Frantic Goal Crushers Nutrition Challenge

I have been managed by a handful of counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrist, GP’s, nutritionists, dieticians and holistic health medicine professionals in the past 7 years. About three weeks before the Frantic Goal Crushers Nutrition Challenge was due to start, I had fallen into a bit of a rut with overcoming the eating disorder I had been battling for the past 7 years. I had seen the Challenge, read to posts and considered it for a few minutes, before thinking it was going to be too much for me to deal with for where I was mentally at that point of time.

Three days before the start of the challenge I got a message from my training partner who had just realised how far I had fallen.

She promised to do it with me and to help me through it where I needed her. She would check in with me daily to make sure I had met the marcos for the day, she talked and coaxed me into eating dinner while crying for the first three weeks almost every night. She made a deal with me, knowing that meeting the numbers 100% every day for 8 weeks was probably a bit of a big ask for the state I was currently, so if I managed to get myself there on 50/56 days in the 8 weeks, I could buy a pair of Oly’s (crossfit shoes). Nothing like a bit of external motivation to sweeten the deal. The truth is I’m a big girl and really I could buy the Oly’s if I wanted to, but it so much better when you work hard to earn something rather then just buy it straight out.

I had different people in my crowd of health professionals telling me to do different things – this is too much for you to handle at once – you shouldn’t be traumatised to the state of panic and tears trying to get food in. I had others telling me what have you got to lose? If you can push yourself through this for 8 weeks and it doesn’t work for you, you have only lost 8 weeks and you can go back to the way you were surviving after, but to forgo the control I had been so adamant about to someone else’s plan 100%.

Week three was the tough one. Carb’s were continuing to go up and I was going interstate for 4 days. As a part of the issues I have with food, one big one is eating in front of other people. So I was travelling with a group of 7 who were spending every waking moment together for 4 days….this meant breakfast lunch and dinner. My goal going into those four days were less about meeting my marco goal for the day, and just physically being able to eat in front of the people I was with. So as a result I got 4 ‘red days’ as in days I didn’t meet my macro goal because I was just trying to get anything in, even if it was just lettuce. I came home and had to try and get back into the challenge again which was when I almost said it was too much.

My training partner talked me into keep trying, take it one day at a time and got me back on track. A couple of people knew what I was trying to achieve and I got some pretty awesome messages of support throughout the 8 weeks which reminded me, even on the days when I just didn’t think I could do it, to keep pushing and it would be worth it, that my life in the end, is worth it.

This week was the last of the challenge, and as per the start, we had to scan back in…because you can say you’ve done all the right things, but really it’s the scan that doesn’t lie. For me it wasn’t the result of the scan that I was doing it for. I was doing it to try and re-wire my brain to know that it I ok to eat and just how much I do have to eat of maintain the life I live, in a healthy way. Any changes to my body composition would be a bonus. In saying that throughout the past 8 weeks I have lost 3kg in body fat which resulted in a 4% drop in my body fat percentage as well as putting on 0.8kg of lean muscle mass. I knew that seeing the scan result was going to be hard because it just reinforced how screwed up (in the nicest possible way) my perception is in regards to all that stuff. But I need to treat it as a reminder that what I am doing is in my health’s best interest, that an active body like mine does actually require a hell of a lot of food to fuel what I put it through each day. I am unbelievably thankful to my coach – for his incredible support throughout this past 8 weeks and in the ongoing battle that I have to come and for putting the challenge to his members to educate them so well. I am also more than thankful to my training partner, who without her desperate plea for me to try, not much would have changed in the past 8 weeks I would still be in the same rut, barely surviving.

Learning From Those Who Have Succeeded

It is no secret that when it comes to running a business, I am totally clueless. Completely and utterly. Had you have asked me only 6 months ago if I wanted to run my own business, any type of business, it would have been a flat out, straight HELL NO! it just all seemed to complicated, risky and hard for my small little head to handle. 6 months later, here I am - going into running a business with 3 friends...how did that happen?

So when it comes to running a successful business I wouldn't even know where to begin! So I decided to go and learn from those who had done it, done it very well and are considered to be some of the best entrepreneurs in the country (I think it took me all weekend to learn how to even spell entrepreneur, I consider that another success on my behalf!).

I registered for The Entourage's Unconvention. The Entourage is Australia's largest educator and community of entrepreneurs under the age of 40. It team and founding members together run some of the countries most successful businesses and want to share how best to succeed with the other entrepreneurs, giving them the very best chance to have a kick ass business too.

The Unconvention was a free convention that the members tour around the country that involves the founder of The Entourage Jack Delosa, and fellow highly successful business owners tell their story, and share their secrets with anyone willing to listen.

Like I said, business and all things behind it are completely new to me and the way these guys broke some of the lessons down into methods that even I could understand (like writing a system for example - and the purpose, need and structure of these systems) completely blew me away. I would even go as far to say that I am now excited to be in business (!?!?).

Going back to 'how did that happen' which I mentioned above, the last speaker of the day Bradley Smith, founder of Brappp had a messaged that leaped out at me more then anything I had heard throughout the day (and it had been a long day and I'd heard a lot!!) He said

'Sometimes when it's not working, it's working perfectly. Because the world is conspiring to help us'

In my current situation, this is 100% true. More on this at a later date! I can't reveal all my pearls of wisdom at once. So today I am thankful for those who are willing to share, and want others to be as successful as they are.

365

I don't know if you noticed the tag line behind my blog, but it is 365 Days of Being Thankful. I started this blog a year ago with the plan of writing one post a day, finding something I was thankful each and every day.

