We’re near the end of this great journey through our virtual tour of a 12 week diet but we still have yet to conquer our fears and deal with a goal that does not come to pass.  Let’s not waste time and just hop right in.

I have thought about this all week long in terms of how I was going to present fear to you.  My initial thought was to sort of pick up where I left off with ‘pressure’ and tell you about the fake voices in your head and how they control you.  However, I know that some good brain cells were set on fire with that post so I will put out those flames later on with another post when we go into the series that discusses the after effects of this diet.   What I feel that most of us lack is an understanding of how real those voices and feelings seem at the time and because of this, how much they can rob us of a healthy dieting experience.  If we can acknowledge in our hearts—not our minds—that those voices are just fear and they are not real, then we may be able to make it through this diet without making any rash, harmful decisions.  But it is the acknowledging that is the hard part.  We have such a tough veneer that most of us aren’t honest enough with ourselves to share that we have fears.  Real fears.  So real, they seem like people in a room to us.

FEAR is an acronym in the English language for “False Evidence Appearing Real”. Neale Donald Walsch

Hands down, the best weapon in war or any other kind of battle is intimidation.  Warring parties would try to convince the other side that they had an advantage in hopes of getting them to surrender without even going to battle.  In many instances it worked and a fight was avoided.  When it comes to something such as dieting, the enemy isn’t another country warring against us; the enemy is in our mind and it will stop at nothing to de-rail us from our goal.  It is real, it occupies real space in our brain and it can become so real that we could almost have a conversation with it on the couch.  Actually, we do have a conversation with it on the couch.

I want to stress this concept to the point of ad nauseam because you may fail to see its relevance and impact in your life.  When you are 7 weeks into this diet but your only 1/3 of the way to goal, it is fear who is going to remind you of that.  When you are in the gym and you suddenly feel portly compared to the week before, it is fear that is making that happen.  When you are deciding on adding extra cardio into your program when you know you shouldn’t or cut out carbs before your plan tells you to, it is fear that gives you the wherewithal to that.  Fear becomes your best friend.  He goes from being just a topic you discuss with someone you trust to a scary man with bad breath who is real, mean and standing right next to you.

As dieters, the things we fear seem so silly when we say them out loud so we keep them to ourselves and it is there that they become true villains in our minds.  They literally take on the human likeness of a 6’3” tall, large frame, ominous looking and strong male who stalks us wherever we go.  He pops up at the most inopportune times and refuses to leave us, even after we have convinced ourselves for the 20^th time that hour he is a figment of our imagination and nothing is going to happen.  He has bad breath and is happy to breathe on us any time we feel we are losing control of our present circumstances.  Thus if life begins to squeeze us emotionally through work, home life or friends, here comes fear to keep us company through that by giving us something else to worry over instead of the real issues at hand.

He makes us anxious.  He makes us get up, go to the cabinets and eat like there is no tomorrow.   He can tell us to take a not-so-good ergogenic aid because without it we will never get to where we want.  He’ll talk all day long if we let him—and we do!  We argue with him, reason with him and even shout at him if we’re alone.  He is in full control and we are at his mercy when he strikes because we 1) want to deny that he is real and 2) do not recognize the behaviors that he brings out in us because we keep denying he is real.  More than anything you must acknowledge his presence to get rid of him or he just keeps sitting at the dinner table in your mind feasting on your sanity.

I’m not even going to try to address conquering fear here and for the most part of this series I have only pointed out emotions and actions without going into how to get over them.  This is mainly because it is not that simple to “fix” and this post is already longer than the line of traffic at a cheap gas station without adding that in.  I promise I will get there.  We have much to cover in the coming months and I think it best to get your mind percolating first.

Tomorrow I will wrap this series up by giving you the last two weeks of the diet.  It may interest you to know that we do not make it to goal the way we want and so I will cover what to do when that happens, as well.  This has been a great series and I really appreciate all the emails and comments.  Keep ‘em coming! Woop woop!

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When Jodi asked me to write this post, at first I was annoyed.  I am in the middle of a very hectic time at work and putting an emotion-filled posted together was not something I wanted to do.  However, after a 12+ hour day, the thought of getting some non-work related stuff down on paper sounds pretty nice.

