Up the game…

So the mistake seems to be asking your bootcamp trainer to train you a little harder… Phoenix and I have reached a place with bootcamp where we still look fine and can walk when we leaveafter an hour of exercise. Our bodies have reached that limbo place and thats not where you wanna be when trying to obtain the death machine body.

“Maybe we must ask her to train us harder…” seemed like a good idea at the time. Then she gave us each two 8kg kettlebells and we had to do most of our exercises with them bells. Lunges, with bells, squats with bells… people lemme just do the math for ya real quick 8+8=16. SIXTEEN kilograms added to each squat and then having to lift  that weight above your head without hitting yourself on the way up or actualy dropping it on your own head. Believe me, holding onto that 8kg kettle bell and still lifting it overhead after about 10times becomes a real act of faith.

Don’t even get me started on the exercise hangover, its hectic. You know its gonna be a bad hangover when you have to crawl out of bed cos your legs are wobbly. Unlike drinking hangovers, these hangovers don’t just go away when you drink a strong cuppa joe or have an oily fry up. This particular babbalas lasts for days and the second day is worse than the first, it’s like the muscles suddenly wake up on day two and go… “I’m sure we missed something yesterday… oooooh yes, BAM!!! Thats for you darlin’.”  At the time I immediately regretted the dicission, but now I’m proud. It really is an awesome pain.

The challenge

I watched an awesome movie a few months ago and I thought about it again today – White House Down. It was such a  good movie, It made me think that I would totally want to be an American if Jamie Foxx was president. But, lesbe-honest, Channing Tatum… somehow that is all that needs to be said. Channing Tatum is really coming into his own I think. He has such a wide array of genre’s from Step up and She’s the Man, to  Dear John and The Vow to G.I. Joe and then this awesome movie. He dances flippen well, plays soccer, is dang ass funny,  fights, loves. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wins an Oscar soon.

Sigh!

Now to the next thing… The Challenge. Phoenix and I had a moment yesterday after camping and we decided that the time has come that we challenge ourselves to commit 110% to this healthy thing. We sat in her car talking about what we should do and how and all that. Then we prayed and asked that God would help us, because “WE (I) can do all things through Christ who strengthens US (me). Now I totally believe that Jesus wants to help us with something so personal, He is a personal God and Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. So we got some encouraging scriptures and pictures and all… So where to from here?? We prayed but as we all know, faith without works is dead, just like works without faith is dead. Our camping is going well, we feel the burn, we give it our all, but like I have been hearing WAY TOO OFTEN, being healthy and toning up is 80% what you eat and 20% exercise. The 80/20 diet…

You know it…

And that is exactly where our problem lies. Emotional connotations to eating is a very real thing. You feel sad, you eat, you feel happy, you eat, you lose a kg, you eat, you don’t lose any weight but pick up a kg or 3, you eat, PMS’ing?? Dang right you eat, you eat everything sweet and chocolaty in sight! So yes, comfort and celebratory eating is a real ass thing in our lives at the moment and personally I think, oh heck no, we only need food for sustenance, not for comfort. It’s a total mind thing, its discipline its having the willpower to say NO to the last éclair in the box, to order healthy food at a restaurant, to stand up against that voice in your head saying “Oh come on, just this once”

No… just NO!

Romans 12:2 – Do not conform to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. That word TRANSFORMED is the same word as repentance in the original Greek which is METANOIA and as you can probably guess, the English language got Metamorphosis from it. It basically means to change and turn 180ᵒ in the other direction and to stop doing what you had been doing before. Go read this post, I found it to be very informative and a much better explanation than what I gave J. Think about it… I would like to think that this verse can be used for our particular struggle which brings me to this verse Ephesians 6:10 – 17, what I want to point out is this part “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” BAM!!!

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

So the Challenge is that we will be giving it our all, getting Bootcamp Shirts made and everything. Our deadline is 30 May 2014!

Thoughts??!

