Thank you so much for all your supportive comments, they are much appreciated.

I am very much looking forward to Wednesday as I see the Alternative Chinese Medicine Practitioner then. I so hope that it is going to be helpful for the hashimotos. My weight has consistently kept going up. I am running out of clothes that I can wear to work LOL not good!! I haven’t helped this the last 10 days or so, as I must admit to thinking what’s the point, and been seeking out foods I know aren’t the best choices once I’ve finished work! However, even when my diet is clean I have put on weight. My energy levels are not at all good either, when I feel very flat and tired it contributes to me making food choices that aren’t productive as well.

I have not trained nearly as much as I normally do this week. However I have decided to just let this slide and make the most of the break. I will start afresh next week.

Funnily enough I have met a few people of the last week two who have hashimotos and one who have an under active thyroid, but no due to hashimotos. I am thankful that my Dr picked it up as one person had to deal with the symptoms for over a year as her Dr had missed the signs; by this time he thought she was going mad.

We have a long weekend her in ACT, I would have liked to have gone away however, I had to attend uni yesterday and today I had arranged to do a CIT assignment with two girls from my class. So it will be good to get them out of the way.

Uni is going to be very interesting and very informative; I had to change subjects due to a conflict with my CIT course. So this particular unit will focus on teaching us about and how to implement a teaching strategy called TeacCH with people on an Autism Spectrum. It includes a full on 4 day workshop in about a month, I am very much looking forward to this and am hoping I feel a lot better energy wise by then.

I ill let you know how my appointment goes later in the week; I have a god feeling about though so we will see!

Well I saw my own Doctor this week he diagnosed that I have Hashimotos, which is an autoimmune disease of the thyroid. Where antibodies attack the thyroid until eventually it’s stuffed. It’s one of the causes of hypothyroidism, He said it can be hell and don’t expect it to be easy to treat; the tyroid hormones may swing from high to low. I have been referred to one of Australia’s leading endocrinologists in April. I am also going to see a Chinese Herbal Medical practitioner as well in two weeks time. Depending on the outcome, I may or may not go up to Sydney as well.

So I’ve been keeping up my training, some days this has been challenging because I feel so tired at times Not normal tiredness, I get this overwhelming flat lethargic feeling come over me, like you hit a brick wall, I not only get tired, but foggy, forgetful and irritable, and it is not pleasant.

A positive here is that I managed to break all my records in my Boot Camp Fitness Testing on Friday morning; I paid for it though ;) I felt like crap for a lot of the day after. However this is affecting enough of my life I do not want to give up training as well.

This week my food has been good, but not great, so will address this, I can not believe how shit house I feel at times, the doctor said this may get worse as the condition progresses. Overall I have a very healthy diet though, The Thyroid book Sandra Cabot wrote was very informative and there are diet suggestions in it, although she does suggest cutting out certain foods altogether which I am quite fond of such veggies from the cruciferous family so cabbage, brussel sprouts, ect. I will read it again and may put, these suggestions into place, a least until I see the other practitioners.

I worked four days, sometimes it was challenging with feeling so bloody lousy, I had a great week with the classes I taught though. I’ve been dong a lot of work at the same school, helps to build up a relationship with the kids I think.

Well I am off to my aqua assessment, have a great weekend.

Well never got to post this before my practical assessment, I did great so all is good here.

Okay I won’t go into explaining the results of my tests because I don’t understand then all yet, other than various things were picked up to do with my thyroid, liver and kidneys. I then had to have further blood tests. This picked up thyroid antibodies, but another thyroid result had normalised, so what that means the Dr couldn’t say. I have a referral for an ultrasound of my liver as some things were not right there. My kidney filtration process is not up to scratch either apparently. Along with this my iron levels are actually elevated to high. So what does all this mean… well he couldn’t actually tell me!!! So I have an appointment with and endocrinologist at the end of May. I can not wait that long. So yesterday afternoon, I managed to get on to my own Dr. who I have not seen for 4 years, (haven’t been sick enough too) I will see him on Thursday, he will be able to explain things I hope, and I also made an appointment at a Sandra Cabot clinic in Sydney at the end of March. Have emailed results t naturopath and haven’t heard back there either.