 It was 5 or 6 years ago when I met Jodi and she prepared me for my first physique-related show.  My first show was figure and soon thereafter I was bit by the fitness bug and competed in fitness for another 4 years.  There are a lot of experiences that stay with me from that time, good and bad, but one that has had a continuous impact was the experience of getting lean and then going into an off-season. 

 This was the first time I had ever dieted for anything.  I was diligent, tracked every macro, never missed a workout, I thought that if I inhaled around a piece of cake, I was going to ruin my diet – and boy did it pay off.  That first show season was unbelievable.  The feeling of being lean was amazing. 

 Then the first off-season comes along.  No matter what you do, the leanness does not stick around.  Even if you maintain the same weight, simply changing up your diet or backing off of psychotic training will smooth you out. 

 That feeling, knowing how lean I had been and that I was no longer, was a hard pill to swallow.  The next show season came around and I was chomping at the bit to diet down again – lean out.  But to put this in perspective for you, we are only talking about 4 lbs max.  Yet to me, it felt like the world.

 If I am completely honest, fear crept in.  The fear that I wouldn’t be able to do it again – diet down and get as lean.  It is the same fear I felt when I injured my back, fear that I would never be able to train the way I had.  The same fear I feel now that for the first time in my life, I have sever dry-eye and have been unable to wear my contacts; fear that I will forever be wearing glasses.  And the same fear I had as a child when I broke out with acne, fear that my face would never clear up again. 

 It was all the same, only this time, the fear was that I would never reach a state of leanness that really was never real to begin with. 

 Now, my story revolves around the level of leanness I achieved while competing.  However, it could have just as easily been through dieting for a friend’s wedding, training for an iron-man, or setting a goal to lose weight and get in shape.  No matter what the goal is, especially when it comes to our physical bodies, we tend to see some extreme; if we are lucky we reach a point where we are happy, but a place that is not sustainable, and then either become paralyzed in fear that we will never reach that place again, or try forever to get back there.  (How’s that for a run-on sentence – ha).  Half the time we never achieve the unrealistic goal we set out for ourselves, don’t enjoy where we are in life, but then crave to get back there when the alternative seems worse. 

 Have I made you depressed yet?  Well, if I have, that was not my intention.  I really don’t know if this post has headed in the direction Jodi expected it to when she asked me to write about the experience of getting lean – what happens when you return from that state of leanness – and then try to get it back – but this post is working for me so I’m going to roll with it. 

 You’ve bitten off a lot when you set out with a physique goal in mind.  The mental games are enough to take even the strongest women out.  It can be an ugly place to be, it surely humbles you, but it is also a place you can learn from – I know I sure did.

Today is my youngest child’s birthday; he is officially 5 years old. Honestly, time flies when you spend the majority of your days telling your kids to shut the front door (do they honestly think we live in a barn?), stop sitting on the couch that way (Would you do that at your friend’s house? Then don’t do it here.) and to eat what’s in front of them (I’m sorry…it doesn’t say IHOP on the front door. You’ll eat what we serve.). I love my babies—I still call them babies but they are 12, 10 and 5—because they keep me close to my younger days. Not in terms of mentality, although if you want a sight, watch a grown woman have a temper tantrum like she’s 5 year old…no shame here, but in terms of spirit. Hanging out with them reminds me of the times when I didn’t have to care about the horrible things that happen in this world. I can forget about my mortgage, my responsibilities (aside from cleaning my room), the burdens of life, eating right and exercising… Did I say that?

Come on! You know your mind started to drift and you thought of that for a moment. If you didn’t think that you at least thought: I was in shape back then and I didn’t have to think about it. Either one but the theme is the same: it was way easier then to be in shape when we were kids than it is now and it was a whole lot more fun. Remember we ran for the sake of running…in flats…hair all done up…going to someone’s house to put on make up that we had no business putting on…in the rain…and we didn’t care. I can’t be the only one. Remember we walked in a pack—a respectful pack because we got out of the street when a car came…ugh!—EVERYWHERE we went. I mean everywhere. We logged more miles than the first 100 runners across the Boston Marathon finish line. We were in shape. Not because we tried, but because we had to be! Even the most unfit kid was fit in today’s standards. It was ok to be athletic and to be honest, in my neighborhood, it was expected.

