Work, Fitness, Family & Life Balancing Act . . .

For starters let me begin by saying OHHHHHHHHHHHHH HOW I FEEL BLESSED!! What is currently in motion now is what I have prayed & worked for over many many years!!! The Lord has been good to me and I Thank Him for it EVERYDAY!! I am a VERY humble person and right now it's just unbelievable to me the impact I'm having on people I don't even know. It's such a blessing & a wonderful thing it just brings me to tears at the mere thought. . . also I'd like to Thank All of ya'll for listening to my crazy ramblings on the Michael Baisden Show!! For all ya'll who know me ya'll know I am completely off the chains and Free until I'm Fool sometimes. When it comes to this journey I am an open book and I have no problem letting my guard down and revealing it ALL to ya'll. . . . so with that being said lemmi get off my emotional soapbox and get to the reason for the topic of this blog.

As most of ya'll know Fitness isn't my bread & butter (yet), I have a full-time job that I'm still working in conjunction with my Personal Training aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Competition Prep. YEAHHHHHHHHHH I know it sounds like a lot and honestly it is because to add to that I have a family to take care off too :) Well over these last few days I have totally become overwhelmed and realized I need to immediately enact a Work, Fitness, Family & Life Balancing Act to ensure 1) no one or nothing gets neglected 2) I don't go crazy in the process 3) my family nor ya'll throw me to the wolves for not being able to provide you everything you need & require from me. Remember on the Baisden Show I said . . . Self First NOT Selfish!!! By that I mean. . .you HAVE to take care of yourself first (mentally, physically, spiritually, etc) in order to be able to take care of anyone or anything else!! If you don't everything will fall apart including YOU and we just can't have that now can we!! Sooooooooo today while I was in spin class I started thinking to myself its time it's time to enact a PLAN and stick to it!!

Well here's the PLAN. . . Thankfully my job offers a program where you can take extra vacation time and I decided it would be beneficial for me to participate in this program. And I actually decided this waaaaaaaay before things started rolling like they are now so ya'll know I'm glad I made that choice :)  Starting in June I'll be working an abbreviated weekly work schedule which will allow me to 1) spend more time with my family - AKA my pumpkin Kyndal & LC during the Summer  2) devote more time to building my personal training business & building my fitness/spokes model career 3) log tooooooooons of man hours being an Ambassador for Weightloss and helping each & every one of you in any facet that I can when it comes to reaching whatever goals you may have regarding your health & fitness!!

I am TRULY one of those people who tries to do it all and I recognize that in myself. And anything that I do or put my mind to I do it to the fullest (as you can see by the tremendous weight loss I experienced). Now knowing and understanding these things I also know & understand I have to balance them all to be sure they are all completed successfully. Another thing you'll hear me say a lot and you'll prolly get sick of it but Oh To The Well . . . If you Fail to Plan then Plan to Fail and I ain't Planning on no Failure anytime soon, so here's my schedule . .

Monday, Wednesday & Friday:
Work on anything related to Fitness

• Training clients
• Working on things for the Fanpage, Blog, Website, etc - which will include but not limited to: workout & cooking videos, workout plans, nutrition plans, video taped question & answer sessions, my story or what I'm currently going thru (along with featuring the story of others) and anything else ya'll want insight on
• Basically HELP as many people and do as much that I can related to Health & Fitness in 1 day

Tuesday & Thursday:
WORK FULLTIME JOB!!! Limited access to Fanpage, Blog, etc so I can focus on keeping my bread & butter until the Lord sees fit for me to move onto Bigger & Better things
Saturday:
I will dedicate a few hours in the early AM to do all the things related to Health & Fitness that I did on Mon, Wed & Friday then it's off to be with the Fam!!
Sunday:
TOTALLY A ME & MY FAMILY DAY!!! Very little interaction on Facebook or my blog outside of reading and catching up on what I need to do on Monday.
I hope in setting up this schedule I'm not neglecting ya'll or anything I'm just going to hafta do it this way to ensure everything continues to run like a well oiled machine!! Soooooooo come tomorrow its ON & POPPIN. . . . so ya'll better hold on to the seat of your pants cause I'm hitting the ground running EARLY tomorrow!!
As always Much Love & Success to all of ya'll
KQ~

Ready, Set, Gooooooooo!!!

That's right . . . Tomorrow is the BIG DAY again!!
Now just a little history . . . last year this time I was competing in my very 1st show and it was this exact same one which is why I HAD to compete in it again this year. Last year however I was in the fitness model category which was fine but now I'm where I belong which is FIGURE baby!!!

here's a pic from last years show (4/2010)

And just to recap last year as always I wanted to win but my main goal was Top 10 and I achieved that by placing 8th. I was happy with that and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I learned a lot, I met a lot of great people and the fire was lit in my belly!! I honestly don't normally talk weight or anything like that except the fact of the total weight I've lost in this journey but I will share that I went into this show between 153-155ish which was AIIIIIIIIIIIGHT but NOT acceptable on any level if I was really trying to make my mark.