I’ve being feeling very average the last few days, I’m not working today and I am going to take it easy. Fern suggested I get Your Thyroid Problems Explained, by Sandra Cabot and I will read this today.

I will get to the bottom of this ASAP. Interestingly I had a whole lot of blood tests done June last year after my first competition prep, everything was fine then. Then I did my second comp prep and it was during that prep that my body starting jacking up, by not responding to diet measures and cardio. Can’t help but wonder if this contributed, caused, triggered, or exacerbated my current situation. I wonder how many girls who have competed or still do who have developed similar conditions

Well the results for the blood tests have warranted further testing of my thyroid, seems I have hypothyroidism, don’t know the severity or degree of this or what has caused it at this stage.

My initial reaction was one of a kind of relief and optimism, I know this may be strange but considering I have been eating to plan and training very hard and getting no results what so ever in regard to body fat loss, at least this explains why!! Must say though my cardiovascular fitness is coming along in leaps and bounds, BOOT CAMP ROCKS!!!! Let’s just hope also that I’ve built some good muscle as well over the last 5 months under this insulation . LOL.

I have another Dr's appointment tomorrow after work, so I am very much looking forward to this and finding out more information. At this stage I have no idea what has caused it, apparently there are a few causes, or how severe it is and what the Dr’s suggestion will be. The naturopath has postponed giving me anything else for it until we know more.

LOVELY DAY HERE TODAY

I have had a pretty good week, did three Boot Camp classes, I could actually feel and see an improvement in my overall performance in these, so that’s good.

I caught up with some mates and will see another one this afternoon, that’s always good.

Started to organise work for next week, don’t find out the year level I am teaching until Monday, I will be on a release role, which means I have a variety of year levels each day I am working. At this stage I’ve got three days next week. Pretty good, because school has only just gone back and we don’t always get work this early in the term :)

I went to see a naturopath last week, due to not understanding why or being able to do something productive about losing the weight I have put on post comp, don’t get me wrong I do not have unrealistic expectations at all in regard to post comp weight gain. I had a break from training at the end of last year, I have consistently been training again, feel good, energy levels are good, sleep is good. But body fat does not want to shift. My normal day to day clothes just don't fit.Not sure as to why this is occurring that annoys me in its self. I like to know why.And when I say I have stuck to my nutrition, I have.

Although her approach and her beliefs towards nutrition differs quite a lot to mine and what I would do and how I would go about trying to get the fat off, my approach hasn’t been working, so I agreed to follow her suggestions for one month. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I also had a blood test done yesterday at the Dr’s, so will wait for these results and hope all tests are good.

I am off to do a spin class and get some shopping, hope you all have a great weekend, it's a lovely day here today

I love this quote

"One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility."

- Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady

QUIET SUNDAY

Yesterday I did a spin class; today I will go and do legs and cardio, quite humid here actually. I’ve been a bit tired for the past few days, not sure why.

I did Boot Camp again on Friday. It is so much harder too run on land compared to the machines at the gym; suppose that is one reason cross training is such a good idea, and doing different types and combinations of cardio can be important depending on your goals. I have BOOT Camp in the morning.

Schools go back tomorrow here in the ACT, so I suppose soon enough they will be in need of relief teaching so my life of leisure will soon be coming to an end, once again.

Found out my dates for uni study during the week, looks like a lot of it will be online combined with whole weekend workshops, will be interesting way to learn, I know myself and therefore I will have to be very disciplined with study, I can procrastinate when it comes to study and assignments, funny I generally never procrastinate when it comes to training. My family tells me I took far too much on last year, so I will think about listening to them this year and make sure not to allow myself to do this again.

