Happy Fitness Anniversary! Where 1 year has brought me

I have been meaning to write this for a while but since what I consider my 1 year fitness anniversary is this month I thought this would be a great time to talk about what has happened in a year mentally and physically. 

So if you read my first post you know that I have always loved working out and have always been active. I never gained too much weight because I also had a mom that would let me know when I was starting to pack on some pounds, Im not saying that that is right or wrong but it is what it is. I am thankful though that her advice was at least something like "you need to be careful with what you are eating" or "have you stopped exercising? you need to start again" lol! As I said, right or wrong it kept me from gaining weight too much weight and did keep me focused on making my body feel good. I was always a happy confident person, I had my body parts that I wish would change as most girls do, but once I dressed up and would go out I just didnt focus on that stuff because I would still get attention from guys so I figured well those body parts must not be THAT bad! haha.. I didnt know what the heck "eating clean" was, I just ate food when I was hungry and stopped when I was full. Most times I ate too much chocolate because I loved it and thought any time it was present I had to have it. I did like to eat fast food and would try to make "healthier options" when I could, but if I didn't feel like it I wouldn't and would just have the fries and stuff. My thought process was "Well I can just work it off later."

Other things I didnt know:
What a macro was
Post workout meal
That GMO's existed
Sugar Free doesnt mean it doesnt have some type of sweetner
Meal timing
I needed to take selfies to prove that a workout was completed ;)

As a result of my "lack of knowledge": This is what I looked like

old myspace pic 07 or 08 cant remember

 See! Not too bad right? In fact, its funny because when I took this picture I remember feeling awesome! I had been working out a lot and I just felt great about myself and the comments on this picture were along the lines of "wow, you look great" "can you train me?" "dang girl, you do workout!" So I was proud of myself and walked around with lots of confidence.

Fast forward to last year around February 2012 when I was about to graduate from my personal training school PFTA with my personal trainer certification. At that time my instructor was talking about fitness competitions and one was coming up in July that the school was sponsoring and if any of us wanted to start training for the NPC bikini division. There was a girl in our class that had done a few and she was sharing her stories of having to be so strict with her diet and exercise routine but standing on stage was so worth it. It peaked my interest, and I thought "hmm maybe this is what I need to take my fitness to the next level now that I am a personal trainer." I said I was in! I announced it on facebook so I wouldnt be tempted to quit. I got a meal plan that was pretty basic and very different than what I was used to because I was used to eating what I wanted when I wanted, not food I didnt feel like eating because I was told I had to. It was so hard for me mentally, especially because I felt like nothing was wrong with me, "I look good already" is what I kept thinking.

See, most people have lack of confidence and I think I had too much! lol

I started researching and googling everything about NPC bikini competitions, I mean EVERYTHING! I am a person that has to do a lot of research because I hate not knowing whats going on or not knowing what I am talking about. I looked up every before and after I could and would be even more excited when I saw someone who had a similar body shape like mine. I figured if they could do it so could I! I also realized that a lot of these girls competing were part of teams and I wanted to be part of a team. I had already paid my coach from PFTA but for some reason I really wanted to be part of a female team. I researched and looked around and found two popular teams that kept coming up, Team Bombshells and Team Savage. I decided on Team Savage, sent off my application, paid my dues, and had my welcome packet that week. I went to posing classes, team workouts, met some great girls, and had fun.

March 2012 at a Team Savage posing class

 During one conversation, I said I wanted to compete in April at the Texas Shredder which at the time was about 7 weeks away instead of waiting for the show in July. Now keep in mind that I had kind of slacked on the whole sticking to the meal plan thing, but I was consistently lifting weights which I had never really done before. I had never heard of split training such as: Back and Bi's, Legs, Shoulders and Tri's. This was the first time I had done a workout like that because everything before was more cardio based. So I LOVED how weight lifting made me feel but I just didnt take the meal plan part that seriously because again, in my head I felt that was in pretty good shape so how bad could it be. Little did I know how serious this competing this was!    
I signed up for the show, got my bikini, paid for my tan, hair, and make up. Once I got there, I realized just how wrong I was about being ready. At that time I was about a size 6 at 5'1 which isnt huge but I wasnt tiny either. Wow, did I feel like the girl who was so out of place and huge up there on stage! I was in line with these girls where I felt one of my legs was the size of both of theirs combined. I was kind of embarrassed but I worked that stage the best I could, as if nothing bothered me, because to be honest it still hadnt sunk in yet. I didnt do well at all, and after the show is when the mental challenge to my self esteem began. You see, until you go see a live fitness show, you dont realize just how lean these girls are.

This is a googled image of a bikini competitor from simplyshredded.com

This was after the show and that's me 2nd from the left. The terrible tan is a whole nother story.

 
After that show I now had a new respect for competitors and also a skewed perception of my body.

Remember this picture:

Well now I was looking at it with much more scrutinizing and critical eyes. I was looking at it through a competitors lens. I thought to myself "Ew! I look so gross, look at those love handles and my delts (shoulders) still need so much more work. I dont have defined quads(legs), and my abs are covered by so much fat. Gosh, how embarrassing that I thought I looked good, poor past Emma she didnt know." At that moment my mind had been opened to the world of body building where "normal" isnt good enough, it comes down to low body fat percentage, meal timing, macros, dedication, and sometime making sacrifices (which might mean no cake on your birthday because its not on your plan).    

