1981

I can remember almost every minute of it, the day my reality changed forever. I was sitting in my dorm room my sophomore year in college.  I was thinking about my boyfriend joining the Army.  I look back now and still wonder what really caused it.  Was it flawed genetics?  Childhood trauma? PTSD?

 I still wonder why this was to be my thorn in my flesh:  The one thing that drew me to God; the one thing that still to this day keeps me dependent upon Him?

I was laying on my bed. Out of nowhere I felt myself leaving my body. I thought I was dying.  My heart was racing, and the closest word to describe - dizzy.  For some reason I grabbed my throat and my roomate panicked.  She thought I was choking.  She asked if she should call 911.  Eventually the dizziness went away but what was left was a surreal feeling of being in a dream.  The experts call it detachment.  I happened to be in an abnormal psychology class and stumbled across symptoms that somewhat described the sensations that took place that day.  Panic.  What it didn't describe was the intense feeling of living in a dream, not in reality. 

It wasn't until much later that I learned what was really wrong with me.  Depersonalization disorder or Derealization disorder. 

Depersonalization disorder symptoms include:

• Continuous or recurring feelings that you're an outside observer of your thoughts, your body or parts of your body
• Numbing of your senses or responses to the world around you
• Feeling like a robot or feeling like you're living in a dream or in a movie
• The sensation that you aren't in control of your actions, including speaking
• Awareness that your sense of detachment is only a feeling, and not reality

Other symptoms can include:

• The sense that your body, legs or arms appear distorted, enlarged or shrunken
• Feeling like you are observing yourself from above, as if you were floating in the air
• Feeling emotionally disconnected from people you care about

If I think too hard about what I feel and experience on a day to day basis it becomes too overwhelming.  I look in the mirror and see a stranger.  That is probably the most difficult area I have had to manage.  I don't see me, rather a different person.

I have had to find ways to FEEL REAL and grounded in reality.

So why am I talking about this? Because it's time I start talking about it.  And, probably because it helps me justify some of this crazy things I get myself into.  For example; a figure competition, at age 50.

• I have learned that physical exersice has been one of the most soothing ways to cope with living in a dream.  For some reason pushing my physical body to extreme allows me to feel real - to feel, for a brief amount of time, connected to reality.

• I could probably start an entire blog on how I have learned to stand strong.  But I will stop and give thanks to God for giving me a tenacious fighting resilient spirit.  I could have checked out long ago but I made a decision to fight this.

• I kept this under wraps up until today.  Maybe it was pride, not wanting people to look at me differently.  Maybe embarrassement.  Or, maybe I wanted to be perceived as normal.  Whatever it maybe be, welcome to my world.

Stay tuned, my next blog will have updated pictures of my progress, workouts, and nutrition changes.

Week 1-Numbers

Today I am 15 weeks out from the show.  I met with Todd (my trainer) on Friday to go over my food plan for Phase One.  He said this phase will be cleaning up my food.  It was also time to get on the scale and measure body fat percentage... Ugh, here we go with the numbers.  I thought I had come pretty far with the scale and body fat but the anxiety came right back.  This time I am going to choose to face this head on.

Here is my food for the next three weeks:

180gm Protein and 155gm carbs daily, split equally over 6 meals.  50% of my carbs is consumed between breakfast and post-workout.  Wow, did this take me a while to place neatly in my box.  "What if I have a 6AM workout, how do I get 50% of my carbs in then?"  Hmmm let's see: 1/2 of 155 is 77.5gms.  So just cut that in half and have 38gms before (breakfast) and 38gms after (in my post-workout shake)... duh!

Here are some pics of my closest friends over the next 15 weeks.

25gms carbs/30gm protein powder added to my oatmeal

Rice/Quinoa cooker



Protein Powder and colorful shakers!

George Forman Grill!!!



So the process is more tricky than I thought.  Yeah you get on stage and pose and flex but the main goal during this next 15 weeks is to get lean and maintain muscle.  Todd wants me to be around 10% - 14% body fat.  But most importantly it's about what I look like, how my body responds to the food plan and maintaining muscle.  So as this journey unfolds, we will know more. 

After an awesome back workout it was time to get on the scale and measure body fat.  Todd warned me that after a workout the numbers can be skewed.  At 1:00PM on Friday, July 13th I weighed in at 131lbs at 23% body fat.  WHAT!??!!!

2 months ago I had a DEXA scan done at my physician's office.  DEXA scan is primarily used for women to measure bone density.  But the fitness industry has grabbed hold of its precise technology for measuring body fat.  So $50.00 later I learned that at 5'4" I had 19% body fat at 125 lbs.

Pics for Week 1: 15 weeks out

Phase One ends  Friday, August 3rd... more pics then!

