back attack

Hey everyone. So sorry for skipping the blog yesterday. I was beat! I’m off work until Monday (woo hoo) so no skipping!

OH! Or should I say HO? And Merry Christmas Eve from my boyfriend Mickey 🙂

Fun fact when I googled a Christmas Eve picture of Mickey or Minnie my blog pictures came up! 

I hope everyone got their shopping done. I can’t tell you how many men I heard say yesterday “I haven’t started”. Excuse me? I guess better late than never?

Anyway, yesterday was a bit of a rough day at work for me, but somehow I made it through and headed to the gym. I did very light cardio and hit back HARD. I worked on my lats a lot and skipped heavy low back work.

If you notice here I have what the body builders call “wings”. That lat spread from armpit, going diagonally down to a cinched waist. Bigger lats make the waist look tinier. How do you get big wings? I use the typical lat pulldown machine but I change up how I do the exercises.

Regular overhand grip

Underhand grip

Triangle bar

I know I need to work my low back, so I’ve been sticking to mat work and stability ball work to strengthen that area. Heavy deadlifts kill my sciatica later on, so if you are like me, stick to body weight stuff!

Low back extensions on the mat get the job done 🙂 I also do low back extensions using the stability ball. If you remember when I was in California, a trainer showed me this little exercise and I’ve been doing it ever since.

Even though it’s the holiday season, I decided to skip all the good stuff and be pretty strict.

This is about a three week difference. I always lean out in my arms first, but my waist also leaned out quite a bit. I’ve said this time and time again, but my workouts haven’t changed- ALL DIET! Clean eating, watching portion sizes, and not grabbing those chocolate covered almonds at my parents house. Yes, that happened… more than a few times.

I just like the way I feel when I’m a bit leaner, and besides that, when I eat a very clean diet my body FEELS better. As you guys know I suffer from endometriosis. Lately? No pain. ::lets all knock on wood:: I’m starting to believe diet plays a huge role in that, or maybe I have been lucky… not sure.

And for those of you wondering…

YES I’m LOVING my beats headphones. Thank you to my mom and dad for the early present. I don’t know what the heck took me so long to get a pair. The wireless feature is the best thing to happen to my gym life. No wires, no pulling weights, and I can’t hear any “bros” around me. Fabulous.

Phoebe and I are going to finish playing and then I have to hit the gym! It closes at 2pm today.

This blog may have been created with the help of Nsync’s Christmas album playing in the background… just sayin’ 😉 Somewhere G-Mama is laughing and saying things never change.

XOXO With a Cherry On Top,

-Minnie