Spring is in the air and my photoshoot is tonight...

Today was pretty darn gorgeous out in the City of Brotherly Love.  It was sunny and you could definitely feel that spring is in the air!

Tonight is the night I am doing my first fitness photo shoot after a very long hiatus from doing things like this due to being pregnant and then birthing Jonathan throughout all of 2010. This is not the annual photo shoot that I am desperate to look great for... that has been put on the back burner until further notice. For photo shoots like that I usually am showing my physique to display the strength in my arms or legs. and right now neither my arms or legs  look all that strong. Anyway, tonight I will be taking a few photos of me doing a workout of my Springboard Pilates equipment for The Well Loft website. I must admit I am excited to be getting the photos done as my husband (who is a photographer) does excellent photo shop editing. Lol! He can make someone average look like Halle Berry. So my wardrobe of choice tonight is a pair of fitted black yoga pants and a bright blue tank. I will have to suck and hold in the little bit of gut that I have left as well as tilt my head down so it doesn't appear that I have somewhat of a double chin. Trust me I know all the right angles to hit to make me look great! I must admit though...I am a bit down on myself because I would have thought by the time Jonathan was 4 months old (which he will be, this coming Sunday) I would have lost all of the baby weight. I still have a good 15 pounds to lose! The thing that is keeping the weight on and by no means does this imply any sort of an excuse is the lack of time to work out and my diet! Those monthly chick-fil-a visits aren't helping me at all either. However, it's more about the workouts than anything else. I am lucky if I get to workout three times a week now. It's that bad. Between work, home, the baby and running two businesses while voluntering on and for community projects I need like 10 more hours in a day! Whew...I gotta work this time thing out because Lord knows it's working me out!

Pictures will be posted later....smooches to anyone out there that is reading.


From the photo shoot 3/11/2011...still working on my body!

The things we don't say...

For the last two weeks RD has jogged on the treadmill at the gym. Everytime she does this I wish I could join her. In fact I tell her that I'm going to do the elliptical until I am ready to run which gives her the impression that I need to build up stamina. Actually, it's more about the things I don't say to her. The thing that has me confined to doing a fast paced walk on the treadmill or a highly resistant uphill climb on the stationary bike. The thing I am dealing with and that I haven't said to her is that I am experiencing having weak pelvic floor muscles. Yeah and it's pretty bad,  in fact every time I take one foot off the ground in a running or jumping manner I experience some type of leakage. I don't think it's urine (although when I have to pee I better have a toilet near me quick), it's just fluid. In fact my GYN confirmed this as she wrote me a script to see a physical therapist for special toning exercises that would help repair what they classify as temporary post pregnancy PFD (pelvic floor dysfunction). I have yet to make the appointment although I am curious to see what these "special exercises" consist of. Her prescription came about at my follow up appointment six weeks after having Jonathan. After giving me an official once over to make sure everything was normal "down there" she asked me to squeeze her two fingers. I did and then she asked me if I felt her fingers being squeezed (awkward) and I said I didn't. Then she asked if I had experienced any fluid leakage when I sneezed or coughed or even laughed really hard. I said yes. She said it appears that I have a mild case of post pregnancy PFD. Now I know it's due to me just giving birth but it sucks and women rarely talk about it. In fact Ish (my husband) didn't even want me to type about it. He's says it's to personal to share. How does he even know about this dysfunction you might ask? Well not because of sex as you may think. He says I feel just fine down there (although I wonder... if I can't squeeze a finger...hmmm). He found this out as I was working out in the house (due to the stockpile of snow outside I was restricted to doing the at home workout thing). Anyway, he noticed I was pausing every time the ladies on the kickboxing DVD would do a jump squat or a set of jumping jacks. He asked me why I wasn't jumping. I told him about the PFD with a little embarrassment and like everyone else the look on his face said keep that to yourself! See that is my point, I think the opposite and I want to report that yes I too have a weak bladder! Hello...I gave birth to three babies ...my second one being well over 10 lbs! With three babies my pelvic floor muscles are gonna be a bit weak. Although, they will strengthen over time it's not gonna be without a little work.
Naturally you may think, so get to work on some kegal exercises right? Yeah... no.  Although kegels help control and  tone and improve the ability to control and tone they aren't the fastest fix. Pilates is another method that has been toted as a way to create strength downstairs, in fact I know this because I am an experienced Pilates instructor so I know just how to use it, but the best method I discovered is vaginal cones. I have used vaginal cones before... after my second pregnancy and I will again use them this time around. Vaginal cones are small plastic cones with different stainless steel weights that you put inside your vagina for about 15 minutes, twice a day. The weights come in a set of five different sizes. At first, the lightest weight is used for a few weeks. You need to use your pelvic floor muscles to hold the cones in place. So, it is a way to help you to exercise your pelvic floor muscles. Once you can hold onto the lightest one comfortably, you move up to the next weight, and so on.




