Back on the LEAN

Alright I am back on my joyful, fun, and highlight of my day lean out! Last week was a pretty crazy week for me, but I just did the best I could and lost .8% body fat, and 3 LBS ended up being a good week. Right now I am at 13.7% body fat. I am doing my best to make sure this goes as quickly as possible. I will be honest lean outs are not the most fun thing. I do love the results though. So I know a lot of people read these blogs because of the motivation that it gives to you. I had received a lot of comments on how it helped you with your own fitness goals. I wanted to create something that could get on more of a personal basis, so i created a new blog @ thedriven23.blogspot.com. This blog will talk about where i get drive on my day to day life and other things in my life that I go through. I wanted to create something that more people could relation life situations to. Please follow if you are interested, comment on the blogs and ask questions. I hope most of you were able to sign up for the freedom festival 10k this next monday also! Enjoy your fourth of July!

Ragnar Results

Well I am still alive! I want to thank Team Caselle for allowing me to be apart of their team! That was probably one of the best experiences I've had with all my finesses goals. I wasn't ready for this event at all, but I was still able to complete it by doing my best. My first leg started in the afternoon and it was a lot hotter than I thought it would be. While going I felt like I was making awesome time, and I was right! But somewhere along the last mile I got a bad cramp in my abs. This happened during my training run that Monday and I was worried that it would happen on my run and it did every leg of my race. My first leg I finished it in 35min. That is the fastest I've ever ran four miles! I was happy with the results, just worried I had burned out my legs already. The second leg was at 11PM and it was a three mile up hill run. I was doing awesome until I realized I hadn't even hit the real hill yet. The Hill was a three step hill, meaning it would climb then level off then climb again. It was hard! I still finished with a good time 29min. The last leg was the hardest thing I've put my self through. I woke up from the night and noticed my side hurt really bad and I was really worried. I still had to go run and while I was running before I even got to mile 1 my side cramp kicked in really hard. Dan called me during that mile and I have never had a point to where I really didn't know how I would finish, until that moment. I could have broke down and cried, but good thing for my ego I didn't. It was something I knew I would have to dig deep in order to finish my leg. I finished still with about a 10 min mile pace. I had to tell my self so many times during this race, dig deep, dig deep. It was a time where I knew I could prove something to my self and wanted it bad! Our team finished around 30 hours, great accomplishment. I highly recommend everyone who reads this to go and challenge your self your, your best competition! Go and win!

Ragnar

Alright I haven't been able to update the blog because of how busy I've gotten with everything. Well it's the night before the big Ragnar race. I wanted to just kind of talk about training and feelings going into this. Honestly I am very excited! This will be a lot of fun. Am I ready? I doubt I'm as ready as I could be. I love this feeling of not sure if you can accomplish a big task or not. It's a time you can prove to your self what your really made of! The pain you go through to get there makes it worth it in the end. If you didn't know, I've only been training for this for about two weeks. I have had to really push my self to get all my runs in. I have had to push it to finish them all! My last run was this past Monday and I am a little nervous that my right calf tightened up before I even hit mile 2. I told my self this is where you will have to put in your mental game in order to finish this. I was able to finish with one of my best times yet! I am pumped and ready to go. People have told me it isn't about the winning just go have fun. I can't help but make this all about winning! I am a competitive person and just being my best is everything. Looking at it physically I have a lot of doubts. Mentally I am over prepared and know this I am more prepared than most people could be in two weeks. I am READY! I will take pictures and post them next week. Next week it's back to lean out! Doing things we couldn't see our selves doing, is what makes us grow!

P.S. If you will be in Utah for the 5th of July come join me as I run the freedom festival 10k. It is an awesome and fun run to do! SIGN UP TODAY! http://www.freedomfestival.org/

Week 1 Lean (TACO'S???)

I still can't stand CHICKEN! I wasn't perfect on my menu, but I was at least 95%. The results came out to be .8% loss in body fat, which was about 1.5 LBS of fat off my body, and then 1 LBS of lean mass gained. We aren't sure if those are fluids or not yet. As hard as the lean out is, I do enjoy doing it. When I have to eat so clean I feel like I am at my most healthy health. This program will also have to be a little longer than we planned. I was just asked to do the Ragnar relay! While getting ready for events like this I can't be on a lean, due to the need of carbs while gearing up for it. So I will just post how training for this race is going. Yes, I know I have two weeks to get ready and I am a little behind. This will be a little bit of a challenge, but I am not worried I enjoy fitness challenges. As I was on my run yesterday, I had a thought come to mind about how I tend to over do what I am really capable of. Such as entering a race with no cardio endurance in me at the time. I was even running and thinking I need to slow down! There is just something inside of me saying "no do your best push through your weaknesses" I just refuse to walk and slow down, even when I know I need too. I love fitness challenges, because I am able to test my self each time. I love the feeling of being able to prove to my self and others, what can be accomplished on complete will power. Obviously even I have limits and there are points where I do have to listen to my body. I will always push to that point though. I see results by doing this. Most people are worried to push to this point, why? Because it hurts! It's not comfortable! Many times I have the thought quit come into my mind, but what makes the difference is never giving into it. Your results are a product of your own will power! Challenge your self a little and let pain become a feeling you look forward to. I hate training, I never feel awesome doing training, I just know the reward for doing it.
Also if you are wanting a great way to have healthy tacos, get some ground turkey meat and a 30% less sodium taco seasoning packet. Cook it all up, and then add your favorite tortilla with it and your veggies. This is a perfect meal to have for family dinners and it is very tasty! No, I didn't have any taco's on my lean out, I just made my turkey meat like this.

