Stephanie Louise Smith

My brother-in-law is in hospital having emergency spinal surgery and The Sasquatch is moving to...

dresslove — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 04:32:36 -0400

My brother-in-law is in hospital having emergency spinal surgery and The Sasquatch is moving to Sydney.

Today did not turn out how I thought it would.

After that day thought smiling wouldn’t happen for a while, but a phone call from a new friend...

dresslove — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:56:26 -0400

After that day thought smiling wouldn’t happen for a while, but a phone call from a new friend has got me laughing again.

Some people are the best, you know? They make the world a better place just by being in it and they don’t even realise.

John Mayer’s ‘In Your Atmosphere’ on repeat…. All night…

dresslove — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 07:58:35 -0400

John Mayer’s ‘In Your Atmosphere’ on repeat….

All night…

When everything that can go wrong goes wrong, we call it Stephanie’s life…. Amazing.

dresslove — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 07:52:58 -0400

When everything that can go wrong goes wrong, we call it Stephanie’s life….

Amazing.

Dear Sasquatch, I’m in your town. And I miss you. So much. I keep looking around the room and...

dresslove — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 05:21:46 -0400

Dear Sasquatch,

I’m in your town. And I miss you. So much. I keep looking around the room and searching for a head taller than all the others…

I miss you so much…

It doesn’t matter how much time passes, I still wish you were here.

Be well…

Stephanie xx

I’m glad its not just me!!! I actually am at a stage where...

dresslove — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:30:07 -0400

I’m glad its not just me!!! I actually am at a stage where I had to mute it in places because I couldn’t listen anymore. Not sure if I’ll download any more episodes…?

Having anxiety because I’ve gained weight since the last time I saw these people and...

dresslove — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:05:01 -0400

Having anxiety because I’ve gained weight since the last time I saw these people and they’re the type to mention it.

Amazing.

:-(

PROGRESS!!!!

dresslove — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:13:55 -0400

I’m sorry, it probably feels like I screamed that heading at you, but the thing is, I kinda did!!!

Woke-up this morning earlier than I have in forever and when the alarm went off there was no “umming” or “ahhing”. It was just straight up to check the wod. Saw it and went in even though it was a KB-athon.

But that’s not the exciting part. The exciting part is that there were 120 KB swings @16kg, and that was after a whole lot of work on the rings and hanging from the bar, AND GUESS WHAT?!?!?!?

I DID ALL 120 SWINGS AT 16KG!!!!!!

For some of you that’ll be a pretty light weight, but I got them out without any complaints from my shoulder. This is a huge step. So happy right now!!!

The full session looked like this:

Still just learning the mechanics of the muscle-up, but doing all this practice is definitely starting to build the strength and the movement and Little Matty coached me through every single little progression (Did I mention I was the only one there again today? World’s cheapest personal training!). With the dips and ring dips, still needed to use the band but I got out so many more than I usually do. It’s nice to know that the strength is starting to build there. As for the pull-ups, by the time we got to them my upper body was so shattered that if there was an improvement I didn’t notice.

Feeling really good about this one, and even more pleased that I stuck to the goal I set last night of making sure I really push myself with the strength component.

As for the wod, the KB swings were what they were. Heard T-Max in my head as I reached for the 12kg KB saying, “Really, Steph?” and with that it stayed where it was and the 16kg came with me for the wod. The ring pull-ups I had to use a band, but I was actually happy with how I got these out. I couldn’t have done them without the band, but a few months ago I couldn’t have even done them with the band. So happy with that progression.

The run? Yeah, it was a nice recovery ;-) Did make sure I pushed myself on it, but I was always more than a little happy when it came around again.

That there is how I started my Tuesday. Hope yours is off to just as awesome a start!!!!

Just sayin…

dresslove — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 06:24:54 -0400

Just sayin…

dresslove: Because Rob is the man.

dresslove — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 05:59:12 -0400

dresslove:

Because Rob is the man.

Something To Talk About...

dresslove — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 05:36:00 -0400

Thinking out loud, well, typing, anyway, these things that are going round and round in my head…

Was checking in on Strength & Sarcasm today because I find it such a motivating blog, anyway, it got me thinking about how I eat, how I train, and when in my life I’ve gotten the best results…

The best results I’ve ever gotten were back in 2010 when I was following the Body For Life programme. I know, shock, horror, and awe. Bad stuff, right?

