Health Is Beautiful

So, my wonderful blog readers, it looks like I may have some ‘splaining to do! If any of you follow me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, you likely saw the mass posting of pictures that occurred late last night. Sorry to blow up your news feeds, but I was pretty darn excited! I placed second in the Muscle Beach Fall Classic! Why might that sound familiar to you? Well, it was the very first show I did last year! And what a difference a year makes! I placed last one year ago, and this year, I placed second (out of a huge height class! There were close to 20 of us in my height class alone!), which qualified me for provincials again next year! (June 21, 2014! Be there!)

Second place!

My very first competition hardware!

What a difference a year makes!

You may have wondered why I didn’t post anything about this prep online. No “3 weeks out” or anything like that. Well, the reason is that I didn’t see it as “__ weeks out”! Although I made my final decision to compete just last week (barely making the cutoff to register without a late fee!), it had been something I’d been thinking about for a while. When I competed last year, I came off the contest and—still under Layne’s incredible guidance—reverse dieted (that is, I slowly increased my intake of carbs and fats to really help bolster my metabolic rate). Looking at pictures from that time, I think I looked better a few months after the contest than I did on competition day! I wondered if that would happen again this time. And since I was up less than a pound than I weighed at Nationals in mid-August, I figured why not!

Another reason I decided to compete was that I wanted to prove a point. All too often, people look at these kinds of fitness/physique shows as unhealthy. Indeed, if you troll Instagram for long enough, you’ll start to think that preparing for a bikini competition involves starving yourself for months on end (surviving on asparagus and tilapia, followed by a weekly binge), hours of endless cardio on a stepmill (fasted, of course!), and a peak week involving a worrying amount of water (10 L a day!). I’ve never wanted to prepare for a competition like this, and I never have (this was one major reason I chose to work with Layne). There is a better way, and I wanted to prove it.

One thing that really pushed me toward competing yesterday was an IFBB pro’s comment on Facebook last week. Someone had posted a photo shoot opportunity in two weeks that was almost guaranteed to be published in a fitness magazine (I thought about doing it, but it was a little pricey for me). Although she posted a few weeks back that she prided herself on gaining just a few pounds post-contest (5 lb), she lamented that she couldn’t do the shoot on such short notice. Wait—so she was incredibly lean on stage and supposedly gained just a few pounds since then (which likely did her body good and just replenished the fluids in her cells!) but still didn’t feel confident enough to take a few pictures? Was low self-esteem the issue (her stage presence suggests otherwise!)? Did she just need a reality check? Did these few pounds (which, if they were just a few pounds, she could lose in two weeks if she was desperate to) suddenly change her from being one of the fittest girls in the world to being out of photo shoot condition?

I’ll admit, I might have understood where she was coming from as I waited at the athletes meeting on Friday evening. I felt like an imposter in that room. Everyone there had been through weeks of restriction and hard work and hadn’t had a sip of water since that morning or afternoon. And here I was, sipping my peppermint tea after putting back more calories that day than some of these girls probably ate in two. Even though looks-wise, I more than fit in, I still doubted whether I should be there. On the other hand, this also strengthened my resolve to compete. I wanted to show people that it is possible to compete (and do well!) without severe restriction and self-harm.  After all, at a competition, we are judged on our total package and appearance and not on how much we suffered!

I keep hearing and reading about these girls who proclaim “It’s not a diet! It’s a lifestyle!”

While I wholeheartedly agree with this, the girls posting this stuff are usually the ones suffering through hours of cardio and restricted food choices (I guess this mantra helps curb hunger!). On the other side of things are the successful fitness models, who are pretty much photo shoot ready year-round (notice I specified the successful ones!). Yo-yo dieting from the “on” season to the “off” season is not only unpleasant (who wants to fluctuate 20 lb throughout a year??) and unhealthy, but it doesn’t have to be like that! With the help of a few key players, the fitness industry seems to be changing, and I definitely want to do my part!

So, second place! I’m working with Layne in the offseason, and we’ve reverse dieted so that I’m eating more than 200 g of carbs and 45 g of fat. I’m eating over 1 700 calories a day and weigh less than a pound more than I did at Nationals (give or take a few!). I’m *supposed* to do eight high-intensity intervals twice a week (so two 20-minute cardio sessions), but in reality, I usually skip it in favour of another date with the weights (although I did manage to get my cardio in once this month! On Thursday, I figured I should at least do one session!). My macros (or calories, if you prefer) are steady every day, I eat salt with abandon (and I love me some salt!), I’ve never cut or loaded water in my entire life, and I feel healthy. Clearly, the judges yesterday saw that too! Health is beautiful. NEVER sacrifice your health for anything, especially something as insignificant as a trophy or plaque (although I am quite proud of my plaque!). If anyone is thinking about competing, appreciate that it’s a long process, and keep your priorities in order; we are worth more than what we look like. Slow and steady really does win the race—or at least second place!