I started this blog because I was having some days that were totally draining, monotonous and I was really struggling to see the good in each day. So I decided to force myself to find the good. That no matter how terribly my day was going, I would make the effort to find at least one thing in that day that made me smile, made me happy and more importantly, I was thankful for. You see everyone has more in their life to be thankful for then they realise. Such as knowing that the sun is going to come up again tomorrow, having a roof over your head at night, having socks without holes in them or having friends and family around you. And this is what I wanted to find myself.

So I started out on my mission. Every day for a full year, I was to find something, anything, that I was thankful to have seen, heard or experienced in that day no matter how big or small it was. I'm not going to lie, I didn't know whether this would have been something I was going to stick with. I did start out the year by making a book out of it. I had a program on my computer and each day I would take a picture of what I was thankful for and write a quick sentence or two. And as I expected I was getting sick of it very quickly. So how could I make myself more accountable to it? Put it on the web for the world to see. And so the world has seen it (according to my stats, I'm big in Brazil...Hi Brazil!!). This meant I had to keep writing, so I did. I am thrilled to say that this is post number 365. I made it!

Confession time, I am a couple of days out. And the reason for this, is that I missed three days. I didn't get a post up on Christmas Day, on the day I competed in the Three Vs.Three Showdown and the final one was the Saturday just gone. Each of these days, the lack of post has been because I have been out all day and by the time I got home it was late and getting to bed was the only thing on my mind. It's no excuse I know, but I have made it up by going those couple of days extra to make it 365 posts.

Over this past year I have learnt more about myself then I could have ever imagined. What I value and my passions, the people around me and the influence they have in my life. I'm not going to lie since starting this blog it has been an absolute rollercoaster in terms of work, study, life, family and friends, changes, growing up and self growth. And I have documented it all here! It has been amazing to look back at. I have filtered some of my posts a little but you have seen my highs and my lows over this past year which is both scary to me and exciting. So thankyou for sharing the journey with me.

So where to now? This is where I am calling on you. I have had a lot of readers from all corners of the world (yes I can see these things) and I want to know what you think. Do you want me to keep writing, tell me what you have liked and what you haven't. Tell me what you are thankful for. I want to get more people appreciating the smaller things in life.

Tell me what you notice in your day to day life. Post below, email me do what ever you need to do but get you thoughts out there. Today I am thankful for you!

Mondays

Guilty. I use to hate Mondays. I wouldn't say that I hated my job but it definitely didn't make Mondays overly exciting. There were definitely parts of Physio that I loved! I had some awesome clients whose treatment sessions would just make my day and were so entertaining. But there were only a handful of these spread out through my week.

My current work situation is very much different to how it was a month a go. I am no longer working as a Physio due to my post surgical instructions, instead as you all probably know by know, I am co-director of Perth Fit Chix. And can I just say, I am loving this job!! There is always work to be done with this business so it's not like it really stops over the weekend, but Monday signifies the start of a new week of training with our girls, the launching of new ideas, events and posts and educating and inspiring the people of Perth.

I wake up on a Monday morning and am excited to work. Today for example I was planning an upcoming event that we are putting forward to our Fit Chix. Their first triathlon. I have spent the day coming up with training programs, advertising material and organising guest speakers. I have also trekked out to get clothes printed (which with still being unable to drive is more of a task then it seems). Today has been a productive day which I am just as thankful for as having a job that I love so much that Monday's now are just as good as Friday's.

I have always said that I don't want to work a day in my life. I am a big believer that you should love what you do. If you love what you do, you will give it 100% effort 100% of the time. Not because you have to but because you want to! Money has never been a big driver for me. Sure I want to make enough to survive my day to day life, but I am not going to spend my life doing something I hate just to make a heap of money, which in the type of work you need to make this much means you don't have the time or the lifestyle set up to enjoy it. I would rather live and love each day, then one in every five days. But that's just me.

So how was your Monday? Did you spend it doing things you loved?

New Skills

Perth FitChix today put on a Kettlebell Skills Workshop for our member and any Chix in the wider community wanting to learn some new skills or fine tune those their may already have. Our aim behind the event was to provide our members with the knowledge and capabilities of performing more then just a goblet squat or a swing with the kettlebells as they are such a versatile piece of equipment that give a whole body workout without even realising.

After a quick warm up we launched it off with Turkish Get Ups, the sequencing posed a challenge for some, but balancing the shoe on their fist as they got up was the one that got them all. Swings became second nature to them so we added in one arm, and alternating swings followed by renegade rows, into push ups and burpee dead lifts.

We went through clean, racking the bells, presses and snatches all before putting them through a final 5x5x5 workout. The workout was explained to the girls and sounded very simple. By the time their got to round three the faces on them all had changed and they realised just how brutal the bells can be. The girls who came along to the event worked hard. We threw a lot of content at them and they picked most of it up like they have been doing it for months! Can't wait to throw what they have learnt into the classes they have to come!

Veins Popping

Don't ask me why, but in the gym world for some reason prominent veins are envied. so superficial and vain (hahaha I'm good) I know but that's just the way things are. One of the girls I train with has very superficial and large diameter veins, so she gets some nice vein definition with every session. As our gym husband would say...'oh the vascularity!'.

Our other training partner is not so vein-y and her current training obsession, is biceps. That has been her goal for a few weeks now - get her biceps vein out.

This morning was the first session following surgery that I tried some left side only upper body work. Some one handed push-ups, pec fly's, biceps curls and upright rows. For me, biceps curl number two and BAM there was the vein. I couldn't help but laugh! I have done nothing with my arms in over a month and two curls in and the vein comes out.

 Maybe because it is a bit deconditioned or maybe just all the stars aligned. But had to giggle at the ease I could getting it out with after our other training partner has been trying for so long.