End of the Build!

THANKS GOODNESS! I am so glad I am done with 10 sets of 10 reps! I think I might have shed a tear while I realized that I had just finished my last workout! I will be honest menu wise I didn't do the best. I think most of it was knowing that I would be leaning out this week, that I just wanted to enjoy flavored food! I am set and ready to go. I am cooking my chicken and rice as I type this. With the build I feel like I gained as much muscle as I would have liked to at this point in time. Over all I gained about 9 LBS of muscle. I feel like this is a good amount for the six weeks. I am ready to lean out! I want to run again, which is weird?! I am glad I get to pull off all this extra fat now! Starting this I will be taking a few different supplements. I am now doing our fat burners, flab-u-less, and burn baby burn. I will also be on our fitness fuel. So I say bring it on! My thoughts for this week is really focused on Value. Recently our office just hired two new employees. While we have been working on training them, I have been thinking a lot about value. I think about the value of our program, my clients, and goals. As I began to really break down that word I realized everything in our lives has value in one way or another. If we choose to do something or not do something it is all because of what we see the value in. If I give up on a goal or don't do my best at it, then it isn't because of anything else other than the value I see in it. Obviously I can say I want it, but there are a lot of things in my life I want. I just don't get it, because of value of not having enough money or just no real need at this point. If I had the opportunity to get my dream car for 200 bucks by the end of the week. I would do everything in my power in order to make sure I got it. Why? Because there is a value to me I can see and it is attainable. So it goes with our goals. We want to reach our goals, but what's the value of them to us. Finding and remembering that value in your goals is what will make you successful. This can be used in every aspect of your life. SERIOUSLY! take a look and examine you'll find what you really do value and sometimes you will find shocking answers! Take your goals and life with full value in them, make those things important to you valued as high as gold!

Week 5

Alright one more week with the build. This weeks results: I gained another pound of lean body mass. I'll admit i could have probably gained more. Due to how busy we've been at the office, I haven't been able to eat as often as I need. Of course I know not eating hinders my results. DRATS! I will still do my best to finish out this last week strong. Dan and I both agree I am one week behind still. I don't care to gain that much more lean mass. I feel like I have put on enough lean mass as is. I am ready to do a lean out and see that transformation rather than seeing muscle mass put on. These 10 sets with 10 reps is very rough to do. I even lose encouragement to get in the gym because of them. So even for me, yes, life hinders my program even. The best thing I can do is keep going and see where I end up.

Week 4

What a intense week of workouts. After deciding that we need to go more intense with my workouts, I am worn out. We decided to do 10 reps and 10 sets! I can honestly say I have never felt anything like these workouts! These will probably play the biggest mental game with you while doing them. With the new workout l gained another 1.5 LBS of muscle this week. I can really see differences in certain parts of my body, which is always motivating as most of us know. Again with my meals I have missed a few meals due to being busy. So far we are still doing good on the program. I know I promised to have PDF's of my programs I will have to do that soon, I apologize. The thing that I have been thinking about for the past few days is how much sacrifice it takes to reach our goals. If we don't have to sacrifice anything to reach our goals, then I believe we haven't set a goal at all. Some of you may have seen my facebook status earlier this week, it said "success takes sacrifice." For a lot this program I have had to make changes to my lifestyle in order to be successful in this program. The goals have to worth the sacrifice, we all have to take that into consideration. One of the biggest you have to do while doing your goal, is always remember to finish what you started. I know I've talked a little bit about this in my blogs before. I guess I can't stress this enough though. Goals will shape who we are and who we feel about our selves. If we don't finish our goals, it does begin to affect all aspect of our lives. Which may seem pretty drastic to a few, but that's why I think exercise goals are such an important thing for everyone to have in their lives. When you complete a fitness goal it teaches you what you can put your self through and still come out on top. It's always about giving it your best and seeing where you end-up, which teaches you how much more high you can go from there. I could go on for a long time about goals and the affect they have on our lives! The biggest question is what are you going to sacrifice in order to reach your success?