Top Left – 3 months ago, Bottom Left – end of October, Right – Mid December

It has been a hella long time since I have posted on the blog, and well, I’m not really sorry. It has been a very interesting, fun, challenging, emotional and crazy three months full of change, growth and a little bit (ok, a lot) of self loving.

So where to begin? Well, let’s start with my appearance at the PTC Novice Powerlifting comp during October. With the encouragement of my coaches Craig and Kitty, I decided to channel my focus on a lifting comp, which up until the day, I had very mixed feelings about. There were probably a zillion times where I changed my mind about whether or not I wanted to actually turn up on the day. From previous posts, you would have seen that I am quite possibly my harshest critic and I put so much pressure on myself to perform and not choke and just do my bloody best (…chill dude, it’s a novice comp). In the end I decided to go through with the comp, mainly because it made me uncomfortable. It sounds redic, but I am a firm believer that pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is the best way change and challenge yourself. Competing was definitely an experience and it taught me a couple of things.

• It is amazing how much nerves can impact your performance. Overall I missed two lifts because I was not concentrating on the refs calls. As someone who is so used to just lifting in a gym, it is hard to adjust your behaviour to lift on certain calls.
• The environment that you train/compete in can be incredibly supportive when there are common interests and goals. I met some lovely people on the day and it blew me away how supportive everyone was. I didn’t really know anyone yet, whenever you stepped up for a lift, people would cheer you on an encourage you. If you failed a lift, it was the same.
• With competing it doesn’t matter how well you lifted the day before, weeks before, or how many PB’s you have hit in the past. In the end it comes down to how you perform on the day. If you aren’t feeling well or your head isn’t in the right space or you have niggling injuries, all of these will have an impact on your performance. The important thing to remember is that this one competition also doesn’t define you as a person.

For those interested, I placed second, not that I ever thought I would walk away with a placing. After the competition, I pulled up with niggling injuries, a lack of motivation and was dealing with the fact that I had put on a solid 8kgs post “comp prep”. Mentally, I was struggling 100% to deal with the weight gain and continued to emotionally binge eat and had almost zero desire to train. It got to the point where I literally couldn’t even deal with the thought of being in a gym, even though I made an effort for a couple of weeks to turn up. I would use every excuse under the sun to not train “oops, I left my gym towel at home”, “I am so busy with work”, “I am really tired, I will go in the morning”. I would even sit there cleaning and wiping down the gym equipment to avoid the next set. One evening, I was sitting in the car park of a convenience store at 9pm, eating multiple chocolate bars, crying to myself because of the situation that I was in and at that moment, I knew something had to change.

Enter Kitty and the NuStrength “Popping the Food Bubble” program. For nearly twelve weeks, I have been on an incredible journey that has left me questioning everything I thought I knew about nutrition (which, wasn’t exactly a lot) and the massive impact that certain foods and hormones and behaviours have on my body. In addition to educating myself, I have had a massive shift in mindset towards nutrition, training and life in general. I have learnt to take the good with the bad, and accept that the journey I am on will not happen overnight. There is no quick fix and where I am today is only temporary. Yes, I may not be as lean as I was 6 months ago, however since that night in the car park, I haven’t had a binge eating episode (that is 2.5 months). I have learnt that you need to nourish your body from the inside out. Years of dieting and putting my body under stress has damaged my metabolism and this will take time to heal. I may be 8kgs heavier and this has taken time to accept, however I have so much more confidence in myself and my body image and I feel as sexy now as I did 6 months ago.

I have taken some much-needed time out to rest, recover and reset. During that time I have focused on my work, which has seen me kick some massive goals which I am really proud of. I have been able to spend quality time with my family and friends and enjoy food and alcohol without the nagging guilt of off plan foods and in addition re-assessing my goals for the future.  Tomorrow I am back to the gym and I am excited as hell to start lifting for pure enjoyment.

Sx