Bootcamp vs. Crossfit (not a fair fight)

You all knew this was coming, if you know about bootcamp and crossfit then you were probably sitting there thinking “How long will it take for her to get to get to crossfit?” It does seem like the logical step after nearly 10 months of camping. BUT… Somehow I think there is a step missing, a step that will make the cross over from camping to crucifixion (CROSSfit) less like dying and more like slowly drowning in a sea of sweat. A step that feels and looks more natural… OR maybe that’s the whole point. Getting from horizontal running to bootcamp (with actual running) is already like stepping onto a 2m high box.

I personally feel that Bootcamp is Crossfit’s retarded cousin. You know the one at the family reunions that you try and avoid but you can’t cos she is so funny to watch! Don’t get me wrong I am not knocking bootcamp at all, I love bootcamp (everyone loves the retarded cousin, its family after all), I have muscles, I’m stronger… all in all camping is doing me a world of good, I am just saying that when compared to crossfit, bootcamp is less. But you know what they say, less is more. (I don’t think I can use that one here, less exercise is deffo more flab but not more muscle)

I hate the jiggle

Where is all this coming from? You ask… Well, Tuesday we shared a studio with a new class of crossfitters. I gotta tell you, it was intimidating to say the least. Our humble 3 person (including instructor) group doing our squats and skipping, lunges and planks quietly in the corner, while a group of roughly 20 muscled beauts (men and women) do hand-stand-push-ups, some Spiderman looking pull ups, dead-lifts, walking on the hands NOT quietly.

Yikes…

It’s safe to say I stood with my back towards these machines of bone and muscle. To be honest (cos usually I’m a big fat liar) it was slightly motivational having them there. I mean come on, when you are doing little circles with a 5kg weight while some other woman is doing 60kg dead-lifts you are bound to be motivated to at least not stop circling till the time is up. If there were only females I would not have stood with my back towards them, I’d be getting my motivation and encouragement, but the guys that were there were all soooooo good looking and well-built that I felt slightly shy (NO WAY, SHY?!… I know right?) to face them.

So to some up, bootcamp is great, will always be great, but seeing the crossfit thing happening makes you feel like a retard, but also you feel like – That’ll be me soon, spidermonkey-ing up that crossbar like I’m being chased by a tiger.

Exercise Hangover!!

Imagine for a second if there was such a  thing as the morning after pill for exercise, just something to think about quick.

I think lactic acid build up is the hangover of exercise, cos there you are, bootcamping the fat out of your body, having a good time, smiling, or frowning… sometimes you can’t tell the difference. You feel good, you feel strong. then you have a shower, go to bed and pat yourself on the shoulder for doing those 10 burpee-box-jumps like a Jack Russel on roids.

You know what I mean…

Then the next morning you wake up and think, it’s a beautiful day. Birds are swaying, trees are singing, BEAUTIFUL! You get dressed and feel fine, you walk to work and feel fine, you sit at work and feel fine. Then by about 11am the lactic acid gremlin appears in every imaginable muscle in your body. You are too afraid to stand up, or sit down and you are definitely not going to fight fight fight, unless it is with the person asking you to do something other than lay in the semi fetal position and cry. If it wasn’t for the endorphins and the feel-good hormones running through my veins making me smile through the tears I would kick someone.

After I get up…

That, my dear reader, is exactly what I am going through today. Sitting at my desk minding my own business, singing a song, drawing a flower. Then I get up and its like my ass all of a sudden said “Oi, there’s muscle here… Make it burn!” On a positive note, my bum will soon be “that ass” worthy… and I am super excited about that, just don’t ask me to show any excitement, thats too much movement. Ok on another positive note, there is nothing more satisfying than an exercise hangover… as it will from now on be known!! I think that’s pretty clever if you ask me.

OUCH!!!

There is nothing like the pain lactic acid causes in muscles. Its like that pain you get from clicking your knuckles, it hurts but feels good. I hadn’t felt The Pain (as lactic acid build up will be known as henceforth) in a long time as I got into my bootcamp groove. Then 3 weeks ago I got flu, and usually I am the die-hard type, if people say to me go see a doctor or take some meds then I’m all like… I’ll tough it out, but this time I medicated myself to the point of addiction, and still there are some flu bits hanging on like that fat kid in the candy store after closing time, or that drunk guy wanting to pick up the juke box after last call.

