Bikini Contest Prep: 10 Weeks Out

Just popping in to share a progress picture I snapped today- 10 weeks out from my bikini contest.  I am seeing good progress, but I also am standing tall and "sucking in"! ;)  I hope that in the next few weeks, I won't have to try so hard! 

I'm happy to be back home so that I can stick to my eating and training routine.  Last week I was off my game with the trip to Dallas and then the Gala on Saturday night.  But, being home, I can eat my food and on schedule.  It's a lot of food to eat, but I'm hungry every few hours, so it's perfect right now.   

Also, while I was gone, we didn't get much sleep, staying up with late-night pillow chats that I wouldn't miss, but paid for when I got home.  I'm back on my sleep schedule now (which is CRUCIAL for the workouts I'm doing.  I notice a huge difference in the difficulty level of my workouts when I haven't gotten enough sleep.  Like, I want to quit and go home, but my trainer keeps me going.   I tend to be a night owl, but I find myself being ready for bed by 10:00 p.m. now.

I have to do posing practice for the show too.  I went to one session and it was terrible.  My coach said I was stiff and couldn't twist enough- she said I needed to get massages to loosen up . . .   My next posing practice is Friday, and I hope it goes better!  It feels ridiculous, but I don't want to embarrass myself on stage.

My trainer measured my body fat last Thursday, and it was down to 21% (from 25% when he first measured it).  I also lost 3 pounds.  I'm not sure how accurate the measurement it, and I really want to go to a facility to get it tested with the Bod Pod y'all recommended, but I haven't made time for it yet.  

I found the first picture I posted when I started working out again after the New Year.  It was taken on February 6, 2014.   The second picture is the one I took today, April 29, 2014- so just about 3 months apart.  And I only started with my trainer 5 weeks ago.  I'm wearing the same sports bra in both pictures.  Seeing it this way makes me realize how far I've come.  I'm proud of my efforts!

Okay, off to bed!  Gotta get that sleep!  Thank you for following in this journey with me!

Fat vs. Carbohydrate Overeating: Which Causes More Fat Gain?

Two human studies, published in 1995 and 2000, tested the effect of carbohydrate vs. fat overfeeding on body fat gain in humans.  What did they find, and why is it important?

We know that daily calorie intake has increased the US, in parallel with the dramatic increase in body fatness.  These excess calories appear to have come from fat, carbohydrate, and protein all at the same time (although carbohydrate increased the most).  Since the increase in calories, carbohydrate, fat, and protein all happened at the same time, how do we know that the obesity epidemic was due to increased calorie intake and not just increased carbohydrate or fat intake?  If our calorie intake had increased solely by the addition of carbohydrate or fat, would we be in the midst of an obesity epidemic?

The best way to answer this question is to examine the controlled studies that have compared carbohydrate and fat overfeeding in humans.

Horton et al.

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Eating Healthy When Traveling

With 10 weeks until my fitness bikini competition, I'm getting a little freaked out.  The meal plan I'm on is really tough, mainly because it's boring to eat the same thing over and over and over.  I have not been perfect, but I'm doing pretty well.  I flew to Dallas for two days on Thursday and in preparation for the trip, I brought food so I could stay on my meal plan.  My flight was only an hour, so I packed my small skillet (perfect size for my protein pancake), Pam coconut oil spray, ground oats (for the pancake), brown rice, and protein powder in my checked luggage.  My local friend Cassie brought me frozen chicken, veggies, and egg whites. 

We lucked out and landed in the penthouse suit of the hotel that was equipped with a stove and microwave, so I was able to prepare some meals.  But, nothing is easy.  The room was so high-tech that we couldn't get the stove working and the engineer had to come 3 times to get it to work.   My protein pancake had to be cooked in a special skillet designed for the stove and pretty much fell apart, but I ate it anyway.  (My pancake is just 1/2 cup of ground oats, 3/4 cup egg whites, 1/4 cup water and cinnamon).  I have been "cheating" and eating it with a trace amount of natural peanut butter spread on top. 

My chicken, rice, and veggies were easy to microwave and I had that several times during the trip.

But, I wasn't perfect.  I ate pita chips and hummus, small part of a chocolate bar, and a glass of champagne at the pool.  

Thursday night at dinner I ordered a buffalo burger with no bun and a side salad without dressing. We  ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Friday night, and although I ordered iced tea (when everyone had margaritas) and skipped the chips and queso, I ordered grilled chicken with onions, rice and beans and devoured it.  

