Dana Lynn

What’s Halloween without some Halloween cardio? No! not Halloween CANDY, CARDIO! My gym here in W. Hollywood really got into the spirit and decorated the place and everyone was wearing costumes… but the thing I couldnt believe was… THEY HAD BUCKETS OF CANDY ALL OVER!! Right at the front desk where you show your card, they had candy! I wont be at Golds in Veince today but I would put money on the fact that they wont have candy! Geez… Yesterday they had FRIED CHICKEN and other food on these tables for a party when I was leaving! Its crazy! Its already bad enough that everytime I go to my gym to Hollywood, its RIGHT next to a movie theatre and I smell hot buttery popcorn and then on the other side of it is my FAVORITE sushi place of all time… but then I have to go to the gym for cardio, and see CHOCOLATES staring at me! Ugh! But, no worries, I went in, did a good 60 min this morning and came right home for some oatmeal and eggwhites like a good girl.

I was reading my old journal from my first prep this morning and I saw that I wasnt doing 80 min a day of cardio until Day 50 last time and this prep I started doing 80 min at Day 1. Wow! I bet I’ll come down a lot faster this time! I have to get much leaner so all the cardio will help for sure.

Tomorrow is the day Pauline tells me my next step. She might change up my diet a bit and/or change cardio amounts and things like that. I take pictures and measurements so we’ll see how it all goes.

ok, I need a rest… and some hot tea.. its cold here today!

DL

HOLY CARDIO!!!! Wow, What a kick ass day!! Just got home from session #2 of cardio and WOW, I did 55 HARD minutes and burned 550 cal on my watch which makes today’s total…. 900 calories!! Pauline told me my minimum right now is 700 a day but today I had the energy and I didnt want to waste it! Why put off what you can do today, right? So I feel good and now I’m done with cardio for the day!

I’m thinking I will start doing TOP 10 lists about various things about me. So today’s TOP 10 will be….

TOP 10 THING FOUND IN MY GYM BAG!

10. Towel, for all the sweaty cardio

9. Gym locker combo lock

8. Extra hair bands- I dont remember the last time my hair was down!

7. My training Journal (with wonder woman on it) to write down my workouts

6. Wrist straps – for training back days cause we train heavy

5. Lots of Sugar free chewing gum! I love fruit flavors. Yum!

4. My pre-workout shaker and post workout shakers

3. Lots of forks and spoons and tupperwares with food

2. My hear rate monitor… A MUST!! Wont do cardio without it!

OH NO!! I have 11 today…. OK… BONUS… there are TWO # 1’s…

and the two #1’s are….

1. MY IPOD AND MY BLACKBERRY!!

CANT DO CARDIO WITHOUT MUSIC OR WITHOUT TEXTING MY FAVORITE CARDIO BUDDY, TRICIA!!

Oh yeah… I also have my water bottle too… geez… I needed to do a top 100 things in my bag. I’m going to need a bigger gym bag soon!

DL

Today has been a great day so far. I woke up feeling good. My legs arent sore anymore (YEAH!!!) and I actually have more energy then usual so I have been getting a lot done.

I did one really good 40 min cardio session this morning and I have one more left this afternoon. My weight today was 144lbs. Yeah! At least the scale is moving south… I am hoping to be 130 by Dec 1 and then maybe 125-120 by Jan 1…. It might seem like a lot but if I work hard enough and stay so so tight on my diet I think I can make it happen. I will have to see what my trainer thinks though. She might say that is too much too fast. We don’t want me to come down too quickly and lose muscle. No no no! I want all my hard earned muscles!! Anyway, on Wed Pauline will tell me my next plan of action to get to where I need to be because for Feb 24 I need to be about 117-119 and we want me there way before the show. Oye Vey…

Its getting chilly here in Cali. I did my cardio session outside this morning and had a wear a few layers. Right now I came up with a idea to make a my own special version of hot chocolate. I used boiling hot water with my casein protein and blended it all up! Bam! There you have it! Hot Chocolate! I will say its not as great as the real thing but when its cold outside its nice to drink something hot and also hot things tend to make you feel fuller longer.

Well, I have some more things to get done so I’ll be back later!

DL

Ahhhh… my favorite time of the day… What time of the day is that you ask? When ALL MY CARDIO IS DONE!!

