Body-For-Life Blogzone

The settling in of winter?

2005-11-27T05:32:00.000+13:00

Things have turned into a winter wonderland once again. Such a pity, because I hate running indoors on a treadmill, lol, and at the same time I am not prepared to risk slipping and breaking something on a rouge piece of ice or snow.

I'm pretty sure this downfall is going to thaw though. The temps are meant to rise again in a day or two, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that it might not all be over just yet...

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winter wonderland again...

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A random street shot, lol.

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from the front door of my flat...

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Atleast it feels Christmasy though! :-)

2005-11-27T05:21:00.000+13:00

The putrid pond

2005-11-10T17:30:00.000+13:00

I can't believe how warm it has got here again. It is almost the middle of November and it is still in the high 70's! Pretty fantastic, except for the fact that I have been bundling up all nice and warm for my early morning jogs. It is so hard to tell. Sometimes it really IS cold first thing, but today I nearly passed out from heat stroke, which did not come from the sun. :-)

This week the Council cleared out the pond that I use to run circles around. Oh my god. I thought I was going to gag! A putrid smell wafted out of the pond. Well, I guess it does contain stagnant water for, like, a year, but I figured they must surely put some chlorine in it every now and then, you'd think? Obviously, whatever they do is NOT enough!!!

Yesterday I managed two rounds of the empty concrete pit without puking, before cutting my losses and quietly bidding goodbye to the "pond". I re-routed my run to the streets.

I noticed this morning that they are starting to fill it up again. Hopefully they have cleaned the bottom thoroughly...

The "stressful" workout?

2005-10-26T19:00:00.000+13:00

I seem to be getting my *exercise* care of College at the moment. You know that kind of stress where you metabolic system revs into overdrive, your heart pounds in your chest, and your sweating like there is no tomorrow...? Does THAT count as exercise??? LOL.

The symptoms are certainly the same as a good workout....

I am feeling ridiculously stressed at the moment. Every day this week I have sat in class asking myself: "Am I really meant to be doing this?? Is Law School really for me??" Then I think: "God, if not, I have just gone and wasted the last 5 years of my life, aaaaargh!"

This is the first semester ever that I have felt sick in class. But, if anything, it is actually putting me OFF of food, rather than inciting my usual stress response ... "WHERE'S THE CHOCOLATE?!" Ha.

Hopefully things will subside soon...

Playing with my pulse

2005-10-21T11:04:00.000+13:00

I have been sitting here this morning playing with my pulse. :-) This might sound funny, but I have been marvelling lately at the wonders of having a resting heart rate in the low 50's.

This is what it should be of course, but for some reason I've been having flashbacks lately to my high school days where the horrible P.E. teacher (lol) made us record our pulse every term.

Even back then, I knew it wasn't GOOD to have a resting heart rate in the 80's!!! Weirdly enough, the P.E. dude never said anything to me about it. You'd think that since he was going to all that trouble testing us, he would at least have had a quiet word at some point to a student who clearly needed to do something about it? (Or at least to their parents??)

Yes, I was one of those unhealthy, overweight, and 100% sedentary teenagers who would celebrate madly if any test came back with a pulse in the 70's ... 78 was seriously good stuff, LOL. :-)

Back then, over a decade ago now, I never dreamed that I could get my pulse down into the 50's. How silly, huh? It seems totally bizarre now to think that 86 was "normal" and 70 ... well, 70 was something to aspire to!!

Water woes

2005-10-20T17:16:00.000+13:00

Cinergy came knocking on the door early this morning to turn the hot water off in all the apartment buildings. Great. :-S I had planned to go for a run before breakfast, but hastily decided to shift it to the end of this afternoon when it dawned on me I would not be able to shower until then anyway!

I just got home again to all the diggers and machinery creating a massive hole right over my driveway. Not entirely sure where I am going to park tonight, because it certainly ain't gonna be in the parking lot!!

Secret basement to hidden treasure

2005-10-12T13:03:00.000+13:00

I couldn't resist ... I had to take my camera along with me and show you all what this newly discovered gym in the basement looks like!

It is definitely my hidden treasure find for the year, LOL. :-)

....not to mention that it is completely empty. Again. HELLO???!!

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From Wow to Ow

2005-10-02T22:07:00.000+13:00

I was so excited about the new local gym discovery that I went in there for the first time last night, did a killer work out ... and gave myself an injury. I have been lying horizontal with the little bottle of Advil all day. :-(

I have one of those temperamental backs that can be 'tweaked' the wrong way very easily. It seems to happen approximately every 6 months. I just slip up ever so slightly on my form, and WHAM. Insane nerve pain ensues for at least the next 48 hours. Ugh. Such a pain (hmph - literally).

So, hopefully by Tuesday I will be back to normal. Fingers crossed...

Am I DREAMING???

2005-09-30T16:00:00.000+12:00

You know how I recently moved to a new part of town?? Well, today I stumbled upon an extremely tightly guarded secret lurking ... free of charge to certain residents of the suburb ... in the basement of an old building five minutes walk from my flat.

One ... huge ... friggin' ... empty ... GYM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think I have stumbled into heaven, wheeeeeee! :-D There are three rooms full of various weight machines, a fourth room full of treadmills, ellipticals, and bikes, then there's the sunbed room and the sauna room for goodness sake(!) and two changing rooms. Oh yes, and I almost forgot, there is also one very deflated swiss ball, lol. :-D

Anyway, there is this little sign-up sheet at the entrance that you fill in when you arrive. Seriously ... FIVE PEOPLE have used the place in the last week! OMG!!!

This is such seriously good news, because it is getting increasingly difficult for me to use the College gym at the moment (due to hideous timetable issues etc) and I needed to find something closer to home anyway. The swipe card to the basement gives tenants access between 7am - 9pm every day, which is better than nothing, and at least you can pretty well guarantee that when you go there, there is not going to be a line of people waiting to use the equipment, LOL!!

Wow.

Back from Chicago ... eventually ...

2005-09-29T16:03:00.000+12:00

This is what Chicago looks like, at midnight, from the women's bathroom of the Sears Tower. It seems that the best view in the building is reserved for bathroom-going females! :-)

The funniest experience I've had in a while was entering the room only to find it full of women ALL clicking away with their cameras as they stood silently in line for a cubicle!! LOL. Even some men came in - just for the view - since, apparently, their cubicles only come with walls not windows, LMAO.

Anyway, I got back home from my weekend away, on Monday. Via Michigan. OOPS! The 5 hour drive got expanded into a 10 hour marathon when the "male with the map" fell asleep after setting us off on the wrong highway. Great. LOL.

Oh well ... at least I get to add another state to my list of "where-I've-been-in-the-USA" now! :-D

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The view from the loo! :-)

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...and trying to spot the iddy-biddy cars (specks?) somewhere down there on the road!

Ah, life is good!

2005-09-22T15:59:00.000+12:00

I'm so excited. :-) It's my birthday on Friday and I'm off to Chicago to celebrate! Woohoo. I can't wait. I'm so ready for a break from study, even though it means I'll have twice the amount of work to do next week. Hmmmmm ... oh well.

In other good news: my gym finally extended its hours this week!! It's been closing at 8pm every night for the last several months, which has totally sucked ... a lot. :-) Since my favorite time of the day to workout is between 9pm-11pm, it has been frustrating to say the least.

But now? "All is right with the (gym) world" again, LOL. :-D

The best laid plans...

2005-09-18T17:01:00.000+12:00

I had today all planned out ... off to the gym first thing, back home by 10.00am, and a long productive day of study for the upcoming week at College.

Ha! This is how my sunday really went:

Head out to the car first thing, only to find I have one very, very flat tyre. Hmph. Ok. Try and start the car. Nothing. What??!! Ok. Well, call the AAA, and spend the next hour waiting for them to turn up. In the meantime, discover that my roommate's car also has a flat tyre! What the.....?? Suddenly we begin to think that we have some kind of serial tyre slasher in the neighborhood, LOL.

