Recently, a reader/friend, whom I will keep confidential, confided that she has suffered from bulimia and replied, “I’d really like your thoughts on what you consider is a healthy borderline between hard work creating a body image vs the obsession.” This is a question I am asked often by competitors.
Here are four ways to consider a healthy body image:
Have you noticed changes in the mirror?
- Do you notice a difference in the mirror? Do you feel positive by what you see?
- Do you have more energy? Are you able to do activities that you haven’t been able to participate in?
- How do you feel in your clothes? If they are fitting better, you have been changing your body composition. In this case, the scale will become less of a factor.
- Did your doctor issue a clean bill of health?
Since each person is different, due to values, views, mental stability, upbringing and 100 other reasons, there is no easy, straightforward answer. Unhealthy, is usually seen as fat or super-skinny and little between. Unfortunately, eating disorders surpass any form of physical boundary, and so does the mental aspect of being obsessed.
For mainstreamers, becoming lean looks easy and effortless. Unbeknownst that a competitor has spent countless hours in the gym to walk on stage between 3% and 12% body fat, 12% being the high side. Many competitors do obsess, cry, moan, groan and hate the way they look. YES, hate the way they look. In some cases, a healthy looking athlete has done everything possible to create the perfect body image, an image that does not exist in real life. No one is perfect.
Some people are driven by looking a certain way each and every day, while someone like myself is motivated by the business aspect of attaining a certain look. In my case, a client is not going to hire a trainer who can talk the talk, but not walk the walk. In other cases, being skinny is confused with being lean, and this poses a huge problem since there is a big difference in the two.
I have to admit, as a competitor, my first show got to me. Although I previously owned a supplement store and a gym, competing brought things to a new level. The obsession began, and before the show was even over, I changed certain aspects of my life, because I was afraid of the obsessive nature that was being created. Suddenly, it wasn’t fun and I found that disheartening.
During my first show I would:
- Weigh myself everyday
- Weigh my food everyday
- Write all of my food down every day
- Be over critical
- Participated in cardio for two hours everyday, this does not include weight training or posing
This list seems understated, but it drove me to insanity. During the course of this show, I realized I never did this in the off-season. I wouldn’t fret over anything on that list. I eat what I want, when I want and I don’t worry about too much in between. Since that show, I have learned several of these things were not helping me mentally or physically, so I let them go.
This is what I do now for contest prep.
- I weight train for no more than an hour, five days a week. I have never changed this part of my training since I began training over 10 years ago.
- My cardio is 30 to 50 minutes, four to seven days a week depending on how I’m leaning out.
- Posing is another 30 minutes, but I practice posing all year long in order to stay fresh for my clients.
- Weigh my food
- Create menus so I don’t have to write my food everyday. I do this over a couple of days before I begin prep.
- Weigh-in once a week.
Weight scale.
For someone who doesn’t compete, this will look obsessive. In actuality, this is nothing compared to other athletes, and I feel comfortable with this. There is no angst with my contest prep schedule, so I don’t feel obsessed with it.