Let me just say it right here and get it off my chest…. This is going to be a LONG, HARD contest prep. This prep is going to be nothing like the first. This prep is going to make the first one look like a walk in the park on a warm spring day. To tell you the truth, I’m feeling excited, nervous, scared, pumped up and a ton of other feelings all at the same time. Training with Pauline is HARD. I love it but its HARD. For that 45-60 min of training, I put everything I have into it. I make sure I push myself as hard as I can and complete every single set without fail. Even though I keep getting stronger, the workouts just get harder so there is never a day I can be “OFF” or have my head somewhere else. The cardio, just like last prep, is great some days and hard as can be others. But one thing is for sure… ITS EVERYDAY. Sometimes it feels like that movie Groundhog Day. Wake up, cardio, eat, cardio, train, cardio, eat (and clean lots of dishes and laundry in between all that) Go to sleep… Wake up, cardio… Well, you get what I mean.

It also seems like in a prep diet, my favorite things are always the first to get cut down or taken out. Pauline told me she would be taking out my oatmeal and caramel rice cakes at some point. Even my pre and post workout shake that has some sugars in it will go!! Ugh!! NO!! WHY MY CARAMEL RICE CAKES!?! Just take out ANYTHING ELSE but NOT MY RICE CAKES!! Thats all I have left in the world to enjoy! haha! Well, I know the reason why they get taken out but I just hate it! I look forward to them after my workouts on my drive home.

Right now I’m at the point where things are hard because I’m dieting, doing tons of cardio and training so hard… BUT I’M FAT. So its really hard to enjoy much. HOWEVER, In a month or so when I’m leaner and I can see my muscles, I will be whistling another tune. Because if your dieting and training and doing tons of cardio its HARD BUT if you have a lean body and you can SEE your efforts each day, it makes it a lot more fun. Now when I’m in the gym I see a chunky little body and no muscles or veins so I wonder, IS THIS EVEN WORKING!! But of course it is! I just miss seeing my muscles when I workout (and fitting into MOST OF MY CLOTHES!!!!)

Ok, that was my rant for the night… just some random thoughts to get off my (fat) chest. Now its time to rest because guess what I have in the morning…. I’ll give you a hint.. it starts with a C…

DL

Good Morning and Happy Sunday! I just got home a bit ago from the gym to do my first session of cardio. I usually do cardio at home on my crossrobics machine that I keep out in my parking garage area but this morning I woke up and my glutes are even more sore then yesterday. The only difference is that today I HAVE to do my cardio and train no matter how sore or hurting I am. I did 50 min on the arc trainer at Crunch and all I can say is OUCH! I hiked up the resistance and kept my heart rate HIGH. I use my polar hr watch to tell me how many calories I burn (not the machine because they are not accurate) and I burned 500 cal in 50 min. So I was happy about that, as I wobbled home. I train today at 2pm in Venice and then finish up with a session of 30 more min of cardio.

In times like these where my body hurts and the last thing I want todo is more cardio or train, I remember what my trainer, Pauline, tells me. Everything I do counts. Every little meal, cardio session and lifting session adds up and counts to my final product that I present on stage. So if I skip or go half-ass on something, its only hurting ME! I also have to remember, for as hard as I’m working, there is someone out there working harder!

Yesterday on my day off I was having thoughts of all these yummy foods I wanted to eat. Sometimes when I diet strict, I actually have dreams about eating all this tasty food like pizza and ice cream… then I wake up in a panic that it really happened and I ruined so much of my hard work!! Hey, its the food lover in me!

I’m going to try to figure out how to post some pictures today… I need to learn how to resize them first… I’ll show you a picture of me hiking and reaching the top and another of my doggie, Swayze, sleeping in bed…

These pictures are a bit small, arent they? humm…. I’ll keep working on it…

To say I’m sore today would be an understatement. I am way beyond sore. My legs and glutes feel like I was run over by a bulldozer. When I woke up to get out of bed I almost fell out of bed because standing up hurt so much. So, I guess the training was a good session last night! Today I’m off… THANK THE LORD… There is no way I would be able to do cardio today. It’s also a day that I hike up my calories a bit more. I get to eat some fun stuff I dont get during the week like beef jerky and smoked salmon. Yum! I took Glutamin and BCAA this morning but I think I’m going to take some more soon because my legs are actually really painful.

Today is a lazy day for me. During the other six days of the week I keep pretty busy with everything I need to do but today I just don’t seem to have the motivation to do too much. I would much rather rest and recover so this next week I am productive as possible. Also, I have been adding a lot of salt to my veggies to make them more tasty lately so today I’m trying to guzzle down a ton of water to help take the bloating away. So it makes it really hard to go anywhere when you need to pee every 5 min!

The weather today in Los Angeles is amazing and if it were any other day I would think of going on a hike or rollerblading by the beach but my legs really need to rest. The thought of walking upstairs right now makes me shutter! haha!

