Good Week

Woke up at at 5:00 and couldn't get back to sleep. So many thoughts racing through my head. Finally, at 6:30, I got up. Now, I'm drinking my ritual morning lemon water (a whole freshly squeezed lemon in water) and planning out my day.

Had a date with my hubby last night. It's been a looooooong time since we've been out together. I really wish we took more time for just us. Everything we do seems to be family oriented, which is perfectly fine since we have kids. But I know that it is important to do couple centered things too. And plain and simply, we just do not do enough of that. I think it can impact a marriage negatively when you focus too much on the children 100% of the time and don't take time to nurture the marriage where it all began.

So we got dressed up and went out for dinner at a place where I knew I could get one of the BEST steaks around. And like always, they delivered! THE MOST tender, melt in your mouth, perfectly cooked filet mignon known to man. It was sheer bliss. I've never been one of those dainty salad eating girls. Give me a big slab-o-meat!

Of course, I was stuffed beyond belief when we left. Ugh! I couldn't wait to get home and into my pjs. We ended up watching the end of the movie "Flushed Away" with the girls and then we were in bed, watching our nightly dose of "Top Gear UK". It was a great day and a great night.

I had taken a break with my strict diet last week. I had planned on breaking my healthy streak for Valentine's Day. I like to make Valentine's fun and special for my kids. They always enjoy it so much when I do things out of the ordinary. But now my break is over and I'm back to "strict" today. I'm starting Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Diet: Cooler #1 - which is the strictest plan in the book and she says it should only be done for 2 weeks. To be honest, it looks a bit easier than what I had previously done for 45 days without any starchy carbs or sugar. Because I can have one bowl of oatmeal and one yam per day. So really, it should be a piece of cake! The only difference is, it's also NO dairy and pretty low in fat. This is what scares me. I think part of the reason I was so successful on the no grain/no sugar advanced plan was because I could eat raw organic cheese at will. It was basically my idea of heaven. I love cheese. However, it's quite possible that, for me, getting my ideal physique is not going to work eating all the cheese I want ;)

So, Tosca, I'm giving Cooler #1 a try! I just love to experiment with my body to see what produces results and what doesn't. What makes me feel great and so on. Since everyone is so individual in their needs and how their bodies respond, you never know what is going to be THE thing that works for you. There is need to be open minded and try new things. And I'm excited to see where this takes me in the next two weeks!

After these two weeks, I'm still following the Eat Clean principles, just backing down to Cooler #2. And if you've read the book, you'll know what that's all about.

Workouts: still pretty much the same. I'm still loving the MaxT3 workouts 6 days a week. I've also added some extra leg workouts 3 days a week and HIIT 2 days per week. Actually, I've sort of turned my HIIT workouts into surge workouts. The difference being, I go 20 seconds super intense, followed by 20 seconds rest - and keep repeating that cycle. So on my last HIIT session, I did regular intervals for 15 minutes, then surge cycles for the last 5 minutes. It's AMAZING how much harder you feel like you work! I chose to do incline sprinting. That way, I could work my butt!

If there is one thing I like about my body, it's my butt. It's not perfect by any means. But it's not flat! And that to me, is all that matters. I've spent YEARS doing all the heavy lifting required of building a shapely, round and lifted backside. I was looking in the mirror at my side view before the girls and I headed downstairs for our nightly workout and I said, "I hope I'm not losing my butt" and Eden said, "Well, wouldn't that be a good thing?" and I said "NO! It wouldn't! I worked hard for my butt!" Haha...she didn't quite understand.

Many adult women are like that too. They are too focused on making their butts smaller. But what man wants a woman with a non-existent flat butt? When you don't work to build some muscle back there, gravity is going to get you, and you're going to sag. Unless you've got some nice glutes to hold everything up nice and tight. Don't think aerobics is going to help you either! You don't want a flat butt anymore than you want a flat chest! Who wants to wear two doughy pancakes on their back side? Show of hands? Nobody? Yeah, me neither. Weighted squats, lunges and step ups - all the time, girls! That's the only thing that's going to give you a firm round booty!