Just checking in to see if you guys have been good this week, and that your year is off to a great start! I have had a decent week so far – I made it to the gym every day, and my diet is back to being 95% perfect (with the exception of one leftover glass of wine I consumed on Tuesday night/after New Years).  I feel I don’t want alcohol or any sweets anymore, which is nice.   In my experience, it takes about 2 weeks for the body to get adjusted, so I’m being patient with myself while making small changes and corrections each day.  I find myself being incredibly thirsty and must have been drinking about 2 gallons of water a day recently, not sure why but at least it’s keeping hunger in check! Eliminating alcohol from my diet will also do wonders for me – not easy being a wine consultant, but I feel it’s necessary to get a kick start to my prep.
I’ve started a new training program which focuses on more reps and sets. I pretty much stick to 6 exercises or so, but instead of doing 15, 12, 10, 8 I do 15-20 sets of each and I do a lot of drop sets and super sets. Today was shoulders and my work-out looked like this:

Warm up: 4x 15 lateral db raises (light to medium weight)

Shoulder presses; 6-8 heavy, then drop set 6,8, then another drop 15-failure (3 sets total)

Smith machine upright rows; 6-8 heavy, then drop 15-20 reps/to failure (3 sets total)

Lying on incline bench- lateral raises, heavy 6-8, slightly lighter 6-8, then cut the weight in half 15 reps  or until burnout (4 sets)

Front raises w/cable – same rep /set scheme as above

Machine shoulder press the 28 method: 7 regular tempo reps, then 7 reps w/6 seconds slowly going down on the negative,pause,  then  7 reps x 6 seconds slow going up on the positive and finish with 7 pumps on the lower range and 7 pumps on the upper range of the movement.

After that I was supposed to do abs but they hurt from two days before, so I decided not to… what a whuzz! haha.. Seriously, I’ve had a timid approach to my workouts this week, I feel heavy and out of shape because I’ve been so irregular with my routine the past couple of months, plus I have had the sensation of a burn out for a while. I need to slowly get back into it – I know if I go all out right away like I used to, I will burn out again, so I’m practicing patience with myself at the same time being persistent.  In a way I feel I’m going through the motions until I get that “fire” back in me – it’s gradually coming back, I can feel it!

This year I will be focusing on my shoulders and back and developing my lats- I feel my upper body needs to be improved, fill out and I also want to get stronger there. My legs have always been a strong point, although one can always perfect the BUM!! Keyword: glute-ham tie in!

Hope you are all fighting to stay fit and will enjoy your weekend!  I leave you with a motivating picture of my  mentor and coach, Dana Linn Bailey – those are delts to die for! Next month I will post a picture of mine, promise! 🙂