Saturday morning before my flight, I didn't have time to eat breakfast before heading to the airport (besides an apple and peanut butter) so  before my plane took off I grabbed a turkey sandwich and just ate the turkey out of it since the bread was soggy.  And I had my Starbuck's iced tall 2-pump mocha on Saturday and Sunday.  Yikes.

At our school Gala on Saturday night, I had two glasses of champagne and on Sunday I had a piece of pizza!

I know that strictly sticking to the meal plan is key, so I'm going to be on it this week.  Tomorrow is a new day!  Last Friday I got my body fat tested again by my trainer and it went down from 25% to 21% in just a couple weeks, which is good progress.  I've found the best way to get through sticking to the meal plan is to just put it on auto-pilot.  Don't think about it, just do it.  The good results I'm seeing keep me motivated to continue.

I'll post a progress pic soon!

Often acquired tastes are acquired genes: Probiotics and prebiotics

Gut flora is found in many areas of our digestive tract, particularly in the colon. Whenever we eat anything we feed the microbes that make up our gut flora and/or add new microbes. Much of this flora is made up of bacteria. Not all of it is made up of bacteria though. The much talked about Candida albicans (a.k.a. “the American parasite”) is a fungus that is found predominantly in our digestive tract and mouths.

Candida’s recent fame is more a testament to the power of well-orchestrated Internet campaigns to sell products than to the actual importance of the fungus in determining the health of non-immunodepressed individuals. Claims about Candida, including dubious ones, have been made many times in the past ().

The relationship between the human gut flora and health was a topic of much interest to Élie Metchnikoff (photo below from Wikipedia), who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1908 for his research on phagocytosis (). Metchnikoff was also a pioneer in the study of aging.

Gut flora discussions often refer to foods and supplements that fall into one of two main categories: probiotics and prebiotics (). Probiotics are generally defined as foods and supplements that include health-promoting live microbes. Prebiotics are non-digestible foods and supplements that feed health-promoting microbes living primarily in the human colon.

Food fermentation, under the appropriate conditions, leads to the formation of natural probiotics. This applies to both animal foods (e.g., cheese, cured meats) and plant foods (e.g., sauerkraut, pickles). Prebiotics occur naturally in many raw plant foods as fiber and resistant starch, and can also be produced through starch retrogradation ().

Again, whenever we eat anything we feed our gut flora. This gut flora is reportedly made up of 10 to the power of 14 cells of bacteria, 10 times more cells than the human body (), plus other types of microbes (e.g., fungi). Different species of microbes in our gut have genomes that are markedly different from ours. Thus we carry in our gut significantly more genes than our own; and genes are selfish.

Genes are selfish in the sense that they seek to propagate themselves. From the perspective of our gut microbes, this can be achieved by inducing the secretion of chemicals that will make us crave foods that will also feed the microbes, whether this will lead to an improvement in our health or not. Even unhealthy human hosts can live long enough to sustain a large number of generations of microbes.

Killing the host human organism may seem like a suicidal strategy for gut microbes, but not if the host organism passes the microbes to other host organisms before the microbes themselves die. Microbes can pass from one human to another through many mechanisms.

So how can we improve our gut flora?

Supplementation or transplantation of microbes have been attempted with mixed but generally positive results ().

Few approaches combine the effectiveness and simplicity of avoiding highly processed industrialized foods. The emphasis here is on inhibiting the growth of unnatural gut flora; flora that has not been carried regularly by our Paleolithic ancestors.

Having done that for a while, which can be difficult due to cravings induced by unnatural gut flora, your own body may become very effective at telling you what is good for you and what is not.

As a side note, just because a food is fermented one cannot assume that it is health-promoting. Bread is a fermented food.

Over the years I have noticed that I prefer eating certain meat dishes cold, and several days after they have been prepared. I wonder if this has anything to do with a small amount of fermentation bringing to life probiotic microbes.

Sculpted Ab Routine (Just 3 Exercises)

As I mentioned yesterday when I shared my meal plan, I'm currently 12 weeks out from my first bikini competition and this week, I start doing my ab exercise routine everyday.  I have definitely seen improvements in the last two weeks in the toning/tightening of my stomach. I'm sure it's a combination of my clean meals, workouts/cardio, ab exercises, and perhaps this cream I've been using.  The picture below was snapped on Monday morning (April 15, 2014).  

Now that I'm 12 weeks out, I'm doing my ab exercises every day.  I do 3 exercises in a row, and repeat them 4 times.  These exercises can be done in the comfort of your own home too.  

