2012 | Day 248: YOUR TIME

MOTIVATIONAL OF THE DAY

YOUR TIME

Be CAREFUL WHO you spend your TIME WITH. Make sure that those you SURROUND yourself with are going to ENRICH your life, working TOGETHER for a MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL purpose.

Your time is VALUABLE so don’t waste it on those who seek only to use you or drain you dry of your resources and energy. Don’t allow them access into your life to see how much they can take and leave you bleeding.

Once spent, you can NEVER get a second back, so spend it WISELY. Yes, we all make mistakes, but don’t look at them as regrets; instead LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES to make you BETTER as an individual, so that you can BLESS the lives of all those who you touch consciously AND unconsciously.

Your time is valuable, but so is that of everyone ELSE, so ensure that when you spend time with another it is not wasted in frivolous pursuits; instead for something greater than the both of you, that can lead onto higher things that will benefit and inspire OTHERS.

If you find yourself “wasting” time take a moment, a deep breath, and re-evaluate the situation. If you can, extricate yourself from it as soon as possible, and if not, try and turn it around so that your time IS being spent with PURPOSE.

© 2012 Rosie Chee

TRAINING

Monday - am: Arms/Abs + Post-Weights Cardio 20 min; pm: HIIT Run 12 min + Shoulders/Hamstrings

Tuesday - am: Full-Body + Post-Weights Cardio 20 min

Wednesday - am: HIIT 10 min + Shoulders/Arms/Abs + Post-Weights Cardio 20 min

Thursday - am: Cardio 20 min; pm: Run 3 miles

Friday - am: HIIT 10 min + Shoulders/Arms/Abs + Post-Weights Cardio 20 min; pm: Run 3 miles

Saturday - Run 3 miles

Sunday - Day OFF

OTHER NOTES

Sleep: Was a little better this week. Back to getting up at 0430 for the most part.

Energy: This has been up and down all week. Been crashing daily around 1200-1400, so a little earlier than in weeks past.

Joints: Little issues with shoulders, but nothing that can't be ignored.

Body Composition: 8.3% bodyfat - back to being "comfortable" in my own skin, but still wanting to be leaner for myself.

Training: Still under Maintenance - highly stressful week and it was a little on and off/as I could do it, but I made sure to get what was important done. Next week is another week that is going to be interesting to make "fit", but I will do it - aiming to make it slightly ABOVE MAintenance.

Nutrition: Was not the best last week, but still managed to lose 0.1% bodyfat a day, and withOUT even being at Maintenance training, which I was relieved at, but also not going to chance again re training. Dieting does NOT work for me - as shown re effective fat loss this week with only TWO days of "good" eating (at the START of the week too).

Supplements: Last day of UR Spray and Erase today.

Other Notes: Another photoshoot this weekend - for the swimsuit issue of World Physique Magazine, so going to be nice being on the beach again.

2012 | Day 214: Life is a tangled twist...

MOTIVATIONAL OF THE DAY

Tangled Emotion & Twisted Experience

Life is a tangled twist of emotion and experience. Sometimes the things we never wanted, once we have them, we discover are the things we never want to live without. Sometimes the ones we love hurt us so deeply and completely we wonder if we will ever heal, and when we finally do, only to be splintered into pieces again. Sometimes we hope for what seems like a lifetime, and just when that hope has all but gone, something happens to make us believe again and desire to hold onto that hope. Sometimes we are just prisoners in a cage of our own making, and by the time we realize it, have come to call that cage “home” and do not want to leave the confines of comfortability. Sometimes life can seem so very much more than we can handle, and just when we are ready to leave we discover that we in fact want to live, and live as hard as we can until there is no more life left in us.

Life is a tangled twist of emotion and experience, a stage where every player has an important role, whether they know it or believe it or not, and it’s not over until it’s determined that that player has nothing left to love or break or hope for or give, until that player has no more spirit left to fight.

Life is a tangled twist of emotion and experience and we ALL live it.

© 2012 Rosie Chee

TRAINING

Monday - HIIT Treadmill (warm-up to weights) + Shoulders/Hamstrings

Tuesday - Arms/Abs

Wednesday - Day OFF

Thursday - Day OFF

Friday - HIIT Run + Full-Body + Post-Weights Cardio

Saturday - HIIT Treadmill (warm-up to weights) + Shoulders/Arms/Abs

Sunday - Day OFF

OTHER NOTES

Sleep: Been working right through all week, so going to bed every night (except for last night) about half an hour after getting home from my night work. Has taken me 30-60 minutes to get to sleep each time, sleep broken, waking on and off until I've had to get up in a few hours to start all over again.

Energy: Whether I've had energy or not is not relevant - even though I've been dead on my feet and tired as hell all week, I've HAD to be up and about, doing everything - and training has suffered a little because of this over the past week.

Joints: Both shoulders and left wrist have been in a lot of pain this week.

Body Composition: 9% bodyfat - so a loss of 0.3% bodyfat. However, despite having THREE days OFF training this week and what training I HAVE done only 30-50% of Maintenance, this is ok. I FEEL a lot better than I did last week, and abs are actually starting to come in more.