Anyway I had better hit the gym, enjoy the rest of your weekend,

Eat well and train hard!!

Well last night after my Boot Camp class (once I recovered) I was wired!! So I didn’t get to bed until late. I do tend to stay up late to often, just love the solitude of night time. I got a lot of things done though, such as grocery shopping and cleaning, with four kids I seem to spend quite a bit of time shopping for food, all good though, I see there is going to be an enquiry into our food prices, which is good.

As of next week school is back here so I will not be able to stay up so late. I have just been sorting out my study load, seems the face to face teaching for my Masters will be condensed into weekend attendance, the rest will be online learning. My fitness certificate course will be a mostly face to face.

Training is going well my legs are kind off adjusting to full on training twice a week. There are some new exercises in my program which I hadn’t done before, a couple of them I find challenging to say the least. I’m noticing an improvement in my cardiovascular fitness, which would be due to Boot Camp no doubt, honestly they are so bloody hard, and I would not be able to consistently push myself that hard for a full hour.

I really noticed an improvement in my interval training I did on the weekend, I was able to push a lot harder for longer durations, and was recovering quicker than I was a couple of weeks ago. Today I train legs and tonight I do spin. hope everyone is trucking along wonderfully :)

This is a painting Warren did of Jacob, it's before it was quite finished though, I just love it :)

So my diet and training is going along well and I have done more Boot Camp classes. I can honestly say that I don’t think I have ever pushed myself quite as hard doing cardio before, I thought I had… but … no…last Wednesday I nearly vomited, must have been a lactic build up. I try not to think about them and just do them to the best of my ability, push and know that in one hour they will be over, and I will feel great for accomplishing them. Got another one at 6.30am in the morning.

Weights are going well and touch wood my shoulder has been holding out very well. If it plays up again I will have acupuncture instead of physio or oesteo.

My spin class has been cancelled for tonight so I will have to amuse myself with cardio after I train chest and tri’s.

I am slowly staring to see some of my muscle definition, or at least a glimmer of it ;) as this lovely layer of padding is beginning to come off….. that’s always motivating.

I have a pair of jeans and once I comfortably fit back into them I will decide where to go comp wise. I have put no pressure on myself at this stage as to what comp, federation, when or where; all depends on how my body responds.

Well I had better get on with it, have a wonderful nights girls!!

I was clearing up my folders on my computer and I found some illustrations that I did on the computer for a book we had to design and write for uni a couple of years back. This is one of them.

FRIDAY ALREADY.

Well did another Boot Camp class this morning, so all up I did the three for the week. I am going to try and do all three each week.

Yesterday I did my chest workout, minus one exercise I have to get clarification on and a spin class. I have one leg day to go and will have completed my new program once through then. My abductors have been quite sore, probably due to the running in the Boot Camp classes. Tomorrow I will do spin. On Sunday I usually do legs, however I will probably do back as I will have done legs later today. My new program has legs twice a week.

So tomorrow it is 2 weeks down for sticking to nutrition and training. Been loving bean salad.

I have been sorting out all my relief teaching resources still got a way to go before it is all done, but will be thankful once it is out of the way. I got confirmation that I got into post grad studies for uni yesterday, so I got my enrolment into a masters degree sorted out, 'Inclusive Education in Autism'. Just waiting to find out lecture times, ect so I can work out a schedule. Tech starts back on feb 11 as well, This year tech is just one night a week, Wednesday, instead of three. That was madness last year. Hope it all fits nicely together.

Anyway have a great day everyone!!

BOOT CAMP

Had a great weekend, went to a mates birthday, hadn't laughed as much for ages, watched American Gangster, don't often rave about movies, however it was very well done I thought, and I really enjoyed it.

Did a spin class on Saturday and Legs yesterday, I got a great new program last week, really looking forward to getting my teeth into all of it. Did one of the leg day yesterday.

Nutrition over the weekend was good, on Saturday at the party I could have taken a bit more food as I stayed a lot longer than expected. I had a few nuts to compensate, but certainly didn't over do it.

