Real Body Fitness

Pamela Micks
Certified Personal Trainer
214-536-3304
pamela@realbodyfitness.com

I wish that you could follow me around for a couple of days and see what my life is like. I wake up and start working immediately, then I take lunch which is usally me eating alone and reading a Wilbur Smith or Dean Koontz novel.

When I get off work I like to relax for about 30 minutes after I change into my workout clothes. I like to eat before working out and so I find some food in the house or I go and pick somehting up. I then go to the gym. If I ride my bike to the gym then I don’t do cardio at the gym, I just lift until my arms hurt - until the pain in my rotator cuffs is so unbearable that I have to hug myself to deal with the pain. I do curls and back exercises until exhaustion. When I try to do one more rep of anything my triceps, biceps or back muscles immediately Charlie Horse and I know it’s time to stop.

In the morning I eat Kashi high-protein, high-fiber cereal. I drink 50 grams of a low-carb protien drink. I take fish-oil tablets that are supposed to help the joints. At night I drink a Nitric Oxide beverage that tastes like diet fruit punch cough syrup called Nano Vapor.

What’s in naNO Vapor?

naNO Vapor™ delivers clinically advanced anabolic growth factors, a unique neuro-amplifying matrix, cutting-edge thermogenic compounds, potent cell volumizing complexes, and a never-before-seen combination of vasodilators for a powerful, multi-angled approach to musclebuilding.

This is only the beginning. I’ve got so many more things to incorporate into my overall training plan, but I don’t want to over-do it. What I’ve learned from years of failure and success is that trying to do too much at the beginning is a sure way to incur severe burnout and I need to make this program work for me unlike any other program in the past.

One thing I also must mention - the Fish Oil Joint pills are working fantastic. After just a few days use I already feel less pain in my elbows and heels. I should have done this a long time ago, but better late than never!

I thrust the bar back up the rack with a clank and hugged myself. I listened to “Closer” by Ne-Yo on my iPod while I geared back up for the final 10 reps. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… I pushed all the way through to 15 before I was forced to quit again.  My breath came in short gasps and so I focused on slowing it down. Deep inhalations followed by a slow exhale. I concentrated on the pounding in my chest and immediately could tell that the breathing exercises were working.

This week I added just 10 pounds. My goal is to be able to do 225 40 times non-stop by the time Desperdo tryouts get here in October. I picked up the 145 pounds and busted out 25 reps easily. The second set was even easier and is always the easiest because the muscles are warmed up. By the 3rd set I could start to feel the burn, the tearing down of muscle fibers and the build up of lactic acid. I continued to focus on my breathing and form and on the 4th and final set of 25 I pushed through with ease. 145 pounds 100 times isn’t a great feat, but what is great is to see how quickly my body is responding to the torture I am putting it through. Now it’s time to up the ante…

With just 2 months of training to go I have to increase my running, improve my diet, start taking post-workout recovery shakes, ice my joints, cool down in the hot tub and sauna, and if I really want to get serious I will start on a regimen of creatine and a host of other MuscleTech supplements that taste and smell awful but that over time I have found that they actually do work.

Last night I am talking to Attic Monkey about all of this and I tell him, “Dude, just imagine how much easier it would be to be a full time athlete. I’m doing all of this on top of working 40 hours a week at work, what if all I had to do was workout 4 hours a day, then work on recovery and then when I go home that time is mine, the workouts are done because the workouts were, well, Work.”

This little conversation only inspired me more. What if I could become a paid athlete for just a few years? After that I would like to tour the states as a motivational speaker. I would publish a book on eating and exercise and then of course I would write an Autobiography about my experience and how I went from Corporate America, to being a Fat Mavs ManiAAC dancer to being a Dallas Desperado.

So people keep asking me, “What have you been up to lately?” Well, pretty much working, working out, and taking care of my body and my house. What have you been up to?

My roommate is about to start another detox, he’s the one that told me about this one in the first place. His new one comes with a bunch of pills and powder that look really cool. It will be fun living with a guinea pig while he goes through this.

Yesterday was also the first day of a 21-day diet cleanse that I’ve decided to do that prohibits me from eating any sugar, gluten, caffeine, alcohol, or animal products. It’s the same cleanse that Oprah did, and when I read about how it was making her feel I became intrigued, bought the book that inspired it, Quantum Wellness, and decided immediately it was exactly what I needed in my life. I’ve been meaning to make some major changes in my life, especially since the recent chaos is only going to get more chaotic, and this book outlines some ideas as to how to take charge of the change I want to make.

They so want to be just like me.

Last night in my MIS class our Prof hit on some really great points about self-image and why people, no matter how often we try to make them change - don’t.  The importance of this information was tied into the fact that many large corporations try to implement new processess and policies only to find that they are ignored. This is especially true with “Knowledge Workers” who use their brains to do their jobs and not manual labor. Once we develop a way we like to do things, a way that has worked just fine for us, we don’t like to change it.

According to Dr. Maltz, each individual has a picture of who they are and how the world sees them. This self-image is created over time by our failures and successes and by what people have told us repeatedly about ourselves.  “Once a belief about oursevles goes into this picture it becomes truth” Maltz says ” We do not question it’s validity, but proceed to act as if it were true.”

