Poster of the Day

No problems

If you don't want to be burdened with problems, then don't create them. Instead, use the exact same circumstances to create positive possibilities.
Whether or not something is a problem depends on the way you respond to it. As such, you can choose a life filled with problems or a life that's free of them.

Certainly there are difficult and challenging situations that come your way on a regular basis. But is there anything to be gained by turning them into problems?

Choose instead to transform those difficulties and challenges into opportunities. Know that there is always a realistic and workable way, and commit yourself to finding it.

Rather than being weighed down by problems, you can be energized by possibilities. Instead of fighting against what you don't want, you can be working toward what you most sincerely desire.

Free yourself from problems by never creating them in the first place. Focus your energy on the positive possibilities and bring the best of them to life.

-- Ralph Marston

Figure of the Day

Rosa-Maria Romero
2007 IFBB Californian Pro Figure Show

26th May 2007

15th Place

Aspirin Face Mask

I've just learnt about the Aspirin Face Mask. I saw an interview with Allure Magazine Beauty Editor Linda Wells who mentioned it as an inexpensive and more importantly effective face treatment for blemishes which gives great results!

How it Works

If you are looking to try an alternative process to add to your skin care regimen, consider using an aspirin mask. This mask works by disintegrating aspirin and using the remaining material as a mask, and later as an exfoliant.

Since aspirin is a beta-hydroxy acid, a common ingredient that is frequently found in the masks and facial products made by upscale cosmetic companies that come with a hefty price tag, it works fantastically as a way to ensure your skin is healthy, vibrant, and clear.

Even if you have no problem with acne, consider using a mask of aspirin for to condition your skin and keep it looking healthy and youthful.

Aspirin Benefits

Aspirin is great for your skin. Basic function of it is being an analgesic and antipyretic, but more importantly, as far as skin care, it is its anti-inflammatory power. This is important when it comes to treatment of acne and other inlammation processes on the skin.

Aspirin contains acetyl-salicylic acid AKA Beta Hydroxy Acid, widely used in cosmetics as it is able to slough off skin cells thus preventing the clogging of pores.

It is a powerful ingredient that cleanses skin and treats the the cause of acne.

It is pretty cheap and almost everyone has it around the house.

Make Your Own Aspirin Mask

To create an aspirin mask of your own, following these two quick easy steps. Firstly take 3-4 dissovable aspirins and add one teaspoon wam water. You simply drop the tablets into the water and watch them dissolve.

Applying the Mask to Your Face

The second step to making as aspirin mask is to rub the mask on your face. If necessary, you may need to dissolve more aspirins to make enough to cover the entire surface of your face in a thin film.

Once the mask has allowed sitting for about 10 minutes, you should moisten the mask with wet hands and use the remnants of the mask as an exfoliant. This is a great way to remove the excess dirt and grime from your face as well as any dead skin cells that can potentially clog your pores.

Other Ingredients You Can Add

In addition to using just aspirin and water, you may want to add extras like yoghurt or honey to expand the facial quality of your aspirin mask. In addition to the aspirin tablets, mix a dollop of plain yoghurt and honey to the mix and slather the concoction onto your face. In addition to the healing prospects of the honey and aspirin, the yoghurt will soothe and moisturise your skin.

I tried it tonight and I rate it! :o)

Here's what I used:

4 Aspro Clear Dissovables
1 tsp Warm Water
1 tsp Organic Honey

Next week I'm going to also add some organic yoghurt for extra moisturising benefits due to my dry skin type.

Quote of the Day

"Do not argue with an idiot,
as they will drag you down to their level
and beat you with experience."

-- Author Unknown

Poster of the Day

Polysystic Ovarian Syndrome (POCS)

It has a name and you know what, I'm okay about it all things considered at the moment. Albeit another physical challenge that I must face and over come but at least it's a confirmed diagnosis that can be treated with medication and I have a great gynecologist. What more could I ask for!

Daniel and myself had decided earlier this year for other medical reasons not to start our own family so we see this decision as a real blessing in disguise. It's one less thing that we have to worry about. Everything in life happens for a reason and being fit and healthy is now of the utmost importance. Not only becuase of this diagnosis but also for my renal health. My current and now future health is far more important and the figure competing is actually just the icing on the cake in the big scheme of things.

