holiday monday

today i talked someone out of competiting. you might be wondering why? you might even wonder where i get off. i'll tell you.

plenty of competitive athlete's have developed eating disorders. it's really not that hard to imagine, we routinely bounce between two conditions; one with a healthy level of bodyfat and the other, the extreme look of stage. somehow on the road to depletion we start to equate the stage look with being 'in shape' and the offseason look as 'fat'.

well guess what? you can't, nor should you, try to sustain your stage look. it's just not healthy. you are literally starving yourself... pushing your body to do more and more work while giving it less and less food. and then one day it's over and it's time to start eating properly. i tell you it is indeed a strange feeling to wake up looking healthy all the while feeling like a fat pig!

still what's the big deal with letting someone try to compete? well with all the stress, the damage that we do to our bodies in the quest for the perfect physique and for microscopic levels of bodyfat... you really have to be sure your in it for the right reasons.

i sat down for a bite a few weeks back with a friend who did a show. she started prepping to see what it was like, to see if she could. many times during the journey, when she realized it was the hardest thing she ever tried to do, she seriously considered quitting. except in doing so, she felt she would let her boyfriend down and so she saw it through... all the way to the bitter end. after the show, she couldn't handle the weight gain. she ate the food she craved... but couldn't stomach being out of stage shape. and thus she found herself in the wonderful world of bulimia.

so what does what happened to one competitor have to do with another? maybe everything, maybe nothing but i do know that this 'competitor' is looking for a goal. a way to help him stay motivated to diet. yes folks, that dayumm show prep diet again. how do i convince people that this lifestyle is so not the recipe for success people expect it to be?

what did i tell him? i told him, by all means train like a bber. run a cutting diet once a year to see what you look like. but do not prep and compete unless you really and truly want the competitive bb lifestyle. there is NOTHING healthy about show prep. when you sit down and consider all the cons... you really start to wonder why people bother; suits, food, supplementation, tanning, diet coaches, training coaches, posing coaches, entry fees, membership fees, gym memberships, hotel and travel expenses, the all out frontal assault on your metabolism, the onseason and offseason wardrobes, photoshoot wardrobes, etc... all for a $10 trophy. but for those of us who live and breathe the challenge, who truly appreciate the beauty of the sport... it truly is worth it.

but it still isn't for everyone.