When it comes to bodybuilding, fitness, and health improvement, both, mental and body strengths must come into play. My journey as being a bodybuilder and to compete in my first event started with a deep feeling of wanting to do it and taking action after making my plan.
There are two main things that must be done for health improvement
First, is to make a plan for that particular goal, study it, take different approaches to it, research, look for different opinions and get help from experienced competitors. Second, stick to the plan, work hard toward it, focus on it, be willing to make a lot of sacrifices and be patient when it comes to look for progress.
Month 1
When I decided to compete, I was 14.6 percent body fat and 160 pounds. I felt in shape, felt great, and thought that I just needed to drop a few pounds. I thought I only needed to workout harder, and stick to a diet for three months to reach that goal. I started to train harder, got several tips and asked for help from another trainer with experience in bodybuilding competitions. The start of the diet was difficult, eating clean every three hours and nothing to do with fatty food, sugars and alcohol. That was a very hard thing to do, especially when being used to eat whatever and whenever I wanted to. Training was something I enjoyed, so I did not see it as something of sacrifice at the beginning. I love being a trainer, but as I was preparing for the competition, clients started to pile up and time for training, eating, and resting became limited, so I had to push harder.
Month 2
At my second month, I started to notice my weight loss and my body showed more definition. I was getting used to my diet, yet several adjustments had to be made for fat loss, increase in my cardio activity and increase in my training activity. By making these changes I felt weaker, discouraged at times, and mentally drained, but it was crucial to take into consideration each one of these things along the way. The only way to get past the tiredness, bad mood, and watching what to eat, is to look at the big picture, which in this case was going to compete and work hard to reach it no matter what.
Month 3
My third and last month was by far the hardest one. My body was looking much better but much tired. Diet plan changing, training harder even though my body was sore, working more hours, and no time to take naps. At this part of my journey my mind started to give me difficult times. Thoughts of doubt, self conscious, bad mood because of the diet, and nervous of not being ready for the date of the competition. The things that helped a lot were resting as much during weekends, get mind busy in order to forget about eating inappropriate food and to constantly read the list of goals and visualize as achieving each one of them every day in the morning and evening.
Changing my body was challenging
I had to give up many things in order to get where I did. Sacrifices every single day, giving up on foods I was used to eat, mentally prepare for every single training, make a list of short term goals and a list of long term goals and read them every single day. These are a few of the things that really helped me out. Along the way there are many obstacles, set backs, confusions, and failures, but there will also be people to help you, guide you, encourage you, and to support you in every step of the way. This was definitely one beautiful experience and in my next one I will prepare better and do better. Something I learned is that the only way that one is able to know what to do, how to do it, what it takes, the outcome, and how it feels, is to give it a try and never give up.