One step at a time and one day at a time. xx

My baby brother. . .

rang me last night to inform me that he's going into hospital today so that the doctor can have yet another attempt of removing a skin cancer from behind one of his eyes. I tell you when it rains it pours for my family so lucky we come from pretty tough breeding. LOL!!

Feel what it is to be you

Have the courage to feel. Feeling connects you with who you are.

Experience your own authentic feelings. There's nothing to be gained by hiding from your feelings or borrowing the feelings of others.

Your feelings will ask much of you. In return, they give you access to immense power that can be directed toward positive and meaningful purpose.

If you run from your true feelings, you will just end up making them stronger. And they will eventually catch up to you anyway.

Acknowledge your feelings, dive into them and explore their rich abundance. Certainly you will find some pain there, and yet if you are honest you will also find much joy.

Your capacity to feel opens the door to a whole universe of magnificent possibilities. In each moment, feel what it is to be you, and you'll work your way toward the best you can be.

-- Ralph Marston

Now it's my turn....

Each player starts with seven random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. You need to choose seven people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

1. I'm on the verge of having a breakdown.

2. I know that what doesn't kill me will only make me stronger.

3. That I would give almost anything to make this all go away and for things to be back to normal again whatever that is, I forgot. LOL!!

4. I now know that I'm faced with some pretty big psychological and physical challenges I have to over come but live in hope that there's a bright rainbow at the end of all of this waiting for me. :o)

5. I'm trying so very desperately to look at the glass half full and not half empty.

6. That I have to take a giant step backwards to ensure that when I eventually move forward that I continue travelling in that direction.

7. That posting this was one of the most difficult things I have ever done!

Okay now, I'm pretty sure that almost all of us have been tagged so here's my list and applogies if you've already been tagged.

1. Katie
2. Theo
3. Liz
4. Lisa
5. Rachel
6. Ali
7. Shelly

Figures of the Day

2006 INBA Australian & Olympian Champions

Sally Milne, Marie Saviane & Michelle Nazaroff

Quote of the Day

"Hold your head high, stick your chest out.
You can make it.
It gets dark sometimes, but morning comes.
Keep hope alive."

-- Jesse Jackson

Wakey Wakey LOL!!

For Bev

To mourn too long
for those we love is self indulgent -
but to honour their memory
with a promise
to live a little better
for having known them
gives purpose to their life -
and some reason for their death.

--Nan Witcomb

My Mum just sent me this

Poster of the Day

Winter Shopping

P.S.

Just recently I've done some essential winter shopping, here's what I bought:

1. Witchery Black Roll Neck Knit (see above)

2. Witchery Padded Parka With Hood (see above)

3. Nine West Black Round Toe Flats

4. Nine West Black Ankle Boots

5. Zoe Wittner Black High Heels

6. Everlast Lifestyle Shoes

7. Jumbo Ugg Black Boots

I'm back!

7 habits that make you fat and how to beat them

1. Dieting

Stop the loss/gain cycle by getting off the diet treadmill.

The bottom line is: yo-yo dieting makes you fat! When you start a diet you lose an amount of weight – but that weight loss is linked with the loss of lean body mass as well as fat mass, and loss of lean body mass slows your metabolic rate. So, when you break your diet and resume “normal” eating again, you re-gain the weight you lost plus a little bit more. So dieting itself is a habit that makes you gain weight.

2. Portion Distortion

When it comes to the size of the portions you’re eating, size does matter.

Information gathered over the past 30 years has shown the size of portions, especially in packaged foods, has increased dramatically. Even more scary is that as portion size increases, so does consumption – often we are driven by getting the best value for money. Over time we have also become used to the new over-sized portions food manufacturers have developed – so much so we’ve normalised these to the point of thinking an over-sized portion is actually the “right” serving size.

So it’s time to stand back and think again. Studies have shown the larger the portion, the more we tend to eat. Ask for regular or standard servings rather than “combo” deals whenever you’re ordering any meal or snack. Or share the larger muffin or mega serve of fries with a friend (or the whole family!).

Use your hands to guide you

The size of the palm of your hand (and that doesn’t include your fingers) along with the thickness of your hand together represent the personalised size of an ideal portion of meat for a person of your build.Use a clenched fist to equal the amount of carbohydrate to put with that meat, and two cupped hands to show the amount of vegetables or salad to serve for a balanced meal.This works for kids as well: the size of a portion for them is relative to the size of their hand. And it’s a great way to teach children to work out portion sizes for themselves.