Breaking the Rules

July 7th marks a half-century in my life.  I have always wanted to somehow write my story mostly to leave it for my children. But, if I can help one person through encouragement or inspiration I will be blessed.  I'm not a writer, I don't even really like to read. This blog is one giant experiment.  First, to see if I can handle the commitment and personal goal of coming out of my closet and sharing more of my heart to those that might want to hear . Second, to tell some of my story, lessons learned and share my progress as I experiment with breaking some of my rules through my new fitness goal.

Laying the Foundation

Personal Hang-Up #1: Living my life by certain rules that have absolutely no explanation but come from some strange vortex in my head.  I know certain types of people are wired to be driven by rules and regulations and maybe I am one of them.  But I have learned through my own healing process that rules have served a purpose but have not always been good for me now.  As a child, they gave me a framework or a necessary security.  But as an adult I have learned that some rules need to be broken because they hold me back from forward movement and healthy change. They can feel safe, but for me, they have really been a hindrance from receiving ALL that God promises me.  I call it sick-safety.  Sick but familiar, safe but sick. 

My childhood did not allow for safety and security.  When I chose to face my fear and my past, I made a conscious decision to become aware of when those rules are in operation, evaluate if they need adjustment and make changes accordingly... not an easy process.

Changing the Middle-Aged Rules

When I began triathlon my rules were challenged: Rule: "Middle-aged women cannot do triathlon."  I am thankful for Tanya Maslach (check out her organization here) and Sara Landolt (follow her blog here).  I met these two beautiful women through technology - the Internet.  They helped me understand that it is never too late and that I could do it!  Another rule that changed... Rule: "You need to be an athletic super-freak and be super fit and thin to compete in triathlon".  That is also not true.  Baby-boomers are realizing age is just a number. As I read and research I am finding out many people my age are doing things never thought possible.

At 155lbs in 2009 (I peaked at 165lbs in 2004) I thought that I had to settle with how crappy I felt. When I met Todd, he helped me work through my rules about food. I had been living in a world of calorie counting and restriction.  I didn't trust him and his way of thinking.  The scale and the NUMBER on the scale is not absolutely necessary, only to monitor progress.  Todd taught me that the two things that really matter are:  What you put in your mouth and what you see in the mirror.

It was a difficult process trusting a completely new way of eating.  I had to challenge all of my beliefs I had about food, nutrition and managing weight.  I replaced my old beliefs with a new statement: "Why not try it, what else do I have to lose, my old ways weren't working" It sounds simple but as I embarked on the new process I was telling myself this over and over.

Breaking the Rules

After the weight came off and saw that I could gain strength and put muscle back on I remembered that my 50th year was the year I had wanted to do a full Ironman triathlon.  But I also knew that my life had taken a turn.  I had been given a new health & wellness department to build and manage which required a lot of my time.  Over the past year and a half, I have enjoyed assisting and teaching fitness classes.  I became a certified Les Mills Bodypump instructor.  I was enjoying and living life to the fullest.  I realized that there was no way I could train for an Ironman (a full year commitment). I had to let that dream go - for now.

I blame my husband for my new goal.  He was the one that introduced me to bodybuilding 30 years ago.  When I met him, he brought me into the gym at Concordia College where we met 32 years ago!! He began teaching me about weightlifting and building muscle.   Our first years of marriage were spent in military weight rooms.  I learned to squat and bench press.  I loved the feeling of pushing heavy weight, I loved the look of muscle on the female physique.  It symbolized strength and beauty, and back then broke the rules of femininity as being "skinny."  These women were strong and beautiful. I was hooked. 

Rachel McLish

Cory Everson

I learned about Rachel McLish and Cory Everson, two female bodybuilders in the early 1980's that shaped the future for women and bodybuilding.







LIFE LESSON   Using other people's stories of change can help you break the rules that dictate and hold you back in life.

Four years ago Tanya Maslach and Sara Landolt helped me change my rules. Today, Ernestine Shepherd is helping me change my rules.  She is in the Guiness World Book of Records as the world's oldest bodybuilder at age 76. Check out her website Here

Wha? 76?!! Are you serious?  I read her story.  At 56 she started her metamorphosis.  I then started thinking... hmmm. Could I?

My internal dialogue goes something like this:

Voice #1 "You can't do this, you are too old." 
Voice#2 "But this is something you wanted to do when you were younger but life got in the way"
Voice #1 "What will people think?" 
Voice#2 "But what if I just try, I really want to see if I can challenge myself and have the self-discipline"
Voice #1  "What if you fail, what will people think?"

MY CHALLENGE TO YOU: Do you have goals, dreams? What rules hold you back from acheiving a goal or a dream?

So I end this blog by sharing with you my next risk, goal or maybe dream? October 27th, 2012 I have chosen to go to San Diego, California for my first women's figure competition.  Why there? They have a 50+ division!!

