Hi Guys & Gals. I’m going off the air for a short time…we’re moving house! I will be back asap. Keep traing hard!!! 

This pic was supposed to be with my last post. If I can do it anyone can!

Counting back a few years I wasn’t considered to be so lucky. My life as I knew it had hit absolute rock bottom. The year was 1997 and I had just had my second child. My son, Nicholas, had just turned three weeks old when my partner (and father of my two children) came home from work and without any prior warning announced that he had had enough and was leaving. I watched him, totally numb and in disbelief, pack his things and walk out the door. How could this happen and what did I do wrong?

Over the coming days and months the realization that I was left on my own to raise two children without support from their father brought on bouts of extreme loneliness and depression. With these emotions also came the feelings of guilt, thinking how could I have possibly prevented this from happening?

It was at this time, the lowest part of my life, where I started my vicious cycle of comfort eating. Eating, or rather binging, for pleasure; to try and feel good. Yet, when the eating was over I was left feeling so bad from overindulging that I would be driven to eat once more to try and feel good again. Round and round this went until nearly three years down the track I was an uncomfortable 20 kilos heavier. I was bursting out of my size 14 clothes and really had to consider buying clothes the next size up. Size16. I had always been a size 10, never in my life had I been size 16!

I felt terrible. I felt like a big fat slug, slow and pathetic. No energy to play with my kids. No confidence to go out in public to be seen by people who might know me and definitely no hope at all of starting a new relationship. It would’ve been so easy to withdraw from everyone, buy my new size 16 clothes and blame everything and everyone for how bad my life had turned out.

Fortunately for me this is not how my life played out.

Fortunately for me I woke up one morning and decided enough was enough. It dawned on me that I was the only one who could change things. I was the only one responsible for where I was at. On the inside I felt I wasn’t a fat person. I was never, ever meant to be a fat person! My children needed me to be fit and healthy for them, to be able to play with them and encourage them to be fit and healthy too. What sort of an example was I setting by not looking after myself?

In short, I made a decision that morning to change my circumstances and my life. From that moment on I was totally responsible for creating my own “luck”.

Regaining my healthy body was top priority. I knew that if I started liking who I was again, it would make other parts of my life fall into place too. The saying you can’t love anyone else until you love yourself holds true. If I could learn to be disciplined with my training and nutrition, I knew that discipline would also filter into all areas of my life.  

The first thing I did was have a good friend, who was a professional photographer, take photos of me in a bikini so that I could assess the full extent of the damage caused over the last three years of indulgence. This was an embarrassing, yet incredibly powerful incentive to get myself back on track. When you have your photo taken in nothing but a bikini it makes you look honestly at your body instead of allowing selective sight to take over and just looking at all your “good” parts.

I went back to my local gym (which had childcare facilities) and made myself, literally, work my butt off. A combination of weight training and cardio soon had the fat melting off and the lean tissue coming on. I was getting stronger both physically and mentally and the progress I was making kept me motivated to train harder. The time at the gym was my time, time that I could focus on creating the person I wanted to be, the person I could see in my head. “Lucky” for me that person materialized and that is the person I am today.

Today I’m a competitive, drug free bodybuilder, a successful personal trainer and hopefully a much, much better mother to my kids. I now have photographers take photos of me in bikinis and tiny gym clothes and I’m proud, not embarrassed… oh, and yes I’m a size 10 again!

I still have lots of goals I’d like to achieve and the best thing is I KNOW I’ll do it.

I obviously still train hard but hey, I’m in the very lucky position of loving what I do.

This is what my weekly Training Schedule looks like:    
 

                     Morning                      
   Afternoon
 

Mon                 Run 45mins                              Chest 
Tuesday           Stepmill 30mins                        Back
Wed                 Run or Sprint 45mins                Rest
Thursday          Stepmill 30mins                        Legs
Fri                    Run 45mins                   
           Shoulders
Sat                   Bike HIIT 25mins                   
  Rest
Sun                  Plyometrics 50mins                   Rollerblading with kids 2hrs
 

Cardio is always done on an empty stomach first thing in the morning. Pre Contest I do another cardio session in the evening 30-45mins depending on my condition.
 

Below is a sample of how I eat on a daily basis:

Meal 1  7.30am
30g (dry weight) quick cooking oats

100ml skim milk

200ml water

1 scoop Pro Peptide protein powder (Vanilla)

Splenda and Cinnamon (optional)

2 Pro Lean

Meal 2   10am
1 x 185g Tuna Slices in Olive Oil (Drain well) or Pro Bar XS (Peanut Chewy Crisp)

1 small apple

Meal 3  12.30pm
1 chicken breast (BBQ or grilled)
½ cup basmati rice

1 small green salad

2 Pro Lean

Meal 4  4pm
1 serving Protein Slam (on training days) or 1 serving Pro Gakic 1 hour before training (Gakic not counted as meal obviously)

Meal 5  5.15pm (STRAIGHT AFTER WORKOUT)
60g protein - Pro Recover mixed with water

Meal 6  7.30pm
1 small lamb backstrap grilled

1 small Greek salad with steamed broccoli and asparagus (dressed with balsamic vinegar and a bit of Tabasco sauce)

Meal 7  9.30pm Sometimes
1 serving Pro Dessert

*Alternative Meal 2 or 4
Egg White Omelette (can be made ahead and reheated in microwave or even cold)
 

1 whole egg
4 egg whites
1/3 cup oats
Splenda
Cinnamon
3 chopped pecan nuts
1 tablespoon sultanas
 

Beat eggs, oats, Splenda and cinnamon until light and fluffy. Pre heat lightly sprayed frying pan on stove top and pour in egg mixture when pan is hot. When bottom of omelette sets, sprinkle chopped pecans and sultanas onto omelette.  Set top of omelette under grill. DO NOT OVER COOK… RUBBERY EGGS YUK!!
 

Melita Jagic
CNP Athlete (Australia)