New Jumpers

It's official, we have jumpers!!! And I can not even explain how excited we all got by them! We have the WA Fitness Industry Convention happening in Perth this weekend, and lets just say, FitChix are going to take the expo by storm!

I am super proud to say that the FitChix family is growing massively and we are all loudly excited about what we have in store over the coming few months for our members and the wider community of Perth.

So while I am excited about a new and comfortable jumper that I am now in possession of, I am more excited about what it all represents. I truly believe that at FitChix we are onto an amazing thing that is going to inspire and empower women all over Perth, Australia and world wide about living active and positive lives and am sooooo excited to see what the future holds for us and all those involved!

Sunshine Box

I honestly have the most incredible people in my life. There's no hiding the fact that over the last week in particular I have been getting increasingly frustrated with my arm and having to rely so heavily on others to help me out with things and take me places. I normally pride myself on my independence but recently that has been taken away to some degree and I have had to get people to do things like opening sliding doors for me, carry a mat....just little things that would make others think 'oh I would like someone to open a door for me'. But when you are so dependant  on other people for these things the novelty wears off.

A group of my friends - some of whom I train, teach and work with decided that I was in need of a bit of 'sunshine'. One girl so nicely put it that I am such a sunshine person to others, that they wanted to give some back. I was teaching a class last night, which all but one were in and on its completion I was getting ready to walk home again (still not allowed to drive) when I got called back to one girls car, one was insisting she was driving me home but they were all standing around the boot of a different car. Which was when I was presented with my box.

Apparently I looked so worried that something bad was going to happen, but in the end I was completely overwhelmed and had to hold back the tears until I got home. The effort these four girls had gone to I sourcing I swear every yellow smiley thing they could find is unbelievable. I have everything form a rubber duck, to a Frisbee to a wonder woman head band and a banana (personal joke between one girl out of the four). I am still honestly in shock and awe of these amazing girls and unbelievably thankful of the thought, effort, love and care they have put in and given to me today and over the past three weeks. I am still completely lost for words!

Commitment

I am HUGE about commitment. If I have said I am going to do something I will bust my arse to make sure it is done! Whether that be run an errand for a friend, compete in a sporting event, write a program for a client or even just hang out the washing. I make my weekly plan days in advance and like to know what I've got on and when. People who know me well know I confirm plans with them well in advanced. If I have said I am gong to meet them, I am damn well going to be there.

So what drives me up the wall and really annoys me then, is people who cancel last minute! Yeah fair enough if your car broke down or your grandmother has been rushed to hospital, but if you tell me that you slept in, your hung over or some other pathetic excuse...not happy. You commit to something, you follow through, stay loyal and stay true to your word. Plain and simple.

This is something I have come across quite a lot recently when it comes to training. People often ask me how do they achieve certain fitness goals, lose weight, get some more muscle tone. It all comes down to commitment. I can tell you exactly what you need to do and how to do it, but if you don't commit to the plan and keep going even after the initial thrill and fun has worn off and things get hard. The biggest thing I want to teach people is that nothing worth having comes easy. Commitment leads to results, you get what you work for!

I like to think that I am a committed person. I commit myself to others to my training and I am working on committing to myself. It's work in progress, but I am thankful that I have a history of good commitment and I will get there!

Kettlebells

I will be honest. I was a bit sceptical about kettlebells. I didn't really fancy the idea of swinging, throwing and lifting a big round ball of metal. But I gave them a shot anyway. When I first quit swimming I had an ongoing back issue that had stemmed from when I had stress fractures through my spine and pelvis when I was 15. At the time I was required to take three months off training and was not allowed to walk for more then 10 minutes at a time. When I was finally allowed to return to sport I had some pretty massive central sensitization due to the pain I had been living with for the past 2 years. As a result of the chronic pain I also had some pretty massive imbalances, all of which took a long time to really identify.

The biggest of all my imbalances, my left glut did NOTHING! I'm saying didn't even know how to switch on. This was magnified hugely when I did quit swimming and started taking on other types of training. So I started doing some kettlebells training, which if you have never really done before, is all about using your arse! So where do I start because my arse did nothing? With dead lifts.

I did normal dead lifts, stiff leg dead lifts, single leg dead lifts, dead lifts up right rows, burpee dead lifts....I did dead lifts to the death (hahahaha I'm good!). I would throw in a few swings every now and then but because my butt was so terribly weak any more then 5 swings and my butt would give out and my back would take over. So I dead lifted for I would say a good 10 months.

In about April this year (almost one year later) I started high reps of swings....pain free!!!! yeah I still get a bit of back pain after 50 or more but that is most definitely to be expected of anyone- back injury or not. Kettlebells use a functional training method to give you a whole body, full chain workout that needs everything working with good time, control and contraction.

On a side note I am excited to say that yesterday I bought my first two kettlebells. I am thankful that I was introduced to this training technique to really help a lot of the weakness I had developed because of my injuries and can't wait to share it with more people.

Well Run Events

 This weekend I went to watch the Allstar Affiliate Series, a team Crossfit competition that is being held in the major cities around Australia. It is a team competition where teams of three chicks and three guys work together to get out reps as a team, in pairs and on their own. There were over 430 athletes competing in this weekends events over a massive two days of competing.

The organisation and conduction of this event was pretty incredible. The staff managed to put 430 people through 4 workouts a day on two consecutive days like you wouldn't believe. There was a time line posted and they stuck to it. Impeccably.

Watching an event like this one - enforces how much I respect volunteers - those who work incredibly hard to make events like this happen; and two - kills me that I cant get back to stuff this this sooner, however also makes me wayyy more determined to prove people wrong once again!

Hats off to the people at AllStar Sports Affiliate Series. You guys put on one hell of a competition.