Too much time on 9GAG!!

As most of you probably know, exercise while sick is a bad idea, so I didn’t do anything apart from walk for 2 weeks. It was the longest 2 weeks of my life, no bootcamp, no netball, NOTHING!!! Tuesday I felt exactly why I dreaded being sick… well from Tuesday. EVERYTHING HURTS! The Pain has infiltrated every muscle in my upper arms and legs. Defenses where smashed to pieces in a matter of hours. We did a crap load of leg exercises, squats (with and without medicine ball), lunges, ball slams (slam 7kg ball onto floor hard enough for it to bounce and squat as you pick it up mid bounce), thrusters (also some type of squat with 7kg ball) and my good friend – burpees. Wednesday I played netball, my legs barely worked, yesterday some more squats and lunges and ball slams and loads of push ups. The Pain makes my boobs feel like they are going to break off! (theres a picture for ya… yikes)

Also I needed to make this…

at least 5 times…

I think it explains what happened. I went straight into the same routine as before, and I was out the gate like a bang, but then I crashed… HARD! Lightheaded and seeing stars, not the Crazytown type either, out of breath, doing less that the others there. I would like to make a personal petition to God and ask that He please protect me from EVER getting sick again… EVER!!! Now you all say AMEN with me.

Oxygen…

I think we can all agree that oxygen is a pretty important part of every-minute life. Without O2 we all cease to exist. Shit, without good ‘ol O2 we never existed in the first place. When I was in high school, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, my favorite subjects were Biology and Physiology. I discovered a passion for it that I can’t explain, to this day I still remember some of the work. I think it stems from being in awe of the Creator of it all. When you pay attention to the little things, the details, then you realise just how amazing and awesomely clever God is, and for Him to say that He knit me together in my mother’s womb… that is just even greater. He spent special time with each of us. Signing His Name differently for each person, like and artist hiding his signature on pieces of art.

That’s a lot of intricate stitching…

Anyways, back to breathing and what not. I learnt in biology that oxygen, apart from keeping us alive, is slowly, oh so slowly, killing us by aging our cells. I can’t remember all the nitty gritty details and so on, but what it comes down to is if we could make our cells immune to the side effects of oxygen (or make oxygen that doesn’t have that effect on our cells), we could live forever. Imagine that, I don’t want to live forever but you know, some people want to. I see a futuristic movie storyline here… Superman needs to be in it, he could hide the oxygen tank of youth in his crystal palace or something. *making notes*

“now I know it’s around here somewhere, I really should keep this place tidy.”

So what this is all about is, on Tuesday Phoenix had some Cellfood Sport, which is a Oxygen for Life product that is way too complicated to explain so go read about it here… What I will say is that is takes on this oxygen aging your cells thing, which sounds quite cool. Also what it does for the sporty/active/boot camping type is it increases the oxygen that goes to the cells which boosts your performance. So as you can imagine Phoenix was on fire (see what I did there?) on Tuesday, and I had a bad workout session, felt like a newby. So yesterday Phoenix suggested I take some liquid oxygen (you laugh… it totally exists, check it out), which I did. 20 Drops of the stuff in some water. I don’t know if it boosted my performance or even if it upped the cells’ O2 intake… I was dying either way. Maybe it did, maybe it just has some sort of placebo effect. Either way the 60 semi-(very girly) pull-ups I (semi) did, still won! However I do feel that I did better yesterday than on Tuesday, so thank you Phoenix.

Basically… drinkable oxygen.

Your thoughts on performance enhancers, yay or nay and why?

Bootcamp: revisited!!

I have been boot camping for about 5 months, and while I feel better about the fact that I am actively doing something to improve the list of things I have about myself that needed improving, I still feel like more needs to be done. More!!! More aching, more pain, more sweat, more blood (there hasn’t been blood, but it sounds baddass enough), more time, more death… and now I’m racking my brain for frighting things to put a “more” in front of, and I’m going to stop myself before I get to more zombies. You get the picture though…

Yowzah… wrong picture!!!