And then what happened? We grew up. We became responsible adults who write 4 page to do lists, who schedule loving the family in between picking up the dry cleaning and scrubbing the toilets and who drive around the gym parking lot looking for a spot closest to the door! We taxi little ones to play dates and older ones to basketball practice and then sit in the car writing out invitations to another’s one birthday party. We live at the mall and text happy birthday to our siblings because we’re not sure if we’ll have time to call. At some point we became…old. Not in body, but in mind. But that feeling of being old only lasted a short time for some of you right? One day you woke up and you thought 2 things: I want my body back (or I refuse to let my body go) and I couldn’t get on the elliptical again if you paid me $1000. Off to Bob’s Stores you go to buy a bargain priced, sensible pair of running sneakers while looking up Model Per4mance on your Blackberry. You go, girl!

Let’s face a fact and this is a hard one for some of you: If you workout then you’re an athlete. If you sweat—and not at 2 in the morning when you rip off all the covers and freeze your husband/mate/pet into oblivion—I mean when working out, you are an athlete. And if you run/jump/hop/bend/lift, etc or even skip out on lunch with your girlfriend…you are an athlete. This is a huge admission whether you realize it or not, mainly because how you diet and/or lose weight is going to be different than the way you would if you didn’t.

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard someone say, “I am going to start running to lose weight.” And normally when I meet these people who say this, who are willing to get up and go out of the house to anywhere in the world faster than if they just walked, they also care about *what* there bodies look like when they are done running. Who wants to do all that work and still have their backside dragging behind them? Amen? The largest growing market in the past 10 years has been the 5k and 10k market and the biggest chunk of that growth is women. Why? To lose weight. But I bet many of you have found out how untrue that can be. The more you run the less weight you lose and the more hungry you become. So your traditional diet mixed with running can be a disaster of epic proportions and to the tune of eight plus pounds per event! Holy moly!
But what if you’re not a runner but a skier? Or a once-a-week hockey player/soccer/player and so on? Your performance is directly tied to what you do eating-wise Monday through Friday. Even if you are not competing in your sport, just playing, you could be jeopardizing your metabolism just from trying to burn the candle on both ends. But do you really need to eat as if you’re about to be drafted into the MLS or an Olympian preparing for the trials? Who represents you ladies in the work force? Who’s providing you with athletic assistance without charging you the Lance Armstrong rate? Girl, you and I both know that you want to take your sport seriously but not to the point where it impedes your lifestyle. You’re busy; you have things to do and they important in your life, but you still need to represent on game day. You know what I’m sayin’.

And I am forgetting the most important thing of all: fun. It has to be fun. When’s the last time you could say your workout was fun? You know…creative without embarrassing you. Interesting without confusing you. Challenging without killing you? Right now you are piecing together workouts like a quilting club in November. A little lifting here, a lot of running here, no stretching there… Doesn’t sound too successful when it’s presented that way so can we all agree that we need something more than the free sites that give us lots of info but no way to put it together for ourselves?

www.modelper4mance.com

Now before you race over there and start clicking away, what we offer is not on the site yet. Yes. I am ashamed to type that. In fact, my embarrassment is going to be your gain because I will make it up to you when the page goes live but in the mean time, here it is in a nutshell:

Running, skiing, playing recreational fill-in-the-blank or a weekend warrior?
We have programs that are as low as $67 down and $39 per month, you can cancel at any time and they include everything under the sun: nutrition, training, cardio, supplementation and stretching and are customized to you. Everything is done for you so all you have to do is make it happen.

Have an actual event planned? Maybe a 5k, 10k or ½ marathon? A tennis tournament? Crossfit Throwdown?
We have plans that count you down to the event (for running we will include the race plan, as well) and fully customized ones that tailor to your every need. These begin at the same price range as above but come may come with time constraints.

Each plan, no matter which you choose, has their training updated monthly and all else when necessary.

We are very unique in that we can customize the package to your needs but are speedy enough to get you up and going almost immediately.