Once the AAA turn up, they decide to tow my car to the very closed workshop (...of course this kind of thing always happens on a Sunday...) and I spend another hour getting myself to and from the other side of town without any hope of getting the car fixed today.

By now it is 1.00pm and I have some serious study catch-up to do, plus I have no way to get to the gym until who-knows-when?! So, I decide to go for a run, figuring that at least this will accomplish something workout-wise, not to mention some necessary stress relief. :-)

Now it is 5.00pm and I have managed approximately 2 hours of study all day. I was hoping for a night off from the books today, but somehow I don't think so...

Sleepy head spins

2005-09-17T16:51:00.000+12:00

Well, yesterday was free day, and today I feel like complete mush, lol. My brain is most definitely not travelling at the same speed as my head! You know, that 3-second-delay phenomena that occurs whenever the body is laboring under a delayed carb-coma? :-)

I think it's hit me more than usual this week because of the insanely squeaky clean eating that preceded. It's as if the gap between 'Unadulterated Chicken Breast and Fruit' and 'Bowls of Nacho Chips and Cotton-Candy Icecream' was just too big. ;-D

Feeling like it's time to crawl back into bed now.... LOL.

Energy to burn

2005-09-14T22:36:00.000+12:00

I seem to have an inordinate amount of energy today! Usually I know it is a wednesday night because headache-from-hell is pulsing through my brain, lol.

I seem to have all my worst-nightmare classes crammed into the first 72 hours of the week this semester ... the flipside is that thursdays and fridays get all the good classes, yay, but it usually means I am crawling into some quiet, dark place by about 7pm every wednesday... :-( Tonight, however, I don't even feel like the week has begun!?!

There is only one thing I've done differently these last few days - I have eaten 30 boring meals in a row, LOL! For the last five days, I have eaten nothing but 6 meals of either:

salmon and a piece of fruit; or

plain chicken breast and a piece of fruit; with the addition of either

a plain side salad or a bowl of steamed veges at two of these meals each day.

No dairy (which tends to bloat me anyway) no artificial sweeteners (which I add to cottage cheese dishes as well as breakfast oats) or any other additional condiment that often helps 'spice up' my meals.

I can only think that this is what has given me such a huge release of energy!?! What do you think? Is it a plausible connection, or is it just some totally random coincidence that is entirely unrelated?? I wonder...

My latest running track

2005-09-12T14:46:00.000+12:00

Since the temperatures have cooled off ever so slightly over these last couple of weeks, I have started doing my HIIT runs outside again, woohoo! I also moved to a different part of town, so this is what my new running track looks like. :-) It is much more scenic than the inside of my gym, lol, and it even has some hills for the incline!

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I start off with a light jog around the lake...

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...then I head up the hill past the rotunda...

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(This is the view of the lake from inside the rotunda - I was obviously not running on the day I took these photos, LOL!)

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...carry on past the tropical plant conservatory...

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...through the park and around the old broken-down bridge...

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...down the road again...

2005-09-12T14:33:00.000+12:00

...then back home up into the hillside. :-)

BACK TO THE BLOG!

2005-09-06T16:08:00.000+12:00

Hi everyone ... me again. :-) Sorry I kinda disappeared for four months, lol, but my blog-writing time got swallowed up with the all-encompassing joys of Law School as well as holding down two 3/4-time jobs. I'm glad to say though that the gym remained constantly on my schedule, and things are bubbling along pretty much where they were four months ago.

I am, however, thinking up a new "BFL-related-challenge-theme" to entertain myself with (lol) so I will begin blogging again. :-)

In the meantime though, I took a photo of my hair today ... because my family back home in NZ were wondering how long it has grown in 8 months, LOL! :-) So here it is...

2005-09-06T16:06:00.000+12:00

8 months ago my hair reached as low as the short bits curling up below my chin. Now it's just a tiny bit longer.... :-D

Legs and yummy smells

2005-05-02T04:28:00.000+12:00

Sorry for the gap in posts lately ... put it down to end-of-semester College exams, lol!

One thing I haven't stopped doing though, is working out at the gym. In fact, it has been a bit of a godsend sometimes - a daily legitimate excuse for a study break. :-D

I am constantly being amazed by my legs at the moment. Over the last two and a half weeks I have gone from squatting 120 pounds ...... to 200!!! What's with the exploding leg muscles?? LOL.

I am very happy about it, mind you, but it is just so bizarre how suddenly this one area of my body has taken it upon itself to outgrow the muscle-growth speed of the rest of my body. :-)

On a totally different topic, I have started a new job at the Courthouse which means I now sit in a different office with different people. This week has been hilarious because I inadvertently drove the other staff members crazy whenever I heated up my home-prepared meals in the microwave! One by one they all started coming over to me, asking: "What is it that you are eating??" LMAO!!

I guess it didn't help that since I'm at work for atleast 8 hours, I was torturing them with my yummy smells three times every day. :-D

The merits of breaking the rules?

2005-04-10T12:30:00.000+12:00

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about all the different types of fitness programs, training methods, and macronutrient ratios out there … and how there is no one-size-fits-all approach for everyone. Every body clearly responds and reacts differently to different tweaks and programs. Now, while this in itself is clearly not a revolutionary concept(!), it can be when you start applying it to yourself. :-)

Several years ago, one of my cousins began a bodybuilding quest. This was during a time in my life when I was less than interested in the whole pursuit (can you believe it??!! LOL) but I vividly recall a comment she made in passing one day. I realise now (doh!) that, in essence, she was telling me that some of the “cardinal rules” of bodybuilding don’t necessarily work optimally for her, and that sometimes, it is when she breaks these rules that she gets results. :-D

Recently, I have noticed that - while sticking to the formula works - it does not always work best, all of the time. This could just be me of course, but there are some days when all I want to do is train the same body part again that I trained the day before! Traditionally though, I have always stuck to the cardinal rule of giving that body part at least one day’s gap between workouts.

However, I took it upon myself to experiment for a couple of weeks with a two-days-in-a-row approach. It went right against my belief system about the "correct" way to train, but rather than it hindering my muscle development, I found that – to my shock! – it has broken me through a plateau and resulted in an ever so slight gain in muscle!!

Goodness knows if this is just a fluke, lol, but no matter what, it has taught me not to get quite so caught up in the stock-standard weight training rules as I perhaps tend to. I suppose I am now thinking of them as “guidelines” rather than hard and fast rules. :-)

If you want to see what my cousin looked like in her first ever bodybuilding competition back in 2002 - after, I might add, giving birth to 3 children under the age of six, and with a bodyfat percentage of just under 11%! - here is a link:

http://www.gofigure.co.nz/wonderW-Adrienne.html

She also talks in the article about how she dealt with training both during and after her most recent pregnancy (which was just last year) so there's some interesting stuff in there for anyone who wants more information on that too.

By the way, she now has (…gulp, deep breath...) 6 children under the age of 10(!!) but also has more lean body mass than before. :-D (Which is a good thing, because back in 2002 her bodyfat level was indeed fantastically low(!) but these days her muscles have a slightly fuller and more mature look to them. I guess this is another helpful reminder that it all takes time.... :-)

Down-time

2005-04-07T15:07:00.000+12:00

I've been having a bit of down-time this week. Not down-time from the gym mind you ... in fact, I think I've probably spent ever so slightly more time in there this week than usual! ... but just a kind of 'down-time' in general. Like ... when you don't particularly want to see anyone, or do anything all that spectacular? Who knows why, LOL. I haven't entirely figured it out yet!!

I know that some people get affected by the whole daylight savings thing, but I can't say this has ever caused me any problems in the past. But, who knows, I am in a different country this time around - hell, I'm in a different HEMISPHERE for god's sake! - and the weather has certainly been rather 'odd' compared to what I'm used to. The workload at College is also building to a fever-pitch right now with exams just around the corner, so I think it's a little bit of everything.

