*Please Note/ Warning/ Disclaimer/ Caution/ Whatever:)*
Since our competition was a little over a month ago now, I figure it's high time I gather my thoughts on our experience and share a brief recap of how everything went! For you guys that have been excited and waiting, thanks so much:) However, since there was a handful of you others that were a bit surprised and a few even a little offended when I posted a couple pictures of myself in my bikini to social media during our fitness competition weekend, I thought I'd give a little warning that this post will be recounting our experience of competing and will contain more pictures of myself in said bikini, if you click the 'Read More' button:)
So, if you do not wish to see those for any reason, please do not read this post! I've written this for those that have been following my fitness and health journey, that have been rooting for me and waiting/wanting to hear more. If you're opting out of today's post, I'll be back tomorrow with more regular bloggy goodness I promise! But, I hope you'll read on:)
Now that that's out of the way. haha I do feel a bit like I could explode with all the info I want to share, because that's what blogging's all about for us/me you know? I make a yummy recipe- I can't wait to share it, or I do my hair a fun way-I can't wait to show you! so naturally I've worked my booty off and had really satisfying results, and I'm so excited to share every part of that with you guys! I really believe that if I can do it, then you can too:) So in this post I'm going to work really hard to just talk about the competition with a little breakdown of our journey from the start so you understand a little better, and I'll save the other fitness/health/etc info for tons of posts and videos later on!!
Okay, firstly if you're just reading about our competition for the first time, that's probably because this has not and is still not turning into one of those all-fitness-crazy blogs! (It is a huge part of our life now, and I'll certainly be sharing lots more than I used to, which was..never:) ) but if you'd like a better intro to this whole thing, please read my transformation post here that talks about our first ten weeks of eating clean and working out regularly, and also has my first set of 'before and after' photos:)
A brief background:
I first stumbled onto some various NPC (stands for National Physique Committee, and is the largest amateur bodybuilding organization in the United States) competitors online and on Instagram while looking for some daily motivation at the end of my last pregnancy, while thinking about how I was going to go about getting back into shape after my four babies in a row. I'd started to feel really 'squishy' you see, and though I wasn't overweight per-say I really wanted to lose some body fat and exchange it for muscle. Martin had been working out already and was very self motivated. He'd done research about bulking up and leaning out to gain muscle and had made great progress, but was really looking for some more guidance.
After I had Lydia in November of last year (2013) and got the go-ahead from my midwife six weeks after that (Christmas week) to exercise, we started eating very clean and working out regularly, and then I suggested to Martin that he should train for a competition as motivation! He brought up how fun it would be to do it together, and I couldn't think of a better thing to motivate me to get my butt to the gym and work off this baby weight than the thought of walking around on a stage in a bikini (a thought that terrified me), so we decided to go for it!
I'm not an extremely self motivated person, and since I didn't have a gym buddy (Martin stayed with the kids at night so I could go after they went to bed) the competition worked beautifully to get me there six days a week, and the results of my hard work have changed my life for the better. more on that later:)
Our Competition Weekend:
Martin and I packed up our meals and things on Thursday morning and dropped the kiddies off with my sweet and brave sister-in-law and her family. We would have loved to take them with us, but with our schedule overlapping all day Friday and Saturday it was impossible. We headed down to our hotel, and met up with our stage trainer to go over some more posing and a couple last minute things we'd change in our meals in order to help us show the best we could. At this point we were resting our muscles from all the hard work so we weren't allowed to work out, which was actually really hard! haha We were still eating our 7 meals a day, only we'd added in more carbs at this point to help our muscles swell a bit, and were drinking tons more water.
