Nutrition – the science behind it all

Here we are at the end of week two!
It’s been an interesting week for me and one full of surprises and lessons to be learned too.
You know, Monday already feels like such a long time ago that I have to really think hard to remember the things of the week that really stood out for me.
Lesson Number One – time passes whether you make the most of it or not.
I have only been able to train for one day this week and BOY has it been difficult watching time vanish and not be able to make the most of it! I’ve been doing my best not to agonise over my results for this week and chalk it up to exactly what it is – one of those things.
I’m doing my best to get my head to let it go. There was nothing I could do and there is nothing I CAN do to change the coughs, colds and sneezing events of the week. I can, however, make the most of next week! I’ll tell you this though, my abs have been getting a thorough workout every day with all the coughing and sneezing I’ve been doing *grin*
Lesson Number Two – Consistency = Changes and they’re happening all the time, whether you notice them or not .
When I took delivery of the cover for ’10 Things’ a few weeks ago, it was open on my computer. Ellie came into the office, saw it and said, “Who on EARTH is T H A T?!” pointing to the before shot.
Before I had a chance to answer, she went on to say, “That’s not YOU is it?!!!  WOW! I don’t remember you looking like that at all…”
I don’t either! Looking back at those photographs is like looking at someone else. They were only taken 18 months ago but it feels like a different lifetime ago – which, in a way, it was I suppose.
Whether you’re currently living a healthy lifestyle or on a path that leads to getting up close and personal with a Cardiologist, changes are happening all the time.
If you’re eating well and training regularly, your body will be getting tighter, smaller and healthier – it doesn’t have any other choice.
If you’re living at the other end of the health and fitness rainbow then your body will getting bigger, softer and increasingly unhealthy – again, it really doesn’t have any choice.
But these changes are gradual, you don’t suddenly put on 10kgs because you ate a bar of chocolate.  You won’t suddenly become super slim overnight if you DON’T eat chocolate.
Consistently do either of these things though and you’ll see changes one way or the other! The direction of those changes are up to you.
THIS is why in ’10 Things’ I say it’s imperative to take photographs of yourself on a weekly basis. Sometimes the changes can be small but they’re happening and the sum total of small changes..?  A BIG difference!
Lesson Number Three – take the advice of people who know what they’re talking about.
I amused myself with this one!
In my web design business I advise clients to only include things in websites, photographs or copy if they add any value. I bang on and on about this all the time and, as I know what I’m talking about, it’s very good advice.
The other night when I was adding the post Holiday Challenge interview with Kyle, I got carried away and found myself in Flash creating a slideshow to go with it with various timings and transition effects – it was going to be awesome; it was also getting v e r y late.
Then I heard myself talking to a client recently, “I know you think that big flashy animation on the front page looks really cool, but will it add any value? If yes, how? If not, dump it and move on.
No one cares whether you have clever graphics that can sing and dance and probably cook the dinner too, unless that’s what you specialise in and is what they’re looking for.
What people come for is information,to find out whether you’re the right person for the job and someone they believe they’d like to work with.”
It’s sound advice! I saved the slideshows, you never know when work will come in handy later on, added two still photographs instead (which convey exactly the same information as the whizzy slideshow would have done) under the play button and went to bed.
With everything training, I still research, learn and take the advice of people I know and trust – like Tom Venuto. He knows what it takes to get a six pack so I’d be crazy not to take his counsel and implement his advice.
There were lots of other things that happened this week, but it’s almost next week for me here in the UK and it’s time to call it a day on what’s passed, look to next week and listen to the advice which says:
Enough sleep is essential for muscle growth and recovery
I need ALL of those things so I’m off!
See you tomorrow for training and week THREE!

And so we come to the end of week two!
It’s been a frustrating week for me as I’ve only been able to train once – coughs, colds, sneezing and deadlifts don’t make for nice playmates *sigh*
So for what they’re worth, here are my photos (I even left my measurement markers in for you to see) and numbers for the week…

Week two pictures

Comparisons against day zero

(I know it looks like I’m holding on to my bum for dear life but I’m not, honest!)

Week two numbers

I’m trying very hard not to get too caught up in the numbers this week, this week was a blot on my six pack for girls challenge landscape.
The forecast for next week is fine! Week three awaits…two down, eight to go.

