Losing weight can be tough, maintaining an ultra low body fat/body weight is tough too! I happen to strive for an ideal that is not my genetic body type. I prefer being very very lean and athletically slender. I do not like feeling pumped up quads. I do not like the feeling you get from carbing up, I prefer feeling empty or depleted. When my upper thighs measure 42 cm 16.5 inches and my glutes when flexed measure 77 cm/30 inches, while weighing 114.82 AND feeling tight around my midsection, THEN I feel the best. This state does not come naturally. I have to work at it daily to keep it. Why? Because it’s not where my body wants to be!

My passion for achieving “perfection” is more an eternal journey of the mind, an endless challenge of determination and willpower. I am not into this for health reasons, I am not into this as an athlete, I am doing this because I am an artist. I create, I sculpt body and mind.

Two weeks ago I loosened up the cardio. I was down, tight and happy for several days. When that happens I encourage my body’s adaptations by slacking off, reducing cardio sessions from two a day to one a day. For some time without changing diet at all I can cruise, but then…. What happens? Well, my nature is to push heavier and heavier weights again and suddenly I feel my quads are filling out. There is muscle that wants to come back, return with vengeance!

I went from squatting the 200’s every week for years to squatting nothing but my own body weight, to 95 lbs.. And that stimulus was enough to in less than two weeks FILL OUT the muscle mass I worked to reduce. For 10 days I was 117ish. 117!

So back to the two a day cardio regimen and carefully avoid squatting heavier and heavier, I did not notice I was doing it, it felt great! But the pump in my legs I got…. I did not like it at all. I don’t like feeling like my legs are sausages/toddler legs! Remember I do not share the ideals of bodybuilders’. I do not want a lot of size there.

I also forgot I had worked harder at shoulders and back too. I did not think I did it, but by my nature well it just happened.

I’ve done a lot of steady state cardio this week to burn calories and kill those aspiring muscle fibers.

And I was so tired the past days. Very tired. Drained. Unmotivated. Overtrained due to sudden tough increase. Now today I got my reward. I look a lot tighter, legs less filled, more cuts, less bloat.

So, don’t ever think it’s over because it never is until it’s over for GOOD. Once you get down to where you want to be, that’s when the real challenge AND the real rewards too come to your life. This is the reason why so many people achieve weight loss and their ideal body, but then they expect that result will become a stagnant and a cruising phase for the rest of their lives…. Well, ain’t happening. Your body is always looking for a way to gain weight back!

What sweets do you eat

I don’t eat sweets really

no? But how do you treat yourself?

I don’t treat myself really with sweets…

But don’t you like sweet?

Sure, I love sweets, still does not mean I eat them,

Never?

Not never, but very seldom

Hm. When did you have ice cream last time?

Don’t remember, it was years ago.

No…. never pinkberry?

Nope. I love Ben & Jerry, but I don’t ever eat it.

Why?

It does not go hand in hand with my ideals you know

But once in a while does not hurt

No, but why WOULD I want it?

I don’t know…. because it tastes so heavenly?

well, it does not last that long does it…

But I have a treat now and then, is that not ok?

Yes it is ok, but how many of those “it’s just a little treat” are you getting

uhm, not many. maybe 3 a week? 100 calories or so…

Then it does not matter.

So why don’t YOU treat yourself?

remember I still don’t feel a need to…

But you COULD

Yes but once again why WOULD I?

Because otherwise you don’t know what you are missing!

OK, seriously, do YOU know how it feels to have firm thighs and no cellulite?

haha,, No….

So, YOU don’t know how THAT it feels either

true. But I’m not fat.

No, not at all, but you ain’t lean and muscular either….

LOL… will you promise me that when we are OLD you will eat  BIG BIG bowl with ice cream with me?

Ha, what kind of promise would that be?

You MUST, you cannot DIE without doing it!

What kind of ultimatum is that lady!!! Hey, what’s wrong here: your biggest concern is ME having sweets? Get a life lol.

Whatever.

Sure. Whatever.