Yes, so, more of what happens before, during and after boot camp. Before, there’s a lot of “Hooah Bitches, Fist Bumps, High Fives, We Got This(es)” and sometimes prayers. Imagine the Springboks’ rugby team locker room before they go out to annihilate every other team that wishes to stand against their awesomeness… now replace the guys with some girls and the green and gold with some pink and spandex and you got boot camp (Disclaimer – I do not work out in pink.) . During, it’s mostly the sounds you hear either from behind closed doors (I’m talking about the toilet here…) or from a maternity ward. Ranging from grunts, to moans, to screams, to whimpers and then obviously the ever present push it… PUSH IT LADIES!!! coming from the instructor. After, it looks like what’s left behind after the Springboks had been there. There are sweaty bodies, a few tears, some blood (still badass even if it’s not true), sometimes fainting, occasionally there would be food that no longer wanted to rent the moving apartment that is your stomach during the 20th burpee of the night. And yes… I want more of all of that. Especially the Springbok rugby team locker room…

Not a locker room but still… sigh!!

Focus woman!

I want to go even further. I want to be able to NOT buckle during my 5th non-girly push up, I want to breeze through doing 20 burpees right after each other, I want to be able to do a pull up (focus on “a” as in “one” for now). Someone asked me what my motivation behind boot camp is and I came to the conclusion that apart from wanting to look hot, I want to be proud of myself for achieving something, for sticking to it and through it and struggling with it and myself. I want to enter the Air Force and not have a hard time doing actual, real ass, boot camp. I want it to be MY abs, legs, arms, ass whatever that gets used as the backdrop of some inspirational, motivational, exercise propaganda (which I appreciate). Oh and I want people to look at me and see that I can do some serious harm to them… If I wanted to.

Maybe I should just be scantily dressed and carry dangerous looking knives.

My Goosebumps has Goosebumps!!

A very good friend of mine has a very very big collection of worship music. I think he is addicted, he goes and buys like 5 albums at a time and he always lets me listen to the best songs, sending me snippets of them to listen. Yesterday he bought the new Passion 2013 – Let The Future Begin album and OH MY DAMN!!! He sent me a snippet of The Revelation Song sung by Kari Jobe. I decided to Youtube it… the video has haunted me ever since… she goes into a spontaneous worship type thing at the 3:40 min mark and the song just builds and builds then it crashes and starts again building and crashing like an ocean upon my soul. The perfect mix of emotions and glory!  Like a worship cocktail.

Now it can haunt you too, you are welcome. This song as well as My Delight is in You sung by Christy Knockels gives me goosebumps on my goosebumps. I love worship music, always have it playing at the office and I was just  thinking I need some new worship music and I had not heard of a new Jesus Culture or Bethel album yet soooo this came just in time. I don’t want to write for too long but listen to the whole album, it goes up and down drawing you in. It’s amazing! Baie BAIE dankie ! (Jy weet wie jy is)

No words needed.

Now on a totally different and unrelated note.. I NEVER EVER WANT TO BE SICK AGAIN!!! EVER. *Deep breath* Ok I’m fine, well I will be fine. Soon. On Tuesday at bootcamp our trainer thought it would be fun if she made a game where she has 6 different exercises each numbered from 1-6. She had a dice and whatever number you threw you had to do, then you had to do 50 skips. then the next round you would do what you threw the 1st round as well as what you threw for this round and then 50 skips again and so it went for 5 rounds. So you start with doing 1 exercise and then 50 skips, then 2 and skip, then 3 and skip etc etc. I can’t remember what exercise was on what number but I remember my 1st throw was 40 sit ups AND my 2nd throw was also 40 sit ups… so if you do the math I did 360 sit ups. Oh and somewhere in there I threw the number for 40 Randfontein Rolls also (laying on your back with hands under bum, bend one leg at the knee placing the ankle of bent leg just above knee of non-bent leg, lift the latter while chin is on chest… 20 each leg it works your core like a boss). As you can well imagine, sneezing was (is still) a painful experience, even laughing is painful. Phoenix and myself made the mistake of watching Friends, we started out laughing at Chandler… ended laughing at each other’s pain from laughing. At least we had fun.