Not really… Hear me out.

The thing about that programme is that it promotes clean eating (if you don’t get sucked into all the supplements, etc that they try and peddle along with it. Other than protein I didn’t touch any of it) and hard weight training. When I look back over my training since then and where I have/haven’t gotten results, it always - and I really do mean always - comes back to whether or not I was lifting heavy. I’m not talking feeling a little bit sore the next day, I mean every second day barely being able to move.

When I did that programme I stuck with it religiously for the full twelve weeks, and only stopped following it once my aerobics classes and running prevented me from doing weight training. Eventually, as work and the aerobics classes dictated my schedule, I was doing about three times as much exercise as I had been on BFL and yet was getting about a tenth of the results.

Different food and exercise regimes suit different people so I’m not going to preach to you about which is the best one and what you should do. In reality, because I didn’t go down the supplement route I probably can’t be considered to have done BFL properly anyway. The thing that I’m taking from this long look down memory lane though is that, for me anyway, heavy lifting is what gets results. And I need to be doing it regularly again. At the moment I’m guilty of only hitting about 7/10 most days at crossfit and that’s why the results haven’t come as quickly as I might like. I look around the room, see what everyone else is doing and use that to gauge myself rather than just feeling internally what I should be doing. I’m great at reaching during cardio, not as disciplined to do it during the strength component. Stupid thing is that one of the things that excited me about training somewhere new was that I’d get to train strength every time I walked in the door. So why now that I’m there am I not doing that???

Something I need to think about and start correcting in my training sessions… Especially if results are as important to me as I say that are, and more importantly, if at some point I’d like to never count calories again…

Eat clean, train dirty. Nothing beats it if you want physical results.

I Don't Know...?

dresslove — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 04:44:00 -0400

I’m trying to watch Girls and I have to be honest… It’s like watching a trainwreck. I seem to be the only person who doesn’t like it…?? No, that’s not right, I do like it. I think. But…

I think the privileged lifestyles and how vapid these girls are is what’s annoying me. They’re freaking spoilt and it’s annoying me.

But I’m still watching, so I guess that means I like it…?

No I don’t. She’s just freaking weird. I need her to breathe and chill out.

Winning. Just This One Time...

dresslove — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 04:06:27 -0400

Two things happened today. Okay, three things.

1. I woke-up feeling like someone took a sledgehammer to my head through the night. After quickly checking the room to make sure there wasn’t a stray person or sledgehammer lying around, came to the realisation that I was in fact still sick and it was just cold/flu/chest thing symptoms. As such - and know I have to fly tomorrow for two days of work meetings - I called in sick to recuperate and heal this body.

2. Around 2pm my body cried out in boredom. Overshare coming: Slightly hormonal. Overshare completed. This means that right now I want to eat all the food. All of it. Every single little bit. Also, I was feeling a little better and wanted to see if my lungs had it in them to hold out for this evening’s wod (because I’ll miss the next two days of training with the super long work days). Went for a run and though it was slow, managed to cruise around the ghetto for forty minutes before my body declared that it was nap time.

3. Made it to the wod. It looked like this:

And I got the double unders out as part of the wod!! Usually I take the ‘x3 singles as a substitute’ option, but today we got started and I found myself wondering why it was that I wasn’t doing them properly. Took the count back to zero and got them out. Managed to trip on the 12th one each time, but that meant I got each set of 21 out in two goes. Woot woot!!! Smiling pretty big over here. The pull-ups were a non-event today though - even with the green band. Seems I was hurting just a little from the flu thing.

Was so happy with the double unders that I wasn’t complaining though. And yes, all three rounds out in under the time cap.

After such a big day am now going to bed to sleep for, oh I don’t know, ten or twelve or maybe fifteen hours…

Progress...

dresslove — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 19:10:06 -0400

Figured that if I was going to do all this talk about clean eating, etc, then some progress notes were probably needed.

One thing I’m refusing to talk about though is the actual number on the scales. Why? Because I’m trying to get myself to a place where I honestly believe that numbers on scales don’t mean anything.