Here’s something a little different for you!
After the Holiday Challenge I was asked if I’d do a quick success story interview.
I said YES, of course, and was duly called up and interrogated interviewed by Kyle Battis, fitness guru and website manager over at Tom Venuto’s Burn the Fat Inner Circle.
Here it is…

First day of the Holiday Challenge

Last day of the Holiday Challenge

See you tomorrow

In the absence of any training to talk about, come on a little journey to London with me.
Whenever I write about London, the song ‘London Calling’ by The Clash always leaps in to my mind – I did a quick google of it just now and to my horror discovered it was released in 1979!  How can it be over 30 years old?! Mind you, I think the same thing about me…
I love London. But, in my deep and distant past, having commuted backwards and forwards to the Capital for work tends to make you a bit blase about what an amazing place it is.
I felt pretty okay, not really much of a sore throat left, bit of a cough though but otherwise…not bad.
The weather was stunning for October – clear blue skies, mist hanging low over the fields like a soft white blanket and the different autumn colours were so BRIGHT and vibrant; it was one of those mornings where you breathe deeply and KNOW that life is good.
The car was safely tucked away in the car park and I was on platform two, ticket in hand (well, in my bag actually), with 10 minutes to spare before the 9.27am to St Pancras International arrived.
It’s only an hour into London by train and I always look forward to arriving at ‘St P’ – it’s a STUNNING station and where the Eurostar to Paris and Brussels leaves from; it just has a certain ‘something’ about it I can’t explain.
From St P I walked right through the station to the other end (this takes a good five minutes, St P is huge), down the stairs to the Kings Cross/St Pancras Underground platforms and jumped on the Victoria line to Oxford Circus.
Oxford Circus crosses Regent Street and both of these are BIG shopping streets.  How can I explain this to you if you’ve never been to London and don’t know UK shops..?
OK, Oxford Street is your more average Joe, more reasonably priced end of the market and Regent Street is more up market but not quite as exclusive as Knightsbridge et al.
I do NOT include Harrods in that statement – I know everyone from overseas wants to go to Harrods, and please don’t let my opinion as a native shatter any dreams or illusions, but if you want proper posh London, there are better places to go to find it – ooooh I feel kind of mean now!
I’m heading for the National Magazines Company offices – one of the biggest publishers of luxury consumer magazines in the country – and it’s just a 10 minute wander down the road a bit and along the famous Carnaby Street – see, it’s just Carnaby Street to me and it’s only when I see tousists posing for photos under the sign that I remember it has a lot of very COOL recent history.
I eventually arrive at the [Comfort Zone] launch room. I know I’m in the right place because the SMELL emanating from it is just heavenly – think subtle orange and cinnamon – there are candles flickering away in the corners and on tables and lovely relaxing music is playing softly in the background.
Now I’m not generally very girly; I always passed on Barbie, preferring to race home-made go-karts (four-wheelers, call them what you will) and play with my brother’s Star Wars figures. 
But THIS sort of thing – creams, candles, lotions, potions and pampering I can do…as long as it’s in relatively small doses (give me nicely manicured nails, the smell of four-stroke engine oil, some motor sport or rugby for an entire weekend and that’s me pretty much happy – I’m easily pleased!).
After being schmoozed by the product PRs it was time for a head and back massage. The massage lady was lovely, very friendly, knew just when to talk but more importantly when to say nothing at all.
With the smell of oranges gently wafting around, and the music tinkling in the background, I was in seventh heaven! I even asked the massage lady if she’d like to come and live-in at my house – can  you imagine having a masseur on call 24 hours a day? Bliss!
It was all over too fast and I really could have ‘endured’ hours and hours of such work-torture; the things you have to suffer under the ‘guise of beauty editor!
I had a bit of time to kill so decided to take a little detour to Victoria Station and see what was going on around that part of town – it’s rumoured to be undergoing a bit of a transformation.
So I traced my steps back to Oxford Street and turned left onto Regent Street heading for Piccadilly Circus.
Regent Street is great if you’re a) into clothes shops and/or b) into Regency architecture.
The huge soft crescent of buildings, designed by John Nash in 1811, is the epitome of architectural elegance, in my opinion, and absolutely stunning.
It flows gently down to Piccadilly Circus where an explosion of bright lights, sounds, utter madness and chaos awaits you.
‘Circus’, It’s an appropriate name and the madness is a direct result of five streets all converging here, think of it as a GIANT roundabout where only the bravest will survive.
If you ever feel your driving is missing that certain level of excitement and you want a bit of adrenaline mixed in to your journey just for kicks, then leap behind the wheel of  a car and go for a spin around Piccadilly;  it should be on the list of those thrill-seeking driver experience days!
Piccadilly is famous for it’s beautiful statue of the Greek God Eros and it’s theaters – time to snap Eros quickly on my phone, then back down underground to grab the Tube to Victoria.
The London Underground is notorious for its complexity but only the insane, or those with a LOT of time on their hands to sit in traffic, drive in London.
If you can master ‘the Tube’ then you are said to have higher powers of intellect; higher powers than what, no one’s ever said but it’s quite something to behold and you will always see very confused, and lost, looking tourists trying to find their way out.