If you dream about having a perfect body it’s time to stop dreaming and act on making the dream come true. Every day. It means you will not be a member of the “I occasionally visit the gym” crowd anymore, you will team up with the loyal league of gym rats who are the gym franchises worst customers because we USE their equipment HARD. When you want to get lean so you can feel your abs under your shirt you will need to treat the cardio machine like your car: it will TAKE you places.

Getting a perfect body means you will go to the gym and workout because you planned it. If you don’t feel like it, it does not matter. You know you cannot love every workout and it’s ok. It’s ok and mandatory to be a bit worn out from time to time, it’s just a sign you are working hard.

Getting lean means stepping out of the comfort zone where it’s ok to cheat during weekends and work your way up again during the following week.

Getting lean means you KNOW there won’t be any treats on a daily basis and be ok with it.

To reach your goals you must accept you will need patience. You will need dedication. You will need discipline. None of them you can find anywhere to buy. Can you imagine, the only things really stopping you from achieving all those goals with your physique are inside your mind?

Accept and acknowledge that YOU are the only one who can whip your butt in shape. No trainer can push you through workout after workout, you must be the driving force, the trainer your helper. Not the other way around.

You must scrutinize every little diet add-on on your daily plan. You must check yourself for sneaking in bad choices. No more can you say “oh I had NO idea this was not nutritious” because THERE IS GOOGLE people. You must research before buying and even more before EATING.

You will need to create your own super human. Your super human YOU. There are no excuses, nothing is too hard, it’s only a matter of how much you want it. Do you want it enough? Ask yourself daily. When you see that donut or cookie on the shelf, before you just drool away, ask yourself if that taste of it for a minute is worth 3 more cardio sessions on top of your daily routine of double sessions 5 to 6 days a week?

I talked to POLAR about my issues and they showed me what a great company they are. The problem seems to be the dealers on local level… Polar will send me a strap in the right size so I can use my heart rate monitor without the hassle of non-reading etc

Thank you POLAR for listening to your consumers!

Cardio is nice especially when it’s done, but doing it two times a day? Well, it’s not THAT entertaining. what can be more repetitive than cardio…. Weight training is easy, it’s just to go in and lift, cardio however… You are going to be stuck on that machine for some time and some days you really wonder “what for!?”. We don’t do double sessions because we wanna improve cardio fitness. Nope we do it to burn more calories since more training burns more calories which can lead to increased leanness.

Coming in for the second cardio workout sucks the majority of times. The only times I look forward to it is if I had a fantastic day when I got some kind of awesome news/awesome deal/new partnership/new joint ventures etc… but they don’t come every day, but cardio happens to be as consistent as the post man….

I usually go very intensely in the morning to get my “real” workout done. Then if I have another one coming up I pretend I can just stroll a bit on the peddles on the bike and call it a day. But then, we all know… No way I can pussy around like that. Oh no, every workout counts. But I gotta get myself to start first so I cheat myself telling “Pauline, it’s only 10 minutes today”.

Some days when I really should listen to music to get psyched up I want to be grumpy and make it harder for me. Yeah, some days I really do ALL I can to make my cardio workouts suck as much as possible. I pick a rusty bike, I don’t wear head phones, I wear too cotton-rich pants so I sweat like a pig and I forget water too. Add chewing too much chewing gum so I am all bloated lol.

I used to kill it two times a day and really stress about being 100% ON every workout. That was til I realized it’s better to choose ONE to be the INTENSE one and then have some slack the second. It’s now a feather in the hat just to get there! Nowadays I have this scenario with cardio sessions: If I feel I am not as tight I do two sessions a day. If I feel I am at 114 and look good then I don’t need to do the second and I weight train instead.

ok, I’m mad now. For YEARS I’ve supported one heart rate monitor brand by purchasing EIGHT watches throughout my 11 years of training. The brand is POLAR. However, I am fed up with my loyalty, I SUCK because there has always been something wrong with the watches: battery dead after 2 weeks which had me return the watch for service. Service took too long time.

One watch’s display faded away. One did not connect to the strap. One interfered with another person’s watch despite being coded.

The latest one I bought at Gold’s gym and suddenly they changed layout and I couldn’t get a new one on my guarantee! SUCKS big time!