Supporting A Cause

Supporting a good charity, helping to raise awareness about a movement or an issue I feel strongly about is something I regularly like to be involved in. The major charity I support is Telethon - a big, well known WA charity which raises money for the states children's hospital and research development institute, all aimed at helping kids with illness. There is nothing worse then a sick kid and this charity does AMAZING things!

There are a few community issues I feel quite strongly about. The publicly well known and obvious one is active living. Exercise and healthy eating of foods tat are as close as possible to their natural state is how I live my life and try to get everyone around me living theirs too. This is the stuff I live love and breathe.

The one above has been introduced to me by this friend who is actively supporting this cause for her own reasons. #screwthetaboo is a suicide prevention campaign which is encouraging people to talk about one of the biggest topics that is taboo in todays world, suicide. The leading cause of death in Australians under the age of 44.

Almost everyone has some kind of connection to this topic - friends, family, loved one or just people they know. More often then not it is brought up very quickly and being an extremely confronting, distressing and overwhelming topic of conversation, it is quickly stuffed back down again. It brought up quite a bit of emotion on my behalf also.

I am not yet in a place where I can openly discuss my experience with this subject, but I am more the thankful that people are trying to break down the taboo that is associated with suicide. If we have more people in the world not afraid to address the topic, you have no idea how much a simple conversation can literally change someone's life.

Flexibility

Haha yes, being able to do this would be nice! I have wanted to try for a long time but with my current arm situation I still have this image on stand by for when I'm game enough to try this! I am not completely talking about muscle flexibility in this post but why not start there?

I am blessed to be bendy. As I have said before. I wasn't naturally super flexible but not stiff as a board either. But what I was, was determined to get all three of my splits at around age thirteen when I was dancing. So every night after my shower while my muscles were still warm, I would hold each split for three minutes each. It worked. I got all my splits within a couple of months. And I still have reap the benefits of the huge amount of stretching I did when I was younger.

Since I stopped teaching dance last year I will admit I have lost a bit, but knew that was going to happen. Luckily I am in a profession where I know what needs to be done and do my regular mobility to keep my body in check. This allows me to get into the strange positions required for some of the workouts I do and gives my body enough elastic energy.

But lets move onto the other flexibility I have been taking about. Due to being unable to do my normal day job at the moment, most of my normal routine has gone completely out the window. I am normally an absolute stickler for routine, so this new abundance of time has definitely thrown me a little. But three weeks in, I think I have almost gotten use to it a little. I use to rush between getting one thing after another done, rapidly ticking things off my daily list that by the time I got to my surgery, after working his way for 18 months, I was exhausted.

Being forced into doing very little over the past few weeks is probably one of the best things for me physically and psychologically. Although I still tend to try and fill my day and have things planned and scheduled, the flexibility I have in my days at the moment is becoming less scary and I am learning that I don't have to plan every second of every day. It's ok to take things as they come sometimes.

This Girl

You know those people that are just fun to be around? No matter what is going on elsewhere, being around that person always, without fail makes you smile and laugh by doing nothing in particular other then just being 100% themselves. Yeah this girl is one of those ones!

She trains under FitChix and with my bootcamp. Every day without fail she arrives to training with the biggest smile on her face and almost screams hello at you. Immediately you can't help but smile back! She is also an absolute beast and when she trains she goes hard! Her pain faces are almost as entertaining as the names she has picked out for her yet to be bought pets...I'm worried what her children are going to end up with.

The other thing that has me in stitches each and every day is that she is South African. Moments of stress, or sometimes just for no reason at all she reverts to speaking Afrikaans. Some of the words she throws at us have us turning to each other with massive puzzled looks on our faces try to work out what on earth she is saying.

For example greeted a girls with 'How are you gog '. But with her pronunciation to you typical Aussie, we took this as 'How are you whore?' Needless to say, Whore is now this girls nickname amongst those in the know. And another more recent example was when she was asking a coach about how the tears on her hands were. Picture this - the coach had her back to this girl and was bending over to pull something out her bag. 'How is your Anar's?' Again, the aussie interpretation - 'How is your Anus?'. Oh wow!

The photo above was taken at FitChix last night and I'm sad to say she didn't approach with her usual bounce and smile. Turns out she was wicked sore and super tired from training last (proud coach moment) and that turned out to be almost as funny while she was training as the crazy phrases she comes up with! For example the above is her interpretation of a med ball slam - a deep squat to push the press the slam ball above your head and slam it down as hard as you can. Not for her today - pick it up nice and slow, no need to go over head and let it just roll off you hand back down! That's all.

But true to form, she still had myself, the other coach and all the FitChix laughing for 45 minutes and this is why we love her! I am thankful to have such an incredible person in my life who makes me smile and laugh whenever I am around her despite everything else that is going on!

Disney

I've written about animated movies before, and how there is nothing better then a good kids movie. I am very simple minded in this regard and if I am going to try and watch something, I am often doing it because I don't want to have to think about plots and characters and the meaning behind it all. I have a friend who is an absolute movie nut and she goes off trying to decipher the underlying plot, symbols and connotations....wayyyyy to hard for me.

I've had a bit of an average week psychologically and it's stopped me sleeping for the past few days. So I was sitting trying to get through some work yesterday and I just had nothing in me. I found myself staring at my word document with a couple of words on it for a good twenty minutes. At this stage I realised there was just no point trying to get anything done, because one my head was totally not in the game so my work was going to be well and truly sub-par which is not good for me, for my team or for our clients; and two, the more I was not getting done, the more I was getting worked up and frustrated...downwards spiral!

So I got up an left it there. I went and put my phone on charge an put it on silent, turned off my laptop and turned off my iPad. I was done. When I get wound up like this, there is something about reverting to my inner child which is comforting. Right after I'd had surgery, a friend had filled a hard drive with movies in the hope to strap me down and keep me still. She knew that I was a Disney fan, so she had put every Disney movie from the 1960's until 2008 on this hard drive and yesterday I was super thankful for that!

