Competitions and goals

After competing in Malaga in April, placing second in my category, the real goal was last weekend at the Andalusian Championships in El Coronil near Seville.

After I had entered my first competition in May 2015, I was determined to improve my flaws  and come back even better. It has never been so much about winning against the others, (even though a medal is always nice of course) but it has been a competition against myself. At 40, my goal is not to make a living of fitness competitions, then I would have  started much younger. I enjoy perfecting my body to what I want my body to look like. It is a fine line between muscles and toning mixed together with my femininity. I love looking like a woman and therefore I don’t necessarily want to gain too much muscles on my back and arms while I want a bigger butt and a flat, lean stomach for example. I have easy to gain muscles on my upper body while my legs have taken me a lot of hard work. I try to purely maintain my upper body while I have been training legs 3 days a week, heavy weight and so much glue exercises to grow the butt I think is perfect. It is a great satisfaction to both feel and see the result of all my hard work.

In El Coronil, I feel I was at my absolute best form so far and I aimed at just that. Be the best of what I can be.

So what next? Well, my fitness future is to stay healthy and happy, to enjoy my daily gym routine and improve some things and maintaining some. To feel great is the biggest goal of them all ❤

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Peak week prep

Above with my friend Peet, measuring my body fat this Friday. I was then on 5 mm fat on my belly.

Now I have just entered the final week of preparation for competition this Saturday. Peak week is hard both mentally and physically but the knowledge of pizza or a huge steak with fries and bearnaise sauce Saturday after the competition keeps me going 🙂

I have had a few questions about what I eat while prepping for competition, so I will write a bit about it. I want to say that I am no professional in this field but I am using advise from professionals along with what I see works on my body. Many things can be right so it is also about learning what works for each individual.

This time round I have not been as low on calories as previously and I have not done any cardio either. I wanted to keep a bit more “fat” on me for peak week. Week 6 down to week 2, I have been eating

• Breakfast: 4 scrambled egg whites, 60 gr oats in water with a kiwi
• Snack 1: 25 gr of almonds and 70 gr tin tuna or a Quest protein bar
• Lunch: 80 gr basmati rice or sweet potato with 80 gr chicken or fish
• Snack 2: 25 gr of almonds and 70 gr tin tuna
• Dinner: salad of lettuce, cucumber and red or yellow pepper with 120 gr chicken or fish (I don’t eat tomatoes or carrots as they contain lots of sugar)

Saturday cheat day. I don’t go crazy but a bag of Swedish candy and a pizza for example. This past weekend, being the last one before competition, I had no cheat day allowed.

Now peak week is a whole different story. This Monday-Thursday I am cutting all carbs from my diet and only eating protein, this to remove the last body fat. So…

• Breakfast: 4 scrambled egg whites (and a spoon of peanut butter yeeeeey, happy days )
• Then the rest of the day I eat purely tuna or chicken with nothing else. The snack meals 70 gr, lunch 100 gr and dinner another 100 gr and one more spoon of peanut butter with lunch!

On Friday I start eating carbs again (carb loading) to give the muscles a fuller look for competition Saturday. I will stick to basmati rice or oats as my carb source since they work well with my stomach. Also, the last night before competition I have a pack of crispy bacon with dinner and instead of chicken or fish a 120 gr low fat steak. This again to feed the muscles for stage.

This last week is also time to water load. This means that I am drinking 6 litres of water today Monday, 5 litres tomorrow and Wednesday, then by Thursday I cut water down to only 0.5 litres and Friday also 0.5 litres but only up until lunch. After that no more water until after competition Saturday afternoon. You may wonder why we do this… Reason is simple. When your body is empty of water the muscles show better and you get a leaner look. If you give your body overload of water for a few days and then cut it, the effect will be even bigger as the body has got used to all the water coming in so it stops retaining any liquid and suddenly the water intake stops. This helps create the “dry” look, we want for stage.

