post updates through my twitter and facebook!

Sunday we are heading into Montreal to do some sight seeing. I have never been before I would like to have some time to relax and explore after the show so we have booked a room downtown for Sunday night. I am realy looking forward to getting away and spending some time with the kids :)

So that is all...hopefully I will have some good news to report back on Tuesday :)

Hope you all have a HAPPY EASTER!!

1 busy week to go!!

Well this is what I am dealing with at 1 week out.

I am quite pleased with how my upper body has come along but still a little concerned with the rear view :S Hopefully that will show some improvement when my water intake is dropped. In the meantime I will just keep lunging, cardioing and to quote one of my team mates...'praying to the glute gods'. Funny enough it seems to have worked for her. She looked incredible at posing yesterday.

This suit is new for this show and I just have to say I LOVE it.

 It was made by Karen at KHP Designs and she did a fabulous job.

This week is full of prep...tan, nails , hair, etc...in addituon to my regular training. Should a busy fun filled week...can't wait! I am looking forward to getting away for the weekend with friends and family. 

Team O'Brien

 has a great group of girls going and regardless of the outcome I am sure it will be loads of fun.

Today I am meeting of with my best friend Beth who is visiting from England. She is back home finalizing wedding plans. She invited me to go wine and food tasting with her in Niagara-on-the-Lake but obviously that's not doable at one week out so... 

We are going to go for a power walk, have some black coffee and take a visit to the local Lululemon. Starbucks and some Lulu-therapy is the next best thing right?

Mirrors, Tears and Movin' On!

I am alive!

Just got myself in a bit of a rut again...but seem to be pulling out of it. I started to blog in the midst of it last week but didn't have time to finish...here's how it went;

I planned on posting progress pics this past weekend at which time I was 4 weeks out. I was starting to feel pretty good... I picked up my black suit on Friday and didn't think it looked too bad :)

I went to leg camp on Saturday morning and many of the other girls commented on how my legs had come down and that they could see I was leaning out! All was going well until it came time for posing. I started with my shorts over my suit but when Mindi said I either needed to pull them up or take them off I thought..."Ah heck, I've only got 4 weeks left, lets take them off and see the real picture"...that was my BIGGEST mistake! Seeing my butt and back of my legs in those mirrors and that lighting really did me in. It sure doesn't look like that in my mirrors at home..wtf?!?

That was beginning of the road to rutville :S

After camp, posing and 2 hours of cardio I was wiped...physically and mentally. I got home around 3 and immediately put on my pj's and hit the couch (the whole time wondering why the hell I am doing this!)

Sunday was my first 'non rest day' as 2 hours of cardio need to be done now. I know longer have that little break in the week to look forard to...the work just goes on and on...I had a tough time with that as I was already struggling.

Monday I found out that the hotwire had changed thier minds and were no longer going to let me refund & rebook for the hotel that I booked for the wrong weekend...there goes $200 down the drain!

By Tuesday I didn't even want to get out of bed...just the thought of another 200 lunges, 2 hours cardio and the dreaded leg workout was too much to even think about :S I talked myself into at least getting outside and going for a good ol' power walk in the sunshine...that was interesting. The motivational music I had downloaded had me in tears on my walk...wtf?!? I was a mess!

I have herad of other girls going through these emotions but this was my first experience with it...not fun!

The good news is that the susnshine brought me outside for many more power walks, I am starting to see some changes, and I seem to be back on track :)

 Here are a few pics I took while walking.

 Don't worry Mindi...I stopped my watch while I took these ;)

The beautiful Spencer Smith park during the day.

And a night shot.

During last nights walk (above) I even threw in some run/sprint intervals and quite enjoyed it!

 Hopefully that will shake things up a bit... time is running out!

I am off for some cardio now...shocking I know :)

 Then I am picking up my pink suit. I will try to post pics!

This and That

Thought I would take a wee break from the cardio and give a quick update of what I have been up to the last week.

This is the second week of the crazy cardio and lunge sessions and I am surprisingly not hating it. It is a LOT of cardio and the planning can be tricky but it sure isn't difficult. With the right company or magazine it can fly by! On that note I would like to thank my dear friend Jared for the 2 hours he put in on the treadmill yesterday :) I told him he is going to be 'show ready' whether he wants to or not!

Feels like things are starting to move as well, so that makes it worth while. My abs are making a comeback & there are the beginnings of some lines on my legs :) Woot! It is working! I was hoping to do progess pics this past weekend but no one was around to take them for me.