Okay, goddamit, I admit it. I think I am feeling a tiny pang of homesickness for the first time... ugh.

The fruits of walking...

2005-03-29T20:57:00.000+12:00

Well, I returned from New York yesterday recording 1% less bodyfat than I began my holiday with! Now, considering my eating habits were relatively 'loose' (LOL) and I didn't once make it into a gym, it must be true that continuous low intensity cardio works?!

Well, even though there does appear to be some truth in this, there also happens to be one rather glaring problem with it - ummm, perhaps the amount of low intensity cardio it takes? LOL. I can't quite see myself devoting the next however many years of my life walking 7 hours a day, so it's back to the tried and true method once more - oh, the joys of HIIT cardio and lifting iron. :-)

Anyway, the rest of my week in New York was great. I got to sniff the scent of fresh blooms as I walked through Macy*s department store during their annual flower show, I watched the leaves flutter and the horses trot through Central Park on sunny afternoons, and I visited several museums and art galleries for a dose of culture.

I tried often to get up the Empire State Building, but every time I arrived, the wait time in the queue was greater than 120 minutes. I just did not have it in me to stand in a boring line for that long.... :-)

Happy Easter!

2005-03-27T11:58:00.000+12:00

Enjoy this little piece of craziness ... :-D

http://www.debsfunpages.com/easterswf/rapeasterbunny.swf

Continuous cardio...

2005-03-23T16:57:00.000+12:00

I thought it would be nice to share some of my photos of New York with you all!

During my time here, I am discovering what positive side-effects seven hours of continuous steady-state cardio per day creates ... it does fantastic things for legs, LOL. :-)

Of course, normally I would not devote such a huge chunk of my day to walking(!) but I end up getting myself so thoroughly lost in this city that I trudge twice as far as I actually need to, to get to where I am headed!

I seem to have a blind spot for the very thing I seek. But, as you can see, I do manage to get there eventually ... just a LOT later than I originally anticipated!! (Um - notice the odd night shot that appears? LOL!!!)

2005-03-23T16:56:00.000+12:00

Wall Street at night

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Times Square

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...another view of Times Square...

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A building with flags flying

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Buildings reflected in buildings...

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Wall Street...

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...another building...

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View from the Staten Island ferry

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The 'Lady' :-)

The journey of adventure

2005-03-21T16:52:00.000+12:00

Well ... my adventure getting to New York became just a little bit more 'adventurous' than I intended!

I left Cincinnati at 9 o'clock friday morning to fly to Boston, to catch a connecting flight to New York. Well, the first plane ended up going to Detroit instead(!), and then my connecting flight to New York was cancelled AFTER we started boarding the aircraft (Huh? What was THAT about?!!)

Of course, this meant I got to queue at the rebooking counter for an hour and a half, only to find that I had to fly to a completely different airport, which meant that my luggage flew somewhere else entirely, LOL! What peeved me the most about this was the fact that I had carefully measured out all my protein powder and packaged it up in little plastic storage containers, ready for my meals. My careful planning of course went RIGHT out the window, until I finally got reunited with my gear 24 hours later. :-S

Anyway, after I finally landed in New York, there was also a mix up with the shuttle buses heading into Manhattan, so it took an hour and a half to get onto one. Once the driver finally left, 10 minutes into the trip he realised he'd forgotten a bunch of people he was supposed to pick up(!) so circled back to the airport. (Doh!)

Then, as we were heading back to the airport, the car in front of us CAUGHT ALIGHT!!! Because of the state of the traffic around us, we couldn't 'move' anywhere, so I was sure this was it ... I was going to get blown up by an exploding car!!!! Fortunately this did not happen, but add a few fire engines into the mix, and there was no going anywhere for another 40 minutes. :-(

So - 12 hours after I left Cincinnati, I finally arrived at my friend's place ... apparently it would have been quicker if I'd caught the bus from Cincinnati to New York, LMAO! :-D

New York! New York!

2005-03-15T23:14:00.000+13:00

Well, the slightly eccentric maintenance man(!) came and took a look at my oven. Even though it gladly went "BANG!" for him again while he was fiddling with it (lol) he was still unable to find the offending piece of electrics so, of course, did nothing. Hmmm. Well, needless to say, I'm sticking with the microwave for now! :-)

Anyway, I am currently counting the sleeps until Spring Break is unleashed on me, and I get to spend 8 glorious days in New York. WOHOOO!!!! I'm pretty excited about that, if you couldn't kinda tell. :-D (Three ... Two ... One ... )

So, can anyone recommend me a good gym in downtown Manhatten that accepts membership for, like, a week (lol) and won't bankrupt me in the process?? :-) Otherwise I'll just have to make sure I do a lot of shopping. That should sort me out for cardio - provided I spend enough hours trawling the streets - and if my loot is heavy enough, there might be a little bit of resistance training in there as well! :-)

The big bang!

2005-03-07T23:22:00.000+13:00

The oven in my apartment blew up this afternoon. Like, one of those big, electric-blue flashing light BANGS!!!

The scariest bit was that the stupid thing wasn't even on??!! I'd heated up some veges on the stove top about half an hour earlier, but then - at a totally random moment waaaay after it had been switched off - I decided to wander into the kitchen for something.

Wow, lucky me, I was just in time to catch the fireworks, LOL!

The first thing I did was turn the mains off (since my stove top obviously has a personality all of its own!) and then I shook for a moment, and then I went down to the lobby to seek some help from the friendly resident attendant. :-) My main concern was - how the hell am I going to cook any food now??? I really truly do not possess ANY cooking equipment over here in the States aside from the crusty old stove that came with the room. Afterall, it was hardly practical to squeeze a ton of kitchen equipment in my suitcase, lol, and I haven't bought any major appliances over here since I'd just have to squeeze them all back into my suitcase again in four months time when I leave!!! Not very practical.

So, the upshot of the situation is that I have been getting by for two months now with literally one pot, pan, plate, bowl, knife, fork, spoon and mug, and an awful lot of dishwashing liquid as I can't prepare my next meal until I've cleaned up from my last. :-D

Anyway, I was standing in the lobby area, feeling all at a loss about what to do (knowing that the maintenance man will take FOREVER to come and fix the scary stove, and that it is already 5.30pm...!) when someone walked by and mentioned there was a spare microwave that had been dumped a few months ago by its previous owner when they moved out!

My first thought was - does it work?! ... hell, it's been dumped afterall!! But, OMG, it does!!! Wohoo! :-)

So, I am currently keeping myself far, far away from the oven (which is a little difficult in a tiny cubbyhole kitchen) but I am THRILLED to temporarily have the use of a microwave again!

It's like the silver lining to an electric-blue arcing sparking smoke cloud. :-D

Back to my back

2005-03-04T22:25:00.000+13:00

I made it into the gym today for the first time in a week. Last Thursday morning I woke up with a pinched nerve in my back that was sending a ton of nerve pain down both legs. :-( This is not an entirely new thing to me ... it seems to occur mysteriously about once every six months(!) but it also means that I'm pretty much out of action activity-wise for about a week until it settles enough to move, lol.

You know what's really funny, is that when I am completely well and strong and could move a mountain, I still have days where I think to myself: "I wish I could be lazy and skip today's workout" - for whatever reason - but then, when I am unable to workout due to some kind of injury or illness, I miss it like CRAZY!!

Today I decided to take it gently though because I can tell it is still not entirely 'right', and the last thing I wanted was to have a back spasm in the middle of the weights section and look really stupid, LOL! :-) But I did love that sensation of blood flowing again. Wohoo! It felt like a treat after my week of absence.