LOVE FRIENDS!!!

My point with this is that I wouldn’t have been in such pain, or even struggle to to 60 squats yesterday or it would not have felt as if I had phantom forearms and hands  from doing kettlebell swings, if I had not missed only 1 week (ONE WEEK – SEVEN DAYS) of exercise. Damn you tonsils!!! Damn you to heck! So now I am making sure I don’t get sick again, eating oranges as if my life depends on it, it kinda does. Also drinking iron and multivitamin tablets and just for good measure flu symptom tablets if I feel even a slight scratchiness in my throat. Bitches better know I aint getting sick again!!

That’s weird!

Last week I had tonsillitis and if my memory serves me right (as it usually does), the illness is supposed to be quite a bit more, er, grueling than it was. I woke up today a week ago with swollen tonsils and the whole shebang, so I just took some anti-inflammatories and a sore throat pill that you need to suck every morning. Not the best tasting pill but it obviously helped, cos by Friday I was right as rain. *Side note: How right is rain anyway???* And we’re moving along… So yes I’m perfectly healthy now, played netball last night (and lost by 4 points) but it was great. The only thing that I don’t like right now is the feeling that I have lost my motivation to exercise. Amazing how a week without it changed my mood, BUT I shall kill the passive mood during Bootcamp tonight. I have to!

I do this sometimes…

I’m starting to dislike my all-over-the-place thinking brain a bit. Just for once I’d like it to focus on one thing and stay focused on it till the goal has been reached. You know, stick to the exercise, become ripped, better ripped than Swank and Biel put together with a dash of mean ass tiger in there, accomplish one thing I set my mind to initially. Just once I’d like to experience the feel of victory over myself. If I could clone myself (which would be awesome on sooo many levels) I would kick my own lazy ass. It would be like Double Impact, Van Damme vs Van Damme… only with me it would be Swank vs Lazy-Ass.

Say what you will, this man could fight!

So I think if you don’t keep at it, the exercise not the watching of Van Damme movies (which is totally acceptable), then your body goes back into fat-girl mode. Dylan Moran has this great piece in one of his shows…

That last part has me laughing soundlessly every time. “I would stab you to death but I can’t afford to take the 2 weeks off work”. When I am done laughing though, I have this sinking feeling in my stomach that if I don’t watch myself that could be my face thats the tiny island in the see of flab! Slight exaggeration but you know what I mean.

To sign off, I leave you with this. Drink your vitamins so you don’t get ill and can’t exercise, cos that motivational boat might pass you by and then you gotta hustle your fat ass over to it. At least it’s only been a week… but I feel that even a week is too long. HELP!!!!!

Tonsillitis… Wait, WHAT?!

When you come to a certain age in your life, you know your own body pretty well and you know what certain tell-tale signs are or lead to… from when the flu is creeping up to when that mad trucker lady with the red 18-wheeler is about to crash into your uterus with the speed of an F1 car on E! Even when some of these things only happen every few years, like for instance tonsillitis. Most people my age have already had their tonsils removed. I still have mine and I don’t mind still having them, they are usually pretty quiet tenants, also I’m more complete than the others (that’s what I tell myself).

Tonsils? Check. Appendix? Check.

When I woke up on Tuesday KNOWING (cos you just KNOW) I have tonsillitis, or that tonsillitis is at the front desk of the hotel that is my body, I wanted to flip my lid. I think my house mate and very good friend can attest that I totally did flip my lid. Not because its gross and uncomfortable and makes it difficult to swallow and there is constantly phlegm (WEIRD ASS SPELLING) no matter what you do, and and and. No, I had a floozy because it’s really a dumbass idea to exercise while your ill in any way. So I’m not bootcamping at all this week. Seriously it sucks. Right when I find my groove, someone puts a new track on and now I gotta figure out how to dance to this one. I am going to have to do some serious catching up when I’m well enough to exercise again. NO FAIR!!