Hercules jumped out at me...maybe the strength I felt like I needed. And I watched it. given I got up 3 times, but it took me two hours to get through the one hour twenty seven minute movie. That was two hours that I didn't have to think or do anything in particular. Given I was still extremely tired by the end of it, but I am glad I was able to remove myself from the work and take a second for myself, which was what was going to be best for me and for the people around me that I was working with later that day and the days to come.

Pink

You can never go wrong with pink. From a very young age, pink is stereotyped with girls. Pink clothes, pink blankets, pink nappies, pink baby cutlery pink tutu's. It's girly and its cute, what every young girl should be. I was your typical pink princess growing up. All my dancing outfits were pink, pink plastic high heeled shoes, pink teddy bear...your very much stereotypical little girl.

But one day when I was probably about eleven, I suddenly hated pink. Pretty sure I went to bed one night in my pink pj's and woke up the next morning pulling them off as fast as possible. Complete one-eighty and I think I kept my mum guessing. For me it was now purple!

Glad to say my 'I Hate Pink' phase did wear off after a couple of years and I began to embrace all colours evenly. But what I do love about the colour is that it is feminine but bold, girly but it still stands out in a crowd.

Strong confident females...that's what I associate with bright pink. Which is why it is one of the colours of the Perth Fit Chix and was a good choice for my current splint. Confident, standing out from the crowd, bold but still girly. You can never go wrong with pink.

Laughing With My Team

Meet the new Perth Fit Chix. The four of us have come together to inspire and empower women all over Perth, and one day worldwide, to get active, smash their goals and be the best possible person they can be.

Each of us are Personal Trainers but we all specialise in different fields. Me for example - mobility, identifying weaknesses and developing programs for muscle specific strength. So my focus is body. We have the chick who is specialising in the training side, and more importantly all the different types and styles of training. One is specialising in nutrition, particularly for women and in combination with training. How to eat to meet your training goals. And finally is mindset. This chick loves to work out how people think and what is getting in the way of any woman concurring the world.

So together we have Mind Training Food and Body covered...pretty good mix if I do say so myself. And although each of us have our specialised 'area', we are all very much multidisciplinary and are more then equip to help out in each of the area's as required. I really love the diversity that we bring.

But what I love most about this team are the ones that make it up. Get us together and there are massive laughs and it is always fun, no matter how much work there is to get done, we will always do it giggling, laughing and making fun of each other. The day we took this photo, we were at the gym for less the thirty minutes and would have spent a good twenty of those minutes laughing. The photos reflect that and I wouldn't change it for a second.

I am thankful to have an awesome team of strong, determined and committed women to be fighting to change the lives of women all over. We are your Perth Fit Chix, get on board!

Girls Kicking Guys Butts

Another girl and I combined forces to take this mornings Tough Mudder Session. Both of us had trained for, and taken part in the Tough Mudder Obstacle Race last year. We had a nice trip down memory lane, thinking about the sessions last year that we loved and that planted us on our arses...and combined them!

Prior to injury, I am normally a participant in these group sessions, but since I have been ruled out, there are no more girls training in the group. And there is nothing I like more then showing guys who's boss. Which might I add we did hands down. The session we put our guys through involved 20 laps of this hill - running forwards backwards, burpees and piggy backs; 40 burpees; 60 push ups; 80 sit-ups and finally 100 kettlebell walking lunges. By the end of the hills we had the guys bent over sucking in air...successful morning.

I get this at work as well. I am not the biggest of girls and I have pretty tiny hands. But the strength and force that I can get through those hands can easily bring a grown man to tears, and I have done so on many occasions. I love it when I walk out into the waiting room for a new male patient, call his name and a big athletic guy takes one look up and down at me and his doubt about my strength and ability is written all over his face. I love to break the stereotype and prove that girls can be strong too...expect the unexpected.

Women use to be see as the fragile, dependant and unable to support themselves. But times have well and truly changed! Women are now just as strong, reliable and self sufficient as guys and we are proving that we can stand on our own two feet and hold our own!. There is nothing I love more then seeing a chick kick butt, no mater what they are doing!

31 Day Challenge

Early in July I wrote about taking on a 31 Day Handstand Challenge with a friend in Challenge Accepted. I am happy to report that we have now successfully finished, no killed the challenge. We completed 31 Handstands, or in my case elbow stands over 31 days.

Over the month of July we have gotten more strange looks then you could count when we have been handstanding around the eye-sores of Perth. But those strange looks were well and truly worth it to get some of the highly entertaining shots that we got.

The challenge was supplied by Niche Crossfit, entry costs being donated to the charity of the winners choice. When I wrote my first post about taking on this challenge, I mentioned that I hadn't seen too much improvement in my core and balance. I am happy to report that by the end of the 31 days I have seen a massive improvement. I am successfully able to balance on my elbows away from a wall for a few seconds at a time and have way better spatial awareness of where my body is in space.

Aside from working on my elbow stands and balance over the past 31 days, I am equally, if not more thankful for the fun times and insane laughs I have shared with this girl over the past 31 days. It is not east to hold an elbow stand in the middle of a fit of laughter, trust me I've tried.

I am thankful for the challenge that was set, the improvements I have seen and my incredible handstand partner who has made handstand holding the absolute highlight of my each and every day.

Hair Dresses

It is common knowledge by now, because I have written about it many times before, that I am currently unable to wash my own hair (see previous blog posts). So a couple of days ago I was the my friends hair salon so that she could wash my hair for me and....re-do my colour. I am one of those people that are not regular with getting my roots done.

