Just Some Brew-Ha-Ha Today....

No cool or gross picture or anything to brighten the post, just gonna be my rambling thoughts today. I have had a lot of stuff floating in my head for awhile and nothing has seemed to work itself out so I thought, why not post it here and get it OUT of my head? Maybe throwing it out to the Universe will help untangle some of this knotted mess that floats between my ears, yes?


Mess #1. My weight: It isn't changing, up ro down, nothing. I am frustrated. I was four weeks into a hard core clean diet and my weight was climbing and it wasn't muscle, it was FAT!!!! So I started cheating out fo frustration and my weight began to fall again. So now I diet half-ass and my weight is stablized at where I started 6 weeks ago. Hmmm.....But my lifts are going up and so as long as I eat, my strength grows. That CAN"T be a bad thing, right? Maybe since I am classic ectomorph, I need more time for bulking than other women do. I am tall and on the skinny side (except for my butt which is HUGE!!!) and my bones are bird thin. I spent a lifetime on next to no nutrition and so my body just hordes fat, be it from clean calories or dirty calories. I think I might be one of those rare people (all of them ecto's) who get to be scrawny strong little shits and no muscle to show for it. And I am Irish genetics and so we end up looking wirey anyways. So there I am with that. Frustrated at working my ass off and seeing no changes except for some good strength. Don't get me wrong, I love the strength and the stares I get in the gym for it but I started lifting so I could gain muscle mass and change my physique into something wondrous. Ain't happening and I am pissed.

Mess #2. Squats: I now hate them. Well, I mean, I still love doing the exercise cuz there is something about doing them that is exhilerating but since I, again, am not seeing muscle growth from it, I hate them. It seems to be a perfectly pointless exercise then, huh? Considering that I often have some nerve that is getting pinched somewhere and so my legs go numb while squatting. I can usually prevent numbness by keeping a narrow stance so it isn't always a problem but sometimes it still occurs. Not to mention it gives me a pain in the neck, literally. And before anyone posts saying, you are not doing them correctly, yes I am. How do I know? because several men, including my powerlifter husband, have coached me on them. And I competed in one rinky-dinky powerlifting meet and tehy said I had excellent squat form and depth for being a scrawny woman. So I am dropping my low-rep, high weight squats for low-weight, high(er) rep squats and putting my max effort into the leg sled and deadlifts. I have been using the recumbent bike set to the "Hills" program with some intensity level cranked up and that really burns my quads. I am seeing some minor definition come into my quads this last week from doing the bike so I am going to continue it.

Mess #3. My daughter and her pageants: She is wonderful at modeling, is exceptionally pretty, is beautifully photogenic, and is highly fashionable at her pageants. Yet she isn't taking home the crowns she deserves. And she has been crying lately after the pageants. I can't bear to see her so sad over something so frivolous as pageants! So I am going to talk to her indepth today and see if she would like to try something else, like competitive cheer, or science camp, or pottery, anything other than pageants. I hate to sound like a doting and blind mother, especially one that is vindictive, but here in this local area, my daughter is getting the shaft in these pageants in favor of some local girls who are in tight with the pageant directors. Last weekend, baby girl out-modeled another girl on stage and had way more stage presence, and the judges scored her the same as this other girl in modeling and personality. The girl she was ranked equal to stumbled on stage quite a bit, had to have their pageant coach tell her where to go, and did not smile (she actually growled at her mom over the judges heads!), and she made zero eye contact with the judges which is a BIG pageant no-no. We were shocked they ranked her equal to my daughter. So were other parents. Then yesterday, we got a repeat performance from this same girl and my daughter won most fashionable in her group, but they gave the crown to this other girl and placed my daughter as 2nd alternate behind another girl who modeled as well as my daughter but did not have a very nice pageant outfit. The judges awarded my girl "Most Fashionable" in her group and wrote rave reviews in the judges cards and criticized the other two girls (there was one other contestant who was new and was no contender because she is still learning the ropes and she was placed last) and yet they gave the crown to the girl who was the worst (besdies teh new girl) and gave 1st alternate to the other girl. I have had two other parents tell me she will never get a crown here because she is not in tight with the pageant directors like these girls are. what really pisses me off is that I pay the same money for the same modeling coach (who is one of the director's daughters) and when it is baby girl's turn on stage, she does not get any coaching from her modeling coach and no acknowledgment that she is even at the pageant, no Hi! or hugs or nothing. But the other girls get loads of help while they are on stage (truthfully they need it and my girl doesn't but still....some encouragement would be nice) and she sits with them and helps them with hair and makeup and is just very friendly overall to these other girls (who are winning crowns when they don't have the skills to be winning them) and leaves my daughter feeling left out. So there is my dilemma. I have to do what is best for her even if she doesn't want it. She wants to move up to national pageants and I am just nervous that we will encounter the same thing at a National pageant as we do at the local level only it will be more expensive! Grrr.....I want my daughter to win something to make her feel she is being rewarded for her hard work. even in school, they told her her science project was "too good" and thought she had parental help (she did NOT!). So see, my heart is wrapped up lately in how my littel girl is being treated by others and it hurts very much to see her get discounted the way that she is when she very much deserves to win SOMETHING.

Mess #4. My Figure Comp in May: How in God's name is this gonna happen when I can't drop weight??? It is very frustrating because I am on the edge of some very major changes and have been for awhile and yet NOTHING changes. I have some people at my gym who just can't stop commenting on my muscles but I swear I have NONE! I see a little while I am lifting but it doesn't last. it isn't like I could pump up for a show and stay pumped long enough to place anything other than last to middle if I was lucky. I want to win this time! I am working so damned hard! I deserve to see my body change into what I have always dreamed of. I won't step on stage until I have that body I dream of:( I am gonna be picky this time because I feel I deserve it this time. last time, I just went on stage as the "toned" girl who was more skinny than anything. And I got away with that in the Novice division but there is no more Novice chace for me. I have to bring it or stay home this go round. With my periods being so frequent, and my mass not coming on although I am eating what I should to grow, I am considering asking my doctor for steroids. I know...GASP!!!....stop right there, Danielle. But I have grown desperate! I have been lifting for about 3 years now with no breaks and no derailment, all the while focusing on growing mass and gaining strength. And I wonder with me having RA (rheumatoid arthritis) if steroids would help my joint pain, too. It might be that it is what I am missing. I don't think the docs were correct in saying my hormones were screwed up. I might ask to see another doc and just really push to see an edocrinologist and then ask for steroids to set me up. Who knows? But something has got to change and I know I am not well.

Well, it has been good spilling the crap out of my head. I apologize for all the typos. I SWEAR I went to college, LOL!