Today, Gym Ninja has spent a total of 6 hours (possibly more in fact) driving to and from The Lake District today. The joys of a sales rep role! However it was a lovely sunny day & GN only had to take one call from Muppet the Line Manager so it wasn't too bad. Plus, Gym Ninja had prepared a healthy tuna salad to take out with her in her mini cool bag, along with the trusty Promax Diet protein bars and organic apples. Yum! No chance of Gym Ninja going hungry eh?
Now weirdly, the night before as Gym Ninja was prepping her food for the day ahead (always wise to pre-plan your meals and prepare the night before to prevent 'ahhhr I'm starving and there's nothing suitable here to eat so I shall shove that cake down my neck' type moments) she was listening to her favourite Fitness Podcast...you've heard Gym Ninja mention it before? The FitCast podcast. It's downloadable on iTunes or via their website at www.thefitcast.com (click on that link for info). Gym Ninja has been listening to it for the past couple of years and had a fair backlog of weekly podcasts to catch up on. It was these podcasts that kept Gym Ninja from going insane on long commutes, whilst educating her in nutrition and exercise...oh & making her laugh too!
So..Ok where was Gym Ninja? Right,.... listening to the most recent Episode entitled Episode 176: Steve Cotter & The Shrimp That Almost Killed Leigh (& if that title alone doesn't get you checking it out then you're dead from the neck up!) whilst prepping the food for the next day. Yep? OK...so...Gym Ninja had prepped the salad and had now begun to do her usual trick of slicing and cubing up the Promax Diet bar, before sealing it in a plastic bag. The reason GN does this, as well you know, is to make the fab chocolate orange taste last longer. You see, the past ex-fat-kid in Gym Ninja would normally 'inhale' the Promax Diet Bar she eats things so quickly if she left it whole which is why the cubed version works so well ...when whaddayaknow? The FitCast host Kevin Larrabee started to go on about his old school chum's mum who used to cut up chocolate bars and make him and his friend share a bar between them.
"Who cuts up stuff like that?" Said Kevin, incredulously...
Gym Ninja stopped dicing her Promax protein bar and looked down at it in all its chocolately and chopped up glory in the very way Kevin had mentioned....
Er... Gym Ninja does! ?!?! Why? Scroll down to the pep talk at the end... ;-)
Anyhow, as this podcast was a marathon 2 and a half hours long it meant that having listened to some great info on how to teach a client to eat clean for life , Gym Ninja could squirrel away the rest of the podcast for the long drive the next day. Fantastic!
So, back to today and Gym Ninja is ensuring she eats every 2-3 hours from her box of clean food as she drove. After 2 and a half hours of driving, GN is nearly at her destination and is now driving past beautiful green fields filled with cows and sheep...and more sheep....and even more sheep...and .....a rhino?
WHAT?
Gym Ninja looked again. Yep. A rhino was walking around a field...and nearby strode a giraffe. IN THE LAKE DISTRICT! In the UK! Of course yes, it was a zoo, but seriously, how unexpected was that?
That evening Gym Ninja headed to the gym for a cardio session. No cardio had been done since Sunday (only weight training Mon and Tues) so Gym Ninja planned a 10 minute fast run, followed by 10 minutes at a 7% incline of 1 minute run:1 minute walk intervals, finished off with another 10 minutes fast running. However, t'was not the cleanest of gyms today...look what was on the X Trainer when Gym Ninja did her pre-run warm up?
GYM GUM!
Ewwwwwwwwwww! Someone elses gym stuck on the X Trainer console. Bleurrh!
Anyhow, the reason for the title of today's Ninja blog is thus...(tis something of a fragmented blog today)....is that today Gym Ninja has booked in for her first Fitness Photoshoot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*gasp*
Yep. Gym Ninja needs photos for her Personal Training website and publicity stuff, and so has managed to track down a photographer who can give her the look she has in mind...
So now? Now, unless it grew out of the ground, had a face or was engineered by Maximuscle, then it will NOT pass Gym Ninja's lips. In exactly 21 days time (on 12th May) the photoshoot is happening. The workouts from hell are about to begin!
*pep-talk alert*
You see, there is NO REASON why you cannot aim to have the best body you can! Do you want it enough? Do you want to be fit, healthy and full of energy more than you want that donut? Huh? Yep, thought so! Gym Ninja has to set an example. Gym Ninja was a fat kid. A greedy kid. A laaaaaazy kid. The latter 2 of these 3 things are still effectively true. Gym Ninja can be lazy and greedy! But Gym Ninja is no longer fat. Gym Ninja wants health more than the chocolate bars and the sugar coated cereal and the sitting down on the sofa every night dunking biscuits into her mug of tea. Gym Ninja wants to make the most of her life and that means making sure her body is as fit and healthy as it can be. Ironically, Gym Ninja is now in the best shape she has ever been in.
Think about it.
Gym Ninja is today, the OLDEST she has ever been, and yet her body is in better shape now than say, 10 years ago!
Does that seem weird? Most people expect to age and to look worse or their body to start to sag/gain fat/lack tone. LISTEN to Gym Ninja. That is not aging! That is LACK OF USE! Lack of use and lack of CARE! Do not blame your age. Blame your own actions. Blame your actions, accept the blame and plan your way out to optimal health and a fantastic body (aren't the side effects of taking care of yourself great eh??)
So....are you ready to claim your best body ever yet.....?
Gym Ninja x
