A figure competitor’s path

OK - so the wedding was perfect and wonderful and everything i ever imagined it would be - no - better than i imagined it would be! People… it was 87 degrees and sunny in Buffalo on April 19 for my wedding. Record breaking temps. It was amazing. The honeymoon was also fantastic and ended better than I thought with my new husband surprising me with tickets to Bon Jovi in Tampa so we extended the honeymoom just one more day. It was actually my birthday present - my birthday is next Friday, May 9.

So now that I am back and the hneymoon is over, I cannot wait to get back into the gym!!! Wow, here I am sitting on a cruise ship just thinking about when I can get back to working out. I’m crazy right? So the new goals are as stands, build muscle - my primaru focus in my shoulders, back, biceps and calves for the next time I get on stage. And even better news! Terry got his own gym! Yay! So many years of hard work have finally paid off for him! I’m so excited! So anyway. I will post a few wedding pictures for anyone who wants to see them in a bit and right now I am off to do a LOT of laundry I’ll keep you updated on my preogrs sif you keep me up on yours!

Well - the shows are over. All said and done, I had 2 second place finishes and one third place. I don’t know when I am going to get back on stage, but I will again at least once more before Brad and I start a family in a couple years. I want to take some time - at least a year probably to build and shape some more. All for the greater good.

 I am getting married on Saturday. Please pray for nice weather. Right now the forecast stands at 68 and sunny. We’ll take it. I am heading over to the girls house for a bake night. We are all so happy to eat - though I feel like an absolute hippo! I can’t wait until I get used to eating again and my body doesn’t feel like it has a monkey and a small dog locked in it’s intestines.

 I will post contest pics soon - I promise. I have to shrink them, but if anyone is interested, visit www.wnymusclefitness.com and check out the shots from the Mr. Ms. Buffalo Figure tall class. I took third in that show. I’ll get some shots up, but it may be a few weeks… You know I have this crazy thing called  wedding and a honeymoon in like 5 days. I’ll also post some pics from the wedding. Thanks to everyone who supported me this season. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. You really helped me make it through some rough times!

So I finished 2nd place again last night at my NGA show in Rochester and there was absolutely no surprise to me on the finish. I like knowing where I am going to place. It makes it easier so I don’t sit back confused after the show.

 I have my third and final show today and I am ready to be done. I’l keep you posted on the results! Cheers!  6 days until the wedding!

So it’s 2:20 a.m. the morning of my second to last show. And for as much as last week I didn’t thinkI was ready to get on stage, this week I am - as you can tell that I am up at 2 a.m. the night before. I think at this point I am way over tired. I am 7 days from the wedding and 11 hours from being on stage again. Sometimes I forget how much I loe this sport.

I got tanned up last night and I am actually tighter this week than I was last weekend, which is good, we’ll just have to see what happens on stage this weekend. I am competing against a very good friend who also happens to be fantastically ripped on Sunday so I have no bigger hopes than that of a second or third place finish for myself, which I am completely fine with. It is an NPC show who brings judges in who have previously sat on the panel of Arnold and Olympia. Last year I placed third so we’ll se ehow I do this year. I take a lot of stock in what those judges have to say. It’s an important show for me. So I just need to get through Saturday and try to stay as tight as possible for Sunday. Then guess what? It’s all over then.

So what do I do? Well, I get married then in 6 days when all this is over. Sometimes it hasn’t even hitme yet that I am going to be a bride in 7 days and then it hits me hard and almost knocks the wind out of me. I am so so lucky to be going through this competition season with the support of Brad by my side. He knows what I need and takes my ups and downs in stride. He’s one amazing person and I will be so proud to behis wife!

Know what worries me though? That transition from dieting back into food. Technically with the way food is going to be grabbed on the fly this weekend with the shows back ot back the way they are, they diet was done yesterday. I had Terry take some pics of me after I was tanned, my abs were ripped up yesterday so I remember what I looked like, because it’s soon to be off-season and all the definition goes away. That’s a tough mental point and there is definitely some depression there, but I just need to remember that 11% body fat is not healthy year round and i have to gain sme weight for the greater good.

So when these shows are over and the wedding is over, what do I do? I’ll probably beon bodyspace all the time because I am so bored with not heading to the gym every day 3 times a day and cooking food! Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on the show results this weekend and as soon as I can shrink some of my pics down to size, I will post them for you all.

OK - I placed second in my first show of this season. I am going to resist commenting on the entire experience until next week’s shows are over. Those of you who would like to know more, stay posted or send me a private message and I will tell you more. I can’t post picturees because the files are too big and it’s late to shrink them right now. I’ll post them later, but if you’r interested, please click on http://wnymusclefitness.com/forumdisplay.php?f=36
to see a local link from the show. I would love you to please give me your feedback.  In order of placements, First went to #2, Second to myself, #11, Third to #13 and 4th to #12. I would love to hear what you think about the placings.

It’s amazing how natural these fake tans look under the stage lights when I am walking around today looking like an Oompa Loompa! I was taned with my first coat at 6 am this morning and yes - I went to work with it. Fortunatley most people know what I do, but we did need to spend the first couple minutes of each meeting I was in making fun of me. I ust take it in stride now. Smile and joke. Inside I was to say.. well never mind what I want to say!

