Mr. Bad

I LOVE my man!  Here's a photo of our recent date night.  I just thought y'all might want to see my #1 fan.

Oh Yes I DID!

I went on vacation for a week and worked out and/or carefully watched my nutrition every day.  I have no regrets, and I actually dropped body fat!

I went with my husband and little girls to New York (stayed in Times Square) 3 weeks away from my next competition. I was nervous about booking this trip because I thought I would be too tempted to splurge or not have a good time because I was worried about my food.  It was the only time we could go together as a family, so we booked it, and I prepared myself.

Here's how I got through... I brought protein bars (no sugar, low-fat), drank a lot of water, planned my workouts and didn't compromise (except once -- when we were awoken early in the morning by a fire alarm and didn't get back to sleep, I didn't work out later that morning), ate veggies whenever I could.  I stayed in touch with my trainer and accountability friends.

Early morning lifting

Afternoon City Schlepping

Bootcamp anyone?

I'm lining up my next series of bootcamps in the park. I need at least 5 committed people for a 5-session series, every other Saturday morning at 8:30-9:45 a.m. in Burbank.

We warm up, practice jogging, kicking, jumping, monkey bars, etc. ... and a little bit of monkeying around.  I give diet and workout advice all the way through.

Email me your contact info if you would like to be on the list: allibian@yahoo.com

I feel their pain (well, almost)

Watch this!  These guys are amazing, and I get what they're all about... sort of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O6wMhDRST0

Mystery Bruises...Again

Left elbow and both knees have mysterious bruises.  I don't know how I got them exactly, but I'm happy they are there.  It means that I've been working out hard lately, and I haven't been paying attention to the pain.  I love when I get more bruises than I can account for -- I wear them proudly!

My Success is Your Success

Yesterday, after finishing off a 15-week program with a client of mine, we hugged and blessed each other and bounced away in opposite directions, feeling proud of ourselves for many reasons:  She more than hit her goal (original goal: 4% body fat loss, reached: 7% loss), developed a stronger sense of self-worth and power, and learned how to stop hindering herself from feeling the strength that God gave her.  I was proud that I could be a positive part of her process.

Before we parted ways (we will see each other again soon, an I hope to train and counsel her on nutrition for years to come), she said something that all at once made me pleased and curious, "My success is your success."  I was pleased because I believe that with my influence she now has the strength to take herself farther and become more successful in this phase of her life.  Because I love her, I am pleased that she is richer from the experience.

I was also curious. Is her success my success?  Now that I think about it, I am reminded that my success is my success, and her success just blesses me.  Her success doesn't increase my success.  It only makes me happier.  My success is earned by my hard work and education, etc.  I also earned it by working hard on myself and staying strong in my faith, so that I can have a cup that overflows to others.

The reason I'm even mentioning this important interaction is because I want to remind my readers (and myself), that your success is your success -- earned by you, assisted by others, blessed by God.  Others' successes add to your happiness but don't define you or add to your sense of self.  Don't allow yourself to attach yourself to anyone else's success.  Create it for yourself, accept assistance and blessings, and pour it out onto others.

Want to Lift and Tone Your Booty?

If you want to lift and tone your booty, then follow these simple (but hard) rules:

#1: Get a personal trainer to push you harder than you thought you could push on your own.  I have my own trainer, even though I am a trainer to others.  My trainer reinforces how strong I am, while still keeping me safe by checking my positioning.

#2: Work your glutes, hamstrings and lower back with moderate to heavy weight, not only body weight exercises.  Sometimes, you need to just do treadmill at a steep incline or stairs for about 25 - 35 minutes to get your cardio and your legs strengthened.  However, you also often need to tear your muscles apart with heavy weights, so you can rebuild dense, strong, lean muscle fibers.

3#:  Be proud of your progress.  Nothing helps motivate better than being proud of yourself and being aware of your progress.  Ask your trainer to take regular measurements of your abdomen, hips and thighs to accurately measure your progress.  The scale doesn't tell the whole story.  Also, take progress pictures and other pictures in your "skinny jeans" to remind yourself of where you are and/or where you want to be.

Here's an uplifting exercise I did today with Ricardo: long bar + 45 pound plates on each side, stiff-leg deads on the bosu with him pulling me back to add resistance on the back side.  This picture only has 10-pound plates, but I did a set of 15, so Ricardo upped the ante to 25 plates, then 45s.