This morning I did my first BOOT CAMP class, shit I thought I was fit .......my goodness we honestly worked at our anaerobic threshold for the whole hour (good for your metabolism, fitness and fat burning), gotta be good for ya'!!!...... she says .......now that it's over..... so it's all worth it. they are running three a week so I will hopefully do as many as I can fit in.

Things are going great here, training and food wise, I just had to share this wonderfully insightful article I found that Cassandra Forsythe wrote, every girl should know about it, I'll never complain or think bad thoughts about my ab training again, I'll just prey the below happens from now on whilst doing them LOL. On that note I best get to bed and prey :) have a great day tomorrow everyone,


http://www.musclewithattitude.com/readArticle.do?id=1538908&cr=mwaTraining

Exercises You Should be Doing: The Coregasm
by "Cassanova"

Men are really at a disadvantage when it comes to ab training.

Despite covering all the Eastern and Western European bases — weighted Swiss ball crunches, Russian twists, and Saxon side bends — the best they can hope for is a 6-pack of washboard abs.

Women, on the other hand, get something much, much better: sexual gratification.

Sexual gratification? Are you kidding me?

Not one bit.

Ladies, I'm going to let you in on something that some of you may already know, but were too embarrassed to tell anyone else about. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of experiencing this little discussed subject, you're about to be fulfilled.

This secret is called the Coregasm and it's going to revolutionize your desire to exercise your abs.

I mean, what better motivation to work your core than if the end result is an "Oh, oh, Ohhhhh!"?

Yes, it's an orgasm that you can have anywhere, anytime without the use of any tool or any man.

Now don't get me wrong. We women still need our toys and we still love our men, but if we knew we could finish every workout with a smile on our face, wouldn't we start working our core more often?

You better believe we would! So, how do we actually do this and why hasn't someone told us about this before?

A brief history of the coregasm

The coregasm has probably been around since the advent of abdominal training for women. It's kind of like when you started masturbating when you were 7, but lied about it until you were 16.

It starts with just a little feeling of pleasure between your legs when performing certain core exercises, and then leads to a wonderful euphoria that sweeps over your entire body. Women who experienced this for the first time probably thought it was just a one-time gift, but then soon came to find out that they could reproduce it when they contracted their pelvic floor muscles in just the right way.

Women have likely been hiding this completely enjoyable, satisfying, knee-weakening, jelly-legs-inducing (sorry, I lost control of myself there for a second... ) experience, because they weren't sure that it really was happening, or because they thought someone would say they were sex-crazed or perverted. So, they kept their mouths shut.

Until now.

Just a few weeks ago, Adam Campbell of Men's Health posted about the "coregasm" on his blog. He'd co-authored an article with Alwyn Cosgrove of T-Nation who mentioned that he'd seen some interesting things in the gym through his many years of being a personal trainer. One of his observations was a female adult film star who would have an orgasm whenever she did hanging leg raises. Alwyn didn't think much of it, because, hey, she was an adult film star...

However, since that article, both Adam and Alwyn have received numerous emails from women telling them that they too have had this exact same experience (in his blog, he called it an "issue," but I would never categorize an orgasm — of the core variety or otherwise — as an "issue").

Some women would experience a coregasm when they were doing vertical knee raises, while others would have it while doing supine leg-lowering contractions. Either way, the coregasm was big news and women all over the country wanted to know more.

Fast-forward to today and you'll see that the coregasm is being talked about everywhere, from general gym gab to serious fitness forums (check out one such thread here: http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1457656) Some men are claiming that they too have a coregasm when they train abs, but I'm calling bullshit.

In any event, the coregasm is no longer something you have to hide. Tell all your girlfriends about it, and tease your man about it. No one needs to be left in the dark.

Give it to me, baby

If you're not interested in the Big "O" as a side effect of ab exercises, you can stop reading now. But, if you don't care that your face turns a little red (or redder) while doing leg raises, read on.