 The fact is though that the tan and lights make allthe difference. So the stage is set for tomorrow, 16 weeks of dieting is done and I leave it all behind for tomorrow. I have to say at this point, I am ready to go out there and just relax and have fun with it. No expectations, No stress. Just want to enjoy what I love to do. Will I have regrets probably, but not a lot and I am going to go out and show what i did for the past 16 weeks. More or less than the person next to me, it doesn’t matter. This is how I am and what I have to present. First place or last, I did it, I dieted for 16 weeks, trained, and planned a wedding. Not an easy feat…And when it comes down to it, I am getting married in 2 weeks and none of this will matter that day.

Those of you kicking off your season with me tomorrow - Best of luck to you, I will say a prayer for every one of us!

T-2 days. I had my nails done today and got back into the gym for the first time in 3 days. I did some posing and I feel good. Terry told me if I hit the poses I should do well Saturday, so we’ll see. I am getting tanned tomorrow morning at 6 am. Start cutting water at 2, get my second coat of tanner at 4:30 then dinner at Outback for steak, shrimp, potato and red wine. yum! Then I get a poptart for breakfast Saturday! I can’t wait! Just hope the eyes are deceivinghow my legs really look. I still feel big - guess we’ll see.

 A big thank you to everyone who has offered words of encouragement these past few months and especially these past few days when I was sick! I appreciate being able to lean on all of you. I’m feeling better - not 100% but ready to get in the saddle and hit the stage. Go time!

It’s not even like I can say screw it, I am just going to go to the gym no matter what because I can’t breathe or even move! Just walking the stairs leaves me winded and dead and even standing up I am getting dizzy! But I feel so guilty! 3 days from the show and I haven’t worked out in 2 days. I asked my trainer what I should do, he said pose…. anyone else?

Seriosuly - how does that happen? I have been healthy all season and now all of a sudden, here I am with this deathly headcold/flu bug. Any advice other than push vitamin C?

You know, I am actually feeling more positive today. I felt like I looked a bit leaner - of course not as lean as I want to be, but that just isn’t going to happen. But I am ready to get on stage and enjoy what happen.

You know though, if I were to sit down with a therapist and tell them everything that is on my mind, I think they would commit me. I have been so up and down lately that nothing has made sense. I want to thank all of my body space friends and my training buddies who have lent so much support to me. I couldn’t have gotten through this without your kind words. I don’t hear much of it too often in person, so it’s nice to hear it in writing sometimes.

It’s hard. My fiance won’t tell me I look lean or good because he knows i have an obsessive personality and he told me that he feels like if he does then he is playing into that obsession. He doesn’t want to see me go back down the anorexic path that I was on in high school so he won’t fuel it. And that’s fine.

 But it’s tough not to hear it. There’s a trainer at the gym I go to on my lunch who tells me all the time that she thinks I am going to win and that I look fantastic, but then again that’s ANOTHER trainer. Sometimes i want to hear it from my trainer too. But I know he can’t say it because he knows the competition that is out there and he knows how hard you have to fight for everything you want and I don’t believe he thinks I gave the fight I could have. And that’ sprobably all in my mind too. I go over and over what I can do differently, now of course that it is too late, and there are things of course. Up to the 10 week mark, I was absolutely perfect and then the going got tough and apparently I just lost what I thought I had.

You know, there are excuses across the board that I could rely on. My wedding is in 2 and a half weeks for goodness sake and that’s an excuse right there, but the point is that I didn’t want to make excuses. I wanted to be solid throughout this entire process and I think I underestimated how hard it would be to plan a wedding, move in with my fiance and train for a show… But again, a week out from the show I have to make an excuse. Maybe the reality of it is that there is always going to be an excuse and I am not cut out to ever be a contender on stage because i rely too much on them… I faltered when everyone else stayed solid.

And I feel judged. I know it’s probably all in my head, but when you’re the only one in a group of people who can’t hold a solid diet and you train with them and watch them transform into these fantastic shapes while you just sit back and don’t change, it’s tough. And I watch every muscle they have that I don’t and I feel like they watch me too and think to themselves "well she wasn’t at training…yada yada yada… what does she expect…" And it’s probably all mental and it is something that is completely in my imagination. For instance. Easter Sunday, Terry trained all the girls. 8 am and 10 am - everyone but me was there. Why? I took grandma to church and then had a brunch with Brad’s family we had to be at. But I felt like by being the only one not there then I am looked at as the one who just doesn’t want it bad enough. And maybe I don’t, I don’t know. But i have heard the comment about the gym, "well you haven’t been here." and I know that, but when I haven’t been with Terry, I have been on my own. I know I read into subtlties way too much, because I am an over analyzer and this probably all just isn’t true.

The first season with Terry, he could do nothing but tell me how proud he was of me. That fueled me and drove me. I guess I just work differently. I have always worked to make everyone else proud and unless I know they are proud, I can’t be proud myself. That’s just the way I am. So if I at all feel like I have disappointed anyone else then I am a disappointment most of all to myself.

OK - I guess I am done spilling my guts down. Sorry for the brain puke, but I guess sometimes it’s just better to get it down and out than hold it all in. I am heading in for workout #3 with Terry. At least we can’t say I wasn’t there today…