Hey ya’ll!! I have a lot of people asking me what made me decide to become a bikini competitor and what prep for the show was like. Preparing for the show was definitely one of the most challenging things I have ever done: And I went through freshman year at the Air force Academy so my standard of hard is pretty high.
To start from the beginning, the year 2012 was terrible for me. Almost everything that could have gone wrong did. I struggled with depression for quite a while and could never seem to pull myself out of the black hole. Further adding to my downfall was a sexual assault that was the straw that broke this camels back. Looking back, I’m not sure how I ever made it out of that time. My life went into a spiral of one bad decision after the other and I ended up leaving school and moving back home. At the time, I felt like the ultimate failure because no college kid wants to move back home and have to depend on their parents for everything. The first semester I was home I had no job and did not go to school. I had a lot of time to sit and think about all that had gone on in the last year. Slowly but surely I got back into going to church regularly and reading my bible. I realized that if I ever wanted to heal from all the hurt I was going to have to start from the very beginning.
To close out the end of a terrible year I had shoulder surgery in October and knee surgery in December. I have always been very active and ran track in high school and college so being down for so long was really hard for me. Coming out of basic I weighed 112 which is the heaviest I’ve ever weighed and at the end of 2012 I weighed 94 lbs. It was so bad that even my leggings were saggy. I hated how I looked/felt so as soon as I was cleared I got my butt back in the gym. I started by just doing what I know how to do…explosive and power leg movements. I did somuch research on http://www.bodybuilding.com/ which is a GREAT tool!! I started noticing a trend in the types of workouts I was attracted to. not so surprisingly I fell in love with the bikini girl physique.
I mean how can you not love this!!!
Anyways, I started training the way that bikini girls train. I gained about 10 lbs which brought me back to a healthy weight.
I went back and forth on whether I wanted to actually compete or if I just wanted to look like I compete. Competing is an expensive sport and being a 20 yr old college kid I wasn’t sure I could do it. One day I decided to email Steve Payne, owner of House Of Payne Personal Training in Lilburn, Ga. Went in for a consultation and started training right away. After I was with Steve for about 3 weeks, the opportunity to register for a show came up. He felt like I was ready to compete and that I would place.The 2 weeks between deciding to do the show and the actual show day were crazy with preparations! I will admit that most of those days I was like what am i doing?! But as soon as I stepped on that stage all of the hard work and stress was so worth it! I placed 1st place in my class and had the most amazing time with some great girls!
Some on stage and backstage shots!
My Coach Steve Payne (House of Payne Personal Training) and I
Competing without friends who understand the lifestyle is going to make it 10 times harder and more stressful. Thankful I made so many great friends!
Lift, Pray, Love 