Every woman is a little different, but the basics behind the coregasm involve synchronized contractions of the lower abdominal, pelvic, and pubic muscles leading to increasing excitement and then a blasting surge of ecstasy.

One woman described her coregasm like this:

I have to be lying down and usually put a small towel or pillow under my lower back. I get the best "coregasm" when I lower my feet close to the floor. But my real secret, the thing that sends me to the moon and back is when I use my vibrator at the same time. WOW! It totally vamps up the intensity.

Now the additional vibrator probably wouldn't go over too well at your gym, but the basic idea of arching your back while slowly lowering your legs during bench knee raises could help you experience the coregasm.

I first had a coregasm while doing knee raises on the Vertical Leg Raise unit (and what a unit it is... ). Thankfully this apparatus was in the corner of my gym because when it happened, I just stayed hanging in one spot with my knees raised, closed my eyes, and savored every moment.

I don't think anyone caught on to what I was doing, but really, I didn't care. Needless to say, since that experience, the Leg Raise unit is my favorite piece of gym equipment. That experience was the beginning of what would become a meaningful relationship between me and "Vertie the Unit.

For most women, though, the most fruitful coregasm exercises are the ones that target your lower abdominal muscles (a.k.a. your orgasm-getters).

The coregasm doesn't happen right away, though. Almost like during intercourse, it takes a little while to build up. You'll most often get one after about the 15th rep — after a bit of fatigue has set in — of either hanging knee raises, hanging leg raises, or a supine leg-lowering bench exercise.

You don't really have to concentrate on it for it to happen, you just let your body take over and when it does, you'll know.

Long time no post!!

This is taken on my Aunt and Uncles property who live up in the hills

This is where my other Aunt and Uncle live

We are back from SA, had a good time with mixed emotions. While I was there my gran was diagnosed with oesophagus cancer. I have very mixed feelings and emotions towards this and have kind of just avoided thinking about it too much at this stage.

For those of you that don’t know my grandmother is the most important adult in my life, as my uncle said she has been my rock. She is 97 this May and her quality of life has deteriorated greatly the last couple of years, even so I find it hard to accept her situation and let her go.

So I didn’t get to the gym over there, but did a reasonable amount of cardio.

Went to the gym on Sunday and did back and legs, I now wish I had taken it easy and DOMS is an understatement, *lol* don’t get me wrong I like DOMS, but not when it hurts to even walk, let alone sit and get up. Just goes to show how quickly you can get unconditioned to weight training, I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. At least your body adjusts quickly. ;)

I’m following a diet around 1500 -1400 cals. With moderate amount of carbs, good fat and protein aiming towards loosing the extra weight I have put on. I tried a high protein moderate to high fat diet for 5 weeks towards the end of last year; it certainly didn’t agree with my waist line, I stupidly stuck to it as I thought I might just need to adjust too it, I stacked on the weight quickly and felt shit for it. Well I’m over feeling shit for it and took my lovely friend Sam’s advice and just got over it let the feelings involved go, forgave myself and am now determined as ever to just getting on with it to correct the damage from post comp and the above approach. I suppose you have to try different approaches to find what works for each individual.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!!

HOPE ALL YOUR DREAMS AND GOALS EVENTUATE IN 2008

This is a picture of y eldest son Josh

Above is our adorable dog Nikita! I will miss her while in Adelaide, one of my son's who is staying home for Christmas to be with his girlfriend will look after her, the other pic is the view from my Aunts and Uncles place where I am having Christmas, I love it there, it is where the Onkaparinga River meets the Sea.

I was thinking to myself I may be an all or nothing kind of person, or have become so it seems. As much as this can have advantages (when I’m full on into a program or have definite goals), I don’t believe it to be constructive when in the nothing phase so to speak. I am going to address this, just not sure when and how, so in the mean time, I have set myself goals to achieve. I will finish reading fattitude when away, and see if that sheds any light for me. Maybe I need goals in regard to fitness, health and lifestyle ect continually???

