After Months of Silence - I'm Back!

So I sat down last weekend and, after a lot of thought, I decided that I wanted to keep on blogging. I love writing – it’s cathartic and a way for me to dump the information from my busy head. I have an ongoing battle with trying to relax my mind and writing helps. I tried a short meditation course too and I really liked what they taught me. I had a buddy with me and I think it all worked too well on her because she managed to nod-off mid-class. It’s a bit cruel how tired we can feel sometimes until the head hits the pillow!!

I stopped writing my last blog because I felt I had nothing more to say specifically about comp prep. Strange really considering I was prepping at that time. I think this last comp made me very aware of how superficial it can all get. Reading information throughout social media that I thought was crap got annoying and I didn’t want to be yet another person droning on about the usual blah, blah of topics; fasted cardio, no cardio, carbs at night, training regimes, powerlifting, crossfit, bad judging, blah blah blah. I got bored of it all and blog-bailed. FYI – I did compete and I did win. That was pretty cool but I actually didn’t love the whole comp experience. I felt out of place. My issue. Maybe a story for another time.

But now I’m back and I’ve decided to try and share my own experiences - so rather than tell people what to do, which is fraught with danger, I am just going to write about what I have experienced. I anticipate my target market being people in the same position as I am. And that is;

I’m a very average woman in my early 40’s. I haven’t achieved anything super-special in my life but I have a lot of little bits and pieces that I’m proud of. I’m seriously happy in my marriage after 18 years together – he is my Prince Charming and I immensely respect my husband. He treats me like an absolute queen and I thank the universe every day for crossing our paths in that smelly, smokey police bar in Otahuhu, Auckland in 1999 after I fell down 2 flights of stairs and managed to lose all of my spare change and break half a packet of my social fags.

On that same path, we have three children that I could go on about for days – but it’s sufficient to say they are pretty darn cool and they complete our happy household. Currently aged 13, 12 and 7.

Second to family I have my career. I’m a proud cop and have been for 18 years – pretty much frontline for the majority though I’ve worked remote, city, rural and beachside. I’ve attended all of those horror jobs that everyone knows about and lived to tell my tales. I have fought with gang-members in NZ, ripped grog out of hands in Cape York, and suffered through the bogans in Eagleby. I now work in investigations and finally have a predominantly Mon-Fri job – which has been agonisingly out of my reach due to so many jurisdiction changes over the years. Being a recruit three times has ensured that I never really got a chance to be too much of an arrogant wanker. It was genuinely hard to feel or even look too-cool-for-school in a hi-viz vest, guarding alcohol shops for 8 hour stretches. 

This job of mine has provided me with the biggest laughs (I executed a search warrant on the wrong house once – maybe it wasn’t me laughing the loudest that time but there was def plenty of laughing!), the lowest of lows (road trauma really took it out of me in those early years – the sights, smells and sounds can stay with you for years), excitement beyond what almost any other job can provide (pursuits, armed sieges and half-priced McDonalds), and some truly weird little gems (I had to shoot a dolphin once – don’t even ask!!), but it has been a constant in my life for so long now and I thrive on the variety. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else and I am genuinely grateful to do what I do.

And then then there’s my training. The other constant. The thing that I credit with keeping me sane through the years of shift-work, the pressures of the jobs, the journey of pregnancy and babies, the highs and lows of being an emergency services worker and the daily stress of being a mum who is pulled in so many directions at one time. In our early years together, I would melt-down a bit … a lot … quite a lot … often … and Rob would come at me with a wine glass in one hand and runners in the other. More often than not I would pick the runners first closely followed by the wine glass on my return. Back then I only ever really ran for exercise. My philosophy was that I had to do just enough cardio to support my food habit and if I could stay a certain weight, I was happy with that. Again – how life has changed.

In 2012 I decided to become 'A Bodybuilder'. I took it extremely seriously and spent 9 months following my diet to the letter. It was hell on earth but I won. I carried on to do a few more comps;

2012 – Darwin INBA – Overall Figure

2012 – Nationals INBA – 4^th Figure Novice, 4^th Figure Open

2013 – Darwin WFF – First Figure

2013 – Southern Hemispheres WFF – 3^rd Masters

2014 – Darwin NABBA – Overall Figure

2014 – Nationals NABBA – 3^rd Masters

2014 – Worlds WFF – 5^th Figure

2016 – Darwin INBA – Overall Figure

So I’ve done a few and won a few. I've made some decent changes along the way,

My desire now is to get on with life and continue learning how to integrate all of the best bits of my training and nutrition into a lifestyle that is sustainable, still reaping results and able to be adapted to the occasion.

I am a trainer too by the way. I have a little business called Final Stage and I train bodybuilders into comps. I absolutely love it. But by far the majority of enquiries I have had always relate to the every-day person (mainly women) who simply have no idea where to start in order to get their health and training into line with what they want their bodies to look like. I understand that. Unfortunately the desire to change is not actually half the battle. It’s only the beginning. It’ll take more than a mere thought and that’s where I lose most of them. To the point that I gave up even trying to help as I felt like a fraud with such a bad rate of success.

So this blog is about how I manage to make it work for me. I’m hoping it might give some good ideas and, more likely, some good laughs at my expense. I love a good laugh and I do some pretty stupid things sometimes.

This is a wrap for post #1 and I’ll finish with this;

     At some stage in your life we are all forced to face our health – it’ll either be on our terms or the doctor’s terms but it will happen.

-         
     The cumulative effect of anything will have the greatest outcome. Spend consistent time making good choices and you’ll have good results. Spent consistent time making bad choices …

-          Bodybuilding competitions are great fun but they are only a hobby. I took it way too seriously once upon a time and now realise that it’s a great thing to do but it's no more or less important than anyone else's hobbies. Once a Go Fund Me account is started with pleas for money to go to a comp - holy crap, the plot has been lost well and truly.

-          You CAN fit in good food and excellent training around family, work and life. The fact that people don’t is because they won’t – not because they can’t. But not everyone will believe that.