LOL

2005-02-26T10:48:00.000+13:00

Oops, I just realised that I mistakenly wrote celcius temperatures in my last post, rather than farenheit! Oh well, I guess it's pretty safe to say I haven't quite got my head around the American system yet, lol. :-)

Anyway, fortunately Friday lived up to its reputation and I didn't get snowed on. As predicted, there was none of the white stuff to be seen anywhere. :-D (Surely though, there should be some spring weather beginning to show itself here soon???)

I just caught the end of the 2005 American Cup gymnastics competition on TV. I have always LOVED watching gymnastics, despite never actually doing it as a child. Anyway, for years I always enjoyed watching it for their display of technical skills and choreography etc. Today however, I couldn't stop staring at all their MUSCLES!!! For some reason, I have always had the image in my head of gymnasts as skinny emaciated creatures. :-) However, today's competitors were impressively muscle-bound, LOL. It was such a nice change, and certainly made for a very impressive visual display.

Thawing Thursdays...

2005-02-25T17:01:00.000+13:00

There seems to be a bit of a meteorological joke surrounding my Thursdays at the moment. Over the last month or so, the weather in Cincinnati has actually been quite pleasantly mild. Oftentimes, the temperature will climb to about 7 or 8 degrees during the day, and last week we even got to 17! :-)

Normally, I spend my days wandering around campus, so it's never a big deal whether or not it's raining, snowing or sunshining. Thursdays, however, are the one day a week I have to brave the elements and stand at various bus-stops around town, at 7 in the morning. :-)

I swear - for the last five Thursdays in a row, goddamit, it's SNOWED!!! It's as if a snow machine gets turned on just before midnight each Wednesday, and hey presto Thursday becomes a white wonderland again! It doesn't seem to matter that 24 hours beforehand everyone was wandering around in a T-shirt, and that 24 hours later it's magically balmy again?! Grrrr...

Anyway, it's become the latest joke in the Courthouse office. Good old me stumbles into the room each week looking like the abominable snowman, and all my co-workers say: "Oh, it's snowing outside. It must be Thursday!" (NOT: "Oh, Katrina's here. It must be Thursday." hahahaha :-)

Fortunately one of the women in the office has taken pity on me, and will attempt to drive by campus next Thursday on her way downtown. This week, however, I am doing a double shift, so, I am currently hoping like mad that the "Friday phenomena" kicks in soon(!) and that I can get by on the buses tomorrow in relative comfort. :-D

Muscles and madness

2005-02-21T19:10:00.000+13:00

I love the week that follows a massive muscle munting session. :-) At yesterday's LBWO, I found myself increasing the weights on my Smith machine squats and leg presses, by 30 pounds. I love that sensation of strength when you know you've gained a tiny wee bit more muscle. :-D

A funny thing just happened. I got an e-mail from back home saying that the University where I usually study, commenced classes for the year today after the long summer vacation. My little primal brain suddenly kicked in with: "OMG! You are missing classes!! Why aren't you back at home for the start of the semester??!!"

LMAO. How stupid. I had to inform my overactive fright reflexes that I am actually five weeks ahead of myself - AND all my classmates back home!

Humans are such creatures of habit and familiarity. If it doesn't FEEL like it usually does to be studying (i.e. at my campus back home) then surely I mustn't be studying?! LOL.

I think the pile of assignments sitting on the desk in front of me tend to indicate otherwise, however! :-)

Lactic acid overload

2005-02-15T09:26:00.000+13:00

iTunes have been sorted. :-) My bank in New Zealand have finally changed my billing address to my US university campus one. Simple huh??

I did have to be a little bit patient though, because it took the computer system forever to register the switch, and of course now I am going to receive all my bank statements three weeks later than before! (with the delay in international postage time).

But hey, I have iTunes. :-D

Right now I am finding it a tad difficult to walk. I went completely crazy on the squats last night, and followed by this morning's HIIT cardio means that my quads are now well and truly munted! :-)

I just ouched my way back and forth from this afternoon's classes. Its a forty-minute walk up and down hills. Now that I'm sitting again, I suspect my legs are about to seize up amidst a whirl of lactic acid...

Agonising iTunes :-(

2005-02-10T16:10:00.000+13:00

I am loving my little Shuffle. I have this tiny wee pocket at the back of my gym trackpants which is so small that it is totally useless for anything else besides perhaps the odd tissue. However, it does also happen to be PERFECT for slipping an iPod Shuffle into, LOL! :-D

iTunes, on the other hand, are proving extraordinarily painful. Up until now I have been loading my iPod with music I already had stored off my CD's and onto my computer. Today though, I tried to download some new songs off the net.

This resulted in two tedious phonecalls to the Apple customer service line, both lasting in excess of 20 minutes. Basically, my credit card originates from New Zealand. Soooooo what?? Who cares?? It's just as good at clocking up debt as any other credit card, LOL!

But when it comes to entering the billing address to open an online account? Well ... apparently New Zealand doesn't exist. :-(

The first guy from Apple reckoned there was nothing he could do, so he suggested I e-mail the online Bill Payments department. I said fine, hung up the phone (which was a very bad move!!) and went into their online e-mail system for submitting questions.

Lo and behold, I couldn't fill out the "required fields" to submit the e-mail, because I didn't have an appropriate I.D. due to the fact that my credit card hasn't been registered, aaaaaaarghhhh!!!!!!!

So, it was back onto the telephone, back to suffering through that hideous piped music while I waited to speak to a human, only to finally get a woman who was SURE that New Zealand belonged to Belgium! She kept trying to convince me that I could fool the computer by tacking New Zealand on as some kind of European outer suburb, LOL!!!

She did finally admit that she had absolutely no idea where New Zealand was, and things went awfully quiet when I commented: "It's next door to ANTARCTICA, not Belgium!!!".

Needless to say, I was not very impressed.

Superbowl Sunday in America...

2005-02-07T22:18:00.000+13:00

Okay, I know absolutely nothing about this football event(!) except that it creates a fantastically empty College gym in the hours leading up to it (lol) and that more food is consumed in America on this day than any other throughout the year, besides Thanksgiving!

On a serious note though, I have been dying to try out the Smith Machine at the gym here for ages, but it has always been swamped by College boys grunting and doing their stuff. Today, however, the traditional "boy's zone" of the gym looked like a ghost land!! Woohoo! All the more machines for me to play with, without feeling like I was intruding on a space where girls should never grunt. :-)

I also got invited to my first ever Superbowl party. Unfortunately the team the hosts were supporting lost, and I also didn't feel inclined to eat any of the pizza, chips, deep-fried chicken wings, or carrot cake on offer. Beer tends to make me want to puke, so I spent the evening sipping water and chatting through the ad breaks. :-D

Shuffling along at last!

2005-02-05T20:07:00.000+13:00

Ever since the trip to the Apple Store in Kansas City a few weeks ago, I have been waiting ever so patiently for the tiny wee iPod Shuffles to HURRY UP and get themselves into the stores, lol! :-)

About ten days ago I finally added my name to the advanced pre-order list, as it was obvious they were going to evaporate from sight almost the second they arrived in the shop.

Well ... finally, today was my day of good fortune :-)

It took me four separate bus connections and five painful hours of travelling around town, ugh, but at long last I got my Shuffle! :-D

I am soooooooo excited. As this is the first iPod of any kind I have ever owned, I am now discovering such joys as iTunes, playlists, and even how to backup my university essays onto the tiny wee beast so I can take them into class without having to lug my laptop all over campus!

... not to mention how fantastic cardio sessions will be at the gym from now on. :-D

The things I learned...

2005-02-02T04:21:00.000+13:00

Here's what I discovered from my week long experiment eating only whole foods ... I get insanely hungry when my body is not clogged up with all that metabolism-slowing processed food, LOL!

Well, I'm guessing this is the reason why I became so much hungrier?? I'm thinking that since our bodies digest whole foods so much more quickly and easily than it does processed food, then by eating only whole foods, there's nothing left sitting around in our system in the same way. Therefore, if I did not keep strictly to feeding my body every two hours I quickly became at serious risk of eating the first heavily processed MRP protein bar I could find! :-)

I figured pretty quickly that I was going to have to up my portion size if I was to survive the week without caving in, but that was okay with me. :-D I certainly feel more energetic now than before, hooray!

