it's looking like Christmas....in April!

It's snowing. It's F-ING snowing! I know it's still early April but come on, haven't we been punished with snow and cold long enough? Why I moved back to North Dakota, I'll never know. Oh yeah, Denmark wasn't exactly a tropical climate ;)

Despite being irritated by the snow, I got downstairs to get my arms workout done for the day. It's good to get my aggressions out with weights! I am really loving pyramids! It was just what I needed to get me out of my rut! A little over 6 weeks to go!

I did some nasty intervals yesterday morning. Thought I was going to die, they were that intense. But the really cool thing about it is 20 minutes goes by like that *snap*. Very quick. I guess I can handle that. I tried Bill Phillip's method for HIIT from his book Body For Life. It isn't easy - although you can easily modify it to your own fitness level.

Then last night I jumped on the mini trampoline for 30 minutes. That thing is so dang fun. The only drawback is it makes me have to pee. I had to get off that thing 5 times during the course of 30 minutes to pee! Holy Lord.

I was talking to my husband last night about how my most of my jeans are loose on me now and we got into a little muscle debate (as usual). He said, "There is such a thing as too skinny." I said, I knew that and I'm not trying to get "skinnier". In fact, I wouldn't mind gaining 10 pounds as long as it was muscle (because who wants to gain 10 pounds of fat???). And he gave me that look. And he said, "Muscle isn't all it's cracked up to be" or something like that. Ok, what does that even mean? He might as well have been speaking another language because I didn't understand that at all.

I know he's got this fear that I am going to end up like one of those super muscular women with the awful spray on tan in a glittering bikini. I've got news for you: if it were easy to look like that, I'd have been there years ago. There is a stigma associated with women body builders, the way my husband feels about it is probably very common. Women just don't have the testosterone to build muscle like a man. But we can lift to build fat burning, metabolism boosting, long lean sculpted muscle that gives us the ability to look toned and defined yet still feminine and curvy. You can take it as far as you want. It's not like you lift weights and overnight you look like Arnold. Everyone is different in how their body responds to weight training. Some build quickly, while others really have to work at it (i.e. ME!). There is actually quite a lot involved in building serious muscle mass. What you eat and how much you eat will dictate your results.

Muscle is also much more dense than fat. Which means, when you add muscle to your body, you can weigh more than you did when you were fatter. It's more compact so you are actually smaller. Which is why when you gain muscle weight you get smaller. So am I going to get bulky? Not at all! I'm getting smaller! What I want to see is actually a gain in weight while I get smaller. That would mean I am losing fat AND gaining muscle - which is like the holy grail of bodybuilding, right?

One more thing to say on the matter: the idea you might have about these overly tanned women on stage is that they look like that all the time. The truth is, they go through bulking and cutting phases. When they are on stage, they are at their peak after weeks of serious dieting to really get their bodies as lean and cut as possible. It isn't something they can maintain for very long. They aren't walking around looking like that all the time. However, they do have amazing bodies all year round. And as for the tan, it's a tanning spray that they use for the show because it makes the muscles more visible and defined for judging under the harsh lights.

This is all stuff I've read from other blogs and various online articles. If I'm reading anything, 99% of the time it's something on fitness.

So my husband also says to me, "on a scale of 1-10, having firm legs is a 2, having jiggly legs is a 2, having legs at all is a 10".  I guess I'll keep him <3

"Life, the ultimate challenge, is not a race to the finish but rather a process of continual growth" - Bill Phillips