Click  Here to check it out. 

 Am I crazy? Probably.  Will I fail? I might. 

Stay tuned...

Change

So here I am, sitting in front of my laptop pondering and feeling contemplative about turning 50 on Saturday.  Let me set the stage.  Four years ago I turned a new leaf in my life.  My children grew up; one got married and had a baby.  I didn’t realize the impact this life transition would have on me.  I began my new life with triathlon and had an absolute blast.  I ran my first half-marathon and first ocean water triathlon at 48 years of age.  I never imagined myself accomplishing these goals.  But most importantly I never imagined that facing fear and coming to the end of myself would be the most significant accomplishment through these experiences.

In the past 18 months a lot has changed - again.  I was asked to provide oversight to a new health & wellness department at my church, which incidentally is where I work - as a pastor.  Our lead pastor, my boss, struggles with weight.  He met a trainer, Todd Chambers, who helped him get his life back on track.  Since then we have started a health & wellness ministry at our church under the direction of Mr. Chambers.

Of course this was exciting to me since I have always been passionate about fitness.  Over the past 18 months, we have held numerous nutrition and fitness classes.   It has been an absolute joy to watch people get excited about exercise and meet their own personal weight loss goals.  Since meeting Todd, I have reached my own personal weight loss goal of losing 40 pounds and gaining strength and muscle I never thought possible at my age. 

Here is a picture of me right before running my first half-marathon in January 2011.  I weighed in at 155 pounds at 5ft 4” (body fat 24%).

After my race I decided to sit down with Todd myself and see what his “miracle plan” as Pastor Dan had boasted from the pulpit in January - had to offer me.   As Todd’s boss, I had better figure out what he was all about.  And, as a goal oriented person, I chose a date of October 7^th 2011 to get the fat off – that was the due date of Ravi, my precious grandson.

In February 2011, I sat down with Todd in Paradise Bakery, of all places, to review my eating patterns and evaluate the best place for me to start.  With pride I laid out the fact that I had little to no appetite and am rarely hungry.  Wrong answer.  Not feeling hunger until 2 or 3PM is not good.  I learned that my body entered starvation mode and that any food that entered my body it would hold onto for dear life – as if I were on a desert island.  He sternly instructed me to take the next few weeks eating anything and everything. Wha?  Of course I was immediately frustrated because I NEED TO BE IN CONTROL.  He refused to let me know what would happen next.

Finally I texted him very frustrated and said, “I am starving all of the time, how am I going to lose weight fighting this ravenous hunger.”  He replied, “Perfect that was what I was waiting to hear!” UGH – what the…?! I learned that my metabolism had slowed and my body was in starvation mode due to all of the years of calorie counting and calorie restricting to compensate from binge eating.

From that point on he put me on a low carb, lean protein and healthy fat eating plan.  During that time I was strength training 3 times per week and training for another half-marathon in late 2011.  The pounds came off, week by week.  Some weeks were slow but some were fast.  There was no way to predict what my body was going to decide to do.  But there was one thing that I knew – that I held on to.  I really wanted to make a healthy and sustainable change in my eating.  I was not wrapped up in outward appearance, getting rid of cellulite or any other fleshly goal.  I just wanted to live the rest of my life feeling good and full of energy and life.  It was a commitment that needed to supersede all of the distractions that this food saturated culture lures me into.

Here is a pic of me in October 2011.  I met my goal, met my grandson on October 7^th, 2011 (my 29^th anniversary!) and turned a new chapter in my life - 115lbs 19% body fat.  But most importantly, I feel great.  I sleep better, need less sleep, energy is through the roof!

What was next?  I met my weight loss goal and decided that I wanted to see what my body could do at my age! I wanted to try get as strong and add as much muscle as I could.  That meant another level of eating and training.  Here is a picture of my back in December of 2011, after the weight loss.  Notice how "soft" I look.  I was "depleted" - my body used my fat stores and my muscles were crying for glycogen.  I learned that sometimes you need to get the fat of first, then to stay lean, add muscle! 

Todd put me on a high protein (lean meats, egg whites and fish) carb cycling eating plan.  I consumed approximately 140 – 200 grams of protein and between 50 and 200 grams of healthy and clean carbs daily depending on how heavy I trained in the gym.  Here is a pic from June 2012, 6 months after.

Lessons learned:

1) Make healthy change a priority in your life

2) Stay focused on your own personal goals - don't be distracted by other people's goals, successes, physiques and genetics.

3) Make friends with people that VALUE healthy living and eating

What’s next.  Stay tuned… I'm not done, just getting started.  Remember 50 is the "go-ahead" signal, honey!!  I hope you will follow me as I unravel my story woven through my blog.