We also care. We can’t help it—we’re women. And softies at that. You, the person, are our first thought and your satisfaction is our first priority. We are consumers just like you. We are moms/entrepreneurs/professionals/girlfriends and so on just like you. We are not some huge site where you are not sure who wrote the plan and no one can answer your question nor are we some rogue trainer that just cropped up with a site last week. If you’re struggling…we’ll call you. If you fall off the wagon…we’ll run you over with it and snap you back in shape. It’s all about you.

If you can’t wait for the page to go live—and honestly I cannot blame you—hit us up at info@modelper4mance.com and I will tell you all about what we offer and how much it costs. If you can wait, though, God bless you because I have as much patience as an empty hospital, then stay tuned because we’re in production now of changing the site over and all of this in its full glory will be there soon enough.

As always, it’s been my pleasure to serve you. Tomorrow I will tell you all about you hot mamas who just like to be hot for the sake of being hot. Woop woop!!

Oh boy.

Did you go crazy last week and exceed your sanity limit?

I don’t mean this in just food either. I mean everything. Did you shop too much? Drink too much? Do too much? Was it just a ‘too much’ time for you? Were you always on the go?

Now for the most part, I am sure you tried to keep it clean with food while your ran around like a chicken with your head cut off. And in those moments of trying to be good, you may have been tempted to turn to a protein bar or two.

Stop.

Don’t do it.

Although convenient, if your desire is to look good naked then they are not an option for you. If your desire is to reap the benefits of all that you sow, then they are still not an option for you. If you want to tighten a little bit here, lift that somewhat up here or eliminate this thing over here then they are definitely not an option for you.

Fake foods (bars and powders), as I describe them, do not make a beautiful body. Food makes a beautiful body. And although you will be tempted to rely upon them in busy times, try not to make that a habit.

Now out of the two evils, powders are the much lesser of them both. They have plenty of worth post workout and really can get you out of a pinch (if you said to me it’s either a shake or a trip to the drive thru, I’m going to tell you to make sure you lick the shaker bottle, lol)—it’s more bars that I am referring to. Those delicious fake candy bars that have more junk in them than my hair after two weeks of not washing it. Side note: Was that too much info right there? Did that make you sick? Sorry about that—try to remove the image and move on.;) But honestly, do me the favor and read the label of those things. Tell me what you can pronounce. If that was packaged food you would never eat that. So why is it acceptable as a bar? It’s not! You have somehow told yourself it was because you can rationalize it more than a Snickers bar.

So now I know what you are going to say, “What can I have then when I am crazy and running around and I have no time to eat?” Lots of things! You can make your own bars:

Home-made Protein Bars

4 scoops chocolate whey protein powder

2 cups Quaker Oats (old fashioned or quick)

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup Whole Foods natural peanut butter

3/4 cup water

For top: 1/4 cup Whole Foods Honey Roasted natural peanut butter

Mix all ingredients in bowl (except for the honey roasted pb, that is spread on top). Spread mixture evenly into square pan lined with aluminum foil or wax paper. Spread thin layer of honey roasted pb over top.

Put in freezer for 30 minutes and then cut into eight bars.

Calories = 300; Fat = 16; Protein = 18; Carbs = 24; Fiber = 4

Got this recipe from a favorite lady of mine!

Or you can have a myriad of things that are convenient to carry in your purse (nuts, dried fruit, fruit, tuna packets and etc.) including a shake. Whatever you choose, just make sure it is not taking away from all the hard work you are putting in right now. It’s hard enough to stay on track during the holidays, why make it harder with bars?

It’s the fall right now but winter is around the corner in New England.  We will go from balmy and 70 degrees one day to dry and 30 degrees the next.  When that happens, the first thing on your body to “complain” is your skin.

I’m going to let you in on a secret:  my skin is a source of stress for me.  There is very little in my life that bothers me quite like my skin does.  Now you know I am going to tell you it is all my fault—because I am my own worst enemy.  So I am a sun lover for sure!  Nothing I love more than lying out in the sun…in Aruba…on the equator…with oil on me…and a meat thermometer to make sure I’m not overcooked. Hehe.