Also I think I have found out what the female equivalent to man-flu is, you know man-flu… those of you who have a man in your life, not only do I wish you only pretty things in life (and am I insanely the right amount of jealous) but also I pray for you, you know that if your man has even the slightest sniffle he is bed bound and demanding soup and being sung to about small furry animals. Although I am not bed bound, partly cos I am awesome and partly cos ain’t nobody got time fo dat (I seized that opportunity like a BOSS… oh look that , another one), I feel like the tonsils are where all my emotions are manufactured and they are on strike. It’s either that or the fact that madam mad-red-18-wheeler-trucker also decided shes staying at Hotel Liezel for the next 5-7 days! For free! Bitch!! I’m thinking its both… LOVE BEING A FEMALE BTW!! A pic repost is in order me thinks.

uh huh!

3 is a crowd!

Lately everything has been happening in 3’s… Well ok not EVERYTHING but last time I checked I was still a female soooo I have the right to exaggerate, slightly.

I picked up 3kg’s about a week ago. All of a sudden. I mean the food forced me! I had no choice! Don’t look at me…

Aaaaanyway, yeah,so I picked up 3 big ones. Now for you to understand why that’s a big deal you need to know that as I stated before I am a female and I have been camping since end of January. Granted just cos I’m camping doesn’t mean I’ve been eating camping food. I started off eating well and cutting the bad stuff out but lately I have been eating like I was stuck inside on a cold day and had nothing better to do. (think about it…)  So I was genuinely upset when the scale shouted at me. So I sucked it up (and in) and concentrated more on what I eat and have been exercising every day for about 2 weeks now. Now what I have learnt from this experience is… STAY OFF OF THE SCALE!! Oh and that if I just pay a little more attention to what I eat its possible to lose 3kg’s in a week. YES I DID!! Oh and look at that… another 3.

My Photoshop skill are limited, so imagine him doing push ups…

At bootcamp last week I was doing girly push-ups like a boss, eating them up like I was the Push-up Monster, then the instructor said, if they are getting too easy try doing the proper push-ups. Now, the difference between girly push-ups and proper push-ups is the girly ones you do on your knees, so its less weight on your arms, the proper ones are done on your feet so its a lot more weight on your arms. I tried doing a proper push-up about 2 weeks ago when my older brother wanted to know how good bootcamp was treating me… I fell on my face. Not the best way to show off but it will come. So when the instructor said proper push-ups I cringed a little but being the beast I am (someone has to say it) I settled in to see if I could do any, and I did 3… granted the last one was wonky but I did them. I never knew that something so seemingly insignificant could have such a positive effect. I felt great, felt like I should train even harder cos obviously something is working.

hummanah hummanah hummanah – Monica

Oh and just to prove my theory of everything happening in 3’s lately… we have Iron Man 3 that recently came out on cinema and the Fast and the Furious 6 (thats 2 x 3’s in there, baby) oh and if you watch Fast and the Furious 6 you will see 3 very yummy men! Sooo there you have it, theory proven. Sorta!

Phoenix vs Swank – The15 Week Challenge

Bootcamp, bootcamp, bootcamp… If it wasn’t for bootcamp I think I would have been on a fast decent into madness, right now its a slow leisurely cruise. The scenic route, to stop and take pictures of the madness around me. Bootcamp has opened up deeper things in me that I had forgotten was there. As I wrote in this post and this one – I want to be built like Hilary Swank and recently I have added Jessica Biel to the list of inspirational hot bods, and my date is the 1st of September 2013. Up till last week I had not really done much other than bootcamp twice a week. Last week something happened, I could not wait to exercise so the whole week I would do exercise on my own on the days that I didn’t go camping. I think it might be that I spoke to our camping instructor and she say that it can be done in 12 weeks and the 1st of September is now 15 weeks away, OR it could be that my best friend challenged me to see who lost the most kg’s and cm’s from now till the 1st. In the words of Mr Barney Stinson – CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!! So now it is Phoenix vs Swank.

