~Michele~’s BodyBlog

I miss being an athlete. Back when I used to snowboard, I remember the rush of dropping into the halfpipe, hitting the rails, and flying off the big kickers. My friends and I would hike a jump over and over, trying to perfect a 360 or a new grab. Sometimes I would land on my face and get a bloody nose or black eye, but that was just a part of the game. Watching someone else land an insane trick was motivation to try it too, and if you couldn’t land it the first time that just meant you would be trying it until you did!

I moved away from the mountains a few years ago, which is when I started competing in figure competitions. Figure was fun, but it didn’t have that same athletic spirit to it. Not that I am saying Figure isn’t athletic (it definately takes a true athlete to make it to the stage!!), but when you are on stage you don’t have to perform in the same regard. Instead you spend weeks and months dialing in your physique for the moment on stage to show off your hard work. The athletic part of figure occurs off-stage, in all of the preparations. After doing that for a few years, I started craving that spirit of competition where you get up for your turn, all eyes are on you, and you have to perform what you have been training so hard to do.

Soooo… Since I train at the best powerlifting gym in the country, and have access to the knowledge and help of the best coach, Rick Hussey, I decided that I wanted to take advantage of that and compete in a powerlifting meet. Most of the team are elite lifters, and many of them hold world record totals and world record lifts. I know that I can’t expect to be at that level, but the feeling of training for this type of competition is awesome! It’s very different from Figure training, but a nice change of pace.

My first meet is the APF Spring Open, held on March 21 in Omaha, NE. I am going to be doing push/pull (bench and deadlift) for this one, because Rick said jumping right into full power (bench, deadlift and squat) is going to be too much right off the bat. My starting lifts were 160 bench and 225 deadlift, so I am hoping to increase those a bunch by the time March gets here! I am so sore after every workout but as I like to say, "It hurts so good!"

I have been doing a lot of reflecting lately - thinking about where I have been and where I am headed. My fitness journey has not been as glamorous as it may seem from the outside, looking at a few photos posted on a website. It has been about five years since I first started lifting weights, and although I am not proud of every moment along the way, the things I have learned in the process are extremely valuable to me, and I would not change anything that I have gone through.

I want to talk a little about the beginning. I hope my story can help others that might be going through something similar, or who have a friend that is. I am so proud that I was able to overcome this obstacle and turn it into something positive in my life, and it hurts to see others who are experiencing and feeling the same things I went through five years ago.

I started lifting weights because I needed to strengthen my arm after a snowboarding injury. The more I learned about training, the more I wanted to learn about everything involved in fitness. I read books and magazines that said protein was good for you, but carbs and fats were bad. So my solution? Eat nothing but protein. I ate tons of tuna and cottage cheese, getting really lean in the process. It started as simply not knowing enough about nutrition, but it turned into a genuine eating disorder. The big problem was that I wasn’t fueling myself for my lifestyle, let alone my workouts. It was to the point where I became afraid of calories and all I could think about all day long was training and trying to avoid food, unless it was tuna or cottage cheese, of course. I hit a low of 104 pounds, and although I had muscle from training, it looked like muscle on a skeleton.

I knew I had taken it too far, but was so caught up in seeing changes that I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t until a guy at the gym took me aside and said, "Michele, I know what you are trying to achieve and you won’t be able to get there if you don’t eat more." I needed someone to say something, and it was the right time to hear it. I remember he made me a weight gainer shake and I drank it without feeling like I did something bad. That was a huge turning point for me and I am so thankful.

I set a new goal to add muscle to my physique, and to not be afraid of gaining weight back. It took about a year for me to fully change my attitude about food, and it was a tough fight, but I am so thankful that I made the committment to do it. This year my goal is to get on stage at 128-130 pounds. That will be about the same or lower body fat pecentage than I was at 104. Anyone can lose fat, that is the easy part, but this kind of progress is what you KNOW you had to work your ass off for! Oh, and remember the guy who made me the weight gainer shake? Well, he saw me at the Emerald Cup in 2006 where I was 122 pounds on stage, and he said he almost cried he was so proud of me!

In another blog I will talk about rebounding post-contest. I owe a lot of my muscle gain to it, but it sure isn’t fun feeling thick in the off-season!

I miss competing! Plain and simple. This has been the longest break away from the stage that I have taken since I started. It was a much needed break, but at the same time I am itching to bust out my Jan Tana and clear heels and get my little brown butt back under those stage lights. And the million-dollar question: What is next?