No matter what size you are, the proportion remains the same: if you are looking at a dinner plate a quarter should be carbohydrate (rice, potato or pasta), a quarter the meat or protein serving, and half should be vegetables or salad.

3. Unconscious Eating

Eating without thinking is far too easy for our own good. It’s a classic habit: a stimulus – such as a commercial break during a favourite TV program – becomes an automatic cue to do something – go to the fridge for the bar of chocolate, for example. Or perhaps you pass by the corner shop on the way home every day, and that’s a stimulus to always buy a packet of chips. At first it was because you missed lunch and you needed something to get you through to dinner but before long it became a habit. Added to the problem is that we tend not to “count” snacks we’ve eaten unconsciously or habitually.

How to change the snacking habit

Get into the habit, instead, of noticing when you snack, where it happens and what’s triggering the behaviour. Then you can simply change one part of the equation so the sum doesn’t work any more – trip up the habit by changing the trigger, for example. So if you find yourself unconsciously eating while you read, you could change where it happens. Get into the habit of reading somewhere a long way from your food source. Or create a new habit around what you eat when you read – always make it a raw carrot and celery.If you’re always popping bits into your mouth unconsciously as you prepare meals, eat something substantial before you start, or do something else with your mouth while you cook – you could sing, whistle or recite poetry!

4. The energy density trap

Snacking or grazing on “energy-dense” foods can seriously undermine weight loss. Because of the oversized portions of many common snack foods such as muesli bars, muffins and cookies, food that was once considered a snack food may now contain the energy of a meal.

What is energy density?

Think of the difference between an average banana (500kJ in 120g) and a small chocolate bar (1075kJ in 51g). Both are snack size but the chocolate is a lot more energy dense than the banana. High-energy foods such as biscuits and fried food may taste appealing but often don’t make you feel satisfied or full unless you overeat. Compare energy-light foods such as fruit, low-fat milk, soups and wholegrain cereals – they make us feel full with fewer kilojoules, and are also more nutritious. Since we basically eat the same amount of food every day, deciding on whether to eat high or low energy-density food can be the difference between weight gain or weight loss.

When making low energy-density choices, look for the food with a high water content.Learn to read the labels of snack foods and compare the energy (kilojoule) per 100 grams listed with other similar food products. Choose a product with the lowest kilojoule content if you want to restrict your total energy intake to allow for weight loss.

Compare the kilojoules per serving with the actual volume or size of the serving. Just because a snack is small in volume doesn’t necessarily mean it is small in energy. Think of the banana and chocolate bar comparison again. See the table above for some simple swaps you can make to move from energy dense to energy light.

Drinks are another trap. In a recent study it was reported that if people were fed an extra 500 kilojoules a day as solid food, they would compensate by eating less energy for the rest of the day. However when given the extra 500 kilojoules in a soft drink, juice or other clear liquid they did not reduce their daily intake accordingly. That makes water the drink of choice for weight control.

5. Treat overload

Is a treat still really a “treat” if it becomes a daily occurrence? No, that’s called a fat-inducing habit, unfortunately. An indulgence or treat should not be a daily event.

For weight loss I recommend one treat a week and for weight maintenance three treats a week. If a treat happens daily it’s no longer special, and you start looking for new replacement “treats”. And then you’ll find you’ve developed a whole series of high fat and sugar food dependencies you see as acceptable regular food.

Call a treat a treat and decide how often and when you’ll have it. Then develop a plan to deal with the inevitable treat cravings – it could be eating a set healthier alternative (see some ideas in the table above) or doing something specific to shift your focus. So, when the thought of eating a chocolate bar pops into your head at 3pm, decide you’ll always drink a glass of water, or walk round the block (in the opposite direction to the snack machine or convenience store) instead.

6. Alcohol

Alcohol can be a trap for people watching their weight. We know it has energy (kilojoules) but because it’s liquid it’s not filling and we easily forget just how much energy it’s giving us.

“Light” beer refers to the alcohol content, which will also affect the energy content. Note the difference between a low-alcohol beer (107kJ per glass) and a reduced-alcohol beer at (265kJ per glass).

If you’re using mixers, go for the low-kilojoule versions; the spirits give you more than enough energy on their own.