1.  Leg Raises- 20 reps

When I'm at the gym, I do leg raises on the roman chair.  

via

At home, you can do them lying on the floor.  

via

Watch the video HERE.

2.  Medicine Ball V-Ups- 15 reps 

These are really hard, but I'm getting better at them.

Watch the video HERE.

3.  Russian Twists- 20 reps

I don't use any weight, I just sit on the floor and touch my hands to the floor on either side. 

Watch the video HERE.

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Garden Update: A Banner Year

Things are warming up here in Seattle and the flowers are blooming.  I just planted my first crops of the year-- potatoes and strawberries.

2013 was a banner year for my 500-square-foot urban vegetable garden, including my first experience growing and processing a grain.  I never got around to posting about it last year-- so here it is.

Interbay mulch technique

The bed on the right has been mulched with leaves, spent coffee
grounds, and burlap sacks ($1/sack at the local hardware store).
The beds on the left were planted with a rye-clover-vetch-pea
cover crop.  Paths are mulched with wood chips.

In the fall of 2012, I tried a new technique for improving the soil called "Interbay mulching".  This is a variation on sheet mulching, which involves placing uncomposted organic matter directly onto the garden soil in fall and letting it compost until the next growing season.  To Interbay mulch, you simply cover your sheet mulch with burlap.  This keeps everything moist, protects earthworms from bird predation so they can munch freely, and suppresses weeds.  I used leaves (carbon) and spent coffee grounds from a local coffee shop (nitrogen) for my organic matter.

When I pulled back the burlap last spring, I was initially disappointed.  The coffee grounds had disappeared completely, but there was still a lot of leaf matter left on the soil, indicating that it had only partially composted.  However, I later decided that it had worked well, because the soil structure underneath was improved and it seemed to be enriched with significant organic matter as well as a large population of fat earthworms.  The mulch suppressed weeds remarkably well, and the beds remained mostly clean for the rest of the season.

Those observations, combined with huge yields from the mulched beds, convinced me that it was worthwhile.

New tools
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12 Weeks Out // My Bikini Contest Meal Plan

This week we're turning it up a notch in both the workouts and meal plan.  I still have fat to lose so, right now, there will be no fat in my diet, no sugar, no dairy.  I have to say that the meal plan is not very exciting, just a balance of lean protein, carbs, and veggies - 5 times a day.  

This is similar to how I've been eating, but there are things I'm cutting that I previously had been enjoying:  coffee with creamer (I can have coffee but don't like it without a lot of creamer, so I'm trading it for black unsweetened tea), peanut butter and syrup (on my protein pancake), peanut or sesame oil, egg yolk, low sodium soy, salt-free seasoning (in my stir fry), and milk (in my cheerios), nuts.  

Keep in mind that this meal plan was given to me for my specific goal of competing in a bikini contest in 12 weeks, and based on where I am in my fitness journey.  I'm sharing it with you partly to document my process and partly to just give you an idea of what these "fitness girls" eat like if you're curious. 

Here are some examples of lean proteins and carbs:

Protein:

• Tuna or most any fish.
• Cottage cheese.
• Eggs (especially the whites).
• Chicken breast (boneless skinless).
• Turkey breast (boneless skinless).
• Lean beef.
• Low fat or no fat cheese.
• Low fat pork.
• Milk protein isolate.
• Whey protein.
• Soy protein.
• Essentially most any other source of protein so long as it is low in saturated fat and carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates:

• Sweet potatoes.
• Oat meal, oat bran, oat bran cereal (i.e. cheerios).
• Bran cereal.
• Brown rice.
• Wheat bread (try to limit to 2 slices per day).
• Beans.
• Low fat popcorn (low fat butter spray makes this a delicacy).
• Fruits (limit to 2-3 servings per day).
• Malto dextrin (during workout).
• Dextrose (during workout)
• Vegetables.
• Stay away from refined grains and anything that says “enriched” or “high fructose corn syrup” on the label

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My breakfast (egg whites and oatmeal) will be made into a pancake and eaten dry (no PB or syrup)- boo. 

Meals 2 and 3 look something like below, on a smaller (9-inch) plate.  It is actually so much food.  This is 5 oz. boneless, skinless chicken breast, 6 oz. sweet potato, and 1 cup veggies. 

I'm still eating on the go a lot.  