I’m actually coming down a lot. Its really amazing what you can accomplish in a week with your body if you stay strict with your plan. Already I can see I am tightening up a lot. The training, cardio and dieting is a lot of hard work but in the end the pay off makes it all worth it. You get to see your body and know that you did all that hard work to make something happen to improve your life, health and body. It’s a great feeling!

DL

Wow! What a workout I had tonight! I trained legs and it was killer. I just love training hard. It makes me feel so good. We did lots of hamstring and glute work. We did these deep one-leg at a time squats on the smith machine that totally kicked my butt. No, really it did… I felt it in my butt with each rep. I have a feeling this workout is going to leave me walking pretty funny tomorrow. There are times that I’m so sore from training that walking up the stairs and sitting down in a chair is actually painful. But, I cant lie, I love it! Being sore like that is like a battle scar. It reminds me how hard I trained and that every muscle I have on my body I worked really hard to get.

After training I did my final session of cardio. I had another 40 minutes. Pauline taught me to stop going so fast to get my heart rate up but actually hike up the resistance and work hard that way. What a fun change and what a hard workout! One of the guys who works at the gym stood next to me and spoke to me for most of the time so cardio didnt seem as boring as it usually does. This morning my headphones broke and I didnt have music. Let me tell you, it was the longest 40 min of my life. Cardio without music is like pizza with no cheese…. I just dont like it, why even bother!? But I did it anyway because I knew if I didnt do it then I would have 80 min to do at the gym! GROSS!!

Well, its time to make some dinner. I think it will red peppers and Italian squash in a pan with chicken and some garlic powder. Yum!

Until next time….

DL

Good morning! Well here I am at Day 6 of 121 days until my show. Today I have two sessions of 40 min of cardio and I also head down to Venice to train legs. I LOVE training with my new trainer. Her name is Pauline and she’s just wonderful. Each workout is so challenging and by the time I’m done I feel like I really accomplished something. We train with heavy weights and lower reps, none of that sissy low weights, high reps stuff. Yuck! How boring that other way is. Now I feel like I go in, work hard, tear up my muscles, go home. (well, I have 40 min of cardo before I go home but you understand what I mean)

The other fun part about training that way is that I’m always trying to break my last personal best. I am going to make some goals for what I am going to aim for in my strength and I’ll write them later.

Legs is a tough day and cardio after training as hard as we do isnt easy either but I do see a light at the end of the tunnel because today is Friday and Saturday I have the day off from lifting and cardio. I even get to bump up my calories and carbs! Fun! I don’t look at rest days as nothing days, I look at them as being extremely important for my body to heal and rest before hitting the weights and cardio for another 6 days.

I started my official contest diet on Oct 22 (I was supposed to start WAY before that but mom came to town and we couldnt resist eating some things we werent really allowed) but now I’m ON and there is no turning back! I will say though that I needed that one last fun week with mom to eat some things I love and wont get to eat for a while. It helped me prepare mentally to get back into the game of sacrifice.

I have my first weigh in and measurement check with Pauline on Nov 1. We wanted me to weigh 135lbs by Nov 1 but since my little “party time” with mom happened I don’t think I’ll be seeing 135 by the 1st.

Last time I stepped on stage I was about 125-127lbs (holding WAY too much water) This time my trainer wants to see me MUCH more lean at 117-119lbs. Right now I’m about 145lbs so I have my work cut out for me. I also take pictures on Nov 1 so I’ll be sure to post them.

Have a great day and I’ll check it again soon!

DL

Oh what fun!

Tonight my website was completed and I finally get to write my first journal entry. My wonderful and very talented friend, Nick Gill, created this website for me and I think its just great! And…. its done just in time for my contest prep season! Yep, I’m back at it again. The first prep was so tough but I’m coming back for more. So many girls who compete told me I will probably get bitten by the competition bug and I sure did. I really loved it!!

So here I am, 18 weeks away from my next show. I’m doing the Steel Rose Classic in Sacramento, Ca. on Feb 24, 2007. I am so excited. This time around I have a whole new game plan. A new trainer, a new gym, a new diet and a TOTALLY new way of weight training and doing my cardio. Its like a CONTEST PREP MAKEOVER!! I just love it all.

Well, I wont go nuts posting like crazy tonight. Anyone who knows me does know that I always have lots to say but I’ll try to spread it out over the next 18 weeks… and of course I’ll post all my pictures to let you see how I’m looking. Trust me, this time around, I’m in it, to WIN IT!! LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!!

See you tomorrow!