I’m so angry because I always recommend POLAR because it’s the number one brand working with most cardio equipment, but why when all I get is problem with POLAR? I’ve been trying to get a new strap for MONTHS because I am sorry the models do not come with XS strap and when I use MEDIUM it does not READ.

I am so pissed at POLAR!!!!!!! And I am even more pissed with me being loyal to this brand! I want a watch that WORKS, that I can depend on. I don’t like starting my workouts over because the watch does not want to read or stops reading in the middle of an intense interval!

Polar, get your act together and make products that KEEP UP WITH ATHLETES. That’s what you are saying you do but you have yet to prove it to me!!!

All vegetables are more or less healthy but most of the times I eat the same cabbage day in and day out. I don’t get bored so I don’t switch it up until I do get bored. This does not mean I don’t occasionally eat broccoli. Or carrots. Or onions. Or red peppers. Or cauliflower or sugar snap peas and mushrooms. If you ask me if I ever eat this or that vegetable and I say no I don’t eat this and that vegetable it does not mean I don’t find it nutritious or good for you. It’s just not something I include in my daily diet. You ask me how come, well what am I gonna say: cannot make it getting in 50 different kinds every day can you?

Then you ask me what a typical day diet wise looks for me and when I tell you what it entails you come with 100 questions on “why don’t you have flax seed, regular salmon, chicken, almonds, you said broccoli was good, why don’t you eat that?”

And nuts, I do eat them but not every day. And yes I find almonds to be more nutritious than my favorite pistachios. But do I choose almonds over pistachios? No.

Just because I usually eat shrimp or pink salmon does not mean I eat it ALL the time. And if some days suddenly have eggs it does not mean I will have that from this day til I die.

You see I stay away from carb richer veggies and you suddenly think you should do too, but hey, I did not say you should! I just do it because it fills a purpose. MY personal purpose.

Honestly, most of you would all get sick and bored by eating the same mustard, same shirataki, same cabbage and same shrimp every night every week every night. You ask me for recipes because you need variety, well, I don’t need it myself that much. So, I don’t have hidden recipes I create wonderful low calorie dishes from.

I understand all you want is seeing and finding a pattern. You ask me because you want to “structure” me. Well, welcome to something called LIFESTYLE. I don’t see my food as a diet plan I’m going to follow to get super cut, it’s just my regular DIET.

If you could get inspiration from it instead of trying to copy cat it that would be great! You don’t WANT to follow something you believe is right and follow it to the letter just to find out you can have a lot more options and alternatives on your diet.

I don’t know anyone who is as “boring” with their food as I am. I have been eating the same dinner for more than 3 years people. Three year of mustard and cabbage non stop. And for me variety is getting another mustard brand or switch regular cabbage for purple. And before those three years I was into frozen cauliflower and garlic for one year and before that 3 years of broccoli.

Fighter Diet is not a ONE FITS ALL. There is a lot of personal adjustments you can do, you can switch proteins, veggies, refeed carbs, fats. You do NOT have to or SHOULD not follow something you believe is my personal plan. I don’t want copy cats, I want individual independent people who find inspiration in my concept. This is why I never ever write down my own typical day down to grams, servings and calories: because once it’s written you just fall into believing it’s always that way, which it’s not. Well, just most of the time:-)

Question of the day

“With the utmost of respect, just to clarify, I wanted to ask you personally how much different is the Pauline Diet from the Fighter diet, Gram for Gram, Fiber for Fiber Food For food, because i have noticed several times you said you ‘don’t do or eat certain things’ even though its on the diet?”

my response:

I eat more veggies than most people, more wheat bran than most people, less protein that what people usually eat, I eat smaller meals during day. I eat way more shirataki than anyone I know. I don’t eat much pink salmon anyway because I like shrimp right now.
I created the concept out of my own preferences but it’s not a “this is exactly my daily diet all the time”.
I don’t count grams, fiber grams, I am not that anal. I keep track on what I think is important. For me it means: calories, EFAs, protein amount so I don’t overdo it and amount of veggies.

In general, think about this: if I was to say “you can only eat this or that because I do”, how unrealistic wouldn’t that be? Just because I don’t eat all things does not mean I don’t approve it.