I ended up extending my experiment out to include Sunday, because I got invited to a dinner on the Monday night therefore reconfigured my free day. :-) I also found some boxes of Kashi Go Lean on special during the week, so I stocked up large and finally got to make Maggie's sister's bar recipe!! DEFINITELY worth eating, LOL.

I'm having a rash of dinner invites at the moment, so free day is becoming a free meal twice a week. Luckily the invites occur roughly every 4 days, so it all works out okay. :-)

Monday's free meal was at an all-you-can-eat buffet, with a ridiculously huge array of food options! Alas, I was still only able to gulp down one regular plate-size of food (which, by the way, was a delicious chicken, tofu, vegetable and brown rice stirfry topped with chopped nuts and toasted sunflower seeds - yummmmmmm). I couldn't persuade my stomach to fit anything else in.

My next dinner engagement is coming up this Friday, followed by another next Monday. Kind of a good balance between superclean whole food eating, and pure indulgence. LOL.

The challenge!

2005-01-25T14:43:00.000+13:00

I have set myself a mini-challenge for the week: Can I get through seven entire days eating only 'whole' or 'real' foods?? This means not one single piece of highly-processed food is to pass my lips until next Sunday. (However, I do make the exception of protein powder which, for some reason, I don't consider to be highly-processed, even though clearly it IS?? :-)

Anyway, this may all sound simple enough, but I have already admitted my addiction to meal replacement bars (lol) and I ALWAYS have atleast one of them at some point during every day. (Lately it has been two - one mid afternoon, when I have approximately five minutes to eat as I run between one class and the next, and the other as my last meal of the day.)

Fortunately, Maggie (www.causticmuse.com) has reminded me of her sister's fantastic homemade MRP bar recipes (thanks Maggie! :-) but even still, such is my resolve that I declare I will not scoff one of these healthier alternatives until, say, first thing Sunday morning? :-D

As to how this personal challenge is going, miraculously enough, both yesterday and today I actually DID IT! Only protein powder, ground flax, eggs, tuna, vegetables, fruit, chickpeas, lentils, potatoes, almonds and salad have passed my lips. I am so proud of myself!! :-D

Five more days to go...

Bars and storms

2005-01-23T20:27:00.000+13:00

I have decided I must wean myself off meal replacement bars. I am almost as addicted to them as I am to the heavenly Kashi GoLean. :-)

I have already managed to spend waaay to much of my month's student allowance on Luna, Balance and Zone bars, having munched through almost $60 worth in less than two weeks! :-( That can't be good.

Anyway, I have discovered that a healthy dump of snow does wonders for freeing up gym space, LOL. Since I live on campus, I have an entire three-and-a-half-minute walk to get from the bottom step of my apartment block, to the university gym door. :-) Throw into the mix some trecherous driving weather, and I suspect that only those of us living on, or very near to, campus were able to make it in to workout today.

Well - I certainly wasn't complaining! :-D

Snowfall

2005-01-22T20:23:00.000+13:00

I thought I'd post a few pictures of last night's snow dump - just because it looks rather pretty, and the sun was shining. :-)

2005-01-22T20:21:00.000+13:00

2005-01-22T20:20:00.000+13:00

2005-01-22T20:19:00.000+13:00

... but this seat isn't exactly all that inviting just now ...

The semester workout plan:

2005-01-19T05:35:00.000+13:00

My spring semester classes started today, so I have been trying to figure out what's the best way to fit everything in, lol! I have come up with the following plan:

Mondays through Wednesdays I don't have any morning lectures - which, of course, means that my afternoon loads on these days are KILLER! :-) Anyway, I reckon the smartest move is to go and workout mid-morning, thereby avoiding all that early-morning-gym-madness. :-)

Thursdays will have to be my gym day off as I am working downtown at the Courthouse from 8am - 4pm, and it is not even WORTH putting a foot inside the university gym after 4pm... (Twice as many students are awake at 4pm than there are first thing in the morning, so you can pretty much figure out the rest.)

Fridays I can go to the gym anytime I find myself with a gap in my study schedule (as it appears the Law School do not tend to hold many lectures on a Friday :-) and then it's the weekend, woohoo!

The next thing I have to figure out is how to fit a truckload of food into a backpack that is full of textbooks. :-D

Action central...

2005-01-18T10:15:00.000+13:00

I arrived back into Cincinnati on Saturday night, feeling all relaxed and calm after a great five days in Kansas City. That was until I read the large notice on the message board downstairs saying:

"CRIME ALERT - ARMED ROBBERY IN NEIGHBORHOOD:

At approximately 7:45PM Wednesday January 12, 2005, a male resident at the University Hall was confronted on the street by one male subject who produced a handgun and demanded that the student give him his wallet and the property he was carrying."

Okay ... well, I'm just glad I was in Kansas City on Wednesday night. :-)

Then, this morning, someone in my apartment building decided it would be nice to have a fry-up for breakfast, being a public holiday and all. Thanks to them I can now add an apartment block fire emergency to my list of experiences in the States!

I awoke to the sounds of screaming alarms and a voice-recorded message booming "an emergency has been detected, please leave the building".

I was okay with that for the first 5 seconds or so, knowing that fire alarm testing most likely happens occasionally ... except then I started to hear fire truck engine sirens approaching the campus.

AAARGHHH!!!!

I'm still lying in bed at this stage (trying the hell to wake up and think properly, lol!) and I suddenly remember I'm way up on the 9th floor of this building ... I don't actually know where the stairwell is ... and I've still got to get dressed yet!!! (I also broke all the rules and packed my little backpack with a few things I didn't want turned into charcoal. :-D)

That was a couple of hours ago. I can still smell some remaining burnt toast floating down the corridors. LOL

Anyway, a little bit later I decided to go for a short run since the gym is closed today. There is a lot of ice and snow lying on the sidewalks, so I was very careful to pick the sunny spots and run as clear of the ice as I could.

I was feeling really proud of myself for getting through the run and NOT slipping, when I walked up to a street sign (to figure out where I was and how to get myself home again) and of course, while I am STANDING STILL looking up at the sign, I promptly slip and land on my butt on the little square of ice laying underneath the street post!!

I don't think this is my day...

And did I mention the run-in I had with a bank robber a week or so back? I needed to open a bank account after arriving here, so I ventured out to the local American Bank. As I walked up to the branch door, there was this random person trying to get out from the other side. Me being me, I did the only polite thing - I opened the door for them so that they could get out and I could get in.

How was I supposed to know that I was unwittingly letting a thief escape out of the building, huh???

Fortunately the police weren't too far behind so I didn't set off an armed defenders squad call out or anything, and the suburb didn't get cordoned off (fortunately). But I did wonder about leaving my money in there... :-)

Atleast all of this action keeps my heart rate slightly elevated most days.

Gone shopping with Skwigg...

2005-01-15T16:05:00.000+13:00

Yesterday Renee and I went shopping. Things started off simply enough with plans of an innocent trip to the fitness and nutrition section of the bookstore. Give it an hour or two though, and things started to get a little more expensive, lol!

If it wasn’t for the fact that they didn’t have the model I wanted in the store right then (ooooh, the Shuffle!) there would have been two new shiny iPods walking out of that fantastic Apple Mac shop!!

Renee DID manage to find the one she was after though, and – with a little bit of helpful encouragement from me, lol – she finally became the proud owner of the U2 Limited Edition iPod … plus an additional accessory or two - just for good measure. :-D

My turn was soon to come though when I managed to spend almost $64 just on Zone, Luna and Balance bars at the grocery store after following Skwigg's advice on what brands and flavours taste best, LOL.