Training: 2-a-day training did not happen this week - instead I was working every day from 0800 through to 2200-2300, on top of trying to manage study, so I just got in what training I could (did ALL my resistance sessions at least, even if shorter than usual) in the gaps between morning and night work. I DID add in some TRX training for my shoulders and hamstrings this week, as a change re weights, especially for my shoulders and it helped re the pain a little, although feeling DOMS from it (and I don't so much from weights). Definitely need to start running more, as well as making my HIIT LONGER again - have been using the treadmill for ~10 minutes, which is not conducive to my lower legs and certainly not to progress. I don't work as much this coming week, so will be focusing primarily on getting back into a routine that I can STICK to - a little hard when working hours have been all over the place, most of which is very last minute.

Supplements: Last day of Compound 20 today. Have been using UR Spray since 1 August, at 50 sprays twice daily - post-am and post-pre-bed showers.

Overall Sense of Feeling: This week has been a huge "stress" week - it seems sometimes that God wants to see how much I can handle when my life is ripped apart and turned upside down, which is ok but not ok at the same time, and I have held a lot back this week, just wanting to get through. Now I get a day of "rest" - I have work to do, but are going to try and put that aside until tomorrow, so that I CAN give my mind SOME downtime, since the overload it is on is NOT the "good" kind. Despite all that, it HAS been a productive week - a lot of CHANGES set in motion and things to look FORWARD to.

2012 | Day 207: Light Up The Darkness

MOTIVATIONAL OF THE DAY

FITNESS IS A WAR

We were born into a world where we must fight to survive, where war has become a LIFESTYLE. War against others. War against ourselves. There is no escaping it.

FITNESS is a lifestyle. It is a war. An endless battlefield of obstacles, of constant challenges and opposition. Day in and day out, strategy and planning, living to get through. Living to survive.

The enemy is not the ONLY thing you have to worry about. Your biggest threat is NOT the enemy. It is YOURSELF. It is not your enemy you fight against every day. It is yourself: Your fears, shortcomings, and weaknesses. Weakness can manifest in many different ways: Through excuses, indecisiveness, instability, and retreat. You must learn to overcome it, to conquer it, to set it aside, so that you can be victorious in battle.

There are times to sit back and observe, reconnoitre. This is NOT one of those times. This is the time to ATTACK. Be bold. Be strong. Hold yourself firm in your conviction. Surge forward, fighting. Hold nothing back. You cannot afford to. Once you commit, you COMMIT. There is NO going back, only going forward. Make each advance count, each sacrifice matter.

Live for this. Live to make your mark, to make your life count for something. If you live for nothing, you will die for nothing. That is no way to live, no way to be remembered. Be someone who moves from strength to strength and NEVER lets the word ‘impossible’ hold any power. Be remembered for being a WARRIOR, a fighter, a survivor.

Fitness is a lifestyle. It is MY lifestyle. My war. Is it YOURS?

© 2011 Rosie Chee

Image courtesy of Walt Ostarly

OTHER NOTES

Sleep: Barely a few hours every night/day.

Energy: My energy has been back this week - although taking a couple of hours to "wake up" once I get up or "waking up" late at night when I should be going to bed, but not being able to go to sleep DURING the day even if I have only had a couple of hours of sleep.

Joints: Both shoulders and wrists, as well as my left hip, have been in a lot of pain this week, affecting my training to some degree, so I adapted a lot of it.

Body Composition: 9.3% bodyfat - so a loss of 0.3% bodyfat. Still far too high for my liking, although given this week's nutrition, training, sleep, and stress, it IS progress.

Training: Back to 2-a-day training from next week, since even 2-3 days a week of doing 3-7 mile run helps my progress re leaning a lot. Resistance training going to be changed a little, after what was experienced this week, experimenting with and trying a few more different things.

Nutrition: Back doing what works best for my body re Lean Gains 16-hour fast/8-hour feeding window from Thursday, and it has made such a difference in how I look and feel already - although not important like body composition, lost 9.4 pounds in that brief period of time alone (albeit no doubt predominantly food and water weight). Definitely NO deterrence from it henceforth, and determined to have only a SINGLE "cheat" day a week, as I work on leaning down.

Supplements: Not a "supplement" per se, but I WILL be adding in UR Spray next week (when it arrives), as that "little bit extra".

Overall Sense of Feeling: Stress has been a dominant factor this week as my workload increased alongside study. It has been a struggle to train - and want to sometimes, motivation, although it should be high HIGH, a little down, influenced by internal and external factors. Lack of being in a schedule re wake, train, work, sleep, etc. again has had some effect - although re work, this is something I have only a small input of control in, and changes on a weekly basis - especially since my work has primarily dictated my sleeping patterns (i.e. working nights and not being able to fall asleep until 0430-0530 and then having to be up again by 0700-0730 for morning clients), but I am going to make it WORK from next week without fail. Most of my travel for the rest of the year has been decided and blocked out - all of which I am looking forward to, especially as some of it will give me a "break" (if I can allow myself to relax). My mind still NEVER turns off, but I am used to it, making sure that it is being PRODUCTIVE.