Yeah it looks terrible, but my hair is always tied up, sweaty and dirty anyway. Plus going to get the colour done is a very timely procedure that I have to schedule into my diary almost months in advance just to allow myself the time.

It's a given that I currently have all the time in the world, so time to get the colour done. It would have been a good three months since it was last done. I know, I'm a terrible person! But the colour I get through is not that much lighter then my natural colour...slightly noticeable but nothing crazy!

So my colour was done and my hair was washed. In my current state, very successful day for me! But I just rinsed my hair for the first time since having it done, knowing that I am going back again tomorrow to have it properly washed and it just feels so much better, when its wet. Weird but it does.

So I have decided that I am actively going to commit to getting my hair done more then once every three months to save the people of Perth of my terrible regrowth. I am incredibly thankful to have  a great hairdresser working out of Skatt in Mount Hawthorn.

Lorna Jane

It's safe to say I am a Lorna Jane brand hoar. Self confessed and described as by others. It is my go to workout brand. For multiple reasons. First is that it is an Australian brand. Woooo Aussie!! The second is that the clothes are amazing. Comfortable to wear day to day and to train in, super supportive and they last for so long. I have a top that I would have bought a good five or six years ago...still going strong.

No I am not sponsored by the company (although I wouldn't say no!). I just honestly love the stuff. And the reason I am thankful for it today? I ordered some new stuff and it just arrived. So much excitement. I got a zip up crop top to help me manage better with only having one arm, another pair of long thick tights for when I'm coaching, a long sleeve shirt for the same reason and this qualified me to get her new book for free...winning!!

Like my friend said when I was opening it all...because I needed someone to help me open it...it's like Christmas! Very exciting.

Knowing People

We have heard it many times before... It's not about what you know but who you know. And in my one handed capacity, who I know is crucial.

Example 1: While in hospital over the past few days, I knew my nurse. I know that nurses have seen and heard everything before, wayyyy more then they want to know, but it just helps so much when you are particularly out of sorts and vulnerable when the stranger looking after you is not actually a stranger at all. She would come into my room and have a bit of winger about the patient two rooms down, wouldn't be afraid to crack jokes or crazy comments because she knew my personality and how I would respond to her calls. It also meant I didn't have to try and sign myself out of hospital when my dominant hand was taken out of action.

Example 2: My Occupational Therapist. From hospital I went straight next door to the Hand and Upper Limb Centre to see the OT I have been working with for the past three months to get fitted for my next splint. She also happens to be a girl I use to train with. So coming for therapy is more like catching up with a friend! It also means that our weekly follow ups can occur over social media or via phone call and if there are any problems I can then go in to see her.

Example 3: Getting my hair washed. In the splint I am in at the moment means I can't get my hand anywhere near my head and the stitches mean that I can't get it wet anyway. So washing my hair is not an option currently. Here is where I am thankful to have a friend who is a hair dresser and has volunteered her services and her apprentices to get my hair taken care of for very little. There is nothing worse then greasy unwashed hair!

This is only the beginning of the list of people who have been of unbelievable help to me in my first week of being one handed. I am so lucky to know and have such helpful people in my life.

Multicoloured Roses

Have you ever seen these before? I had never seen them when my friend came to pick me up from hospital with them. A-mazing!!!! The most incredible flowers I have ever seen in my life and made me so happy!!

Mesmerised but so confused, I had to find out how they did this. And where do you go when you want answers? Google. I managed to find a couple of YouTube videos outlining the step by step process to getting rainbow roses.

Using a knife you split the ends of the stem into multiple segments so it looks like you rose stem has roots. You then fill small bowls with different colours of food dye. Leaving the roses in a bunch, place each 'root' in a different colour pot of food dye. Leaving the roses for a good 24-48 hours, they slowly suck the colour up into the petals, causing them to change colour.

How cool is that?! Whoever worked that one out is a very clever and creative individual. Every time I walk into the room these flowers make me smile. How could you not smile at multi-coloured roses? Stay tuned for my attempt!

Waking Up After Surgery

Amongst all the bad things about waking up after surgery such as how crappy you feel, the nausea, pain and the sleepiness, there are two good things. One - you're still alive, always a plus! And two - its over! I always wake up recovery to alarms sounding and the feeling of being tipped on my head. This is because my heart rate and blood pressure are so low they are trying to get the blood to drain back to my heart. Last time it took a really long time to stabilise me and when I was finally ready to be moved most of the anaesthesia had worn off.

I had given them a heads up this time and they remembered me from last time so knew what to expect. So I woke up[ and head was already down and they managed to stabilise my obs much quicker. So much quicker that the anaesthesia was still wearing off when I was taken back to my room.

Where I was happy and surprised to see my friend waiting for me. Awwww!! Still in my extremely hazy state I felt bad that I wasn't able to talk back to her as much as I wanted to. But she got straight down to business for me. She asked who I needed to contact. Took this flattering photo and sent it to my family in France, my god mother and my aunty (who arrived in my room fifteen minutes later) and the friends I had roped in to help me out over the next week or so.

I have some amazing people in my life and the support I have been given since waking up from surgery has just blown me away. I am thankful for each and every one of them.

New Opportunities

So I am officially on a 3 month break from Physio. It was a very strange feeling to walk out of the practice on Tuesday and know that I am not coming back. Three months not working in my chosen 'career'....what am I going to do with myself?

But when I stopped to think about it, I asked myself why did I chose Physio in the first place? I grew up in the sporting world so was exposed to Physio from an early age. That would have been the first reason. The second would have been because I was told I couldn't. I hate being told I can't do something, so I was out to prove everyone wrong. And I did. I was one of four in my graduating class to graduate with a job offer before sitting my final exam. Take that you doubters!