Anyway, there’s nothing quite like trying to figure out what the damned iPod instruction booklet is saying, when staring up at you are three furry little faces scrutinising your every move. :-) Unfortunately, Nigel quickly got bored of watching me trying to decipher the booklet and decided it would be easier for Renee and I to hear each other talk if he entertained himself beside us with his squeaky cow serenade ... VERY helpful.

Free day with Skwigg

2005-01-14T06:48:00.000+13:00

Yesterday was free day.

Absolutely, definitely, without a doubt, free day. :-D

Unspeakable amounts of Oreo mudslide cheesecake and half baked cookie dough Ben & Jerry's ice cream was consumed ... although I DID get a moment or two of cardio when Renee and I took Nigel, Ripley and Sam for a walk. :-)

It moved the cheesecake down just far enough to fit in the Ben and Jerry's...

The sign that spoke to me :-)

2005-01-11T18:56:00.000+13:00

This post is short and sweet, but I saw this excellent notice up at the gym today. It said:

"Lead, follow, or get out of the way."

LOL. Hilarious! I love it. :-)

Cereal and gym talk

2005-01-09T14:47:00.000+13:00

I don't think I should buy Kashi Go Lean again ... I managed to eat two-thirds of the entire box on it's first opening, lol! I obviously enjoyed it - and must've been hungry. :-)

As for the remaining third, this has been pushed firmly to the back of the pantry. LOL

Anyway, I discovered some more of the gym yesterday. There was a whole corridor that I had missed. Mind you, I had thought it was kind of strange that a gym that size did not have some basic equipment like a lat pulldown machine. :-) It made my day when I discovered there were a whole bunch of extra useful workout rooms around the corner!

I'm slowly adjusting to how HOT it is inside the workout areas here, though. There is no cool air-conditioning to speak of, so I may as well be running in the Sahara Desert when I'm on any of those cardio machines!

I overheard a classic conversation too while I was sweating myself silly on the ab mats. Two young male students were asking each other whether or not drinking beer had any affect on their training? One of them reckoned not - that it just makes you hungrier, lol - and the other one really had no idea what the answer was at all! I didn't have the heart to interject and tell them otherwise. I'm guessing they'll figure it out for themselves one day when they notice nothing seems to be changing, LOL.

All in the name of health?

2005-01-06T14:22:00.000+13:00

I nearly froze myself to death this afternoon ... all in an effort to get myself some Kashi Go Lean!

Someone mentioned to me yesterday that there is a health food store approximately 20 minutes walk away from where I am living. Since arriving in Cincinnati, I have quickly realised that my apartment is pretty much plopped in the middle of urban hell, lol. I could set my watch to the minute if I listened out for the next round of police car sirens, or gun shots fired from the parking lot across the road. :-(

The suggestion, therefore, of a health food store anywhere nearby was pure music to my ears. :-)

I set off out of the building at about 2pm, while all was still light and the temperature still relatively mild. I expected to be gone no more than an hour, so grabbing my coat seemed perfectly sufficient. As I wandered through campus on my way to the store, I remembered the people I was meant to call in on to complete some final checking-in bits and pieces at the university.

Of course, everyone wanted to talk forEVER, so one hour quickly became two, then three, and before I knew it, it was 5pm.

By now I was almost at the store, so I figured I may as well continue on down the road for that extra five minutes, and get myself some of that Kashi Go Lean cereal which I have never had the delight of tasting before! :-)

The store was GREAT! I spent almost 45 minutes pouring over the entire contents of the shop, making mental notes of everything on the shelves. :-D

Of course, when I stepped back outside to walk home again, the weather at 5.45pm was a totally different beast to that at 2pm. I am used to cold weather, but I am not used to bitterly cold weather, in torrential rain, without a hat, scarf or gloves. I also learned that my fantastic new coat is NOT waterproof. :-(

The first five minutes of the walk were fine, but then I hit a construction site that I hadn't accounted for. My rather directly-routed walk back to the apartment became a zig-zagging arching route around a monster mess of concrete and cranes. Twice I asked passerby's for directions, and I could see the look of concern on their faces as this very ashen-white, hair-soaked human being looked back at them. I didn't bother to explain how I'd gotten myself into this state - I was more intent on keeping my body moving and getting myself into a warm room again!

Not long into the trek I lost all feeling in my hands, and since I had bags of shopping to carry, I couldn't really do much about covering them up!

When I eventually got back into my apartment building, I tried to talk to someone, but discovered that my face was so frozen that the muscles did not work properly to form the appropriate words, LOL!! I think the person thought I was drunk, because I kind of slurred my speech. :-)

I will remember to carry my hat, gloves and scarf next time...

In Cincinnati...

2005-01-05T10:31:00.000+13:00

I'm now in Cincinnati, and finally got inside a gym for the first time in America.

The funniest part of the whole experience was getting the stupid locker padlock to work! :-) It didn't like me. Every time I tried the combination, it wouldn't open. Every time the friendly American gym employee tried the combination, it did.

Great. I felt like a right idiot. It wouldn't have been so bad if it only happened once ... but no, this silly to-ing and fro-ing went on for about 20 minutes.

FINALLY I got lucky and mastered the crucial combination-lock technique, lol, and was able to stow my gear away. :-)

The only real difference (once I eventually made it into the workout area of the facility!) was the number of machines. Instead of one or two treadmills, there were 11 or 12. All were taken though, so that was no different, LOL, and equally familiar was the lack-of-dumbell phenomena that seems to plague all free-weight sections, no matter WHAT part of the world. :-)

I will experiment with visiting at different times of the day though. I'm sure the usual ebb and flow in gym attendance during the day will exist here also, as in NZ.

Running HIIT in Chicago

2005-01-03T17:52:00.000+13:00

What with the mild weather Chicago has been experiencing over these last few days, and with my regular routine being somewhat disrupted since I hopped on that plane, I decided to take the opportunity the other morning, to go for a HIIT run around the neighborhood.

Nothing unusual in that ... except I didn't know the neighborhood, and I'd only seen it in the dark until that moment. :-) Still unperturbed, I set off on my warm up jog, ran a few blocks, turned a corner ... or two ... and before I knew it, I was lost.

How hard could it be to go for a quick run?? All the streets are numbered - 169th, 170th, 171st etc - so surely it would be a piece of cake to find my way back! Well, no. I was looking for 170th, and eventually I thought I'd found it. Problem was, when I got to the house number I was after, the house looked NOTHING like I remembered it?! ...Although, it HAD been dark when I arrived there the night before..? Still, something told me that it was not the one.

A few minutes later I started to panic when I realised I didn't know the phone number off by heart, and I obviously hadn't managed to remember the street or house number correctly either! Next thing, a dark, menacing car pulls up full of male youths tooting, waving and laughing at me. Oh great. :-( Just what I needed, LOL!

As I was contemplating which direction would be best for me to sprint in, I spotted an elderly man driving into a parking lot. This is my only chance, I thought. I braved asking the guy for help, explaining that I was looking for 170th Street, but that the street signposted as 170th had not turned out to be the right one...

Fortunately I asked the right person. It turns out, not only did the neighborhood have a 170th Street, it also had a 170th Place. :-)

Thank god for that, LOL! Never was I so relieved to get back home from HIIT sprints.

The start of the States...

2005-01-01T13:51:00.000+13:00

...Well, I made it to Chicago. :-) Here's a photo of downtown as I wandered around on Wednesday night.

I was very impressed to discover that longhaul flights seem, quite miraculously, to serve meals in very precise, bfl portions, lol! Either that or I just got lucky... For dinner I was served a piece of chicken exactly the size of my palm, and a fistful of potato. :-D A lovely serving of green beans and salad accompanied.

Beautiful, LOL.

2005-01-01T12:59:00.000+13:00

Downtown Chicago on Wednesday 29th...