Yeah, I know, read me the riot act.  But I am now paying for my over indulgence of the big fireball in the sky with age spots.  Now truth be told, it could be worse.  I could have a whole host of things cropping up left and right for as much as I abused the gift of the sun, but I do not because of my insatiable love of omega 3 fatty acids.  Besides keeping my wrinkles at bay and smoothing out the texture of my skin, EFAs provide the structure necessary for skin with “snap”.  You know, non saggy skin.  So let’s get right into it and talk about what you might be going through this winter:

Dry skin:

Ignoring the fact that you want to shower with molten lava and wash your skin with heavily perfumed soap, you may find that no matter what you do you cannot rid yourself of dry skin.  The first place to look is your diet.  Are you hydrated and are you eating fats?  You want to have at least ¾ of a gallon of water per day and at least 3 to 5 servings of a good omega 3 rich fat source preferably in the form of an oil.  A long time ago I was told by a well known naturopath that you should have as much oil as you can tolerate that leaves your skin moistened after coming out of the shower.  I can tell you right now, none of y’all will try that, so let me ease your burden a bit with this recommendation:  if one serving of good fat per day does not help, add a ½ serving per day until it does.  Give it as much as a week to kick in before going up in the fat and cut a little bit of something else out during the day to make up for the extra cals.

Greasy skin:

You have a sweet tooth, girl.  Knock it off.  Too much sugar and fat helps the body to form a layer on the skin that is shiny.  If you replace those sweets with EFAs, you will fair much better.  Feel free to share those sweets with the rest of us so we may help you to move on from your bad habit.  Hopefully it was brownies you were eating…I’m just sayin.

Bumpy skin:

Increase the amount of orange foods in your diet (Vit A) and ease off the dairy a bit.  These occur more as an allergy to a food and typically dairy is the chief offender.  I know you love your greek yogurt, but 2 in a day is a bit much.  Let’s diversify a bit, shall we?

Acne prone skin:

Just like the greasy skin, walk away from the processed fats and the refined sugar.  They are killing you.  A clean diet with adequate hydration should begin to give you some relief although it is not always the full answer.  Also, a vitamin deficiency will also cause your acne to come out more and you know how I feel about vitamins so this should already be handled! [giving you a hairy eyeball]  If you are an athlete, or as active as one, you will not get all that you need from food alone and then your body begins to give you a hard time.  Listen to it when it talks to you, it knows more than you do.;o)

Nutritionally there is more to it than just EFAs if you want to survive a rough winter.  Vitamin E, Vitamin C, zinc, Vitamin A and selenium all aid in keeping your skin soft and healthy and are abundant in a clean, varied diet.  If you can venture out of your zone and eat more than just the same two veggies and one fruit that you eat every day, you should be well ahead of the game.  Another thing to note is, all those vitamins and minerals also do well for you topically.  So if you can find a good moisturizer with any of those added, grab it.  The more back up you can provide your skin with, the better.

I love this time of the year for one thing and one thing only: Squashes!!

Now let me prep you first by saying, “I have zero recipes!” But my girl Joanna from Fitness and Spice has plenty so go check her site out. In the mean time, I just want to take 2 min. to talk about how divine these veggies are when they are used as a starch and how underrated they are in your diet.

First, I am really referring to winter squashes (acorn, butternut, pumpkin and spaghetti) not summer (zucchini, summer, pattypan) squashes. Being of many colors and depending on the variety, they are chock full of vitamins and rich in fiber and oh so yummy! Butternut squash is my favorite and it blows the roof off of Vitamin A content and beta-carotene content. It is smooth on the palette and divine when roasted. But the most important of all is it provides a nice energy boost (ST) without the worry of holding excess water.

So what does this mean? Two days out or maybe even 3 days out from an event, switch your oatmeal, bread, rice and etc. for a nice squash. You’ll still be getting all of the carbohydrate you need, but you will be avoiding all the water gain that comes from the traditional starch servings.

Think about the fun you can have with these guys. Roasted butternut squash, baked acorn squash, spaghetti squash and etc. all sound outrageously yummy and are very easy to prepare! Each one also contains much less starch in one cup than what sweet potato has in a ½ cup. All of this yummyness without the subcutaneous water retention or any unsightly bloat…NICE!