My teenage kids have gone off and got lives of their own :( Taryn went snowboarding for the first time on Saturday and LOVED it. She came home asking for her own snowboard :S Sounds pricey to me. Tyler spent the day working with my dad and brother in the family business. He wasn't to keen on the idea when I woke him Saturday morning but ended up enjoying it and making Grandpa very proud. He said my Dad kept telling everyone..."this is the 5th generation working for the family business":)

I went to see Shutter Island with Jared on Saturday night. It was actually quite a good movie, I expected it to be really scary but it wasn't. Since my divorce I have mostly stuck to chick flicks (mostly because I can I think). The last couple times I have went to the movies I strayed from the usual and was glad I did. On Valentine's weekend we attempted to see Valentine's Day and it was sold out. Since we were already there we saw Crazy Heart which was awesome.  On Sunday I  finally got to see Valentine's Day with Adena and enjoyed it very much.

I am off to the gym now for 1.5 - 2 hours of cardio. Later I will do the other 1- 1.5 hours and my 200 lunges at the studio.

I work until 8 and then will be rushing home to watch the hockey game.

Go Canada!!!!

PS...I seem to have lost my spell check option! Not sure where it went but in the meantime please excuse the spelling and typos :)

Cardio, Cardio , Cardio!

I got my new program on Sunday and there were 2 big changes...

1. My cardio has been upped fron 45 min twice a day to 60 min twice a day.
My morning cardio is 60 min of walking at an 8% incline at a speed between 3.4 - 3.7.
My evening/afternoon cardio is 60 min on the spin bike with little resistance keeping the cadence around 100 rpm.

2. My leg workouts have been removed and replaced with another 60 min of cardio.
Normally I do an hour of legs with Mindi on Tuesdays and an hour long leg conditioning camp with the team on Saturdays. Both of these were replaced with 60 min of cardio.

So...that means my weekly cardio total is now 13 hours. It is light, easy cardio so I can't complain about that but it sure is boring! I don't think there are enough tabloid magazines published weekly to get me through it :)

I also still get to keep my 200 (each leg) lunges  a day...lucky me!

Yesterday was the first time for the 3 hrs cardio and I chose to  break it into two 90 min sessions.

I went to Body Waves in the morning and did 70 minutes on the treadmill followed by 20 minutes on the bike. They don't have spin bikes available for use outside the class so I put it on manual and rode around 100 rpm at level 2 - 4.  After that I did 100 walking lunges.

Between clients in the late afternoon I rode the spin bike for 90 minutes and at the end of my day I did another 100 lunges.

Today is back , 2 hrs cardio & 200 lunges.

Shrink legs, shrink!!!

Lunges & Edamame - 7 weeks out

I had an interesting week as far as training and diet goes.

After Saturdays class I was prescribed 200 lunges a day on each leg in addition to the 2 leg workouts I do each week! I choose to do 100 after each cardio session. I get enough funny looks doing 100 at the small gym near my house I can't imagine what would happen if I did twice as many :) One man asked me why I didn't just pick up some weights and do less! 

We tried to go as 'fake sugar free' as possible to see if we could trick my body. The scale doesn't seem to be moving like it should and Mindi wondered if perhaps it's still treating the atificial sweeteners as sugar. I also seem to be super sensitive to sugar. Normally I will have crystal light in my morning shake, in my water throughout the day (if I find I am having trouble getting it down), in my homemade salad dressing (mustard, apple cider vinegar & splenda) . Sometimes I would even add some to my egg whites.

I have also been treating my self to a diet pop at night in order to ward off the munchies. I love the diet crush rainbow pack...it comes with 6 cream soda, 6 root beer, 6 grape and 6 orange. So yummy! I have now got Adena (She said I need a Goal) hooked on it. Not sure if that is a good thing or not.

I still struggle with the whole artificial sweetener thing. It is the only way for us dieters to have a 'treat' but then there are so many reports on how detrimental it is. Any thoughts? I have read that because your body doesn't know how to process it that it treats it as a toxin and stores it as fat contributing to cellulite. Eventually I would like to give it up all together but I am not sure if that is possible :S

Another addiction I have developed is to edamame.

It seemed to be a tasty, low cal treat. I even made sure it was 'Dennis approved'. I was using it a lunch as part of my umlimited veg, my afternoon snack in place of my snow peas and sometimes in the evening if I felt like a snack. So sometimes that would add up to 3 or 4 pods a day!

The shocker came when I read the nutrition info a little more carefully...

If you notice it gives the nutrition info for each serving which is I mistakenly assumed is how they portioned them. But boy was I wrong...they actually put 3 servings in each portion! Tricky buggers!