Think about that for a moment. If you were told in the 7th grade that you weren’t good at math, were you ever good at math? I wasn’t. It always came hard for me. For most of my life I didn’t consider myself a creative person, it was only when I started to work for TI that I started to believe I was creative and only then because people told me over and over how creative I was. It took years for me to actually believe that I truly am creative and then to start nurturing and feeding that creativity.

I thought this information was interesting to note especially in the case of Americans and dieting, exercise and general health. Our teacher put a quote on the board form Maltz that said, and I’m paraprhasing, “90% of all patients with heart disease do not change their eating habits or lifestyles even after they have had heart surgery and they know that if they do not change their habits they will die.”

I had an Uncle that smoked cigarettes like a freight train. When I met him for the first time he had no voice box. He used one of those machines that you held up to a hole in your throat and when you talked it sounded like a robot or a Speak and Spell. He had gotten throat cancer and so they removed his voicebox, but he kept smoking. Later, Cancer ate up his entire face. My dad went to visit him int he hospital during his last days and he said the cancer was so bad that his face was mutilated and his lips were so swollen that they stretched back away from his teeth and he couldn’t even close his mouth.

It’s an ugly picture, but a picture that only validates Maltz’s theories about change.

As I have worked hard to diet these last few weeks, as I have struggled for self-discipline and self-control I have noticed areas where I have sabotaged my self. I have been my worst enemy at reaching my goals.

I’m always delighted to learn truths about human behavior. Understanding why I am the way that I am helps me to take better actions for change. It’s gonna be hard, but I can change.

A note about my tooth… I have to go back this week to have it finished, however, it should go pretty fast because have of the filling has already fallen out. There is a whole in my tooth where that temporary crap they stuff in there has cratered. The dentist said I couldn’t eat anything like caramel or chewing gum and so I didn’t. I’ve pretty much been eating nursing home soft foods for the last few days… so I blame shoddy teeth stuff, not my eating habits.

Also, if you live in the Dallas area, Kiss FM Big Money What is That? is supposed to start back up today. I’ll be posting the clues on this site if I remember to wake up before 7. However, this morning I woke up at 5:45 and went ahead and got up and now I am at Starbucks getting ready to do some work.

Yesterday I broke my diet and I broke it hard. I realized my mistake. Every day that I have wanted to mess up or I did mess up, I didn’t eat breakfast and sometimes I didn’t eat lunch. Mistake.

Yesterday I didn’t eat anything until around 1. I thought I could go to an Indian food buffet and get some of their vegetarian entrees and not be tempted by everything else. How stupid. I started with a plate of vegetable and a tiny bit of this chicken stuff I like. The waiter then brought a basket of Indian flatbread and I thought, I’ll just have a couple bits of one piece. Another plate of food and 4 pieces of flatbread later my diet was out the window.

Later that day I went to Market Street and bought a slice of pizza. I just didn’t care. Like the song, my “give a damn” was busted.

I’m still trying to stay on the diet these last two days. I’ve had a banana for breakfast and I am about to head to Yoga.

On an upnote, my tooth is feeling MUCH better. Thank the Lord Jesus. I would rather him call me home than to put me through that kind of pain. I’m such a baby when it comes to tooth pain. I’ll do Yoga with a hurt foot, play Ultimate Frisbee with the most painful heel spurs, and lift weights with tennis elbow without complaint, but give me a little bit of tooth pain and I turn into a big baby. I think that is part of what I hate about it, I’m ashamed of the fact that I can’t handle the pain.

Anyway, I’m so over this detox, but I am not over eating healthy. I’m not going to start drinking caffeine again on a regular basis or indule in High Fructose Corn Syrup.

As I sat in traffic this morning I started to stew like a large carrot. I was unhappy that I had to make the drive, spend the time and gas money all because my roommate was unable to handle his responsibilities. I’ve been in the same boat so I’ve been VERY lenient, but I was about to pop. This has not been a good week and with Josh rarely lifting a hand around the house or keeping his room or bathroom clean I had just had enough.

When I arrived home this morning he was in the kitchen. I told him Andrew would probably be moving in at the end of June and that he needed to start keeping his bathroom clean. It was filthy with Gold Bond powder on the counter tops and soap dispener. Piles of clothes sat on the floor and his trash was overflowing. His toiletries were haphazardly laying around on the counter top and it just wasn’t something I could tolerate from a roommate that paid rent on time, it was definitely intolerable from a roommate who was getting a heck of deal at $400 a month, no bills, and still wasn’t able to pay rent on time.

So I told him that he needed to start keeping his bathroom clean. It is the guest bathroom and so it needs to always be clean. Then I told him he needed to start paying his rent on time or to start looking for some other place to stay. It isn’t fair to me and if he was staying someplace else he would be paying late fees. Part of the reason he hasn’t been able to pay rent is because he switched jobs and he is getting paid every two weeks and he didn’t get paid from his old job like he thought he was going to. I understand that, but the bank doesn’t care why I don’t have my mortgage payment, they still expect me to pay it on time. I am trying to teach him that when it comes to responsibilities, rent comes first, then car, then food and electricity and then, after all that is taken care of, then you get to have entertainment and discretionary income, not the other way around.