pic from 4/16/2010 show

For the show that just passed on the 16th I was the Leanest & Meanest I've ever been and walked on stage at an AWESOMELY SMOKING 143-145lbs. I felt GREAT, I looked GREAT & the outcome was GREAT!! Ya'll know as always I wanted to win but Top 5 was the plan and again I had another SUCCESSFUL mission and placed 5th. I still have lots to learn and was given great advice from my trainer who has been a complete God Send!! I have listened to him 100% and stuck to the plan and have been more then PLEASED with the results. So I know if I keep sticking with him and doing as I'm told I will continue to see the results on and off the stage that I desire.
With that being said lets talk about this show and were I'm coming in at . . . HOLD YOUR HATS FOR THIS ONE . . . As of this AM I weighed in at

140 lbs

WHAT?!?! WHAT?!?! Ya'll betta act like you know!! Who would've ever thought?!?! NOT ME!! I made myself several promises when I started this journey almost 6yrs ago that I wanted a better body then I had when I was a teenager and NOW I HAVE IT and I WORKED FOR IT!! I'm just so overcome with emotions I can't even begin to explain it to ya'll. There are times when I think back I can just cry for the sake of crying because I was DELIVERED from being overweight!! Heck even when I thought I was "right" I was "wrong" LOLOL! I so hate the word I'm about to use but it's all so "surreal" to me. I saw this body in my mind but I never thought I'd attain it or better yet I didn't know how or if it was even possible for me to attain it.
So now we approaching another Showtime and like normal I WANNA WIN!! And without a shadow of doubt I believe I have exactly what it takes to make that possible but there's always a goal which is Top 3 this time and I know I'm rocking a Top 3 body. With that being said I'm going to go out there tomorrow and present to them with my physique in the BEST WAY I know how and the cards will fall where they may. Regardless of the outcome I want ya'll to know I'm already a WINNER!!! So with that being said I'm going to wrap this blog up and get ready to get my tan and rest for the remainder of the day. . . As always I LOVE YA'LL & Thank Ya'll from the bottom of my heart for all the support and kind words. I'll keep ya posted on the progress of the day and I'll post links to the site where you can watch it live.
KQ

I'm NOT the Big Girl they said I was . . .

I'm sure MANY of you will be able to relate to what I'm about to say today and why I'm saying it, but. . .

I'M NOT THE BIG GIRL THEY SAID I WAS!!!

So why am I saying this and where'd it come from all of a sudden. Well those answers are pretty dern simple, you see what had happened was (LOLOL) . . . This morning LC had to be up at like 4:30am for work (odd for him to have to be the one waking up early instead of me, but it was his turn for a change). So when he got up I turned on the TV and there was some fitness infomercial on (don't get me to lying cause I don't remember which one?!?!). While I was partially awake and listening to the infomercial this lady says "I'm NOT the Big Girl they always said I was". WOWOWOW!! At that exact moment I woke up (briefly) and listened to her because I could totally relate. To give you a little background history I am the youngest by 9+ years of 2 girls. My older sister was a model and she was the ISH on the runway & in pics (still is. . . she will serve it up on the runway like none other). So obviously she was Tall & Uber Thin & HAWT and as I grew up I was the Bigger one. Now I'm sure my friends and family meant nothing by it but when I would say I wanted a haircut like hers or to wear something or whatever I'd hear . . . "Oh you can't do that because. . .your necks too big, you're too muscular, you're the Bigger one, etc". So hearing that I grew up always thinking I was the Big Girl and that was that. 

Needless to say I was in shape through high school and college for the most part but still I was BIGGER. Bigger then my mom, my sister, my friends heck everyone except for the few chicks who were taller than me and even they were slender in comparison to me. But hey it was no biggie I accepted it and kept it moving. As I got older I was that "Thick Chick", "Dragging a Wagon", "Big Seat" and all other names folks could think of to describe me and again I accepted it because that's who I was Right?!?!? Well once I hit 245lbs I felt for sure everyone was right but I was so uncomfortable & UNHAPPY. . . so were they Right about me or not?!?!

NO THEY WERE WRONG. . . I wasn't that person and I quickly found it out as I started my weight loss journey! As I began to shed the weight I started seeing The REAL Me then I really became confused because now the person whom I thought I was, whom I had been told I was, whom I'd even seen in the mirror previously was NOT real!! This was the REAL me. . .long, lean, fit, fabulous & FIERCE! Despite recognizing this new person and trying my best to enjoy her I still DIDN'T ACCEPT IT!! I still saw myself with my FAT mind. I shopped (and still shop) with my Fat mind, I look down at my legs or my body and my FAT mind tells me it's something different then I really know it is. I am HONESTLY admitting that only RECENTLY, and when I say recently I mean in the last few days after looking at pics of myself from the show, do I TRULY see myself as that LONG, LEAN, FIT, FABULOUS & FIERCE chick who's been living inside of me for 34 years. 

All of this is to say . . . PLEASE BE COGNIZANT of what you're saying to people because after hearing something about yourself for so long you start to believe it and make it true!! Because I know how this feels first hand I am very aware of what I say to my daughter and how I praise her continuously. I let her know that she's Gawgeous, Smart, Funny, Perfectly Built and anything else I can think of to keep her from having delusional ideals of who she REALLY is!! This is a painful struggle and I know I make light of it and joke around on a continuous basis but that doesn't mean this situation doesn't TORMENT sometimes. And that is one of the main reasons why I blog and talk to you all about it because it allows me to release myself of this emotional baggage that has plagued me so I can move one & GROW as a person and hopefully help someone else either overcome the same thing or keep them from going thru the same thing. So on that note I will bid you farewell and get back to work and say as always I Love's Ya'll and I'll talk to ya soon!!

KQ