Girly Muscles

When I broke the news to some of my family, friends, and personal training clients that I had begun training for a figure competition and possibly a body building competition, I received a lot of mixed reactions:

"That's awesome! You have to share your diet plan with us!"- my clients
"Why the heck would you do that to yourself"- anonymous
"I don't want you to look like a man!"- Mom
"I can't wait to see the changes in your body!" - friends and fellow fit fans

By looking at me, you might not guess that this would be my next fitness move. If you know me, however, this might not come as a surprise because I've been talking about doing it for a few years.
I do have muscle tone, but I am vertically challenged (5'1" on a good day) and petite, so to speak. My height will have it's benefits and downfalls when it comes to this sport. But in my mind, that's all the more reason to go for it!

But let me tell you, training for this competition is intimidating! The first 3 months of training is generally called "the bulking phase." These are not exactly the words a woman wants to hear. When my husband (who has competed in a bodybuilding show) told me this, my first thought was, "OK, so I'm going to start using the big kid weights and reach for the 20 pound dumbbells instead of my comfortable 5 pounders. Big deal."

But bulking goes beyond that. It means GAINING WEIGHT. A woman's worst nightmare! It turns out however, that this is much harder than it sounds (woman take note of this). Weight gained should be through muscle mass, not 50 cheeseburgers (dang it). So, we eat "clean and green"; white meat, brown rice, green veggies, repeat. After our first week of training I actually lost 2 pounds. Sweet! My husband corrects me and let's me know that it's bad and proceeds to tell me to eat more. Woof.

So, it's time to hit the weights and I mean really hit them. We're talking bench press, squats, deadlifts; as heavy as possible without getting a hernia or ripping your arms off. I walk into the weight room at our local gym and pretend like I'm tough, to fit in with the "meat heads," when in reality I feel like a weeny with puny little muscles. But, as we come into our second week of training I am already feeling stronger and have already started increasing the weight for some exercises. This is the best confidence booster and inspiration to continue with training.

Having this blog will not only be a great tool for sharing my experience with others, but it will also be a great tool for me to keep track of workouts and diets. Best of all? It holds me accountable! I am officially fully committed to this competition now and the whole world will know if I've failed or slacked off. Yikes!