So go buy a gourd and then head on over to Joanna’s site so you know how to cook these marvels! YUM!:o)

We had so much fun didn’t we?  We would hang out and be care free.  Ahhh, the days.

We would get up and just go run down the street to our girlfriend’s house for the heck sake of it.  No, not walk—run…like a bat out of hell!…in shoes…from Coquettes…LOL!! 

Life was spontaneous.  We were spontaneous.  We were in constant movement.  Never ever sat down. 

Being young was a gift that was taken so much for granted.  Not thinking too much about the next day because we couldn’t stop laughing that day.  Everything was fun, carefree and active.  Vibrant.

Remember when we just ate?  We didn’t care what we ate every day.  Uncomplicated.  Back then processed food just wasn’t an issue.  We didn’t think twice about it.  Food was on the table every day freshly cooked and healthy.  We had a great childhood like that. 

Unassuming.

The goal of every day was to top the joy of the day before.  Sure we had bad times here and there (Hawaii, July ’81) but they lasted only as long as the event.  Right after that we were back to loving life.

No post workout shakes.  No amazing glute exercises, our butt cheeks already sat on our necks they were so tight!  No worries about mixing foods, eating bad fats, varying cardio, making a PR, scale weight, skinny jeans and the like!  It was just us with our endless love of activity (we didn’t call it exercise because we LOVED to do it incessantly) and our healthy relationship with food—all day long.  

Our youth seemed endless. 

Where did time go?  Not sure how much we can reverse… L

It was amazing to have that time with you.  I am sure we can get it back if we just try. 

I really miss you, Jodi…

With all my love,

Your Alter Ego

P.S.  Can you relate to the message behind this post?  Not all of that pertains to me as I am sure the same for you but the essence is there.  Tell me what you miss about you.  Do you remember when?   And can you bring it back?  I am close to finding that woman again.  She is in there peeking her little head out.  And every so often I find myself skipping for no reason or playing tag with my kids (Who cheat btw, haha!) and think, “this is the life!”  Drop some of what is weighing you down today and find her/him.  And when you find them, hug them tight because they have missed you dearly!

It is a rarity nowadays to speak to any woman who isn’t on some sort of diet.  Low carb, no carb, South Beach, cookie, Blood Type—you name it, they’re on it!  There is no shortage of deprivation and suffering amongst us women!  But there is a very serious shortage of information out there of how to diet to be beautiful.  Face it, when you get to the end of your diet, don’t you want to look good, too?

I have dieted many women in my short 15 year career.  I honestly can put that number in the thousands and still be very accurate.   Over the years I have seen more and more of a sense of desperation among woman:  an “At all cost” approach to dieting.  It really disturbs me simply because when you get to that stage your sense of judgment goes out the window.  When did this become so prevalent?

I don’t know about you but when I reach my diet destination, not only do I want to be the size I desire to be, but I also want to be healthy and beautiful at the same time.  Dieting, however, is not very healthy and you are lucky if you come out of it without a major case of wrinkles, loose skin and brittle hair–or even worse, hormone issues.   What’s missing in our diet adventures that causes us to look like a vagabond when we declare “scale victory”?  I would have to say attention to detail.

The foods you choose (or do not choose) can have more of an impact on your diet experience than the actual diet itself.  I hear so many people going back and forth over carbohydrates and whether they should have grains vs. potatoes but that has so little to do with you looking hot at the end.  And let’s be honest here, how many women really want to suffer through a diet only to come out haggard and beastly?  Why bother?  I would much rather be fat, happy and gorgeous then skinny, deprived and wretched!  Heck—if that was my only choice I would say bring on the Krispy Kreme!  Hair must be shiny, skin has to be dewy, nails long and healthy—and my cycle better be regular! 

I will be talking about this A LOT!  So many foods to cover, so many diets to pick apart…all with one thing in common:  beauty!  You need to look good mama!  And looking good is not about facial features or the prettiest girl in the classroom.  Beauty is about health—inside and out.  Hormones that work properly so that your hair, skin and nails shine;  healthy teeth and bones so they last a long time; make up that compliments your skin and preserves the environment.   Ladies, it’s time to get fit AND gorgeous!!  WOOP WOOP!