http://www.srsmedical.com/

 

These weights have been a God send for me and will keep me from a life of wearing Depends as I get older. They also work best with doing a few kegel exercises a day. In fact that is the workout report of the day...the infamous kegel. In fact ladies join me now! All ladies unite and do a kegel right now whereever you are! See below:

How to do a proper Kegel ( as taken from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/kegel-exercises)

:

■ Find the right muscles. Insert a finger inside your vagina and try to squeeze the surrounding muscles. You should feel your vagina tighten and your pelvic floor move upward. Then relax your muscles and feel your      pelvic floor return to the starting position. You can also try to stop the flow of urine when you urinate. If you  succeed, you've got the basic move. Don't make a habit of starting and stopping your urine stream, though. Doing Kegel exercises with a full bladder or while emptying your bladder can actually weaken the muscles, as well as lead to incomplete emptying of the bladder — which increases the risk of a urinary tract infection.

■Perfect your technique. Once you've identified your pelvic floor muscles, empty your bladder and sit or lie down. Contract your pelvic floor muscles, hold the contraction for five seconds, then relax for five seconds. Try it four or five times in a row. Work up to keeping the muscles contracted for 10 seconds at a time, relaxing for 10 seconds between contractions.

■Maintain your focus. For best results, focus on tightening only your pelvic floor muscles. Be careful not to flex the muscles in your abdomen, thighs or buttocks. Avoid holding your breath. Instead, breathe freely during the exercises.

■Repeat three times a day. Aim for at least three sets of 10 repetitions a day. You might make a practice of fitting in a set every time you do a routine task, such as checking email, commuting to work, preparing meals or watching TV.

Any Questions?

Ain't nothing but the dog in em!

Last night's workout for the most part went well. To take a look at the leg and ab exercises RD and I performed please reference the following blog post ( click here ). We also incorporated a shoulder routine that I have a short story about. You'll find the description of the shoulder workout after the story below.

The workout for the most part went okay except for this one little man that grated on my nerves. Let me start from the very beginning so that you have the full story. Last night I drove up to Planet Fitness to once again workout with RD. On the way into the gym I noticed a cool breeze blowing down my shirt. I felt my chest area and low and behold I did not have a bra on, not a sports bra, or even a regular bra. Now mind you I wasn't aware that I was bra less up until that point. I actually worked at my fitness studio for two hours, did a yoga class, talked to my clients and everything without a bra on and I didn't notice it. I decided to let RD know I was at the gym and then I'd figure out what I was going to do by asking her opinion. I told RD I was bra less and she immediately started laughing. Inside I was wondering if she thought I did this on purpose for the blogs sake...I swear I didn't. This was just so random! she asked what I was planning to do. Only because we are on a mission of fitness, I decided to stay. I would walk the tread mill without any uphill climbs just to make sure "the girls" wouldn't be bouncing all around. This might be the perfect time to also describe what sort of shirt I was wearing as it does matter as this story unfolds. I had on a short black fitted T shirt, with a grey tank top underneath that reached past the length of the fitted T. Being as though I had the tank on underneath I thought I was at least a little bit secure. Anyway, as my endurance workout came to a close RD and I went about our strength training routine. RD and I workout in what I call the "Dog Pound". You guys know what the dog pound is right? It's that area in any co-ed fitness center that ladies seldom venture into and men rarely want us in unless we either have hair on our chest or a doo rag on our head. I have always worked out in the dog pound (or as I also refer to it... the jail yard) for a couple of reasons.

1) This area has the barbell equipment that will allow you to place barbell plates on a weighted bar. You can use this in quite the same way free weights can be used only allowing the user greater weight bearing capacity.

2) This area also has strength training machines usually with out the nautilus attachment cables like the machines on the main fitness floor. The jail yard machines offer less assistance and greater resistance which requires you to do more work.

3) I love working out with the guys because they usually know how to "get it in" with reps and sets they way I like too.

