8 Week Transformation Challenge

Join me in my first 8 Week Challenge with Lifting Ladies supplemented by Evogen Nutrition

I've launched and am looking to build my online personal training business so I'm having a "challenge". There will be openings for ten lucky people to receive personalized training plans from me which will include a training plan and diet plan (macro based) for the next 8 Weeks. Each will be individualized to each person's needs. You'll be required to follow the plan, check in every single week with photos, and release liability for me to use these photos for marketing (can crop face :) ). Be ready for change, to be challenged, and to get some awesome results! My method is tried and true and you'll be sure to get the body you deserve. The best thing about this all is that the training for you ten lucky people is only $150. AND the person who has the best overall transformation will win $200 and a fitness goodie box featuring Evogen Nutrition products to fit your needs! Super cheap training for an awesome body and a chance to win $200 and FREE fitness products?! Why not! 

 

How to enter: 

*Follow @MellaFit and @Lifting_Ladies on Instagram

*Head over to BodiesByMel.com, select "Join challenge", submit info and before photo. 

*Join challenge will be closed after ten people have registered. 

 

~The cap is ten people for the sake of time and individualization. I want to make sure I am 100% personal with each and every one of you. It wouldn't be fair to divide my time unevenly. 

~Previous clients are not eligible, sorry! 

~Before photos must include front relaxed, side relaxed, and back relaxed pose. This is the standard for following check ins. 

~MUST check in every week

~ Use code "MellaFit" for 15% EvogenNutrition.com orders 

~Be ready to commit to the plan for the next 8 weeks! 

If you have any questions, email me directly at Melanie@LiftingLadiesFitness.com

Fall Challenges (Workout and Diet)

Hello guys! It's been a while. I took a little break, but I'm back and I'll be posting more. Especially for my clients and people who want to see workouts and clean eating recipes. I'd love to help! So what's new with me? Well I've taken the fall season off from competing so I can have a life and not have to be so strict on myself. It's fall! Time for pumpkin flavored everything, cuddling with hot chocolate, maybe some bonfires, and relaxing without worrying about being so strict. Well... that was the plan. Last week Bodybuilding.com released a new challenge called Shred vs Bulk challenge by BSN Supplements. Contestants have 6 weeks to either present the best bulk or the best shred. Both winners will win $10,000! So yes I have started that. I just can't stay away! From the end of August until now, I have been having cheat days more frequently however, my diet was about 80% clean. My brain and willpower won't let me overindulge. I have goals for next year and I'm not trying to gain weight and ruin my chances. My goal is to kill it next year! I have a great chance, I just need to tighten my glutes even more (I'll get into that later with coverage of the Tahoe Show).

So I started this shred at 130lbs, 7 pounds up from competition weight August 23rd. No big! Nothing I can't handle. The great thing about competing this year and doing prep on my own is that I have gotten to know my body so well and how it reacts to every little thing that goes in it. I know exactly what to do to get rid of my extra water weight. I know exactly what foods make me bloated and what foods flatten me out. I know what not to eat the day of a shoot, event, or show. So I'm excited and I know I'm going to look amazing by November 30th (the end date of competition), but wish me luck! $10,000 would be freaking amazing right now! Especially when supplementing my business Lifting Ladies. I have a lot planned and am super excited about it. Money would help kick start it a lot!

Anyway, I've been doing more of a balanced diet style for this cut so I can enjoy the fall while keeping my bikini diet. It's more of a 90% clean, 10% cheat diet. My days look something like this:

Meal 1: 1 cup of oatmeal (half of my carbs for the day except Wednesdays which is no carb day and rest day)
Meal 2: Chicken, 2tbs avocado, baby carrots, mozzarella cheese (I don't cut dairy because I don't cut things I love :) )
Meal 3: Chicken, half sweet potato (2 eggs on Wednesday instead), 1tbs Peanut Butter
Meal 4: Shrimp, 2 cups broccoli
Meal 5: Ground turkey tacos, 2-3 eggs,(on Wednesday I make a GT bowl with eggs, cilantro, and salsa)

Calories: 1430-1600 Friday: 2000+

Friday I have a cheat meal because it's my super cardio day and I have to load up on calories, Saturday and Sunday are the same as Monday-Thursday. This is important guys! ONE cheat day a week, not the whole weekend because you're "rewarding" yourself for the hectic week you had. You have a week every week, do you think you need to be "rewarded" EVERY week? Reward yourself with an awesome body! :)