I know this is probably a lot of information to take in if you are not in the fitness game so please, feel free to ask me any questions. There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers 🙂

Now it is bed time for me, as when on no carbs, I get a head ache and feel very tired…good night xxxxx

 

 

 

Pose training

First week of serious diet has passed by very fast. I am lucky having a fast metabolism so as soon as I cut the fat out, my abs start showing through. I need to stay very vigilant as I don’t want to get too lean either. I can easy be stage ready a week or two to soon and that is not good at all. Last competitions I was way to dry with only 4 mm fat on my belly. I want to get down to 6 mm this time to not have my veins popping.

This weekend I have spent both Saturday and Sunday pose practising. As everywhere in life, first impression is very important. The first step up on that stage is everything. The posing is not at all as easy at it looks. Believe me. It takes hours and hours of hard work to get it right. Hit every pose and wait a few seconds, fast is not good. Bum out, belly in, no breathing, big relaxed smile at all times and a nice flow between the pose changes. It need to look completely effortless. I watch many youtube videos from the big IFBB (International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness) championships over and over again. Then I adapt my ‘favourites’ poses to make them match me and my personality. After that it is just to do them over and over… and over again until you can hit those poses sleep walking. My main issue is the relaxed smiling while holding my stomach in and not breathing more than through my nose in tiny sips haha. Give it a try and you see just how easy that is lol.

And the hands, another important part. Hands that are placed wrong will cover muscles and ruin the whole pose. Also hands that are very tense and in awkward angles will take the focus off the body. Relaxed hands that follow the body flow is what I want to achieve. They tend to tense by accident when I can’t breathe properly haha. Everything is so damn syncronised that your mind does things automatically. I am working on breaking those patterns. And I will improve since last competition. That is what it is all about! Practise makes perfect ,-)

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Good bye candy

So this week I have been clearing out my drawers of any hidden candy or chocolate. Finishing off the strawberries and raspberries in the fridge and emptying the last of my elderflower lemonade mix. Last week the cheeses, sauces and milk went. I am now 8 weeks out and that means serious changes to my diet. My only fat source will be almonds and the odd spoon of peanut butter. I will also remove all fruits apart from kiwi and any vegetables that contains a lot of sugar, like tomatoes and carrots. My main protein source will be chicken, salmon and tuna and of course my egg whites for breakfast. White fish is good but unfortunately I am allergic to it. Red meat I will eat occasionally. No pork meat but I never eat pork so that is nothing new.  I love salt so I use Himalayan pink salt because it doesn’t retain liquid the same way as normal salt. But I guess in a few weeks that has to go too. The scales will come out tomorrow as I start weighing my food.

The question I often get is…Is it hard? Difficult question to answer. It is like a mindset for me. I don’t give myself any option. I just decide and get on with it. Its like fuelling a car. What I find most difficult is to keep the balance for the coming 8 weeks. Eat just right. If I eat to little I will be too lean and may lose muscles. All fitness athletes worst night mare is to peak early and get deflated for competition day. I have worked so hard on improving from my last competition season and I am not prepared to lose those leg muscles by cutting my food short during prep. It will be a few interesting weeks ahead. Thankfully I have been through this before so I hope to improve on previous mistakes  and I also know how my body respond to the dieting. Determination mode is on.

Healthy hair is also important

Many girls these days wear hair extensions and about 2 years ago I wanted to put some in. My hair dresser told me a big NO and also one of my closest friends, after her own bad experience. I was told that all “permanent” extensions will damage your hair badly. Some less then others but they will all eventually leave you with very little hair of your own, creating a viscous circle of more and more extensions and less and less natural hair. So I decided against permanent extensions. My natural hair may not be crazy thick and reaching down to my butt, but believe me, few girls have natural hair like that. It is extensions most of the time. So after being scared off from that, I started looking into other options to keep a healthy and shiny hair and get it to grow a bit longer than it used to be. I came up with two things:

I use Olaplex treatment in my hair each time I have my high lights and low lights done. Olaplex reconnects the broken sulfur bonds the hair. It is called a bond multiplier which basically limits any damage to your hair when coloring or high/low lighting your hair. It is absolutely fantastic and my hair is so shiny and soft since I started using it. Reflections Hair salon at Centro Plaza work with Olaplex treaments for those of you who would like to try it. My second secret is a natural complex I eat as part of my daily routine. It is called Nourkrin and is made in Denmark. It contains a type of fish extract called Marilex that after clinical studies has shown to have fantastic effects on hair growth and general maintenance.