So last night I got home and my tooth was hurting bad. It hurt all day and at the end of they day my trainer said, “You know that same energy you brought to Cranium in yesterday’s meeting, you need to bring that to these meetings.” I wanted to sock him in the face.  I had mentioned already that my tooth was hurting and I reminded him again, “I am in pain, I was barely holding it together. My tooth has been hurting since lunch.” Apparently people don’t register tooth pain with actual pain, but let me tell you, I’d rather have any other part of my body hurt. Tooth pain makes me so miserable that I become incapacitated. I can’t focus on anything else. It throbs and hurts and I want to kill people.

My trainer had no idea how close he had come to death. Of all the things he needs to coach me on, the last thing I need help with is meetings and my energy level during meetings. I’m not a Jack Russel, don’t expect me to always be chipper and ready to chase the ball. Sometimes I’ll be upbeat and funny, but sometimes I just want to get the job done, especially when I am in pain.

So last night I hurt so bad and then finally the pain subsided after taking 4 Advils. I was tired and not in the mood to go out and find some food and so I started snacking on that damn large bag of popcorn again. I ate and ate and ate that stuff - detox be damned! Then I went into the kitchen and thought, I’ll just eat one bite of this cookie. That one bite was so good that I ate the whole thing. I didn’t care, I wasn’t even sorry and I felt very little guilt.

I weighed 327.4 this morning despite my modest binge last night. I’m falling apart here at the end, but I only have 3 days left and so I am going to stick it out. I feel like with all that is going on in my life, a root canal, a break up with a girlfriend, a huge electric bill and a $540 dental bill, a roommate that hasn’t paid rent, my foot in a boot so I can’t play Ultimate, a job that is sucking butt - well, I’m going to allow that modest binge and pat myself on the back because in the past I would have went right down to Pancho’s and stuffed my face and gorged my sorrows away.

So if you see me today and I’m cranky, it’s because I am in No Mood to deal with anything right now. NO MOOD!

I found this Edodontist on my healthcare provider’s website. He was the only one available to do the procedure on such a short notice. When I first met him I thought I was meeting some techno dance club owner, not someone who had spent a good deal of his life in the classroom. His head was shaved as smooth as Mr. Clean’s, he wore his shirt unbuttoned one button too far down and he had a gold chain hanging against his caramel colored skin. He was of an undiscernable ethnic descent, but if I had to guess I would say Mexipimpican, because he could have been Mexican or he could have been a pimp - or both.

I’m surprised that when the nurse laid me back in the chair that the doctor didn’t arrive with a purple mink hat and coat.  I can picture him wearing platform shoes and smoking on a cigarrette with one of those long sticks atttached to it. Right before the procedure he would turn on some James Brown and break it down to get me in the mood for my root canal. Both the procedures would prove to be unpleasant.

Yesterday was hellacious. After the root canal I single handedly pulled off a Department Meeting/Birthday Party. I put together 30 gift bags filled with candy and toys. Made large bowls of pineapple punch, purchased decorations, cupcakes, chips, popcorn, fruit trays, cookies and put together a PowerPoint presentation that would dazzle the Mata Hari.

By the time 5:00 had rolled around I had eaten nothing. For breakfast I had allowed myself a tall Cafe Latte. I don’t remember if I asked for decaf and was disappointed in this oversight. Latte’s are made with milk and yes, I know I am not supposed to have it, but I was about to have a root canal, I had just broken up with my girlfriend, my foot was still in a dang boot, and people, I was having trouble holding my shit stuff together. So I splurged and then didn’t eat for the rest of the day because my face was not in the mood.  Food kept trying to talk to me and my face was like, “no, nope, I’m not hearing it”.

While watching David Cook win American Idol last night I made some refried beans with a little bit of butter and olive oil and grilled onions. I ate it like a dip with chunks of fresh red pepper. It was really good.

Then I made the mistake of bringing home some leftover treats from the party at work. I brought them home for Josh, but the large bag of popcorn looked very tempting. I ate a couple of pieces and then devoured the entire 10 pound bag. Just kidding. I did eat a little bit, not so much that I worried about it, but I shouldn’t have eaten any at all. I blame stress again, and hunger. A tall coffee, a bowl of beans and red pepper are hardly enough food for a man of my size - or anyone for that matter.

I got up this morning and weighed 327.8 and so that little bit of popcorn made me gain .6 pounds. Haha. Just Kidding, I am sure that it is just a fluctation and tomorrow  I will be at 326. We’ll see.

On a more positive note, Fred has lost 6 pounds on his low carb diet in 3 days. Go Fred! Go over to his website and send him some encouragement. Diets are hard people. 

Some people have asked me about the Dr. Natura and I have to admit I really don’t recommend it. It is so nasty and I don’t really notice and real positive affects. Maybe it’s working? Maybe not. Maybe it would work better if I was eating more?