Meal 4:  3/4 cup egg whites, 3/4 cup brown rice, and 1 cup mixed veggies cooked in a skillet with nonstick cooking spray, but no seasonings 

Meal 5:  Protein shake with one scoop of protein, 6-8 oz water, 2 ice cubes.  I make it like this because it doesn't make a huge drink. 

I'm now buying bags of frozen veggies and frozen chicken because it's so much food to keep preparing.   

And I bought a food scale that I really like so I can get the measurements exact. It's super easy to use and lightweight.  I poured through all the reviews and think this was a great choice- well worth the money.  

I think I will get one cheat meal a week and I'm already craving my iced tall 2-pump mocha from Starbucks.  But, I'm so excited to see the changes in my body.  I can't say I LIKE to eat this way, but I've never done it so cleanly or consistently and I have been wanting to cut sugar for a long time, so here we go.  Since the beginning of this journey I just keep thinking, "Do the work. Trust the process." 

You can follow me on INSTAGRAM too!

Healthy Pesto and Chicken Salad

If you've been a little burned out by all the prepared meals I've been sharing here, you're in for a treat with today's Healthy Pesto and Chicken Salad recipe from Morgan of Morganize with Me.  She's a girl after my own heart with a passion for health, exercise, organizing, and of course, her family (they have three adorable youngsters) and are currently living abroad.  That she lists "Target, pedicures, books you can't put down, and happy tears" as some of her favorite things makes me adore her even more.  I hope you like this healthy pesto and chicken salad.  I told Morgan I've never made pesto before, but this makes me want to give it a go!  And chicken for added protein? Perfect!

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I'm really thrilled to be here today and to share a yummy recipe with you! I'm also so happy that spring time is here. The fact that I am able to start wearing my flip-flops again just makes me giddy. Do you know what also makes me giddy? Being able to just toss a salad on the table for dinner. Especially if it falls into the category of being a "one dish" salad. (Meaning I don't have to make other sides.) This Healthy Pesto and Chicken Salad is the perfect example of a "one dish" salad. It is packed with protein and veggies and topped off with a homemade pesto dressing.

 

This simple salad is a recipe that you can whip up ahead of time and have waiting for you when you roll in at the end of the day. (Just keep the lettuce and pesto dressing separate from the pasta mixture. Then toss and serve together when you are ready for meal time.)  

Healthy Pesto & Chicken Salad

Serves up to eight salad lovers.

Pesto

• 2 cups basil leaves
• 1 cup parsley leaves
• 6 tablespoons chopped walnuts (toasted)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 garlic cloves

Combine all of the pesto ingredients in a food processor; pulse 5-6 times or until finely minced. Set aside.

Pasta

• 4 cups cubed cooked skinless, boneless chicken breast
• 3 cups uncooked bow tie pasta
• 2 cups quartered cherry tomatoes
• 4 tablespoons chopped pitted kalamata olives
• 8-12 curly leaf lettuce leaves

Cook pasta according to package instructions, drain and rinse with cold water.

Combine (cooled) pasta, chicken, tomatoes, and olives in a large bowl. Add pesto to pasta mixture, tossing gently to coat.



Then place 1-2 lettuce leaves on each plate and top each serving with pasta mixture.

Toss this delicious salad on the table and you can say; "Dinner is done!"

Also if you prefer gluten-free just omit the pasta and replace with a gluten-free pasta, such as a quinoa. And if your kids aren't interested in the lettuce - just serve them the pasta portion.

Are you a fan of salad like me? How about flip-flops?

Enjoy your spring!

Morgan is the energetic and motivated, but also realistic girl, behind Morganize with Me. She specializes in Personal Organizing and Personal Training. Her mission is to share tried and true techniques that she hopes will encourage her readers and clients as they focus on their health and homes. She believes in simplifying, prioritizing, and measuring progress one day at a time.

Keep in touch with Morgan here:

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More Graphs of Calorie Intake vs. BMI

In the last post, a reader commented that the correlation would be more convincing if I graphed calories vs. average BMI rather than the prevalence of obesity.  It was a valid point, so I went searching for average BMI values from NHANES surveys.  I dug up a CDC document that contains data from surveys between 1960 and 2002 (1).  Because these data only cover five survey periods, we only get five data points to analyze, as opposed to the eight used in the last post.  The document contains BMI values for men and women separately, so I averaged the two to approximate average BMI in the general adult population.  It's also worth noting that I use the approximate midpoint of the survey period as the year.

First, a graph of average BMI over time.  It went up:

Now, let's see how well average BMI correlates with calorie intake:

The correlation between calorie intake and obesity prevalence was remarkable, but this correlation is simply incredible.  An R-squared value of 0.98 indicates that daily calorie intake and average BMI are almost perfectly correlated.