Don't get me wrong Physio is a great job and it helped me to realise who much I love to help people. But your typical Physio job can only let you take that so far. Which was when I decided to do my personal training course. This allowed me to now deal with injuries and help them to achieve their goals. Adding that extra dimension was getting closer to what I loved. 

The opportunity is now arising where I can combine the two and with it there are endless possibilities. And what makes it even better? I will be working with girls that I love to pieces! We are so similar in the things we want and what inspires us, but at the same time so very different that by putting us together covers so many avenues. We compliment each other perfectly. 

I can't help but to be excited about the future and all the possibilities ahead of us, who knows I may not go back to Physio. So what are you waiting for?

My Anaesthetist

So today I was suppose to have the surgery on my wrist. Key word of that sentence - 'suppose to'. Lets run through my day. Alarm goes of at 3am to get up and drive my mum to the airport where she is flying to France to go meet my dad and my brother. Get home and start prepping for the day - washing, dishes, packing, repacking, packing one more time, emptying the bins...doing all the things that I know I'm not going to want to do when I get home from hospital.

At 5am I eat breakfast and then head off to teach my boxing class for the morning. I was to admit to hospital at 11am, so I continued getting stuff done around the house until my God Mother arrive to pick me up and drive me to hospital.

Admission all went to plan, very much uneventful and no complications. I was second on the list, expecting to go in at around 2.30/3pm. So I got some online work done, I read a book, I wrote lists...I was productive. Around 3pm an orderly comes to take me into holding...woooo!! Do the second lot of checks just before the Anaesthetist comes in.

'Bad news' he says. Jeff (my surgeon) has decided he wants to scope your wrist as well (have no idea what that means) and to do that we need a piece of equipment that needs to be sterilised for you. That's happening now, so we are going to move you to last on the list, which will be around 6pm. Awesome.

So I get taken back to my room, they have to go find my bag which had been taken to my ward room and I had another three hours to kill. Pinterest did me well in that time. So did a couple of friends I was chatting to. The nurses came and took me to the bathroom every hour on the hour ... 'you'll be going in soon' they said. 7pm rolled around, still there. All the nurses had finished they shifts and were literally just waiting around for me to go, well and truly the last one to be waiting.

7.20 the Anaesthetist powers into my room, pulls up a chair and says 'more bad news'. An emergency case had just come in - he is on the table now and has a seriously messed up hand from a metal grinding injury - tendons, muscle, bone, arterty...it was going to take them a good 5-6 hours which would be around 11pm. I had a choice. I could wait and they would take me in there, provided they had enough staff and resources, which he thought they had, or I could move it to tomorrow at South Perth Hospital and he promised I would be the first one through.

I don't know if I was tired, stressed, worried, over it or all of the above but burst into tears. The obvious thing to do for me was to go home. I wanted out of there and I didn't want tired staff working on my hand which is going to make or break my career. And I wanted to give this guy on the table the best possible chance of saving his hand without the over pressure of them pushing through to get to me.

You could see it in his face how terribly sorry he was to pushed me around all over the place today and he went and made the calls there and then to get me into South Perth tomorrow. A friend came and picked me up and took me home, where really I probably got as little sleep as I did the night before. But I am up and packed and fasted again - round two!!

Airports

I love airports. I have always loved airports and if you told me that I would be sitting in transit for a couple of hours I would be the happiest person in the room. Some people find airports to be like limbo, holding then up in a big building just waiting for something better that is coming their way. They will just sit on the uncomfortable airports seats and read the paper or stare out the window until it was time for them to board the plane. 

Every time I enter an airport there is a massive sense of excitement that comes over me. They are busy and constantly on the go, even at crazy hours in the morning. You can wander through look at planes coming in and taking off, watch people passing by or just walk laps of huge terminal, yep I've been that weirdo! Even if I'm not the one going anyway going to the airport is still just so exciting! I dropped my grandma off to go away and I swear I was more excited then she was. 

This morning however I did the very early morning run to drop my mum at the airport for her trip to France. So 3.45am I was pulling into the airport drive way, and even though I wasn't even getting out of the car this time (I was still in my pyjamas), same sense if excitement occurred! 

I love the fact that airports excite me so vouch, it makes holidays that much more fun and transit times as always entertaining!

Being A Physio

So guess what...I hurt myself again. I seem to just be on a roll at the moment. But really if there was ever a time to through another injury my way, this was it! Following the surgery I am suppose to completely rest for a couple of days and we all know that that is going to be super challenging for me. I'm going to want to run or at least walk. So how do we combat this? We take out a knee!!

It was a very wet and rainy night, so when I got to training last night a little early so managed to squeeze in a twenty minute run on the treadmill before the class I was doing. Lucky!! The main workout was a tabata style workout, finishing each round with a lap of the stairs.

Started heading up the stairs at the end of the first round, and the first flight is a little dark and what I failed to see was the puddle of water. I went down. There was a bit of twisting of the femur on the tibia and I landed on the outside of the knee.

Initial thoughts, F^*& I've done my MCL. But I sat there for a minute, straightened out my knee and tried to work out what I was feeling, and I don't think I actually had too much deep pain, it was more superficial. Was able to get up hobble back down the stairs (yep could partially weight bear) and went straight into Physio mode. Elevated my leg, got some ice and strapped it on for a good twenty minutes.

Got the people there with me to help try and test my ligaments and so far so good. So decided to try weight bearing - yep able to fully weight bear, extend my knee to about minus five degrees and flex it to about ninety. So hobbled my way up to my car and got myself home to get the ice back on again.

Happy, and thankful to say I have been pretty well trained. I was able to quickly piece together how I had fallen, where the weight had landed and the potentially injured structures. I was able to work out the type of pain I was feeling and what needed to be done ASAP.