For my workouts I'm trying a new circuit style training by Ashley Conrad on Bodybuilding.com  (click link for complete plan). It's a 21 day cut, which I'm following the workout but not the diet. The diet is a little boring for my taste. If you want to survive in eating clean all the time, you need to be able to customize it to your liking. You don't need to eat bland boring food everyday to be fit, that's silly. This doesn't mean having cheat meals of course, it simply mean find a healthy alternative for each undesirable factor in the plan. If you enjoy following diet plans, then by all means, follow the plan word for word. Anyway, the workout plan looks like this:

Monday: Lift
Tuesday: Cardio
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Lift
Friday: Cardio
Saturday: Lift
Sunday: Rest


Lift days are a circuit in which you repeat the workouts below in a row with a 30 second rest in between. Once done, repeat the circuit 3-6 times depending on physical abilities.

1. Clean and press
2. Overhead medicine ball throws
3. Dumbbell rear lunge
4. Push ups
5. Bench dips
6. Sprint in place
7. Body weight squats
8. Wide grip lat pull down
9. Medicine ball jumping jacks
10. Incline push ups
11. Dumbbell bicep curl
12. Lateral dumbbell raises
13. One arm dumbbell row

Do each workout for 12-15 reps and repeat cycle for desired times. It's a great workout! I would definitely try it, especially if you're in need of something new. That's why I'm doing it instead of writing my own workout for the cut. I put in my own workouts to better fit my needs. For instance, instead of the medicine ball throws, I do kettle bell swings, Instead of rear lunge, I do walking lunges. I replace the incline push ups (because there is a ridiculous amount of push ups in this circuit) with stiff leg dead lifts or hanging leg raises for abs. I try to put more leg stuff in singe my goals are in my legs.

For cardio day: 
Interval training on treadmill:
Walk (level 5) 60 seconds
Jog (level 7) 30 seconds
Sprint (level 10) 60 seconds (dead sprint as hard as you can!
Repeat 10 times (25 minutes total)

Cool down: Incline walk 5 minutes.

If you only do one thing in this blog, do the cardio! It's great! I'm in week 2 now of 6 of the shred. It's going well and I think I look great so far. cleaning up my diet from 80 to 90% has done wonders in just a week. It's awesome! I think it's cool that Bodybuilding.com can release a challenge with 3-4 days to register pretty much saying "hey everyone, I know it's the fall and Halloween and Thanksgiving are coming up but we'll give you $10,000 if you drop everything and lean out or bulk up for the next 6 weeks!" And everyone drops whatever they're doing, joins the challenge, and starts cutting (or bulking). It's crazy to me, awesome, and inspiring. Good luck to everyone who joined!

As always, thanks for reading!


Mel
BodiesbyMel.com <--- Live in SoCal? Need personal training?

Competition Update

So I've been working out well of course, eating well of course, but I'm new to the whole competition thing. So I have been researching OVER-researching to be exact lol. Literally spending every extra minute watch bikini and figure shows, watching poses, studying poses, getting bikini ideas, it's crazy. I just want to smack myself and just go with the flow. For me though, I am an over planner and I think ahead for everything so I can't really help it. Plus, it's not really a horrible thing, so whatever. I got my shoes in the mail last week! I have been practicing walking everyday. I'm telling you, it is a workout itself. It's tiring, especially for my feet. The shoes aren't that comfortable and they are very ugly too. That's good though so the judges will be looking at my body instead if my fabulous shoes.

Here are my lovely legs! I'm proud of them, I'd just like to see the hamstrings a little more and I'd be ecstatic. More photos to come! Omg I'm so mad because this water is just making me bloated every single day so taking pictures is just out of the question except right in the morning when I wake up. Who wants to take pictures when they first wake up?! lol Time to break out those water pills. 

Last Wednesday I got the shading and color on my tattoo. It's all done now, yay! I love it so much. It's my favorite piece of art on me done my Joel Bones of Gold Rush Tattoo in Costa Mesa, CA. The day before the tattoo I worked out obliques/abs. Bad idea. "Yes, yes carve into my sore ab muscles, it feels SO good!" Needless to say, it was painful lying on my side with my arm up for 2.5 hours lol. Totally worth it though! 