2005-01-01T01:58:00.000+13:00

Christmas

2004-12-26T23:18:00.000+13:00

I think Christmas Day really revved up my metabolism. All Boxing Day I have been starving!!!

I actually did really well yesterday ... I didn't stuff myself stupid or make myself sick. I had a sedate but tasty cooked breakfast in the morning, then, as my extended family were not due to arrive in town until the evening, my body had the rest of the day to digest all that had gone before and prepare itself for dinner. :-)

In between breakfast and dinner, lol, I was packing like a mad thing ... finally. It's taken a while to kick in, but now with only one more day to go in NZ, necessity has taken over. :-)

I'll be blogging again as soon as is humanly possible - it might just take me a week or so to get everything up and running once I arrive in the States ... but WATCH THIS SPACE!! It will be full of an outsider's unique impression of the States, first hand. :-)

Purple panic!

2004-12-20T23:38:00.000+13:00

As I wandered through the gym today I kept noticing these little piles of purple-colored paper. Eventually I figured they must surely have something important printed on them (given the number of piles lying around!) so I read one. Unfortunately, it informed me that my beloved gym is going to be closed from the 23rd December until the 5th January.

The 23rd?! Holy cow, that's only two more days of gym access before the longest break I've ever had from the place since I joined!

I kind of expected it to be shut on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, but I was quite unprepared to find out that the break would be significantly longer! It's been hard enough preparing myself for the fact that I am going to have to endure an enforced break from the 27th December until early January as it is, while I sit on a plane for 24 hours and then sort my life out in my new destination in the States.

My intention, therefore, had been to go all-out at the gym from now until I leave.

Not willing to give in to the purple piece of paper, I have spent a large chunk of the day ringing around all the gyms within a 30 minute radius of where I live, in the hope that I will find atleast one that serves crazy members of the public like myself. :-)

It took a while, but the hideously expensive and most inconveniently located gym in town (LOL) will be open every day except for the 25th and 26th. So ... I guess I will be using some of my Christmas present money to fund those extra four days of gym-time, rather than drive myself crazy doing endless rounds of cardio. :-)

2004-12-17T10:07:00.000+13:00

Here's me (on the left) with a friend at an end-of-year get-together last night.

Wonky weather...

2004-12-15T15:02:00.000+13:00

It is supposed to be summer here at the moment, but there is SNOW forecast for tomorrow's weather!! (In the middle of December!?!) I can tell it's been cold, because I haven't even managed to get out of my winter tops once this week...

I guess the only good thing about this spectacularly poor summer, is that I won't miss it a bit when I enter the northern hemisphere winter in 13 days. A non-existent summer is probably marginally better than having to leave a fantastic one that I've just started to enjoy. :-)

The cooler weather has been great for one thing though - running. I've been doing a lot more of that lately since I'm pretty unlikely to be struck down by sunstroke at the moment.

Today I had one of those euphoric runs. The sort where you totally get 'in the zone' and could just keep going on and on for hours! (Only, I didn't go on and on for hours ... I went for exactly one hour, six minutes and 10 seconds. :-)

Anyway, hopefully the weather will improve slightly pretty darn soon, or else this will be the year of 11 straight months of non-stop winter ... ugh!

A change of routine...

2004-12-11T19:44:00.000+13:00

I have been playing around with a different workout routine over these last couple of weeks. Instead of alternating between weights one day and HIIT cardio the next, I have switched to a four-weight-lifting-day routine followed by a four-cardio-day routine.

For example: Monday I'll do my upper body workout, Tuesday my lower body workout, then Wednesday another upper body workout and Thursday another lower body workout. Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday I'll do one 20-minute HIIT session per day, then Tuesday becomes day one of my next four day weight-lifting cycle...

Goodness knows why this pattern works so well for me, but I REALLY love it!!! For some bizarre reason, my muscles are happiest when they are subjected to several heavy-duty weight sessions in a row, followed by four days rest while I give my heart and lungs a thrashing. :-)

This routine also lets me cycle through four higher calorie days followed by four lower calorie days, keeping both my muscles happy and my fat-burning furnace stoked.

Aside from tweaking my workout routine, I have been condensing a year's worth of "things-to-do" lists into a month! Everything I have been putting off since goodness knows when, have suddenly backed up into December, lol. I have been re-acquainting myself with my dentist, my doctor, my bank manager, my hairdresser, the local shopping mall... :-)

With just two weeks to go now before I fly to the States, I'm happy to squeeze in as much as I can. :-)

A weekend in the sky

2004-12-05T18:02:00.000+13:00

I have been doing a bit of flying lately. :-) Twice on Friday, and a third flight today.

I had to go to Auckland at the crack of dawn on Friday morning to apply for my US visa in time for the end of the month. Then, in the afternoon, I flew on to Wellington to catch up with some aunts, uncles and cousins for the weekend. :-) That is when these photos were taken ... as the plane approached Wellington Airport for landing.

Now I am safely back in Christchurch, care of my third flight, getting ready to pack for the US! :-)

2004-12-05T17:55:00.000+13:00

2004-12-05T17:53:00.000+13:00

2004-11-30T14:33:00.000+13:00

Is that my back??!!

2004-11-30T13:38:00.000+13:00

I was bored today, so I decided to take a photo of my back (since I don't tend to see it much, lol!)

I almost freaked myself out!! Didn't realise it looked like that...

A hospital or a hell-hole?

2004-11-29T23:36:00.000+13:00

Well, my trip to the hospital last Thursday was interesting ... walking into the Gastroenterology department was literally like walking onto a construction site!! As I wandered down the corridors I was absolutely convinced that the department must have been temporarily relocated as the walls, floors, and everything else around me were half ripped out ... until I saw a nurse smiling at me from behind the reception desk, lol!

I didn't know whether to feel in awe of those poor people having to actually work under those conditions, or whether to turn quickly and run while I still had the chance. :-) Honestly, it was ridiculous. I kept lapsing into this mad coughing fit caused by the ton of cement dust hanging in the air. Then the receptionist told me I was lucky I hadn't had my appointment last week when the builders were laying down new flooring. Apparently the industrial strength glue they used gave everyone migraines!

Fortunately the procedure was quick - and thanks to the drugs they gave me, lol, I hardly remember a thing. :-) All I know is that when I came round, I was minus four tiny bits of the lining of my small intestine ... all of which are currently being inspected by some anonymous scientist under a microscope somewhere, LOL.

Since being done with the hospital, I have been kept busy sorting out everything I must do before I head to the States in four weeks time. The words "excitement" and "stress" equally cover how I am feeling right now. I so cannot wait until I am on that plane. :-)

A glutton for gluten?

2004-11-20T19:35:00.000+13:00

Only 24 hours into it, and I've already had enough of gluten ... like, I suspect I know what the result of next Thursday's tests are going to be! (...Perhaps I could just, um, skip the tests then..? :-)

Call me psychic, lol, but a rather familiar gut ache, bloating and lethargy has kicked in with a vengeance today, on just day two of 'force feeding' myself ONE piece of bread per day! I try and eat the offending item in meal one ... just so that I can get it the hell over and done with for the next five meals!! Funnily enough, the result of this low-level allergy-induced poisoning that those mean, horrible, nasty doctors are putting me through this week (LOL) has made me crave vegetables like there is no tomorrow! (and there just might be no tomorrow the way my body feels right now. :-) I start drooling each time I cook up the next load of green-filled goodness, and simply can't WAIT to stuff them into my mouth!!!

My understanding of this whole gluten allergy thing is that gluten interferes with your intestinal villae's ability to absorb the nutrients and goodness from your food ... hence the insidious yet constant sensation of fatigue that creeps in as the level of gluten in my system rises. Afterall, my body is suddenly getting about half of the nutritional goodness from my food that it has become accustomed to. No wonder I want to eat my veges, curl up, and go to sleep, rather than go out on the town. :-)

Nonetheless, I am continuing with my workout schedule. In fact, I actually feel at my best when I'm working out, because I am far too busy and preoccupied pushing weights or running my HIIT cardio, to even THINK about how my gut is feeling! Today at the gym was fantastic actually, because two of my friends both happened to arrive at the same time as me, for their workout.