Oh it is ON!!

The funniest thing is that in the almost 14 years that we have known each other and the maybe 12 years that we have been best friends we have never been competitive with each other and had never known that we could be. This is a whole new side to our friendship, and I like it. I always knew that Phoenix (seriously its not her real name – she does also blog though, here it is: Leopard Print Princess) is very driven and competitive, but my role in those situations had always been that of the one-woman-cheerleading-squad. Whether it was her competing with a fellow student for the best marks in a certain subject or her competing with herself to make jewelery. Now I am torn between cheering her on and wanting to leave her in the dust that is my own ambition (which is slowly coming out of a 6 year long hibernation). We had an interesting moment last week during bootcamp where we ended up tag teaming against the rest of the camp. we would push each other to stay well ahead of the others. I think thats the best move. Healthy competitiveness and still being able to cheer each other on. Or maybe its just because we have such a rich history.

Best person to do any challenge with!!

Whats the aim of the challenge? Well last year we went for a photo shoot, this year we are going for one again in September. The one that loses pays for the other ones shoot. Its a small incentive, but I think we both are so ready for a massive change that its just a minor incentive. That being said, it doesn’t make working hard and eating clean any easier. Our instructor’s exact words to me when I told her what I want – “It is possible, with hard work and eating clean, you can achieve it in 12 weeks” (well she said it in Afrikaans so its not EXACT words). We had looked at doing the Warrior Race thingy on the 11th of May but we had missed the registration and they had already been sold out. For those of you that have not heard of Warrior go here. It is looks a lot like Tough Mudder. Next year we want to do it. I want to be able to do the Black Ops one… you can think for yourself what that means. I have a long way to go, as it stand I can barely make it through a 30 mins Action Netball game without being kaput. CARDIO HERE WE COME!! Skipping is not enough.

Gots to be ready for this…

What are you doing to challenge yourself?

Gotta do this more often!

After The King’s Feast I had not gone to bootcamp again, there was another conference with 2 other amazing guys from Bethel, Danny Silk and Kris Vallotton, they were amazing. I will have to get back into the swing of things this week with bootcamp. Last week I exercised on my own for the first time in ages. I skipped and did lunges and so on… just so you know, skipping bare foot, 6am, at the start of winter (yes, Johannesburg has no autumn or spring, just summer and winter) – not so smart. That skipping rope was hitting the tips of my toes so hard it felt like knives were being stuck into them. I wanted to cry a little, but I didn’t cos I’m tough like that.

Most of the time…

I have only done it once though. Getting up early to exercise is not that easy, but it is doable. So I should suck it up. 1^st of September is less than 5 months away, that goes by really fast. I think I should at least skip every morning, nothing like getting the old heart rate up and kicking so early in the morning. I mean you do feel like dying but, then you live like my old buddy buck from Ice Age. I HAVE to exercise all through winter, my body’s ass will be kicked by exercise and not by the constant want of food and hot chocolate. I WILL WIN!!! Shouting that makes me want to kick something and scream THIS. IS. SPARTA!! Oh yes, you know what I mean.

Oh yes…

So tonight is the first bootcamp in about 2 weeks… AGAIN. I think I might die, I wrote in this post that I really shouldn’t miss bootcamp this often and what do I do? Yeah, I miss it. But in my defense, I can always exercise, when I put my mind to it. I will, however, not always be able to go to amazing conferences. Burpees will always be there to kill me or worse… (There is worse! There is always worse with burpees), but these conferences do not always happen.

How I feel… or will feel tonight

We have to stay as spiritually fit as we are physically fit, no wait, we have to be more spiritually fit because our fight is not against flesh and blood… Maar ‘n gesonde liggaam huisves ‘n gesonde gees. So Liezel, suck it up, drop down and give yourself fifty!

Frustrated much?