My hair has improved so much over the past 2 years. After my first competition diet my hair got very damaged in the process and it is now fully recovered.

 

Don´t stay in your comfort zone

Last weekend I went to the UK for some me time. Of course there was no way I could stay away from the gym 😉 Luckily my friend over there is a big gym fan too. He pushed me so hard:-) It was great!! I was completely wrecked haha. Not only did I learn some new things but most of all I realized that this last year I have been training within my personal comfort zone. I have honestly thought that I am training like a beast and can´t do more when in reality I CAN DO SO MUCH MORE. It´s funny how we can block ourselves mentally thinking we can´t do something. This weekend I was pushed out of that comfort zone and gained new confidence and motivation. I have now been back home for 3 days and every morning this week, I have upped the weights on every single exercise! How about that??!!

So my tip for this week is to get someone to push you out of your normal routine and try some new exercises and give you the balls to put more weights on. It´s not only good for the muscles but more than anything for our head!! Feels awesome 🙂

Below is my Sunday back routine that I can still feel today! And another video showing a different way training those important hamstrings!

 

 

 

 

Marbella beach power walks

Apart from eating loads of Christmas food, we have had time for some beautiful morning power walks along the promenade between Puerto Banus and Marbella and also to San Pedro. It is the best way to start the morning. It is so peaceful and the sunrise over the Mediterranean is mesmerizing. We get time for some girls talk while burning off the Christmas food and there are so many fitness exercises that can be done along the way. The best cardio for fat burning is to power walk. It is much better than running! Once warmed up by with the power walk and fresh mind, I continue to Panatta Gym for my daily gym routine. It has been a lovely 2 weeks of holiday with family and sporting activities to enjoy! Today I am back at work again, hungry to sell some properties:-) but I will keep my beach walks to my weekend activities 🙂

 

Marbella Christmas

Hi! I hope you have had a great Christmas! I have my dad here and he will stay over New Year too. It makes me very happy. One of the down sides living in Marbella, or the only down side really, is that my family is so far away. I miss just getting in the car and pop over to my mum or my sister for a coffee and chat. Easy to take such things for granted. Luckily they come and visit me quite often though:-) This week I am off from Nordica to spend some time with dad but I have so much with the gym and my personal training clients that I will be very busy anyway. No rest for the wicked haha. I am just setting up my own youtube channel where you will be able to follow my workout videos and also some of the training of my PT-clients. I hope that will give you some more motivation to get in shape for 2017. So stay tuned, I should have it up by the end of this week! Now I am off to the gym to train shoulders and triceps. 😉 x

 

 

 

 

 

My best hamstings exercises

Hamstrings

Hi there! Today I have a day off work so I went a bit later to the gym for a change. Later to the gym means more people haha…for good and bad. Today was good because I bumped into my best friend Roslin and she joined me for a killer hamstrings work out 🙂 Hamstrings is so nice on women, that little curve on the back of you upper leg really makes a difference. A year ago I didn’t have any but with hard work it gets done. Here is a video of my favorite exercises to get there:

Have a great day xxx

 

X-Force gym, come to Marbella!

During my Stockholm visit, I went training at X-Force in Vasastan. As I had been once before last year, I kind of knew what was waiting me, but I still got surprised when I ended up with muscle ache for almost 4 days afterwards. Especially my abs where in bits lol.

The difference from the gyms we are used to is that their machines are built to increase the negative strain on the return movement. Sounds odd, yes, but it actually make sense. Basically the  difference when training at X-Force is that you feel the weight resistance mainly when you go back as 40% more weights are added on, and you need to make the return movement very slow. Activating our negative muscle power for 5 seconds during this return movement gives such a big difference in result that you need only a one day work out/week to achieve the same results as from a traditional gym work out. Good eh?!! I absolutely loved it and just wish they will open a franchise here in Marbella soon:-)