I’m not an athlete, I was never into sports. However I train just as much as an elite athlete, I do many of the same exercises and I include training routines influenced by athletes’ conditioning. But when someone asks me what sport I am doing and I answer “I don’t have one, I just train” I get a disappointed look and an “oh….”. You see it’s less honorable to be a regular gym rat. It’s less distinguished.  You see training for looks is a bit “bad”, it’s superficial. Well, that’s how it comes across to most people.

So, why don’t I call myself a true athlete? because when you are a true athlete your number one priority is increasing performance. You eat to perform, you sleep to perform, you train to perform. You condition your body to deal with the stress you put upon it. Now, even though a very lean, ripped physique always appears more athletic than a softer less muscular one, the ripped, muscular physique is no way the strongest one all the time. An athlete who is too concerned with their weight and leanness might compromise performance due to excessive dieting.

Looking athletic and being athletic do not go hand in hand. They can, like with George St Pierre, who seems to be a prodigy equipped with uncommon amount of pure dedication and work ethic of a super human, be really ripped AND strong, but it’s more an exception than a rule.  Take the other side of the story, BJ Penn: he’s soft, chubby, looks like he never ever trained, but we all know what a true athlete he is.

People start training martial arts because they want to get lean and mean… Well, as great martial art training is, you don’t get cut from doing that only. You still need to diet. And most of the time lift weights too.

An athlete must fuel their workouts to perform. A gym rat who wants to be really lean cannot eat for energy, you must eat to provide the body with the nutrients it needs but nothing more. I am talking for all those of us who are not lean by nature or for us with slow metabolism.

An example: an athlete can need a pick me up carb meal before a strenuous workout to get through it without dragging his or her feet. A gym rat who is just as drained should not use that pick me up carb before workout if you at the same time are trying to lean out, get all your calories in already without the extra energy bar. You just have to focus mentally on feeling energized. Mental visualization. Or just pretend you did have that energy bar. Placebo works people! Just gotta believe it!

A gym rat trains to achieve leanness/muscularity. An athlete trains to achieve peak performance. of course those two cannot treat diet and nutrition the same way!

When it comes to the Fighter Diet concept, the great emphasis on vegetables works so well for gym rats because we need to keep calories pretty low (now remember I am still talking for us with slow metabolism or for us who don’t keep a six pack with less than 5 cardio workouts a week and a clean diet), however, an athlete who wants to be leaner than his or her body is ok with and wants to do the fighter diet concept there will be issues. You must tweak the rules. You cannot perform with depleted glycogen levels almost all the time, which is the state where you burn a lot of body fat. You see the catch 22?

If you eat for energy you will most likely not get as lean as you want since being very lean is a sign of burning more than you are taking in calorie wise.

If you don’t eat for energy and you are a true athlete your performance will suffer.

It’s not all black and white: being so so lean is athletic, I am talking about very very lean.

Bodybuilders look super strong on stage when they have been dieting for months and are extremely shredded. However that is not when they would be the strongest in the gym. Of course not, their bodies are tired, exhausted. It’s an illusion.

For me, it was never an option to fuel my workouts to get stronger. The best way to get strong is to over eat carbs. However I never cared for being strong if I got soft and chubby! I tried that approach when I was younger. I did a metabolic test and found out I was burning 2500 calories a day with my training regimen. So to maintain my weight I should eat that amount. Yeah, right huh! What happened you think: I got fatter! It was too much. After that wake up call I realized I cannot sit and have a portion of pasta before workout to pick me up. If I feel tired from negative calorie balance, well, that’s what it takes to shed weight!

I’ve had a lot of clients who truly believe they will see a linear fat loss progress by burning 500 calories a day and eating 500 calories less per day. Many times nothing happens or nothing is happening fast enough. Wake up, smell the coffee…. When I wanted to go from 7% bodyfat and 121 lbs to 115 at 4%, you know how many calories I was burning from cardio? about 800 to 1000 per day. I was also not eating more than about 1200. So, how come it still took me 12ish weeks? Because life is not mathematics and logic. I know all gurus and specialist say it does work this way, I am saying it does not work like this 100% of the time.