When you’re looking at the table of alcohol traps opposite, note especially that a standard glass of wine is defined as 100ml. It’s a good exercise to measure that amount out at home so you can appreciate how small a serve it really is – and to invest in a set of wine glasses that will limit you to that amount.

After one or two glasses of wine or beer, a packet of high-salt crisps suddenly looks like a viable meal replacement. It’s not!

7. Not Moving

Many people over-estimate how much they move or do in a day and under-estimate how much they eat in a day. Keeping a food and exercise diary can start to give you an idea of the “sneaky kilojoules” getting into your day via food, and how much or how little you’re really exercising.

A pedometer is a favourite gadget of mine and I often ask clients to wear one. It is a non-intrusive device that shows a person exactly how little they are moving. An adult should be aiming for approximately 10,000 steps a day for health and a child should be aiming for 15,000 steps. Turn to the article on page 84, “How to get off the sofa”, for a simple plan to start moving more.

Even if you don’t see yourself as an “exerciser” you can introduce activities that mean you are moving incidentally – plan social outings that involve walking to and from somewhere, or start a social walking club. Before you know it, you could be trading your not-so-healthy eating habits with a much healthier exercise addiction, and feeling fabulous for it!

I'm a sooky-la-la

That's right, like the title says I'm a sooky-la-la. LOL!! I'm going to get all the negativity out of my system and get back on with practicing what I preach and that's looking at the glass half full and not half empty.

I've had better weeks, here's why:

1. Tuesday I had my influenza injection (I'm trypanophobic)
2. Dad's had two bad heart turns and is back in St.Vincent's Hospital
3. Wednesday I had a skin biopsy ending in five stitches (and again I'm trypanophobic)

4. I couldn't train legs due to the above

5. I was in a hospital room with a recently passed away patient whilst visiting my Dad
6. I'm now home sick with the damn flu *agrhhhhh*
7. Dad's in hospital and I can't go and see him incase I infect him

So I'm at home feeling sad and sorry for myself. But thankfully Miss Em shook me & Miss Rae ass whooped me back into reality. Thanks ladies. ;o)

Well I best make my way to the kitchen, I have food to prepare ready for tomorrow. Enjoy what's left of your weekend! And thankyou, to everyone for being so loving and supportive during my not so good times. It's times like these that you find out who your true friends really are. And now I know, it's all you guys. xx

Get Ready 2007 - Melbourne

Sunday 1st July 2007 @ Athletique Health Club

Twists and turns

Sometimes you must get it wrong before you can know how to get it right. Often, short-term disappointment is a necessary step on the path to long-term fulfillment.

When things fail to go according to plan, all is not lost. Mistakes, surprises and distractions can bring their own unique and valuable possibilities.

If you were unable to get the results you intended, don't waste a lot of time being angry, resentful or disappointed. Instead, look for the new set of opportunities with which you've been presented.

If the first ship sails without you, that could very likely turn out to be a blessing. For the voyage on the next ship can end up being better than you could ever have previously imagined.

Don't put a lot of energy into judging, after the fact, whether a particular outcome is desirable or not. Put your energy into finding ways to move forward from the current situation.

The road to fulfillment is never a straight line. Learn to navigate the twists and turns, and you'll find something of value in every result.

-- Ralph Marston

Poster of the Day

I'm riddled with guilt....

because you've all been there to support me irrespective of what's going on in your lives and I haven't been there for you guys to visit your blogs or to leave comments. I am sooooo sorry, will you ever be able to forgive me? I've recently even considered closing down my blog because I don't put the time and effort into it and everyone elses like I used to and want to. :o(

Poster of the Day

Just one of those days.....

I'd rather get over and done with. I left my specialist appointment this afternoon with five stitches in my left shin so no leg training for moi for the next two days. How ruuude! :o(

The local anaesthetic is well and truly wearing off now and I'm feeling a combination of soreness, numbness and a little itchy so I'm headed straight to bed. Hopefully that will help. Unfortunately Daniel's away with work again so no one to look after me and tend to my every sooky need. LOL!!

Physique of the Day

Frank the Tank

My favourite quote at the moment

"Things don't go wrong and break your heart
so you can become bitter and give up.
They happen to break you down and build you up
so you can be all that you were intended to be."

-- Charles Jones

Dad

Dad's back in hospital, this time he's having difficulty breathing. :o(