Ok so the last few days have been frustrating, between being hungry ALL the time and being tired ALL the time i have no time to be cranky ALL the time, oh, no wait, got that covered too! Its really hard to stay positive when your body just won’t play ball. You know what I mean? I did some wiki-ing (get it?) up on what foods give you energy and also what foods make you tired, my conclusion? Well I won’t be eating that muffin AND the chocolate filled dipped doughnut for breakfast anymore. Yeah cos that IS what I was eating every morning. (I do realise that sarcasm can not be conveyed through text so for your fyi… that was sarcasm)

I usually only eat 4, maybe I should cut down to 3.5? *rolling eyes*

I do think I am slightly anemic and that does lead to being tired all the time. So I shall be like Popeye and start eating spinach… its better than liver. YUK!!!  Spinach is high in iron, which helps for being anemic.

Also, on the exercise front I feel like I am failing. I set my alarm for 5am this morning in the hopes that I would wake with a spring in my step and make some friends with that skipping rope. I barely looked at it, I treated it like that friend who got drunk and puked in your bed. I set my alarm for an hour later and went back to sleep. which by the way is a BAD IDEA! Have you ever woken up and then gone back to sleep for just and hour or so? You wake up tired after that second session. The brain is weird, mind you Pinky aint much better. (you will laugh when you get it). At this rate if I don’t start exercising on my own as well as doing bootcamp I won’t reach any of my goals. Newest goal being “I want to be toned/ripped by 1 September… what better way to celebrate spring day? But at the pace I’m going it’s not going to happen. This is the part where you yell at the screen and say “stay positive, Liezel”.

Woman, you have to keep going – otherwise what else will I read on while I pretend to work?

Actually, I think God must have been reading this post as I was writing it, cos while I was busy Someone from church, we shall cal him Mr X, showed up and asked me how bootcamp was going and naturally I had a minor non-adult moment that stopped just short of me fetal-positioning it, sucking my thumb. He encouraged me and said that it takes about 6-8 weeks for results to start showing, he also gave me some tips on what to eat for optimal GI consumption and so on. What really helped was when he measured my heart rate per minute… ON HIS PHONE (iPhone, pfft). Now I don’t know if you know this but an averagely healthy person’s at-rest bpm is 72, the healthier and fitter you are the lower it is and obviously the more unhealthy and couch potato-y you are the higher it is. Mine was at 62bpm… that, to me is pretty good, considering. Mr X said that between 50-59 at-rest bpm is the best, then you are really fit. Whhooooo Haaaaa! Romans 8:28 at its most personal… Thank you Jesus!!!

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Getting Ripped… I Hope!

one slow ass muscle coming out of hibernation at a time…

I found this picture on the net and I thought that it perfectly describes my current situation. one of my best friends are getting married in a month’s time, some of my friends are engaged, some are pregnant, some have already had their little bundle of screams and poop. Me? I’m doing the lonely ranger thing of getting ripped… slowly.

VERY SLOWLY!! I’ve been going at it for over a month now and I have not really seen any results. I feel GREAT and I can feel muscles growing and forming but as for looking more toned and well yes, skinnier, nope. Nothing. the scale keeps saying sorry honey, no change. And if one more person tells me…

Say that to the scale and the measuring tape.

shits gonna go down. Cos a kg of fat still weighs the same as a kg of muscle, I found this really insightful blog about this very thing.  Muscle is leaner than fat but also more dense… SOOOOOO technically I should be losing centimeters, right? Well, in the last about 3 weeks I have lost maybe about 5cm. So I reverted to the age old coping mechanism of comfort eating. Not THAT badly but, I slacked on the watching what I eat thing.

Yeah, real comforting.

BUT Rome wasn’t built in a day, also it wasn’t easy. One day I will read this post and think… “EEEEEDJIT, you’ve only been at it for over a month, and you are stronger cos now you are doing 3 camps a day and not just 2”. I realised that exercise is way to beneficial to just give up and it is hard work, but you feel great during and after. I will not give up! I found a few funny pics about exercise that made me laugh about how stupid I’m being. 

I shall be doing this now…

Oooh this one gets me every time… but then I get sad cos that was me. (No, I wasn’t Willy Wonka)

I think I will start skipping in the mornings, gotta think of a name for my morning exercise companion… Any ideas?