90 Days Progress
This past Saturday I competed in my first bikini fitness competition. When I first started working with Ashley Leahy in late July of last year, competing wasn’t something I thought I would ever be able to do. I joined her team to learn how to see the progress I wanted by learning how to fuel my body correctly. After 90 days, I was blown away by the progress I saw and knew she could get me ready to step on a stage and feel totally comfortable in my own skin.
I picked a show date (April 4th) and in December, hired a personal trainer (Johnny Loreti with Team Anthrofit) to design my training plan while Ashley Leahy continued with my nutrition and contest prep plans.
The idea of “contest prep” was a bit intimidating. I had seen so many horror stories of competition prep and “peak week”, with girls dieting down to nothing for months on end, finishing off strenuous “deprivation workouts” in the weeks before, and cutting out all dairy, sugar, sodium, and ultimately water in the days and hours before in order to achieve the perfect “look”. And for some, that works. Their results are amazing. They look fabulous. For me, that wasn’t the way I wanted to go.
My coach was amazing. She had me in amazing shape way before “prep” started, which allowed us to limit the “cut” (when you start decreasing some of your macros to shed more body fat) to only 6 weeks with minimal decreases each week. She had me eating the same things I had eaten in the weeks before the cut, and plenty of them, until the moment I stepped on stage. My meals the day before and during the show were filled with grilled chicken, sweet potatoes, asparagus, Cheerios, rice cakes with peanut butter, and my favorite – Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!
Peak Week Food
Friday, I packed up my food and made the two hour drive up to Maine where the show was. I ate my second lunch, took my last shower (no showering and worse, no deodorant, after the spray tan), then headed off to be painted a nice orangey-brown.
Pre-Show Lunch
For those who have never competed before, the spray tan is an experience in itself. The tanning company was set up in a banquet room at the hotel which had been covered in plastic. You strip down and stand in a little tent while someone applies multiple layers of the tan with a handheld sprayer. Then it’s off to another tent with a fan to dry. The tan is incredibly important. Stage lights are BRIGHT and without nice, dark color, you look incredibly pale. It also does wonders for showing off those muscles you’ve worked so hard for!
The whole process takes about 40 minutes, after which I put back on my sweats and went to check-in. The competition was an OCB naturals show, which meant I also had to be polygraphed at check-in to verify that I hadn’t taken any banned substances (steroids, etc.) within the last several years. Then, all that was left to do was eat, relax, and try to get some rest – on dark sheets I brought from home because the tan gets on EVERYTHING!
Relaxing Post-tan
I went to bed a bundle of nerves.
What if I wake up looking less muscular than when I went to bed the night before?
What if my spray tan streaks and they can’t fix it in the morning?
What if I sleep through my alarm and miss prejudging?
What if I slip and fall on stage?
What if my suit comes apart at the seams?
Fortunately, exhaustion got the better of me and I eventually fell asleep. In the morning, it was showtime!
Part 2, competition day, coming soon…