A personal story: Kristen's journey (Part 1)

I asked my long time friend Kristen to do a write up series documenting her personal journey with fitness and living a healthy lifestyle. I thought she would be a perfect guest-blogger here on IDS because she's a mom, she's young and she's in school and she works on top of it all. Yet, she still manages to find some time for herself and her health.

When Brandi asked me to do a guest series for the blog, I obviously had to tell her yes, hell yes, I will do this.  She’s an incredible woman I met years ago through a blog, actually, and I know she is wildly passionate about fitness.  WELL.  I am wildly passionate about a great friend with a great message, and I want to support that. 

I also have a bit of a story myself.  I am a 25 year old mother of two lovely daughters.  My story is the same song you can hear from many, many women across the nation.  Where to start?

Well, I can start at the beginning.  I was born in the late 80’s to a low SES family.  My mother smoked through her pregnancy with me (and continued through my childhood) and formula fed me, just like any normal mother at the time.  Both of those things have been linked to health problems.  For me, the smoking meant a weak respiratory system and asthma, which hindered my efforts in P.E.  That weak respiratory system teamed up with a diet poor in nutrition (that low SES life) and blessed me with many respiratory infections.  I was on some form of steroid treatment for those issues at least once a cold season throughout my childhood.  And steroids do what?  Increase appetite and weight gain.  So childhood me has asthma which makes exercise suck, is on medication for it which increases appetite, and lives in a home where hot dogs and canned chili on white buns is the standard dinner (and I’m so hungry for it!). 

I knew from a very young age that I wasn’t a pretty girl.  I wasn’t petite.  I was awkward and couldn’t do the things the other kids could- run once around the soccer field or throw the softball or anything sports related.  At some point, I got really pissed off about that and took my inhaler with me to run.  The thing that struck fear into me the most during PE.  I was going to make it mine.  I started slowly and just kept pushing myself until I got to about 4 miles.  The rest of the cross country team probably looked down on me when they ran past my little shuffle, but I did not stop. 

That opened up the doors to me feeling like a human being.  I tried out for the high school dance team, and made it.  I started styling my hair and paying attention to my clothes.  I kicked so much ass at this starting from nothing thing that I couldn’t help but have confidence.  There’s something about working out, whether it’s cardio, intervals, the weight room, pole dancing, whatever- that’s raw.  It’s 100% your effort, will, and strength (and then some, in a good workout).  It has the power to transform you as a person and affect every aspect of who you are and what your life looks like. 

And that is where everyone’s fitness journey begins.

What's Really Attainable?

A lot of people think that looking like a great bodybuilder happens after some magical number of years of hard training, diet and recovery. "Eat the right foods" they tell you. "Sleep enough" they say. "Make sure you believe in your program and really develop your body, pay your dues and you will achieve what you never thought possible".

While yes, it's true, that "paying your dues", hard training, good recovery practices and good dieting are all parts of what make the bodybuilding physique what it is, that's not the whole machine. It's imperative to nib this in the bud because there's this idea of what's attainable naturally running around, and it's not healthy and it's not fair.

There are certain bodybuilders who have done well for themselves. Layne Norton is one of them. There was a time, many years ago, that I listened to every pod cast, read every article and believed most of what Norton said. Why? Because he's university trained, he's the "protein" guy. He's a national competitor in bodybuilding. He's a coach. He knows how to run a business. He knows how to get people shredded or huge or both. Someone like that must know what he's talking about, he must know what he's doing.

And he does. He has managed to live a lie of what is achievable naturally for many years. And people believe him. Why is this a big deal, you ask? This is a big deal because it's putting ideas into people's heads who don't know any better. Of course people want to (and will) look up to someone like Layne Norton. He knows a lot of smart shit. He's a smart guy! You want to believe that if you do just as he says, you will reap the rewards, earn a pro card, go far in your dreams and aspirations of a head-turning physique.

I have zero issue with anyone using steroids. I haze zero issue with anyone saying they do or don't use (it IS illegal in many countries after all!) and my problem isn't with people using gear, it's when people start to make money off of their lies that I take issue with. Especially people who are very powerful and will try to crush anyone who tries to speak the truth about it (Ice Cream Fitness).

This must end. People need to aspire to a natural physique by looking at legitimate natural physiques. While this is a much bigger issue than just one person, one bodybuilder, one law, one country, it is an issue that needs to be dealt with.

You cannot attain a physique like Layne Norton's naturally. There, I said it.

I'm not doing this to defame anyone, I am doing it to help you. a 90 day program, book, ebook, stack of legal steroids, weight loss pill, won't get you to look like a top competitor. a 10 year program of test boosters, lots of sleep, eating "bro" food and reading magazine articles on the next best training program also won't get you to look like a top competitor. What will get you to look like all of those guys that have won the Olympia? Gear. Hard training. Good diet. And more gear.

Work your asses off, eat well, sleep enough and get what you get, and be happy with it, naturally. But don't compare yourself to top level bodybuilders who are winning shows at a national level, because no matter what they say, they aren't natural.

The Psychology of Progress

A while back, Paul Carter (of Lift-Run-Bang) wrote a really good article based upon the ideas of patience, self belief and progress.

This article has been in the back of my mind since I read it and I wanted to share my perspective on training, progress and the psychology of both.

Sports psychology is a bigger market than we think. After all, they say that the mind and the body create one. Psychology itself along with self help, gurus, fortune telling, all of that is a big market in our society. Why? Because people want instant gratification. I can be one of those people. Without re-inventing the training and self belief wheel (Paul did a great job covering those in his article), I want to instead talk about why the psychology behind making progress is so important.

A long, long time ago (1898, to be exact) a psychologist named Norman Triplett did a basic study of cyclists. He found that cyclists got better times when they were competing against other cyclists versus when they cycled alone. No surprise there, right? We know that competition is human nature and it improves performance overall. But why?

The drive to win likely stems from our caveman days when we would fight for food and shelter. To lose the fight was to die. Today, the consequences aren't nearly as dire, but losing doesn't feel good.

Training for a competition changes things. I recently learned this when I signed up for my first meet. Picking out a 5k will change how you train because it will change why you train. Picking out a bodybuilding contest will change your perspective on training. Your training will likely now be more about bringing up lagging parts, getting rid of as much water weight as possible, looking more full, etc.

We like to change our training strategies around when we have a competition fueling our progress because we don't want to lose. We want to be our best. We want to perform our best. For some, paychecks are directly related to how well they perform. For others, it's sponsorships and contracts that could be lost due to a lackluster performance.

So, you want your training to feel more meaningful? Pick out a competition and then train your ass off to win it. Nothing will fuel your training more than the thought of winning or losing after months of hard work and preparation.

And nothing lets you know you've made progress like setting a new PR at a meet, winning the gold instead of the bronze at a show, or beating your previous best time by 4 seconds.

Til then.

See you in THE DUNGEON