And the next stop is:

Cairo, Egypt! What a lovely country! The weather is hot – just the way I like it. No more gray depressing mornings, bring on the sunshine!

20140419-121939.jpg

The traffic here is something else! If you think London was bad, well you don’t want to try it here then! No rules whatsoever, everyone drives as they like, pedestrians all over the place crossing roads, no speed limits (well obviously there is a speed limit but no one enforces it).

20140419-122727.jpg

I was introduced to Gold’s Gym Academy where I started doing some freelance lecturing on their new project: training the new staff for an opening of a new branch here in Cairo!

People are very friendly and I’m truly having a great time!

Goes without saying I’m training at Gold’s Gym in Maadi. I feel truly blessed!

20140419-122050.jpg

Training video update

Hello everyone!

I’m still here in Istanbul, enjoying some good sunshine, although the weather is a bit cold at the moment. However apparently in about 3-4 weeks’ time it’s gonna be summer. Now that’s gonna be something else for me, who is used to the english summers lol

Training is going well, enjoying my training sessions and generally people here are very friendly with a female bodybuilder (not like in the past in some other country hmmm 😉 ) And I don’t mean only in the gym but in general. It is a nice and pleasant surprise.

IMG_5253

 

And here is a video I did 2 days ago here in Istanbul at Hedef Spor Kulübü. I was training biceps and I recorded 1 set of each exercises, I hope you’ll enjoy. If you have any training or nutrition question or if you need guidance I’m available for online coaching, so get in touch at tamara@tamaramakar.me

Hello from Istanbul

Merhaba! Here I am again, sending this message from Istanbul. Having some great training sessions here again.

I train at the Hedef Spor Kulubu in Ãœmrayine, if you would like to pop in for a chat please contact me through my email (tamara@tamaramakar.me)  to agree on date and time and I’ll give you the address.

Today after training I went to another gym, called MyClub – something similar to an LA Fitness in England and went straight to a spin class. Well I have never seen anything like this before! It was fun although I must admit it wasn’t intense at all.
I look forward to the experience this city has to offer in the following few weeks! Watch this space for updates!

IMG_5138

Istanbul – one more time!

I am very pleased to announce that I am going back to Istanbul on the 22nd February for a month. I will be available for one on one personal training sessions and for nutritional and training advice. Watch this space and get in touch if you’re interested: tamara@tamaramakar.me

HedefSpor2

HSK7_1

 

A different workout

This time I went back to my roots. I started doing Kyokushin Karate when i was 14 and I got to brown belt when I stopped because of an injury. Now I picked it up again and I would like to keep it up. At the moment only one day a week, but I will practice some boxing and the katas in the gym over the weekend. This is what I did this weekend:

Back training – back to training

Today was the first training session of 2014, after a week rest. My body felt very tired and I only realised how tired I was once I stopped training. I couldn’t get enough sleep. Today I decided to go back and train because I missed it and I thought I’ve had enough rest. First training session was back. My strength is coming back slowly slowly so I’m hoping to get even stronger in the next coming weeks/months. It is offseason for me now, enjoying training again! This short video was filmed during training today, I hope you’ll like it. It’s also available on my YouTube channel.

Happy New Year!

2014 is here finally! I wish you guys all the best for 2014. Thank you for following me and supporting me, it means a lot to me!

2013 was full of ups and downs, and more downs than ups. Unfortunately we tend to remember the negatives more than the positives. So let’s  just look at the positives now:

I have met some amazing people. Through work, through training and places you wouldn’t even think it could happen. One of my best decisions this year was to switch countries when it comes to competing. I competed in Hungary and represented Hungary at an international competition. I didn’t place, but it’s not the reflection of my success here. My success in this process was to be able to get into that shape and stand on stage and be proud of how I looked because that was one of my best shape and conditions ever. That is success for me because even though it is a competition where you compete against other people but the biggest competition is with yourself to improve how you looked last time. Not only that but it was a great feeling to finally belong to a team, belong to a country. Even though I have lived in London for the past 10 years, I competed in this country and represented the UK at international events in 2012, there was never any signs of team spirit here. Thank you for the Hungarian team and Zoltan Vida to make me feel I belong there. He has also done a wonderful job with getting me stage ready in the last 3 weeks of the prep when no-one could help me anymore and my weight just didn’t want to go down. These were the progress photos:

3 weeks of change

3 weeks of change front

and how you screw it up after the competition 🙂

cakeafteruniverse

Probably one of  the biggest sandwiches I've ever had

Probably one of the biggest sandwiches I’ve ever had

I have had a few photoshoots with different photographers but one really stands out: Jakob Gronkjaer. He is a perfectionist. He would not stop until he gets the photo right and then the photo is not just good, but it’s awesome! I’m hoping to have another shoot with him soon, we have some unfinished business!

Danish Apple photoshoot

I was very lucky to be able to travel a bit in 2013. I visited Hungary twice, spent some time in Turkey and went to Hamburg to compete.

It is definitely not everything but the most important things that happened in 2013. I feel blessed because I have a family that support me, I have true friends and even though not everything works out the way I want it to but I know that everything happens for a reason. You might not know the reason straight away, but don’t lose the faith. Even if something bad happens to you, it is because there’s something a lot better coming your way in the end. And maybe – just maybe – you appreciate the good a lot more if you have to go through a lot of bad before it happens. Can you imagine if everything happens the way you want it, when you want it? Have you ever thought about that if you could have whatever you want, would you even want it?  So try and work with what you have. Never give up your dreams, miracles happen every day!

Back to offseason

Life is good again! Have carbs in me, have energy in the gym… what else can I ask for? Well, I could get my strength back a bit quicker, but I know it won’t happen for another 2-3 weeks anyway. Patience is the keyword here. It is good enough for me to be able to train without hunger and even though I’m not as strong as I used to be just yet, but I get a pump again when I train, yay!!! 🙂

Today I visited Monster Gym in Cheshunt to catch up with friends and once I was there we took some photos and a sneaky video, too – watch this space!

DSCN1579 DSCN1581

DSCN1587

It is always nice to see yourself on the wall in a gym like this:

DSCN1604_2 DSCN1613

Now that I’m offseason I will try and make it a regular gym to train at because I love the atmosphere and it is such a well equipped gym for any body part to train!

If you see me there, come and say hi!