To continue on with my story, RD and I proceed to the jail yard area of Planet Fitness to work on our shoulders. Keep in mind at this point "the girls" had got their sweat on and my headlights were now showing through the shirt. In one of my earlier blogs I mentioned having tear drop boobies (courtesy of Dr. Solomon) which may have looked tempting to the salivating man/dogs that were throwing their "literal" weight around. This one little pit bull of a man/dog got bold and decided to approach RD and me with what he felt was some helpful advice. He came up along side me (as we were working a front deltoid raise) and said "May I offer you a suggestion"...now, because I am polite and I kind of guessed what was coming...I said yes. He says, "You are not supposed to swing, (bark) when you lift those weights hon, (bark, bark), and if you have to swing (bark), you may want to lift a lighter weight, something you can handle (pant, pant)."  I simply said "uh huh" and turned away. I'm pretty sure he felt all proud of himself being that he came to the rescue of these helpless ladies that had somehow found thier way into the wrong part of the gym. He probably barked to his other man/dog friends that we didn't know what we were doing and that he had to show us the proper way to lift weights. First let me clarify that I nor RD were swinging the weights with what he was trying to say our low backs. To be perfectly clear we were getting a slight ab contraction by tightening our abdominal muscles each time we lifted the weights. This stabilizes your body and protects your low back at the same time. Also, the little bit of momentum that we were using was not because we could not lift the 5lb dumbbells we were holding,  it was because of the pulling in of the abdominals with each lift. This can cause you to rock ever so slightly back. Needless to say as a professional I was livid and as a woman/fitness enthusiast I was disgusted. I asked RD if she thought he would have given us his friendly advice if we were a couple of guys. She of course said "definitely not". Then I thought about my wet t shirt, my exposed headlights, and my rather long, freshly extended ponytail and said to myself it wasn't nothing but the dog in 'em chasing the cat at the dog pound.

The little pit bull of a man/dog that tried to help me and RD.

Our shoulder circuit (DB= dumbbell)
5 lb DB's

Front shoulder raise 10 reps, 5 sets
30 sec rest in between sets

Lateral raise with bent arms 10 reps, 5 sets
30 sec rest in between sets

Overhead Shoulder press
10 reps, 5 sets
30 sec rest in between sets

Burn out set (super set no rest)
10 bicep curls
10 shoulder press with back squeeze
10 lateral raises (straight arms)
10 front raises

The Workout Report 1/21



Planet Fitness

Whew...this report is being posted a little later than I would have liked. I have been a busy Mommy all day with some work related things running around with Jonathan in the cold, but at least we didn't get a bunch of snow making it that much harder to get around. Anywho (I hate when people say anywho don't you?) here is the previous night's workout report performed with RD at Planet Fitness.  Hmmm Planet Fitness...that's a whole other blog which I will write about at another time. Also is it wrong that I just finished eating a lemon meringue pie from Chic-fil-A? I mean everything else I got from there was healthy (well maybe not the waffle fries) but the grilled chicken sandwich was! Also, please note that I officially start my weight loss exercise regimen professionally this Sunday 1/23. Anywho here's the report: 

Start- 8:30 pm

Endurance Training:
 45 minutes

RD did her run walk combination on the treadmill
3.8 mph to walk for 2 minutes and 4.4 mph to jog for 3 minutes. Cycling through this for 45 minutes

My endurance workout was all on the elliptical. I started at a level of 2 then progressed every 4 minutes until I reached level 10. At 10 minutes left to go I put the elliptical on reverse mode and really worked my quads.
That felt great! It burned but it felt awesome.

After a water break we proceed to cable machines for a leg workout.

I told RD to first use all the muscles of the legs on the leg press. This is to warm all of the muscles up against a load at one time. At the leg press she did the following:

Leg Press
3 sets of 15 reps (I told her that 15 reps was our magic leg number for the night) with 30 seconds of rest in between sets.

• I told RD by using the leg press machine as our first exercise we would be warming all of the leg muscles up at one time working against a load. The leg and hip muscles are the gluteous, the quadriceps, and the hamstrings. 

Leg Extension (Quads)
3 sets of 10 reps 30 seconds of rest in between sets.

• RD was inwardly screaming last night because at the top of the movement when you extend your legs it really burn by the time you get to that 6-7th rep. She did a real good job of holding in that scream with her poker face.

Leg Curls (Hamstrings)
3 sets of 15 reps, 30 seconds of rest in between.

Then we performed 3 burn-out sets for all of the muscles of the legs and the glutes.