Friday morning we woke up and started shoveling in food as usual, then headed into town to meet up with a couple different brands/companies, and friends that wanted to get together while we were in town. After lunch we had different orientations and competitor meetings that were happening at different times and overlapping here and there that were mandatory to competing. It was all a big rush of activity and nerves as we ran from place to place it seemed. Attending those meetings felt really surreal because it was the first glimpse you got of your competition and you could see everyone sizing up everybody else in the room. We were here! oh man and there were So. Many. Girls! and they all looked ah-mazing, but Martin and I were just feeling so proud that we were there, and that at the very least we didn't stand out like sore thumbs.haha
{feeling stoked and happy before bed // excited to see the tan helping my abs come out // flexing my 'V' (back) as they call it during last-minute hotel posing // having a flexing competition and clearly losing.haha }
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Friday night was when the tanning regime started. The show had a specific tanning company that they had on site for everyone to get their tans with, and boy was it a big deal! There were like five pages of 'tan prep' that we had to do in order to get the best from our tan and help it stay all the next day. Since the bikini competitors are judged not just on muscle-tone and overall fitness, but also on your skin-tone, hair and makeup, very specific poses, etc, every detail needs to be as perfect as possible. It was funny getting shuffled into our different booths most of us pasty white, and then everyone leaving wearing our baggy black clothes only looking like we were mid-Summer in some tropical climate.haha Martin and I met up back in our hotel rooms with our tans and laughed together, it was really happening! We started drinking less water (since I'd been drinking like 1 1/2 gallons, it was welcome! haha) and also we were trying to stay away from salt since it makes your body retain water (bloating). I stayed up later than Martin since I had to do my hair still. I knew that my hair was technically too long and would just get in the way if I didn't get some good curls in there to take it up my back a few inches at least, so I put it in some foam rollers and went to bed around 4 in the morning after posting on instagram how nervous I was, and receiving some incredible words of encouragement from you guys!!! xoxo
Saturday morning we loaded up our meals for the day, as well as our suits (the men's physique guys are required to wear a swimming trunk that reached specific measurements on their bodies, and the bikini competitors had to purchase a regulation bikini in their measurements as well from specific competition suit companies), my makeup bag and hair products, heels and jewelry, a pillow so we could maybe rest a bit during the day(it lasts alllll day long), water jugs, things like that, and headed off! Since the show is for men's and women's bodybuilding as well, there were tons of competitors throughout the halls and crowding the bathrooms-it was pretty hectic! All the girls had to get another layer of tanner on, so I sat in line for over an hour eating food and chatting, which was fun to finally get to know some of my fellow competitors.
I wanted to have the timing right with my getting ready so that I could watch Martin show on stage and take some pictures, so I was always listening for his category to be called all the time which was rough with all the commotion back stage. There were around 35 guys in his category, and so many of them had been doing this for ages and really had the huge bodies of bodybuilders, so needless to say it was some super stiff competition! We'd been warned by all the competitors and trainers we talked to in our home-town about how big this particular competition was, and they said how they'd never compete in it for that reason, so we were a bit prepared for how huge it actually was. Martin did so great on stage, despite not being prepared to go out when his category was called. There's a specific set of things that each competitor is supposed to go through before going out on stage involving pumping up your muscles, getting your glaze (shiny oily stuff) on, etc, and because they decided to switch up the order from past shows, his time to prep went from being hours so we thought, to suddenly they were walking out on stage! You'd never tell that he wasn't prepared though, because he jumped in line and showed so much confidence and strength in his presentation, and he looked pretty dang sexy out there if I say so myself.haha
After taking some pictures of Martin from the auditorium (fun fact: we were required to wear robes if we wanted to sit in the audience or by the stage since they'd had trouble in the past with competitors staining the seats of the auditorium with their spray-tanned behinds.haha), I worked my way to a mirror and finished getting myself ready in my suit cover-up. There were literally several hundred perfect life-sized barbie-dolls, the men in their trunks and little underwear and the women in their tiny bikinis (and I'm gonna say it- boob jobs! haha) walking around the halls and filling the ladies prep rooms, and I was the last to get undressed I think because I was so self conscious! haha Everyone was super sweet and chatty, and I was getting used to all the tanned skin and bright sparkly bikinis everywhere, but I still felt pretty shy and nervous.haha Once I bit the bullet and stood there in my own bikini and heels with my hair and makeup done, I just looked in the mirror and nodded my head. I'd actually made it. I was doing this!
When the time came for my category to go out, we lined up in order of numerical order, the line of girls going on forever it seemed, and headed out onto the stage! Ahh! The lights were so bright it was hard to see into the audience but that made it easier I think to just ignore them and do my thing. We each had our moment one at a time alone in the middle of the stage to do our pose routine, and the rest of the time we were out there in various groupings and lines. I just tried to hold my poses as strong as possible (your whole body is flexed and tight while trying to look relaxed and comfortable.haha), to switch things up often, to keep smiling my face off, and to keep as much eye contact as possible with the judges. Once we left the stage, we had about an hour break (for another height class to present) before we all went back on for another series of judging, and then we were back on again a little while after that!