As far as food goes, I've been doing good keeping my calories up. Hitting 1800 is like celebration time! lol Crazy, I know. I've been eating every two hours pretty much and I have had to switch some things around and add some high protein foods. I'm trying to be in the range of 120-150g of protein per day, 200+ carbs, and 50-60 fat (essential, healthy fats). It's been improving every day so that's good! My diet as a whole is completely clean and I drink 1.5-2 gallons of water a day. 

I pretty much put spinach in everything and have added egg whites to dinner or night meals as well. Any way to get up that protein! I take protein shakes (Beverly International, Chocolate 80% Whey/ 20% Casein) twice a day, one a couple of hours after breakfast with a banana and the other after my workout at night. The middle photo is a recipe I found with whole grain pasta, spinach, broccoli, plain Greek yogurt, salt, pepper, and onions. YUM! It looks gross but it's good lol try it! Inspired by this (http://www.ezrapoundcake.com/archives/13338) recipe, I didn't have anything on the list except the yogurt and pasta so it looks nothing like that beutiful masterpiece lol. 

Alright, shower time. Thanks for reading guys! Feel free to comment, follow me on Twitter, all that great stuff!

Mel 

Chicken Bowl!

Yesterday was one of those days that I would have (if I wasn't in prep) just went out to eat (at a healthy place of course) because there was "nothing to eat". Instead, when we got back to the gym, my boyfriend and I put together what we had and ended up making a little masterpiece. Nothing too crazy or gourmet, but it was quick, easy, filling, and good! Isn't it funny how exciting the little things are when you're prepping or dieting?

1/2 Chopped onion
Cut up chicken breasts into bites
3/4 cups of egg whites
1 chopped up bell pepper
1 cup of brown rice

Scramble the egg whites, set aside.
Sautee bell peppers
Sautee Onions with chicken to give it that delicious taste! Also, season as preferred. We just used salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder. Yum yum!
The rice was leftover from the night before, but we use the Success brand boil bag. Only takes 10 minutes to cook.
Mix all ingredients together in a skillet (fried rice style)
Bam! You've got yourself a chicken bowl with veggies and rice! Coming in at a whopping 275 calories! lol You'll be hungry in a couple of hours for sure, but it's a great quick meal.

(I'll post a pic tomorrow, my phone is being lame)

Thanks for reading!

Mel

Monday: Day One Prep Food

I'm going to break down what I ate today and what I plan to eat for the prep including calories and macros. Okay so I know you guys have heard of "If it fits your macros" (IIFYM) and some of you live by it, but I do not go by it. I feel like people do that just so they can eat junk food and not be accountable for their nutrition. I count all of my calories, carbs, proteins, and fats which is essentially your macronutrients. Yes, keep track of your macros! But don't eat garbage to get the calories. I also keep an eye on my sodium as well as my cholesterol just in case. I forgot to start out by saying, I am NOT a nutritionist by any means and am not certified or equipped with the degree to tell you what you should eat. With that said, I know what works for me and my body, so this is what I eat. It's pretty standard for a lot of meal preps so it's not like it's some ground breaking diet plan that's magically going to shed pounds. You're welcome to try it, so here you go!

Breakfast: 
1 Cup of Instant Oats Oatmeal (I add a little sugar as well as salt. Both to be cut out as the competition gets closer).
Lots of Water!
Supplements: LeanOut by Beverly International, Multivitamin, Fish Oil,

Two Hours Later: 
2 scoops of protein (Beverly International UMP Chocolate Whey Protein)
1 Cup of Greek yogurt
Supplements: Fish Oil, Glutamine

Two Hours Later:
2 half peanut butter sandwiches (one bread with PB folded in half)
32 Wheat Thins
Supplements: LeanOut

Post Workout: 
2 Scoops of protein
Supplements: Glutamine

Dinner (45 minutes after workout):
4 ounces of chicken breast
1/2 Cup of brown rice
1/2 large baked sweet potato discs (Sprinkled cinnamon and a pinch of brown sugar)
Supplements: Fish Oil

Macros for Today:
Protein: 151g
Carbs: 210g
Fat: 41g
Calories: 1773

This is pretty much what it will be like everyday until two weeks out. Give or take a couple calories and substituting chicken for fish or adding different veggies as sides. Unfortunately I haven't come up with a substitute for brown rice. It's so good for you and has a lot of calories so it's exactly what I need. It's just soooo boring ugh. Whatever though, I can do it! :)

Thanks for reading!

Mel