If there was ever a day when I needed that, it was today. :-)

The next seven days...

2004-11-18T20:02:00.000+13:00

I went into town today ... and thought I'd landed in the North Pole. There were Christmas decorations everywhere!!!!!! Surely one of the oddest sights for anyone to see is a hot city covered in fake snow and a warmly dressed Santa Claus, whilst everyone walking past the pretty displays are more preoccupied with stripping off into their t-shirts and shorts so as not to overheat in the summer sun!! :-)

Anyway ... yesterday I had my annual visit to the doctor. The one that tells me whether or not I have managed to get through another 12 months of symbiotic living with insulin-dependent diabetes. (I really like my doctors, just as long as they never utter the words “diabetes complications” to me, lol!)

I tend to think of these check-ups as akin to the annual dental visit, where you never quite know if you’re going to come out of it with ten new fillings or just freshly cleaned teeth. :-)

To my surprise, the theme of yesterday’s visit ended up not actually being about IDDM, but about food allergies. Apparently, I have a sensitivity to gluten.

This in itself is not such a big deal since fruits, vegetables and protein - when eaten in their natural state - all come conveniently gluten-free. :-) Carbs, on the other hand, can be a little more tricky. Potatoes, rices, corn and beans all pass the gluten-free test, but anything containing wheat, flour or certain types of grains … don’t. So, the fact that I’ve been leaving out bread and pasta from my meal plan for months now, and sticking mainly to potato, rice and beans, means I have happily existed on BFL without giving much of a thought to the gluten issue.

Imagine my horror, then, when the nice doctor informed me I “must eat gluten every day for the next week” in order for them to get an accurate test result of my body’s allergic reaction to the stuff!!!

Aside from the thought of deliberately inducing allergic responses in my body (…oh yay…) the first thing that flew into my mind was: “OMG – I’m going to have to buy special food for the next week.” LOL!!! SPECIAL food??!! How ridiculous does that sound … considering that 99.9% of the population think of bread as a normal, even staple, part of their diet!

It should be an interesting seven days...

Fitness for the Frugal??

2004-11-15T18:45:00.000+13:00

I came across an amusing magazine article today, called "Fitness for the Frugal". It suggests using "cans of food, books, or small bags of sand" as weight to build up arms, shoulders and backs!

Aside from the fact that I don't tend to have small bags of sand randomly lying around the house, lol, I also suspect that picking up a can of tuna twelve times in a row will not make an earth-shattering difference to my bodybuilding progress. (Eating the tuna, on the other hand, may be a different story.:-)

Then, for even more entertainment, I turned the page over to this profound article on doggie body language: "What is your dog trying to say to you?" I especially liked the bits which said: "A dog's eye's brighten when he looks at a creature he considers friendly..." and "Beware of the dog that bares his clenched teeth and wrinkles his nose - he is ready to attack." Wow! Really??!! LOL!!! (...I'll remember that one... :-)

Anyway, onto the topic of workouts, I have been trying out the infamous 'double cardio' trick over the last ten days. As a result, two things have happened:

(1) I have lost an extra pound :-) ; and
(2) I just want to SLEEP all the time!!!

I seem to get thoroughly zonked by cardio - unlike weight training where I always feel energised, not tired.

...I am definitely going to have to increase my sleeping hours if I want to maintain this current regime..!

The joy of the Journal!

2004-11-07T22:59:00.000+13:00

Wahoo! Life is gradually returning to normal now that the 'exam season' is finally over for another year. :-)

Because I don't think my writing hand knows what it's like NOT to be involved in some kind of pen-to-paper activity (lol) I decided ... what the hell ... I may as well get myself one of those shiny, attractive Body-For-LIFE Success Journals afterall - if for no other reason than to keep the writing-hemisphere of my brain happy. :-)

Anyway ... I opened it, flicked through a few pages, filled out a few sections, then read the "Bill Phillips Lesson-for-LIFE" page where he shares his own twelve week transformation story.

Well, I nearly dropped the book right into my lap!!!! On line three of the story, he says: "...my birthday, September 23..." OMG!!! Bill Phillips and I share the same birthdate??!! How weird is THAT?! ... It MUST be a "sign" LOL!!! :-) All of a sudden it felt like a kind of confirmation that I had definitely been right to buy it!

Currently I am on day three of the journal, and I really love it. It provides a certain level of satisfaction, lol, to get to the end of the day and cross it off with a star. :-)

Counting...

2004-11-02T07:38:00.000+13:00

OMG - counting down the hours now ... I cannot wait until 12.31pm (lol!) tomorrow (the moment I will finally be done with exams for another year. :-) In the meantime, I am surviving on little power-packed bullets of ginseng and guarana. I am so buzzed and hyped by them, that - as well as remembering practically everything I study! - a layer of fat has also disappeared off my legs, lol ... whilst, all the time, sitting on my butt for over 12 hours a day. These exams seem to be causing me a physical meltdown as well as a mental one...!

I would prefer the 'natural' method to fat loss - you know, the one where you work up a sweat :-) but, well ... in times of great need and stress...?!

Talking about great needs(!) I have just given myself a massive shot of carbs before this afternoon's exam - three regular shop-bought muffins (NOT the delightful, healthy, homemade protein-enhanced version, lol) topped with sweet cherry jam. Hmmm ... I think I will shift a few things around this week and designate this 24 hour period as my free day. :-)

Bizarrely enough, the end of my last exam will coincide with the start of the televised US Presidential Elections over here in NZ (given the time difference and all). Since I will be moving over to the US in seven short weeks(!), I am thinking that it might actually be a useful thing for me to spend a wee bit of time tomorrow afternoon casting my eye on it!!!

The BEST news though, is that this is the start of my summer holidays. :-) This means that I will have even more time in my day to REALLY kick-ass at the gym.

I stumbled across one of those Body For Life Success Journals in the bookstore the other day (I'd never actually seen one til then!). It kinda got me thinking on the whole writing-everything-down deal. As I usually go for the tracking-everything-in-my-head option, I suddenly considered actually buying one of these things as a tool for 'sharpening up my focus' over these next few weeks (...now that I will actually have some time to write in it!)

Anyway, I will see how things pan out over the next few days. What I really need is for my head to be clear of all these legal facts and figures, so that I can THINK straight again! :-)

Roll on tomorrow...

The difference between guys and girls?

2004-10-30T13:57:00.000+13:00

I ventured back into my gym today. :-) The exam-induced dementia I was suffering from earlier this week seems to have abated a little, to the extent that I even managed to dress myself properly!

As much as I love Skwigg's Emergency Workout (LOL) the vibe of working out in the gym sure beats my sad old pair of dumbells - not to mention the trials of acheiving an effective workout whilst crammed into a sardine tin-sized bedroom!!

It has become obvious lately that working out in a gym where the ratio of guys to girls is, like, 100:1, has significant advantages. :-) At the moment, the place is void of females (except for me, lol!) - as all that last-minute cramming tends to take precedence, for the girls, over working up a sweat - whilst the guys are burning off some testostorone and thinking: "Um ... I'll study, er, later..."

Anyway, the guys got SUCH a surprise this afternoon to see a girl in their freeweight space (lol!) that it didn't matter whether or not they were only halfway through their reps or sets, if I ventured anywhere near the equipment they were using, it was like: "Oh, do you want to use this? Here you go, you use it, I'll just go over here and do something else for a bit..."

It was SO FUNNY!!! I got through my workout in record time. :-)

It is such an unpredictable environment, the gym. Either it's a kind of no-room-to-move, dog-eat-dog type situation, or you get everyone falling over themselves trying to lend you their equipment!

I'll stick with the latter option, I think... :-)