I
attended Bodypower at the NEC in Birmingham in 2014, this is an expedition of
the fitness world, with companies, athletes and enthusiast filling a couple of
the halls at the NEC. It was incredible!
I was almost shocked into silence by it, trying to take it all in. There
was so much to see, take in and digest. But the main thing I took away was
motivation, I really wanted to train, I really wanted to push my body to the
next level. I wanted to increase my knowledge of fitness and nutrition and
follow some of the fitness models I met and saw.
This is absolutely a lifestyle, for me it is one of the most important things in my life now, I
know I have to work to earn money and my career is of course still important, I am not the sort of person to go to work and not care. But my health is far more important, pushing my body to its limits is a choice. I’m not saying I’m going to become so muscley that is all you see when you look at me, that is not the case, I want to look awesomely defined, I want to inspire people to do what I did, or at least look at changing something that they do in regards to fitness or nutrition.
Yes sometimes I think, ‘is this all worth it’. I get very tired occasionally, to the point where I do need a nap in the afternoon. There are days if working in London, that I leave my house at 6.15, work till 5ish (sometimes later), heading straight to the gym and not getting home till 9pm. Struggling to fit in all the food I need to, before showering and going to bed for 9.30-10, so I can do it all again the next day. Yes it is tough and I could not do that every day, but for a week I can (I work Mon-Thurs, full time), my Fri, Sat and Sun are busy, but no-where near as busy, I make sure I leave myself some 'me' time, where I can rest, my body and my mind. It is important to keep my mind rested as well.
I’ve typed this during my week off (I wrote this a while ago, think this was April/May 2014),
I am having some work doing to my house and to free up the space and help out, I’m living at my mums. So my holiday will be, going to the gym twice a day (class in the morning, training with PT or PT session in the afternoon/evening), gardening (very little so doesn’t affect my macros too much), walking dog and anything else I fancy doing. Some work will be done, it has to, I work flexibly so this has helped me in the past and will do in the future.
I’d
love to be going abroad, sunning myself & exploring new places, but with
the work on the house and lack of money, this is not an option. I also wanted
to see if I could handle this at the gym, 2 sessions a day is a lot and not
something I would recommend. The class I did in the morning isn’t like a normal
training session and I could ensure I don’t push myself too much, so it doesn’t
effect my training in the afternoon/evening. It also allows me to push it a
week before the end of our Summer Shredders programme.
6 weeks prior to writing the above, Tom organised a Summers Shredders programme, which would take place in 6-8 weeks, people could have their macros set for them and training programmes written per training session, for an extremely reasonable price. I have been doing macros for longer than 6 weeks and training with Tom is having my training programmes written for me, but a difference for me was having my progression shots taken every 2 weeks. I used to hate having my photo taken, back when I was bigger I had an almost fear of having a photo taken of myself. So getting nearly naked (in my bikini) in front of someone and having those photos critiqued was a massive hurdle for me.
In my life I had never put a bikini on, no that is a lie! I had picked them up, taken them to the changing rooms and cringed at myself. Sometimes even laughing at myself for being that idiot, who thought they could possibly look nice in that item of clothing. So picking a bikini was difficult, I took a friend from the gym with me, who had equal problems with the idea of a bikini. Let’s just say, it was not the best trip, we found nothing that was a) the right style b) fitted well enough. Luckily Jenny knew of a good website for them and we ordered online and tried on the bikinis with each other, to make sure we didn’t chicken out.
I was again lucky that my PT is very professional, the pictures were easy to take and were done so quickly I didn’t know what I was worried about. Well that was until I had to take my second and even my third. But after they are taken and you can see your progress staring you in the face, it is hard not to smile or feel some sort of achievement. ‘I did that’, yes I have lots of help, but all that help would be nothing if I didn’t get off my arse and do the work. My personal trainer will train on his own or with someone else if I didn’t train with him. If I didn’t turn up to my PT sessions, they just wouldn’t take place and I would waste my money.
If I didn’t log into my fitness pal and plan what I’m going to eat everyday and making sure my fridge/cupboards are stocked and spend time cooking/prepping that food for the next day if needed, then it wouldn’t happen. I would be tempted to have stuff I shouldn’t have, I would faulter!
My 4th bikini progression picture (I had other progression pictures, but they were in gym clothes, so very different in terms of seeing progress), I was really interested to see what had changed in the last 2 weeks and from the start. I was nervous, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that, I feel nervous every time I have my measurements taken, step on the scales and have my body fat percentage worked out. Of course you will feel like that if you had been bad, not hit your macros like you should have and not worked out as hard. However, I usually feel this way, even when I have been spot on all week. I have never liked tests and these all feel like tests to me. Testing me to see if I can continue to drop 1kg a week, or 0.50% of body fat, will my lean muscle mass go down or stay solid. These are all things that go through my head and yep sometimes I have weeks where you know what, I’ve hit everything as I should and yet still my results aren’t where my head thinks they should be.
Thanks for reading...
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