Here’s a quick London Underground 101:

• There are 11 different lines and seven of them are ‘deep level’ (80ft below ground).
• Hampstead, on the Northern Line is the deepest at 221ft below ground.
• The first underground line and stations were built in 1863
• There are 260 stations
• There are 249 miles of track
• There are 422 escalators – the longest and steepest being at ‘the Angel’ (Angel Islington) which is 197ft long and has a vertical rise of 90ft (I know ALL about THIS escalator – when I was commuting in to London, the Angel was my stop and the number of times it wasn’t working was unreal;  you wouldn’t need to do any extra cardio after running up it so you didn’t miss your bus connection at the top!)
• Figures for 2009/2010 show that London Underground trains travelled over 69 million kilometers – enough to circle the planet 1,750 times!

Depending on where you are in London, and where you want to go, will dictate whether or not you can go from A to B on the Tube or whether you’re going to have to surf the lines.
To get from Piccadilly Circus to Victoria, I had to go one stop up on the Bakerloo Line (northbound) back to Oxford Circus (there Tube at Oxford Street isn’t called Oxford Street, that would be too easy…it’s done to confuse those who are not native *grin*), then off and onto the Victoria line (southbound) for a few stops to Victoria.
There wasn’t much going on at Victoria that was very exciting – lots of ground work, but a long way to go before anything nice is finished.
Back on the Tube! The Victoria Line again, northbound this time, up five stops to back to St Pancras International (or St Pancreas as I heard one woman calling it on – I had to laugh!) and as luck would have it I just managed to sneak on the 13.30 back home.
I had a lot of fun; it was fun to see bits of Town that I haven’t seen for a while and it’s always reassuring to know I haven’t lost my touch on the Tube.
Although NO CARDIO was the order of the day, I kind of felt like I’d done ‘some’, even if it was just walking down Regent Street and surfing the Underground.
See you later…for more ‘exciting’ ambles through another day in my life under the ‘training ban’! 😉

Yesterday

The chat with myself went like this: “I honestly feel MUCH better; I’ve still got a bit of a sore throat…but I really AM feeling ok! I reckon I’ll be okay to train tomorrow 🙂
“Maybe we should see how we feel tomorrow, resting heart rate within five beats of normal remember!”
“Yes, yes I know…” yippeeee I’ll be training tomorrow.
(I’m aware the above makes me sound a bit like Gollum talking to himself in Lord of the Rings LOL – but don’t pretend you don’t have convos with yourself too 😉 )