We can further deduce that each 100-calorie increase in daily food intake is associated with an 0.62-point increase in average BMI among US adults.  

Calorie Intake and the US Obesity Epidemic

Between 1960 and 2008, the prevalence of obesity in US adults increased from 13 to 34 percent, and the prevalence of extreme obesity increased from 0.9 to 6 percent (NHANES surveys).  This major shift in population fatness is called the "obesity epidemic".

What caused the obesity epidemic?  As I've noted in my writing and talks, the obesity epidemic was paralleled by an increase in daily calorie intake that was sufficiently large to fully account for it.  There are two main sources of data for US calorie intake.  The first is NHANES surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control.  They periodically collect data on food intake using questionnaires, and these surveys confirm that calorie intake has increased.  The problem with the NHANES food intake data is that they're self-reported and therefore subject to major reporting errors.  However, NHANES surveys provide the best quality (objectively measured) data on obesity prevalence since 1960, which we'll be using in this post.

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Can You Get More Toned Skin From a Bottle? (Bliss Fat Girl Six-Pack)

Happy Monday friends!  Hope you all had a great weekend!  With all the working out I've been doing lately, I've noticed that I've been more tired at the end of the day (which is a good thing!) because it means I'm getting to bed at a decent hour instead of staying up way too late.  I even slept from 9:30 p.m. to 10:15 a.m. on Sunday.  I guess my body needed it.  As I write this on Sunday night, I'm thinking of the Monday morning workout with my trainer, which I know is gonna be awesome (and so hard).  I'm loving these workouts and actually look FORWARD to them!

I showed y'all last week that, although my tummy is looking much tighter these days, there's still work to be done.  I was provided a toning gel formulated to help firm and tone your skin, called Fat Girl SixPack by Bliss.  I'm giving it a try and will let you know what I think. The product states that it's not a weight loss or fat loss cream, but is formulated with amino acids, creatine, oat kernel extract, latex-rich manilkara tree extract, menthol, and a special botanical extract to help you get firmer skin (in combination with exercise and a healthy diet).

I have the exercise and healthy diet going on, so let's see if I notice any difference with this gel.  I'm going to follow the directions and put it on my stomach twice a day for 20-30 seconds for 2 weeks and will report back with my "findings".  I have tried it once (you pump the bottle up and massage the gel into your skin with the applicator. It's easy to apply and the cream feels nice and tingly on your skin- perhaps from the menthol.  

With bikini season/shorts and sundress weather right around the corner, now is the time to start working toward that body you want. ;)  Are you ready to start making some changes so you feel healthy, beautiful and happy this summer?  Have you tried Fat Girl SixPack?  If so, I'd love to hear what you think.  You can buy it at most beauty supply stores like Ulta or Sephora.   

Below are some pics I snapped on Sunday night, which shows where I'm starting with my Fat Girl SixPack, and also marks 13 weeks out from my bikini competition.  

Let's kick some butt this week! 

*Thanks to Bliss for sponsoring today's post.

Sample Bikini Contest Prep Meal Plan

I know some of you would appreciate a bikini contest preparation meal plan that includes the nutritional breakdown of the food, so I snagged one from a friend of mine who is a bikini competitor. She is in her early 40s, about 5'3 and this is her second year competing.  She gave me permission to post the meal plan here, so it's all yours!

Have a great WEEKEND!

Uncovering the True Health Costs of Excess Weight

Is excess weight hazardous to health, or can it actually be protective?  This question has provoked intense debate in the academic community, in some cases even leading researchers to angrily denounce the work of others (1).  There is good evidence to suggest that excess body fat increases the risk of specific diseases, including many of our major killers: diabetes, heart attack, stroke, heart failure, cancer, and kidney failure (2).  Yet strangely, the studies relating excess weight to the total risk of dying-- an overall measure of health that's hard to argue with-- are inconsistent.  Why?
Read more »

Veggies, Mushrooms/Onions & Brown Rice Meal Prep

We all know it's important to eat our veggies, but how many of us are actually doing it? I know I wasn't until recently.  The surprise is, I really like it!  I look forward to eating my vegetables, especially a variety, and prepping them is really easy.   

I'm eating a good 2-3 cups of veggies per day and typically prep a big bunch (my husband eats them too) so they are ready to eat right away. On Monday evening, I made a colorful variety of steamed veggies, brown rice, and sautéed onion and mushrooms to add to my lean protein meals.  Be warned, this makes a lot of veggies, so you may want to half it. 