When I thought I was consuming 93 calories, it was in fact 279!

When I thought I was consuming 5 g fat & sugar it was 15!

And on those days where I had 3 or 4 pods it added up to 837-1116 calories.

  45 - 60 grams of sugar and fat!

Remember I am the girl whose body is uber sensitive to sugar! Not good!

Needless to say they have left my house not to return again until off season. Who would have though a silly little bean could become such a problem!

I truly think this was more of the problem then the sweetener and am confident I will bein seeing more results with it out of my life.

We will find out next week when I post my 6 weeks pics :)

Those Darn Legs!

Yup in my short off season, they went and got big again :(

Sugar is definitely not my friend and too much of it doesn't take long to show up on my hips and thighs.

Maybe one of these times I will learn my lesson?!?

Anywho...here  is what I am dealing with at 8 weeks from the Natural Canadians-------->>>>>>

I attended my first posing class of the season on Saturday and took these photos after. As you can see I am still hiding under my shorts...not quite ready to expose the booty yet :S

The feedback I got was that the upper body is where it should be but the legs need to be smaller. No big surprise as that seems to be what I am dealing with every time. The good news is that I still have 8 weeks to get them there.

I am currently doing cardio twice a day for 45 minutes, legs with

Mindi on Tuesdays and a leg conditioning camp with the team on Saturdays. Dennis said he was going to talk to Mindi about what else we could do...I have a sneaky suspision that hundreds of lunges are in my near future :S

Diet is perfect other then the addiction to edemame I have developed. Trying to cut back on it though as I worry about the estrogen from the soy.

I will post pics again at the 6 week mark and hopefully the legs will be looking a little leaner. I will probably be in the bikini bottoms at that point as well as I don't see myself getting away with those shorts much longer :)

Hope everyone has a great day and kick butt workout! I know I will...it's 'legs with Mindi' day...pray for me!

8 Weeks Out & Feeling Good :)

Almost 8 weeks out now and I think things are starting to come together! The scale finally budged (yipeeeee!!) and I am noticing small changes every day.

NOW I am getting excited!

Workouts are going well and my diet is spot on. I am at the point where I just eat what I am told and don't really think about it otherwise.

I will attend my first posing class on Saturday so then I will know where I really stand. If I lose half my food and get my cardio doubled next week I know that I am not on track...lol.

I will post progress pics on Saturday and then every 2 weeks until showtime.

Countdown is on!!

Sunny Monday!!

Happy Monday Y'all!!

How nice is it to see the sun again??

I'm just back from the gym where I had an awesome SHOULDER workout and cardio session!! Cardio was 35 minutes at a 15% incline followed by a 1 mile run. The best news is my legs didn't itch at all :)

Now I am eating  a 1/2 c egg whites with 1 baked green apple...yum! Next up is 1 cup of raw brocolli (yuck). All I can say  is thank god for mustard.

After that I am heading upstairs to wash that grey right out of my hair.This is one of the way I save money while training. I do my own hair colour and let my nails grow off until it is comp time and then let the pros take over. I figure my hair is rarely seen as I tend to wear my hat most days due to the double cardios and there is no point trying to have pretty nails when I'm rarly outside the gym!

I have a pretty easy day today. I am meeting a potential client at 3 pm who is interested in attending my boot camps.Then I will do my 2nd cardio session which I think I will do on the spin bike. After that I have 2 more clients and I'm homeward bound.

I like my easy Modays.

What does everyone else's day look like??

I'm Back!

Yes I am still alive...I was just in a bit of a January rut!

I am a solid 3 weeks into comp training /dieting and feeling good. I am not seeing any changes on the scale yet but I am noticing small changes and overall just feel better. I ALWAYS do when I eat clean...now why can't I remember that during the off season when I am indulging in all those 'dirty' foods and feeling gross and miserable?!?

My next show is in Laval, Quebec on April 3rd and it is the CBBF Natural Canadians. I qualified for this show when I place 3rd (out of 3 :S) at the Natural Ontario's in September. If you recall, that was the show that I went into unfocused and behind schedule. For that reason I real like I need to show that I belong there & not that I advanced because there was a low turnout for the show!

I am feeling confident that I will be able to present my best physique yet as I have been doing double cardio's since 13.5 weeks and am already following a pretty low carb diet. Other then a green apple, grapefruit and a tablespoon of pineapple, it's all raw green veg & protein! The goal is to bring me in ahead of schedule and hold it from there. I much prefer this method to stressing out at the end.

Sorry for being such a bad blogger but now that January is over hopefully the blues can go with it! More regular posts (and maybe even some progress pics) to come!!