I suppose when I truly think about it I have been following some sort of program for, my goodness I think over two years now, I first did a great program with Sue, from there I wanted to keep going and have tried a few different approaches, ect. I then trained with Sam for my comps.

I have quite a bit of reading in relation to health and fitness, both physical and psychological while away so might find a few gems amongst the reading material, we will see.

So heres to wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and may all your hopes dreams and desires come true in 2008!!

Well not as great deal to report. Had my last day of work for the year yesterday. Schools here are officially on holidays from today. My daughter has already flown down to Adelaide for Christmas one of my sons and I fly down on Monday night. I’m looking forward to the break and catching up with family. Hopefully while there I will be able to catch up with a dear friend who will be also having Christmas In SA, she sold her home this year and bought a 21 foot motor home and has been travelling ever since, that’s my idea of fun!!

I’ve been doing my own thing at the gym which has included quite a few spin classes, hadn’t done any for some months. So they are challenging as always and I’m slowly building up the kind of cardiovascular fitness they need so to speak. I have had some great workouts, this week including legs and back. I wouldn’t do this all the time but for a change I have worked intuitively, meaning I have a body part in mind that I want to work on but decide what exercises I do once at the gym. I’ve really enjoyed it and worked very hard.

I’m hoping that my weight has stabilised which it appears too, honestly it didn’t seem to matter what I ate, good bad, or indifferent after my last comp, I stacked on weight, I think my body thought I was starving it, which in fact I probably was, ummm it’s all a learning curve. (Still haven’t got on the scales, but my jeans still don’t fit) I intend to try and slowly drop some over the next few months with out to strict a diet as such, we will see, I’ve been wondering if I m an all or nothing kind of person, I may resort to a strict regime if I don’t manage to progress to much over the next few weeks.

We have had some great rain!! It’s been well needed, I hope it continues for some time. I planted a veggie garden a few weeks back, however snails and cabbage moths sure made short work of quite a few things, even though I used a natural spray, I planted to late so they weren’t established enough to withstand the little buggers.

Well Jacob is hassling me to watch a Christmas Pooh Bear DVD with him before bed, so better go and do so, hehe just looked over to him and he is almost asleep the cutie, take care all and enjoy your weekend

Well two weeks ago my computer, phone and modem blew up in an electrical storm, so I have not had internet access since and have been so busy haven’t had the time or the inclination to log on at uni or the library. Today I had some spare time after my spin class, Jacob is with his dad and my other kids are all out and about, so I thought I would quickly post.

Training is going great, food is good, trying a new approach, not sure yet if my body agrees with it, time will tell. I wonder if I have done damage to my metabolism with the lead up to my last comp, with the extreme measures my mate and I took. I have been eating clean for about 4 weeks now, and don’t see any positive changes a all, but like I said this approach is new to me that I am trying, so will persevere for a little bit longer. Must say I don’t like carrying this extra weight, my jeans don't fit and I have metal plates in one ankle and that ankle is not happy with the extra weight on it. I’m trying to just ignore the fat gain, and just get on with doing something positive towards removing it. If I stress about it, it doesn’t help the situation at all.

I have been teaching a great deal these last few weeks, and tonight I went and enrolled in Post Grad studies, gosh I think I am mad, I am going to do Post Grad studies in inclusive education and teaching strategies and best approaches ect for autistic children. I did want to do this eventually, won’t go into what motivated me to do it now at this time.

My 18 year old is at his formal for year 12 tonight, he got early entry into ANU to do Physics, so he is happy and I am happy for him, as it is one of his passions. He has been going to uni for the past two years, since he was 16 doing a bridging course into the sciences there.

Well I have to get on home, lots to get done for tomorrow, I’ve been with year 5/6 all week. Lets just say some off them are very cheeky and I find that while experience character building, it is very tiring at times. Take care all xxx