Veggies = appx. 17 cups 

• broccoli (2 bunches)
• cauliflower (1 head)
• squash (2)
• zucchini (2)
• carrots (1 cup)

Mushrooms & Onion 

• mushrooms (16 oz pre-cut) 
• onion (1)

Brown Rice = appx. 10 (1/3 cup servings)

• brown rice (1 cup) 

After washing and chopping my veggies, I put them into a large pot with about 2 inches of water.  Put the lid on and let the water come to a boil and steam for a few minutes.  I don't let it boil too long because I don't like mushy veggies and these cook quickly.  Then, I strain the veggies and rinse in cold water to stop them from cooking.  I don't use any salt or seasoning. 

 

 

The mushrooms are pre-sliced, so I just cut up an onion and put it in a skillet with about a tablespoon of olive oil and let them sauté, uncovered, until nice and brown.  Just turn every once in a while.  They take a good 10-15 minutes to cook on medium to medium-high heat.  At the end, I poured in about a tablespoon of blackberry balsamic vinegar, but you don't need to.  

For the rice, I don't follow the package directions because I never thought it tasted right, so I found a way of cooking brown rice on the web (I don't recall the site) that recommends rinsing the rice (I use one cup dry rice), then add it to a lot of water (maybe 4 cups) and boil uncovered for about 15-20 minutes- I keep tasting it until it tastes cooked through.  Then drain and rinse again, returning to the pot with the heat off for a few minutes.  I don't use any salt or seasoning. 

I prepped and cooked everything at once.  The picture below is just before I put the lids on the veggies. 

And below is everything all cooked. 

It's really nice to have this prep done so you don't have to think about it for the next few days at least.   It takes a little time on the front end, but then no time later.  :) I haven't made this large a batch before, so I'm not completely sure how long it will be before it's gone (or stays good).  

Here's the food in action the next day at lunch and so you can see how I store them.  I just popped this in the microwave for 1 1/2 minutes. 

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Bikini Contest Prep Training Schedule // 14 Weeks Out

Last week was my first full week with my trainer.  We worked out three times for one hour, I did 5- 30 minute cardio sessions on my own (3 on the treadmill, 2 on the stair mill) and also did an ab routine (3 exercises) 4 days.  That's hard work so I felt pretty proud of myself.  So, I think I'll be keeping the schedule below for now, until he changes it up.  I'll probably end up doing longer cardio and abs every day by the end.

On Friday, my trainer measured my body fat using calipers and the skin fold test.  Body Fat Percentage – is the amount of body fat (pounds) divided by total body weight listed as a percentage. 

I told him I guessed I was at 18% body fat.  He took the measurements and said he'd text me after he calculated it so we could get right to working out.  But, based on the measurements he just took, H most of my fat is in my stomach, lower back, and calves.  Later that day, I did my ab routine and 30 minutes of cardio.  Afterwards, I snapped a pic of my abs as they were looking pretty good right then.

But that's the thing about abs.  They don't always look so tight.  (At least mine don't.) Even in the two pictures above, you can tell that I have more fat in the second picture than in the first based on the way I'm standing and leaning.  Sunday evening, my trainer texted me my body fat results =  25.5%.  He said not to be concerned, as long as my lean mass continues to rise and my body fat decreases, I'm fine.  He's also working on my eating program.  But, I couldn't help but feel discouraged.  :( I thought my number would be much lower.  I tried to google what 25% body fat looks like on women, but of course it's so relative depending on that particular person's body fat distribution, body shape, age, etc. 

Here are some of the images I found . . . I have no idea how the person writing the articles identified the people at that percentage, so who know if it's really accurate??  Interesting though . . .

via

via

Yesterday, on Monday morning, after breakfast and before my workout, I snapped some more pics of my stomach so I can track my progress and so you can see that the "tight" picture above, taken right after abs and cardio, doesn't always look that way.  It's true that I'm holding fat in my back and stomach. . . 

 

At Monday's workout, my trainer said that about 8-12% body fat would have me at show ready (he previously said that 6-10% is where most women compete so I'm going to edit that post).  I have decided that I'm NOT GOING TO FOCUS ON THE NUMBER.  Same with the scale.  I'm just going to keep going, keep training, keep eating clean and watch my body develop. I KNOW it will change.  I KNOW that this stubborn fat is melting away.   I'm ready for this week.  Let's get to work!  

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