Im not going to lie when I first started my new determined workouts, a lot of my motivation came from wanting to prove that I could look better and be more dedicated then any of my peers. I shared fitness memes like this

In fact I had this exact one on my fridge

I wanted everyone to know that I could do this! That I was going to have the best body ever, that my dedication was going to be stronger than yours, plus I didnt want to be a failure. I needed my body to look like those other girls so that people would know I was into fitness, that I was serious and hardcore. You see that last fitness meme that says in 12 weeks the rest of the world will see the change? Well that is what I was shooting for. That in 12 weeks my body was going to look AMAZING and look like these girls:

As the saying goes

Comparison is the thief of joy

That is exactly what began to happen to me. I have never been more obsessed with what went in my body, with not missing a workout, with not being able to do anything fun that got in my way of reaching my goals. If anyone questioned me I would say "obsessed is a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated" stick my nose in the air and walk off feeling proud and better than that person. But deep down I still didnt like my body, it still wasnt good enough. I thought I was doing great, then I would see a picture of myself and get so angry because I didnt even look like I worked out! I just looked normal and normal wasnt good enough! I liked every fitness model/bikini competitor I could on facebook and would just be so jealous of how amazing their bodies were but it didnt inspire me to love my body it only made me want to workout because I hated it. 12 weeks past and I still didnt look like those girls. Nevermind that I had lost weight, that I was eating better, that I was getting stronger, I still had body parts that weren't competition ready and that's all that mattered. My eyes were on the stage and I had every intention of stepping on that stage again but this time looking like I belonged up there and ready for redemption.

Time passed by and I kept lifting weights, kept working out. Around August of 2012 I reached out to Fit to Be in Your Kitchen who is owned by Ruben Sandoval. I found him through facebook and I just kept hearing competitors talk about how his meal plans were so amazing and there was no starving, and it wasnt chicken breast and broccoli everyday. Since I wanted to compete again in November I reached out to him and started my meal plans in September, I quickly began to see results. He did include some great recipes, I didnt really have any complaints.

I consider September my fitness anniversary because that is when for the first time I really decided to be more consistent with my eating as well as working out. I ended up not competing in November because I still didnt feel ready. I just didnt want to step on stage and not win. I felt like it was my bodies fault that it didnt want to react fast enough, maybe Im just too fat to ever compete I thought. Once again I was completely ignoring all the other achievements and progress I was making in my fitness journey, like what I had learned about nutrition from Ruben.
 

Fast forward a little more into the year 2013 and this is the year I have seen the most mental transformation. I learned that I do not need a meal plan to stay in shape and that not counting EVERYTHING will not result in me adding on 30lbs. I now had a base of nutrition knowledge and so I could tweak things here and there without freaking out about going off some plan! I started to read and research a lot! Sometimes it made me so confused and the information was conflicting but I kept going on with my workouts using trial and error, sometimes failing sometimes succeeding. I started following a facebook page called Go Kaleo and she opened my eyes to a different side of fitness. One of balance; one that included cake and ice cream. She challenged some of the ideas I had about nutrition and there were even times I was going to unlike her because I felt I disagreed with so much she had to say but it was only because she was going against the norm. She encouraged actually researching and not just listening to nutrition advice because it came from someone with abs.
Lean Bodies Consulting was another page I found that would say things like "eating 6 small meals a day to stoke the metabolic fire is such a myth," which was just so against what I had heard. Both of them talked about how just because something is repeated enough times does not make it a scientific fact.  I started questioning current fad diets and fad workouts, all the while still continuing to lift weights and run. I followed Fit Villains (Chichi Kix) and Fit Mama Training who would talk about loving your body the way it is and fitness has no certain "look". It's like I was making a complete circle back to where I started, just this time with some more muscle and knowledge.


 That pretty much brings me where I am right now at this moment. Happy, feeling confident again, being able to eat ice cream, have muscles, feel great about my body and not just what it looks but what it can accomplish. Now please dont get me wrong and think Im saying that I no longer lift weights and workout to look good because I do! I love what weight lifting has done for my body and it has brought about the most changes I have ever seen! I wish more girls would try out strength training not just for the aesthetic appeal but also for the mental transformation you go through. You realize you are much stronger than you think and instead of your body being your enemy you start to see it as an ally that is there to help you reach your goals.

Could I look like a fitness model or a competitor if I wanted to? Yeah I probably could, but I realized that competing, to me, is no longer the epitome of fitness. If you want to do it, GREAT! Be safe, find a great knowledgeable coach, and have fun. I realized though that I like to celebrate my birthday, that I want to have some of my husbands food when we go out, that I want to eat what I want when I want to.  I can and I can do it in a responsible manner without the guilt and the shame because I love my body enough to feed it good things most of the time and treats other times. At this point in time I just dont want to be confined to a meal plan, I want to be able to listen to my body and hear what it is saying. I want to apply everything I have learned up until this point and have some more trial and error. Right now I am just having too much fun with fitness and watching my body transform!

This is me now that I can "eat whatever I want"

boob grab, ab shot lol

and a bootay shot, only because this is where I saw the biggest change

 There are enough people out there telling you that you arent good enough, that you would be happier 10, 15, 20lbs, lighter, that you arent worthy of real love until you are pretty enough. Most of those people are trying to sell you something in case you havent figured that out. I hope this helps you have a little bit of an insight on why I say some of the things I do on facebook. I came to the point where I am because of what I went through physically but most importantly mentally. Out of everything I learned you know what has brought me the most results... Magic? No. A protein powder? No. The latest workout? Nope, not that either. Simple, boring consistency. Nothing more, nothing less.

Its been 1 year. So here is to the next year of no magic diets, eating the food, loving the ice cream, having the fun, and lifting heavy freakin weights!