Of course the first thing I did when I woke-up this morning was weigh myself though… Idiot.

So it’s been a full week of clean eating now. I had a serious cheat meal on Friday night, though perhaps ‘a cheat meal of epic proportions’ would be a better desription. Then last night I had some icecream because I’m sick and I want icecream.

Didn’t go full paleo all week. A couple of times when I had vegetable soup I had some grain bread will it - some habits just die too hard and are too delicious to break!

The scales tell me I’ve lost weight, my clothes tell me there might be a minor change, the mirror tells me that after being back at crossfit for three weeks I’m starting to get some of that muscle back that I lost, but I can’t see a change in size. It’s nice though to look in the mirror and see that things aren’t as disgusting-looking as they had been.

More than that though, I actually just feel better (ignoring the fact that I have this chest/flu/cold thing going on). I have more energy, I’m sleeping better, my mood is definitely more positive, and I - crazy as it is - have started looking forward to each afternoon’s training session.

So what’re the goals for this week? Keep it clean with just the two cheat meals again. I’m thinking Tuesday night when I’m away for work. Typically there is a lot of food and even more alcohol, it’d be rough to not join in at all. Of course if I’m still feeling like this I’ll just by sulking my way back to the hotel after the meeting to pass out and sleep for ten or so hours… The second will of course be Friday night at my parents.

The other goal for the week is to slightly cut down the portion sizes. I’ve still been overeating for someone my size and weight and I really need to well and truly reel it in. If I can stick to that I’m confident things will seem even better next week. Let’s face it: the less fat mass you’re carrying the easier it has to get to finally get those pull-ups out… Right?

This cold/flu/chest thing is kicking my butt. Can someone please bring me soup, orange juice, and...

dresslove — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 01:02:08 -0400

This cold/flu/chest thing is kicking my butt.

Can someone please bring me soup, orange juice, and cuddles?i have a certain someone in mind but given he doesn’t know my number or where I live, I’m happy to open the offer to volunteers at this point…

I’ll even just accept orange juice. Thank you.

My sister-in-law has been baking and they look amazing. Really...

dresslove — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:57:13 -0400

My sister-in-law has been baking and they look amazing.

Really want to have a go at a paleo choc chip cookie recipe I found, but I’m not sure my discipline is quite at the point where I can trust myself to not eat the whole batch.

This is one of those times I wish I didn’t live alone so I’d have someone else to feed half to. ;-)

Things are looking messier, but not necessarily better, than...

dresslove — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 23:45:55 -0400

Things are looking messier, but not necessarily better, than before…

Went to bed feeling fine last night but woke-up this morning with the runniest nose I have ever had. Decided that staying active for a while might be a good idea. A few hours later the yard looked like a cyclone had torn through and my head was ready to explode.

Now before you go, “What the hell has she done??”, this is just step 1. Was removing the bulk of the crap from the garden today. Next weekend is step two.

As much as I hate gardening, love the feeling of satisfaction when you get something done. Or half-done as is the case here.

Right, I am off to crash on the couch and wonder why the hell I have a cold again after so much good training and clean eating. Grrr.

I Got 99 Problems...

dresslove — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 20:44:16 -0400

… And pretty much all of them are related to the state of my garden beds.

Blergh. There go the next few hours of my life while I try to make a dint in it… It’d be wrong to just rip the entire lot out, wouldn’t it? The yard part of the fish bowl stuff may have gotten away from me. There really aren’t enough hours in the day for everything…

I hate gardening. I need to make a million dollars so I can pay people to do this stuff for me. Good plan!

On a more positive note, winning at clean eating. Woot Woot!

Run It

dresslove — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 08:02:36 -0400

No one wanted to go out, so I had a dance party in my lounge room. If I’m going to be stuck at home, may as well do something I enjoy and that’s good for fitness, right?

Hip hop it is.

Yet another Saturday night spent at home alone and bored stupid. FML. I need new friends. You...

dresslove — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 05:22:56 -0400

Yet another Saturday night spent at home alone and bored stupid.

FML.

I need new friends. You know, ones who actually want to go out and spend time with me.

FML.