Today

Midnight: woke up with a very sore throat. I felt fine otherwise though, so I went and got a hot drink (green tea with jasmine – that’s the latest funky tea discovery) and figured I must have been sleeping with my mouth open to make it so sore again all of a sudden.
5am: time to get up, well when I say ‘get up’ that actually meant: go downstairs, make coffee and shake (oats, water and chocolate whey protein), come back to bed and work on the laptop – does that actually count as getting up…? Throat feeling MUCH better!
8.39am: My throat is still a little bit sore but nothing major, the session is only half-an-hour or so, albeit quite intense; but I reckon I’ll be fine as long as I don’t OVERDO it.
10.30am: Wahoooo, I’m back training – the weights are pretty light today compared to a couple of days last week (remember those 50kgs deads?) and MAN does it feel good to be back on course again.
I love training and whilst not training is okay if I choose not, not being able to train because I really shouldn’t just FRUSTRATES me!
11.00am: Sure enough, it only took half an hour; my heart’s pumping, my blood’s flowing, I can see great progress in my arms (wanna see…?) and everything is well with the world.
4.15pm: Go out to collect Jack from school; I’m feeling a bit tired, but I have been working since 5am so it’s hardly surprising is it…
4.45pm: Train Jack
“Are you alright mum?”
“Yep, why?”
“You’re losing your voice!”
“Hmmm, it’s all your fault…I’ve told everyone y’know! You gave me your germs!”
6.00pm: Start cooking dinner; am not really in the mood for cooking, but I promised Ellie I’d do Morrocan beef (is an awesome recipe) so I’d better get on with it.
6.30pm: Eat Morrocan beef. Yummm, this is lovely.
7.00pm: Sore throat, very dodgy sounding voice, very tired and slight headache. It’s no good, I’m going to have to go to bed!
“Kiddy-Rats, I’m going to bed,”
“Okay mum,”
“Doors, lights, kitchen and all of that usual stuff please,”
“Yeah, okay,” which probably means at least one light will be left on, still, better that than all the doors unlocked!
I was in bed by ten past seven, and that’s where I still am.
I’m in London tomorrow for this [Comfort Zone] launch so I’ve had to do some work for tomorrow, tonight; I’d usually do it in the morning but I’m going to be gone by 8am so I’ve had to shuffle things round a bit.
I didn’t think I’d overdone things…but I guess it was still too much. I’m going to have to be VERY firm with myself and NOT train tomorrow if I don’t want to make things worse – I haven’t got time to be out of training for weeks. I’d better behave myself  from now on!
With only 59 days to go there isn’t time for me to be out of action  – the best thing I can do is be…P A T I E N T!
One day, ONE DAY I’ll have mastered the art of that.
See you tomorrow with news from the Capital (assuming I’m fit enough to go – I won’t be crawling there on my hands and knees that’s for sure!).

YIPPEEEE!!! I’m feeling back to normal again (well, as ‘normal’ as I ever feel) so, training for me tomorrow and I can’t WAIT!
I told everyone today how miserable I was yesterday knowing they were all training and I wasn’t; I felt like  a right training Billy-no-mates *cry*
It reminded me of all the times when I was little and wanted to go out and play with my friends but wasn’t allowed, because we were maybe going somewhere else or it was dinner time.
Watching and listening to everyone else playing outside, having a lovely time, was just horrible and not training yesterday was the same!  I’ve not felt like THAT for years!!
I banned myself from ‘the gym’ again and didn’t do cardio today either so I had to keep myself occupied in other positive ways – today’s positive measure was CLOTHES!
Changes are now measured in tenths of centimeters and grades of a percent, and then there are still the ‘dreaded’ photos!
I get the ‘dreaded’ photos, I really do, but comparison shots that are just seven days apart very clearly demonstrate why they are so important.
If you judge progress on the scale number alone, you’ll end up freaking yourself out if they’re not going down as much you’d like, and lose the will to live if they actually went up!
Equally, judge progress by the tape measure alone and it could start to look worse, but put the three pieces of the puzzle together and what you’ll see (as long as you’re following your programme properly) is very definite positive progress. BRAVO!
All of these things MUST be used together to check you’re moving in the right direction for the results you’re looking to achieve.
When it starts coming down to the minutiae of centimeters and inches, accuracy becomes very important.
Measure slightly up or down from the place you measured the time before, your results will look skewed and if the numbers are bigger, when they shouldn’t be, you’re going to be very upset indeed!
I have eight marks at various places on my body; I drew them on with a permanent marker pen to show where I must measure each time – it’s no good racing back to any photos wondering how you’ve managed to miss them all this time, you won’t have seen them.
I’ve always ‘rubbed them out’ on the computer as it looks a bit weird, I’ll leave them in for you this week so you can see.
But, by far, my favourite measuring method is with clothes, for two reasons.

1. It’s very reliable and all ‘tape measure driver error’ is removed
2. It’s SOOOOO incredibly satisfying, and encouraging, to see and feel something fitting you better each week; it really spurs you on.