Waking up the morning, swelling is manageable, range is about the same and again I am able to weight bear. I still don't think I have done anything massive to blow out this knee but I will get it checked by one of the boys at work when I get in today - for my last day!!!!

Teamwork

Tough Mudder training is going strong. And you have to be strong to get through our Tough Mudder training! If you have ever done a Tough Mudder event, or any obstacle race really, you would know that you rely heavily on your team. Everyone has their individual strengths to help out others and weakness needing the help of the rest of the team - me for example - pulling up! Put I could push and run all day long.

Training this weekend, you very much needed your team members to get you through it! Part one - run down the hill (it was a long hill) but you didn't really need the team to get through that one. Part two 100 pull ups - partner assisted when you couldn't pull anymore. While one partner was pull-up'ing the other was doing triceps dips...yay tag team! Partners then moved onto 100 toes to bar and burpees, and finally 100 partner plank push ups.

The third and final part - piggy backing back up that nice long, slowly inclining hill. Taking it bit by bit, getting out what your could before you swapped with your partner. Half way up the hill we stopped for a casual 100 body weight squats before running the final half of the hill.

Very much a team orientated workout, brings out the best in everyone and a great sense of pride and accomplishment. Always love sharing the pain with my team mates!

A Big Flock Of Birds

Bit of a strange one today. I was out running this morning I figured it would probably take me less time to run into Kings Park then it would to drive there with all the traffic lights, 40km speed limit through the city and your Sunday drivers.  

The thing about running in Kings Park for me, I never really know where I'm going, how long I will be running for or how far. I kind of just pick a path and off I go. If I end up back somewhere near the entrance to the park I go through and am not quite done yet, not a problem - pick another path! The risk with that again is that I may run wayyyy further then I really should. But I will deal with that later.

The distance and time today were pretty well controlled it the paths I selected, however the hills were not expected. I had a lot of slow inclines to face. By far the worst hills to be running up. By the time I got back to the park entrance I was ready to start my run home which meant going over the Narrows Bridge. By this point the legs were not loving life.

Half way over the narrows though, somewhere on the city foreshore a massive flock of birds had been disrupted and taken of. First thought - please don't poop on me. But after the fear of something falling from the sky had passed and I watched I would say a good one hundred birds fly off over the river I was pretty in awe. And very much distracted about my unhappy calves.

Thanks to the big flock of black birds who managed to distract and amazing me, even if it was only for a minute.

The Universe

Every day I get a note from The Universe. A little message in my inbox at the end of the day from an organisation called Totally Unique Thoughts. Each day the message is just that...totally unique.

The story behind the organisation is that everything happens for a reason and the universe is in control of everything. They believe that everyone is special and is uniquely individual. You go to work your 9-5 job with the tens to thousands of other 9-5 workers, you go through the same daily routine, working for someone else and not fulfilling your own potential, you are losing your individuality.

They believe that thoughts become things, so what you think about the most will happen to you. If you think bad things, bad things will happen, if you think good things....wooooo!!

Some days I get messages and I could take them or leave them. Don't get me wrong the message is powerful and inspirational, but right in that moment not quite the words I need to here.

But when they are the words I need to hear...oh wow! It's like someone has punched you in the stomach and grabbed and squeezed the air out of your lungs. On a day where I was totally overwhelmed by work, injury and training being only weeks out of the showdown and feeling completely unprepared, I got a message made up of three sentences. 'Write is down, Write is down Chloe, Write it down.' Wow did I have a lot to write down.

On the day that I bought an apartment, applied and got a new job and was second guessing every decision I had just made and was questioning every part of my ability, I got one saying "Would it make a difference Chloe if you knew that we understand the battles you have fought, and approved the decisions you have made? Whether or not it makes a difference, YOU have'. Another big punch! But I suddenly felt like I was capable to doing what needed to be done, and that I can make it work.

It doesn't matter what is happening in each persons life because everyone is different. But these messages can be just what you need to remind you of the bigger picture and that you are never in it alone. The Universe is in your corner.

Simple Things Done Well

Some of the best exercises and the really simple ones. Like a squat. Or a push up We get so caught up in trying to get creative  and challenge our balance, strength and coordination and we tend to over complicate things. For example a single arm and leg burpee lateral broad jump...it takes you longer to work out what you have to do then physically doing it!

The ones that are simple are the ones that are most easily remember and the ones that are done properly and effectively. Less variables, less to get wrong, better success rate. Take a look at Zumba - over the top crazy dance routines that require more coordination then a cow walking down stairs (fun fact - a cow cannot walk downstairs!) to be done properly. Over complicated and look where that took it? However Step Classes, still going strong...simply because all you do is step up and then back down again...adding a few things in once you have mastered the basics.

Last night training, the was a couple of things we did that were so simple, yet super effective! The first one, ten sets of ten push ups. Sounds simple. One hundred push ups? Not so simple. Starting off with your basic push ups knees onto toes, into hand release and as the simple became effective we added in a slight variation, but still stuck to the basic push up. Shoulders were shot!

The next one, hamstring curls on a fitball. You lie on your back, lift your butt and roll the ball in and out. Nothing to it. Except the insane burn on your hamstrings while you are trying to defy gravity and the rock solid core you need to keep the ball moving in the same direction. Simple done well, painfully well.

Sometimes it's just good to go back to basics. And not just always when it comes to your training. Life is complicated these days. We communicate on the phone, text message, facebook, email, whatsapp...what ever happened to pen and paper (we went green that's what). You can order a coffee with an extra shot, soy milk, topped up, decaff, extra hot, deconstructed, reconstructed...its insane. Simple is uncomplicated and easily understood. It's good to get simple things done well.