Front Lunges
10 reps each leg and then 5 reps alternating with no rest.
(we probably could have done it twice but I wasn't trying to push)

Smith Machine Squats
2 sets of 15 squats with no barbell plates (bar only)
30 sec rest in between

Leg Curl
2 sets of 20 reps

Mat Abs

3 sets of 10 crunches
3 sets of knee raises with crunch isolation 10 reps
2 sets of clam shells 10 reps
2 sets of oblique crossovers (ankle over opposite hip) 10 reps
full crossover moving knees set of 10.

Back Extensions
Cobra stretch 5 x's
Superman modified (no arms) with single leg raise 5x each leg
Superman modified (no arms) 5x with double leg raises

Cool Down Stretch
Quad stretch side lying
Single leg hamstring stretch on back
Inner thigh butterfly stretch seated

Finished 10:30pm


Any questions?

Motherhood is a gift.

Jennifer Hudson

Motherhood is a gift...oh yes it is! It is a gift of bodily destruction and emotional mayhem. In fact I received a different gift each time I gave birth. Let me run down my gift list. The first gift I received was 14 years ago from my first born A.R. (I'm using his initials to spare him the embarrassment of Mom-teenager association) his gift was just what a 23 year old first time mother would want. A set of saggy deflated boobs! I knew with my teabag titties  (as my friend Robin would refer to them) that I would be destined to a life of push up bras and chicken cutlet looking replacement prostheses. Feeling like I was having a mid life crisis, I made a decision do what any American 23 year old woman that is totally immersed in her body would do, I went under the knife. I traded in my less than A size tea bags titties for a pair of full C size teardrop boobies (that's what they actually called my implants teardrop's). Thinking I had permanently dodged a body bullet I thought it was safe enough to enter into mommy hood again. 5 1/2 years later I gave birth to my darling middle child Elias Lewis. At 10 lbs 5 ounces at birth Elias Lewis gave me the instant gift of abdominal stretchmarks. Ahhh...what thoughtfulness on his behalf. Another gift for me to treasure and again show off! I left the hospital with my stomach looking like a road map of peaks and valleys made up of loose skin and underlying muscle indentations. The fix so I thought, in this situation would be to buy and use a host of body butters. I tried cocoa butter, shea butter, almond butter and I hate to admit even a little crisco. Nothing worked to eliminate these ugly tiger stripes however, over time they did diminish and at 28 years old I felt like I was already ancient enough to not care as much. I figured I keep these battle scars and live a life of one piece swim suits with the occasional tankini (thank God for tankini's).  On to present day, which is eight years later to the birth of my sweet Jonathan. My gratis gift baby or so I thought. I never thought I would have to incur anymore body inflictions but I did. Little Jonathan Xavier gave me my greatest mommy body gift so far. I am now the proud recipient of wider hips. Yay me!!!  I already had wide enough hips to begin with...do I really need more to contend with? I guess so because now 2 months later I am still wearing my maternity jeans! I can't fit into my size 6 skinny jeans, boot cut jeans or even my old reliable jeggings! So now the reasonble fix would be to buy a new pair of jeans in a different size right? Heck no! I'm embarrassed to admit but I don't want to buy double the size I was before the baby. I feel it would be some sort of commitment to buy a pair of size 12 jeans. No offense to all you size twelver's out there but I have a closet full of size six's that miss my body and my body misses them! I just secretly hope we can one day build a relationship again (sigh). All of this wondering just leaves me with one thought... When did I trade places with Jennifer Hudson?

Competing Against Me

Okay so I decided to enter in a Ms. Figure competition. A Ms. Figure competition is a smaller version of a womens bodybuilding competition. I hired a competition fitness trainer who trains in Delaware and I begin my program today. Of course I want to blog it and video blog it too! The program involves a restricted eating plan to burn fat as well as a five day a week lifting routine. Based upon my evaluation I need to increase the width of my back, and calves. I currently have 18% percent body fat ( I personally think it's closer to 19 or 20%) and I weight 135 lbs.

The diet: I have to eat 10 egg whites a day, two bowls of oatmeal, grilled chicken, flank steak, romaine lettuce, cucumbers, sweet potatos, brown rice, bananas and apples. So it's heavy on the fiber and protein, lean on the carbs and fats. I will also be drinking two muscle milk shakes a day.

The workout: Involves mostly chest and back (for now) to develop these areas a bit more.

The competition: is on Oct 3rd, 2009

I feel like this will be more of a competition against myself than anyone else. As I will have to rely on heavy will power with the diet as I am such a foodie. I love sweets and salty snacks

Well wish me luck and now off to the gym!