This is where I need some help. Any advice from my competitor friends would be so great, so please chime in!

I competed in the NPC for over 2 years. I know that organization, I am familiar with it, and I like the exposure that it provides. BUT… I don’t think I have what it takes to make it to the top, for reasons that have to do with my own personal values and preference to remain marketable and feminine. At the national level, there are 200 girls at these shows and I am afraid I will get lost in the crowd. But that isn’t too much of a worry to stop me from trying!

I am also curious about other natural organizations, where I feel like it would be a much more realistic goal to get a pro card. But I don’t know a lot about these shows, so that would be like starting all over again, although I wouldn’t expect it to be too difficult.

So basically, I haven’t made any decisions yet so I don’t have a set plan of what is next. What do you think?

There are a lot of diets out there, but I think that this is one that we are all familiar with. "Tomorrow I will quick eating sweets", "tomorrow I will stop drinking beer", "tomorrow I will make sure I eat six small meals throughout the day". I think this is some way of justifying the bad choices that we make today. At least that is what I do, if I know that tomorrow I am starting my program, then what does one more day matter?

The problem is that the Tomorrow Diet doesn’t always mean that tomorrow is going to be a fresh new start. One small trigger and the whole process starts over again. What happens when you get to work tomorrow morning and someone had brought fresh bagels from your favorite bakery? You think to yourself, "tomorrow I will start my diet." It is a vicious cycle, allowing us to justify the fact that we know we aren’t doing what we know we can be doing, today.

I am very familiar with the Tomorrow Diet, because I have been on it plenty of times myself. To anyone who has a goal, to anyone who doesn’t yet have the body of their dreams, I challenge you to ditch the Tomorrow Diet and try out the Today Diet. Don’t wait any longer, it is only going to delay the feeling of accomplishment that is long overdue. Don’t start tomorrow, start right now. Start with your next meal. You have the power to make those decisions, so what are you going to choose?

As many of you may know, preparing for a contest takes a lot of sacrifice and commitment. I have found that for me to feel like I am on the right track, I have to just get in the zone, tune out any distractions, and do my thing. Day in and day out I live for my goals. Wake up, cardio, eat, lift, cardio, eat, work, eat, cardio, eat, pack meals, sleep, repeat.

One the positive side, I know that I am completely prepared by the time I step on stage. I can stand up there, feeling confident that I did everything in my control to present the best package that I can naturally achieve. There is no second guessing my preparation, I am ready and it shows.

But on the negative side, during prep I become so focused on my goals that I neglect many other important things in my life. I have been called out by my friends for blowing them off, my relationships suffer, and I turn into a little hermit. I don’t go out much because I have to make sure that I get in all of my workouts, or that I don’t miss a single meal. Even my best friend, who is also a figure competitor, was upset with how much I shut myself off from life outside of prep.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, trying to figure out if there was a way for me to prepare for a show without becoming so wrapped up in it that I blow off the people and events that I care about. I wouldn’t want to feel any less ready when the time comes to step out on stage, so I am still struggling with the meaning of balance. The people I love mean more to me than any trophy, yet I still have trouble doing anything that makes me feel like I am not going after my full potential in achieving a goal.

So it may seem a little odd that a 21-year-old is writing about fitness as being the fountain of youth, seeing that I am still just a baby in the grand scheme of things. But today I want to share my latest inspiration, which is the awesome achievements of women who are nearly twice my age. I see women in their 40’s and 50’s who look smokin’ hot, and it is due to their ongoing passion and commitment in the gym. I only hope that I can look half as good as that when I grow up!

One specific example of this is a woman I recently met at my gym. I am new to this city, so being the social butterfly that I am, on my first day in my new gym, I asked the woman at the front desk if there were any other figure competitors that trained there. I am always excited to make new friends

So she introduced me to a woman named Lisa, who was getting ready for a show that was just a few short weeks away. Now, Lisa is in her 40’s, but you would never know that. She also has kids, but you wouldn’t know that either unless she told you. Lisa has killer shoulders, an back that I am so jealous of, and is just tight all over. She looks fantastic. She was making me feel self-conscious just standing next to her, and I give her all the credit in the world. The woman works her butt off in and out of the gym, and it shows.

I was not surprised when I get a call from her after the show, telling me that she won TWO pro cards in the WNBF, one for winning the Master’s division and one for winning the Open Overall! What an inspiration! Congratulations to Lisa and congratulations to all of the women who have discovered the fountain of youth in fitness. Thank you for being such an inspiration.