We’re rapidly heading into winter here in the UK and whilst everyone else is packing all their summer shorts away, I’m keeping mine out.
I’ve had a couple of pairs tucked away in a draw for a good couple of years now; they are very small, they do NOT stretch and I love them.  They are my summer equivalent of the beloved and evil-non-stretch Nike trousers (I’ll tell that story another day for those who don’t know it).
I try them on every now and again (a bit masochist I know) and today, TODAY the navy blue pair were up, done up and more than wearable.  That said, they’re tighter around my butt than I’d like, but give me a couple of weeks and they’ll be much better and will keep getting better, right the way through the weeks, until they are perfect, ready and waiting for the summer!
I was very excited by this little development this afternoon and all my banned-from-training woes were replaced with positive and excited thoughts about just how far I can take this in the 60 days we have left…60 days!
The devil is in the detail they say, so be as accurate as you can and when you can’t…USE CLOTHES; the non-stretchy ones will never lie to you!
The other exciting thing that happened today (at least I thought it was exciting) was sending out the first newsletter to everyone who’s subscribed.
If you didn’t get a copy and would like to, then all you need to do is download the ’10 Things’ eBook and you’ll automatically be added to the list for next week.
See you tomorrow, after training – WAHOOOO!!! 🙂

In the absence of training, I thought I’d talk about food!
After all I eat the stuff six times a day and a fair amount of it too!
This is something I hear fairly often:
“WOW! You look fantastic! I wish I looked like you – what do you do…?”
Now there’s a question most people don’t want to hear the answer to!

“Well, I train five or six times a week, I very rarely drink alcohol and I don’t smoke.
I don’t eat chocolate, crisps, fast food, sweets and only the very VERY occasional piece of cake will ever pass my lips. I eat six times a day and I drink a lot of water!”
(I think I might get some business cards with that little speech printed on them hahahaaa!)
Cue look of horror from the person who asked the question,
“….oh…erm…um…I’d never be able to do that….”
The other thing I hear (and I hear it often) is:

“Yeah, but I bet you don’t eat very much, and only lettuce when you do. Three square meals a day, that’s what you need; put some weight on your bones!”
Last week I ate 13,200 calories – that’s a whole LOT of lettuce *grin*
This naturally leads on to the next question,
“So what DO you eat?!”
Oh, I’m so glad you asked; let me tell you all the things that passed my lips last week…

• Oats
• Chocolate whey protein

• Brown pasta
• Brown rice
• Sweet potato

• Tuna
• Salmon
• Chicken
• Lean beef steak
• Eggs

• Mushrooms
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Cabbage
• Fine green beans
• Tomatoes
• Green pepper
• Cucumber
• Spring onions
• Beansprouts
• Apples
• Strawberries

• Apple cider vinegar
• Reduced salt soy sauce
• Worcestershire sauce
• Olive oil

• Ground chilli flakes
• Curry spice
• Paprika
• Oregano
• Hot cayenne pepper

• Coffee
• Water
• Chamomile and vanilla tea
• Organic nettle, fennel and peppermint tea
• Organic aniseed, fennel and cardamom tea
• Organic oat flower, lavendar and limeflower tea

• Toothpaste and mouthwash *grin*

If you open my fridge this is what you’ll see…

One of my favourite pieces of kitchen equipment is my wok – stir-frys are just awesome, super-quick and only one pan to wash up at the end – that’s MY kind of cooking!
This beef stir-fry took about 5 minutes to cook and was LOVELY (even though I do say so myself)!!!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the food police – I could do some serious damage to things like cheesecake if I chose to.
And there it is, the simple answer to the original question,
“…I’d love to look like you! What do you do….?”
“I CHOOSE TO!”
See you tomorrow (for no cardio…but I really AM feeling much better)

This is the outlook for the day – so training is OFF the agenda *sigh*
It’s Jack’s fault – I’ve decided! – as each hour passed yesterday, he began looking worse and worse. In the end I asked him if he had GERMS! He said,
“Well, I’ve got a sore throat and a blocked up nose…does that count?”
“Yes,” I said, “it does. It also means no training for you tomorrow.”
The look on his face made me feel like I’d just delivered some REALLY bad news to someone; he was so disappointed.
He’s been itching to train again since Friday, reading Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, dilligently STUFFING his face with all the right things every three hours and asking me,

“What training are we going to be doing at 6 o’clock on Monday?”
You could tell he was thinking ‘DOH! Should have said I DIDN’T have germs!!!’ But there’s no pulling the wool over the eyes of your mother – they know everything!
I explained to him all the whys and wherefores and rationale behind NOT training when you’re not feeling 100%, and he gets it…but he was still disappointed.

“If you rocked up at a gym looking and feeling the way you do now, you’d be sent straight home. NO training for you tomorrow!