When we weren't presenting Martin and I tried to spend the time together backstage eating our meals, chatting with other contestants, pumping up a bit, etc. It was impossible to rest because of how crowded the place was though we were feeling completely dead exhausted. I snagged a mirror in the bathroom while the ladies were lining up long enough to take a picture and post to instagram for you guys to see my in my full get-up, and it made it very real to get it out there to everyone! Because the pre-judging show went on much longer than they'd anticipated (8 hours-yikers), we only had a half hour break in between the pre-judging and the finale (the trophies, etc), so we ran out and had an off diet meal for the first time in 12 weeks: cheeseburger and fries! It tasted so amazing:) The restaurant was full of other contestants eating the same thing, and we all had these knowing looks on our faces.haha
For the evening show (sorry I'm trying to condense!) my awesome sister Jordan, her awesome husband Gary, my awesome bro Uriah, and his awesome (they're just all-around awesome beings:)) wife Sarah drove a really long way to come see us! It made such a big difference to have family and friends in the audience:) As I was standing there on the edge of the curtain waiting to go on, there was a guy with a clipboard standing there and he started laughing because I was shaking so badly! This time out on the stage we had more time alone and they announced us by name and with a little blip, and boy I could see the audience this time! They were a little hard to miss since the auditorium was so full that people were standing in the aisles, along the stage, and basically hanging from the chandeliers.haha But I hit all my poses perfectly, I flashed the biggest smile I had, and I walked off stage for the last time feeling so happy and proud. So much adrenalin!
Alrighty! Here's my favorite part of the post, my final Before and After from right before we started, to my favorite stage shot from my pose routine! Phew, it feels pretty good looking back on this:)
After I did my routine I threw on my robe and I ran up to sit with my siblings so we could watch Martin present together, and of course he killed it and looked perfect. The guys' a natural on stage! Here's his final Before and After, from right before we started eating super clean and working out (he'd already been bulking and working out but he stepped it up a lot to prepare for the show), and then my favorite shot from his pose routine! I'm so proud of him:)
Neither of us placed in the top five, but we were just fine with that! I don't know how the judges did it honestly, because every single man and woman looked so amazing. You'd better believe that we went out to dinner that night with my my two siblings and their spouses, and everything tasted so incredibly unreal! Cheesecake Factory. The End:)
We did it! 12 weeks of eating clean with relatively no sugars, no bad fats, 7 meals a day full of protein, veggies, and good carbs, tons of water and juicing, training hard every day- six days a week. We did it! We set a huge goal together, and we reached it together. and it was just the beginning!
Going forward Martin's been a little better than me at sticking to a healthier diet most of the time, and since we had a bad cold go through our house right after the competition that lasted for a couple weeks my workouts were thrown off a bit as well. Overall though we're both trying to keep our daily workouts, continue to eat meals we love (which lucky for us include mostly comp prep diet foods anyway's), and our lives are definitely changed for the better! I've found that I really crave going to the gym, and definitely notice a difference when I skip which is much easier to do now without that competition bikini as motivation.haha
I really want to go in so many more tangents now and share tons more info, but I have to cut it off and save that all for later! A couple things I wanted to add though just for clarification: When I posted my 'transformation' post a couple weeks before my competition which has pictures after I'd lost a lot of body fat but not gained much visible muscle yet, some people said that I 'looked better before' or that I looked 'too skinny (and even anorexic) now' and I just want to express sadness first of all that those people don't realize that calling someone too skinny is the same thing as calling someone too fat which I think (or hope) they would never do! Also, I never said I thought I was ugly before or too fat before I started this whole thing, but I was just recovering from the birth of my fourth baby in four years, I was tired all the time and had no energy, as I said before I was soft and squishy, and I wanted to change! I wanted to feel better, and that's not for anyone to decide except for me. I wasn't going for a number on the scale when I started (and I only lost three pounds by the way because I replaced fat with muscle.hehe), and besides wanting to feel confident on stage for my competition I wasn't going for an image in the mirror either. I was going for a feeling inside. I wanted the energy to run and wrestle with my kids, I wanted to lose the sluggish feelings that I experienced all day long, and for goodness sake I wanted to create a habit of health and fitness in my life to prolong it and to allow me to get the most out of it as possible!
So no, I am Not 'too skinny', and I'm Not too fat either. I have curves still, they're just make of a little more muscle now, and I feel better now than I ever have in my entire life! I believe that health is a lifestyle, not just a temporary solution. We had an amazing experience and I know now that (with Martin's help at least:)) I can set outrageous goals, and that with enough determination and motivation (and definitely sacrifice as well), that I can achieve them! And you can too:)
I have many many blog posts and youtube videos planned for the future so I can share with you everything I know with my health and fitness tips, workout routines, meal plans and recipes, pieces of motivation and my own specific experiences, etc, so feel free to ask any questions you'd like or let me know which kind you'd love to see first! I still have a lot to learn and I'm making new goals every day, and I hope we can set some goals together! :) As with every other aspect of my blog, I hope that by sharing things that have worked for me that you can be inspired and encouraged to make changes in your own life and take full charge of your health and your life.
Thanks so much for visiting today, I'd love to hear any positive thoughts, or feedback you may have, and you thank you thank you so much those of you who have been so incredibly supportive in so many ways through this whole thing or who joined along the way. You know who you are, and you are so loved and appreciated! I hope you come back here soon, and that you have a wonderful day.
xoxo, Emily
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