The Unhealthy Side of Healthy

After comtemplating my journey from this last year, and retiring from the well-known Facebook frenzy, I decided to share some of my thoughts in a more organized fashion, rather than one-word status updates. To begin, I am about six weeks out from doing my very first figure competition. That is six weeks out from the backside. For those of you who don't know what a figure competition is, I'll explain it very simply. You stand up on a stage wearing next to nothing as a panel of judges judge every single inch of your body. You pose in the most uncomfortable positions, even though they look simple, trying to make yourself look lean, symmetrical, and well, perfect.

(Apparently, I feel asleep on stage.)

I decided to compete after many of my GNC customers and trainers approached me saying I had "great genetics." The great genetics are compliments of my parents. My mother was an athlete. She even played junior college basketball when I was three and four. She also played slow pitch softball, volleyball and wollyball until she was 45. Now, she plays golf. My dad is also very athletic and very lean for the most part. I also attribute my discipline to my parents. Both are very hard-working, goal-setting individuals with a lot of passion behind them. With all of this passion, self-motivation, self-discipline, and of course, great genetics (muscle tone,) it was inevitable. I had to do it.

I lined up a trainer, paid money for him to write up a diet for me, and we started training legs once a week together. I trained the rest of my body parts on my own. The first month was grueling. I had never worked my legs that hard and my diet was killer. I was eighteen weeks out from the show

and I was not allowed to eat anything I really liked to eat. Red meat, yogurt, blueberries, and eventually peanut butter became off limits. I was strict about my diet eating only lean proteins like tuna, eggwhites, and ground turkey; and green veggetables at every meal, six times per day. "Where's the chicken? Don't most bodybuilders eat chicken all day," you ask. Chicken to me, is the most disgusting, fleshy, smelly, dirty meat on the planet. Especially after watching Food, Inc., I could go my whole life without eating another piece of chicken.

To make a long story short, I trained for two hours per day, six days a week, and worked my usual 40-50 hours a week at GNC. To make my story seem even harder, I'll throw in the fact that I have a two-year-old and a fiance (who proposed after I put him through this traumatic experience. Yeah, he's a keeper.) I prepped my food three days in a advance to have enough to eat six times per day. I was at the grocery store at least four times a week stocking up on fresh veggies like celery, cucumbers, asparagus, spinach, and let us not forget, EGGS!! Because I am against eating adult chickens, I ate at least twelve to twenty-four baby chickens (just the whites) every day. By doing the diet and the rigorous training, I went from 133 pounds and 16% body fat to 130 lbs and 8% body fat. The last three pounds came off the last week when I water depleted.

The week before the show, I was nervous and excited. Everyone kept telling me I was going to win. Of course they did. They're my friends. That's their job. The truth is I didn't win first place... in anything. I won fourth place out of four people in one division and I won third place out of five people in another division. I was however, confident that I would place top five in another division. I did not. As I stood there on stage holding the first trophy I received, the fourth place trophy, I smiled. In the back of my mind though, I was heartbroken...and pissed. I don't think I worked harder than any of those other competitors on stage,but I knew I deserved better. I was pulled aside by random people I didn't know, telling me how wonderful I looked and they thought for sure, I would win. Needless to say, the disappointment hasn't worn completely off yet, but it's taught me a lot about who I am.

I am NEVER content. I am strong. I am smart. I am beautiful. I am God-fearing. I am blessed. "Wait! You said you are all those things but you are never content?" Yes. I have so much to be thankful for that it's overwhelming. However, when it comes to myself, I want more. I want to better myself in more ways than to win first place in some political bodybuilding contest. I want to be the best Buff Blonde Mama possible.

When I look at all these pictures, I realize I will never look like that again. I will never be that tan, that vascular, that cut ever again, unless I put myself and my family through those eighteen weeks of hell that I put them through this last year. The problem is I don't know what to do with myself anymore. I long to keep that frame. I want to be just as "healthy looking" as I was then, but I don't want to train that long and I can't force myself to eat egg whites and celery every day for the rest of my life. This is where my unhealthy mental self plays game with me.

Because I looked like that once, in my mind, I feel like I should be that lean all the time. It's the post-show-I-can-eat-what-I-want-now blues. Now, I get to eat the things I wanted to eat for those eighteen weeks, but there's a reason I wasn't allowed to eat them then. To most people, eating things like blueberries and natural peanut butter seems very healthy. To those in the competitive world, they are a huge no-no, and when competitors get to finally eat those things, it's like a drug and the high is better than any high you can get besides that from a killer workout and cardio session. Like a drug though, there is a high and there is a low. When you come down from your "high," you look in the mirror and see a tiny imperfection. You don't see what others see. You look harder to find that your stomach has a slight pooch, or you now have a tiny bit of water retention on your bicep causing that vein you worked so hard on popping, to disappear.

It's a very sick and twisted world. The bodybuilding industry, whether they claim to be all natural or not, is full of narcissism and selfishness. It's fake boobs and spray tans. It's Barbie-tastic sequins and stripper heels. It's "look at me on Facebook," so hopefully I can get notced by some overrated supplement company  I know nothing about. It's hard work and discipline and sacrifice of time and money.

 Thanks for following me on this mission to find balance in my "healthy" life. I hope this blog can be used as a tool for those who are struggling with self-image and day to day food choices. I will throw in supplement advice every now and then, because hey, it's what I do. On the contrary, I will never try to make anyone feel guilty for cheating on their diet or tell them that a supplement will cure all their ailments.This is a new journey for me and once again, thank you for following.

 Sincerely,
Buff Blonde Mama