Don’t worry that it’s going to stop you making progress, 90% diet remember…patience kiddo, it’ll all be fine” What a nice mummy I am *grin*
When I went to bed all was well with the world, apart from Jack with his germs.
I woke up at 2am with a sore throat from HELL!
No blocked up nose, but WOW swallowing was properly painful – oh GREAT! (see, it’s all Jack’s fault!). I went back to sleep telling myself it was just a mid night glitch and would be gone in the morning in time for training.
I woke up again at 4am and it was worse, but this time accompanied by a headache, earache (in my left ear only) and a raised heart rate – I sent a text a number of people to tell them there’d be no training for me today.
I did this for two reasons

1. because I wanted sympathy, of course, and
2. because it’s a well-proven strategy to stop myself from training when I have no business doing so – if I just kept it to myself then no one would know except me; it’s that good old accountability factor again.

The good news is Jack’s sore throat had almost gone this morning and I’m feeling fine now (I won’t train, I promise!) – I’ve banned myself from doing cardio tomorrow too *sigh* but then the rest of the week had better WATCH OUT!
I’ve got a small bum to sculpt – by the way, that rough photoshop visual I did yesterday…it’s EVERYWHERE now! Stuck on the fridge, the wallpaper for my computers, stuck on walls, next to the bathroom mirror and the mirrors in my bedroom.
That BUTT is MINE!!!!!
See you a bit later for a day eight post about food; YUM!

It’s been an amazing week!
First of all it kicked off with the beginning of the six pack challenge and the launch of the website.
Since going live on Monday we’ve had over 1,300 page views coming from 13 different countries and some wonderful comments; do leave us your thoughts and comments, we love reading them!
There was another launch this week – Tom Venuto’s new Holy Grail Body Transformation Programme– now, I’m not often one to blow my own trumpet, but I’m featured in the introduction for it because I did something a bit ‘weird’ over the course of his very first Burn the Fat Holiday Challenge.
I lost fat AND gained muscle at the same time and after 50 days, was one pound heavier than when I started but had 7% less body fat *grin*
I’m on several health and fitness lists and the Holy Grail is THE hot topic of the moment, so I keep opening emails only to see me looking back at myself, and listening to audios talking about how I put ON weight and ended up with less body fat – THAT has been a lot of fun this week, if not a bit surreal.
Work wise it’s been stupidly busy and with Christmas rapidly approaching, all the PRs are ramping up for the big push – there are so many bits and pieces on my desk to review, it’s CRAZY.
Next week is going to be just as busy – I’m off to London on Thursday to attend the launch of a range of Italian spa skincare products called [Comfort Zone]; part of the [Comfort Zone] experience is a head and back massage by one of the top beauty therapists in the country.
I’m all for stepping out of the proverbial comfort zone, but I’ve seen the training for this week! Let me tell you, come Thursday I’m going to be more than happy to step back into it for half an hour and enjoy every single second of that head and back massage.
My week one results were good – can you feel my lack of enthusiasm for them? – I don’t want ‘good’, I want GREAT! I want FANTASTIC! I want SUPER MEGA AWESOME!!!! And I’d rather like them now…if that’s ok.
And then I rein myself back in, remind myself I’m not going to see huge changes inch by inch, week by week anymore; those days are gone!
Now it’s about refinement. I go back and look at the original day one pictures from the end of April last year and compare them with today…not bad; absolutely right not bad, pretty bloody MARVELLOUS! (oooh there I go blowing my own trumpet again *to-do-doooooo*).
They say that patience is a virtue and it’s something I’m practising being good at; really I am – sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. Today it was 50/50 when I put together my results for week one and that Savage Chickens cartoon pretty much sums up my relationship with the ‘P’ word; it made me laugh!
In my ‘10 things’ ebook, I mention about the importance of visualisation in helping you achieve your goals, and if you’ve read my starting facts, figures and goals then you’ll know that I’m not only chasing a six pack, but also a rather pert bottom and slim hips.
I knocked up a V E R Y rough visual in photoshop this evening, using today’s back photo to create an image that shows very clearly what I want.
Here it is…

I don’t know how that looks to you, but for me it’s subtle on the one hand and Mount Everestesque, in terms of what it’s going to take to achieve, on the other!
I’ve got nine weeks…NINE; NOT achieving that visual is just not an option – that bum has been with me looking like that for too long…it’s days are NUMBERED!
Bring on week two, that’s all I can say…