So, was it something wrong with my metabolism? No. But the leaner you are the more your body tries to resist your attempts to get leaner. In my case I was going from one extreme to another. of course it would take a workout program from hell to deliver those results.

Now, I am hovering around my “perfect weight”. Do I need to stay at 1200 calories? Do I need to do 3 hours of cardio? No, not daily, but I have to keep an eye on myself: when I see my body starts to fill up and regain the mass I got rid off, I increase the cardio a lot and I cut down calories. It’s not like one approach takes you to your goals and then you can relax! Nope.

Now I’ve rambled too long:-) What the point was? ah, don’t know, I forgot where I was going with this.

To discipline is not to punish. To discipline is to analyze what caused you to derail from your plan and then take proper actions in order to prevent it from reoccurring.  If you go off your diet plan it’s not because you have no willpower, but willpower is not reliable. You can have a lot of willpower, but what happens those moments you simply don’t really want to win the urge to cheat?

You let yourself cheat or go off your diet because you condition yourself into believing this will be the last time ever. It never is though, is it. You are always very strong and have high motivation right after a slip, it’s because you feel bad OR you are on a sugar high and think you actually gonna make it this time. All is great til you binge again.

Successful dieting and fat loss come from conscious thinking and reasoning. When the urge to eat appears in your mind ask yourself why. What will eating do for you? What will that chocolate candy bar do for you beyond the pleasure of eating it that lasts for a minute or so? If you choose not to follow the mind’s wish to eat it, what do you gain? You gain the first victory. You must gain many consecutive victories before your brain realizes it’s how it works.

When you cheat you condition your brain into knowing you will give in. If the urge is just strong enough you will give in. Every time you cheat you give the brain history information about how you tackle triggers…

Just like alcoholics are pretty much doomed to hang around other alcoholics if they want to quit drinking, you will have a tough time managing cravings if you some times give in, some times not. You must be consistent. When you are consistent you know that there is no damn way in the whole world you will derail from your plan of action and in knowing that you find strength. When you are not your own worst enemy you find strength. You must build trust in yourself. You should not be scared of being left alone with the cookie box!

Throughout my years being into fitness I’ve disciplined myself daily. I used to have chocolate bars, cookies, ice cream, yes all my triggers around me just to prove to myself they would not affect me. I was close sometimes to give in of course. But it was practice, like being in school. I had all this junk food lying around until they became “normal things” in my house. When I was not “scared” of them they lost their magic. Every day I told myself “Pauline, you go ahead, you can have it all, but remember there is a consequence and don’t tell yourself you have no idea why you are not as lean as you want”.

Since I could not justify to myself to eat and blame “bad genetics” or “don’t know why I don’t get leaner, I do everything right, EVERYTHING” I just did not eat. I even tried to find reasons for giving in and enjoying some candy, I put up 10 arguments about it to see if I wanted it:

1. It tastes sooo good. 2. It’s perfect time now when it’s friday and all. 3. It’s comfy. 4. I love chocolate melting in my mouth. 5. So good when you watch tv. 6. now is the perfect time, I have shoot in a few weeks so if I want to have it I must act NOW. 7. Tastes wonderfully.

Then I ran out of arguments…. Why should I eat that bar? It’s only good for a little while, then what? I had trained myself off enjoying things that are momentarily. I was interested in long term beneficial enjoyments. The bar did not benefit me. And I realized that no food can help me if I use it for pleasure or to make me feel better.

It sickened me to know that giving into cravings was self-medicating. what was I medicating myself from: boredom? Hunger? If it was hunger, I knew what to eat and that would not be sweets. Boredom: well get a life, eating for the fun factor? well that does not go well with my body ideals!

I still practice discipline. Every day. But now I don’t need to work at it hard, it’s second nature to me. When someone asks me “but why not just have a bite of this tasty treat, it won’t really affect you”. No, they are right, it won’t damage my body at all, but what’s in it for me? What do I gain? Why should I? And when the person’s answer is “well,  because it tastes good!” I just cannot accept lol… I mean, I am not an animal that just gives in to whatever urge or desire I feel right now, here and now… I am a thinking human being. I make decisions and commitments. And I am committed to myself and that I reassure every day by discipline my dedication 100%.