Prep Files - 10 Weeks Out

I can’t believe that I’m already halfway through my prep. When I kicked this off back in May, I was ambivalent about bodybuilding, but confident in my ability to do what I needed to do to look like a bodybuilder onstage. Ten weeks in, I’m more confident in my ability to reach my goal, but less ambivalent about bodybuilding as a sport. All of the concerns that I had before competing - the subjectivity of the judging, the cost of the competing, and the high potential to warp your relationship with food - were spot on, and often worse than I realized. That said, I’ve generally enjoyed my prep, and I’m looking good and feeling both healthy and motivated, so I guess I’m still on the fence about the whole thing.

Personal Updates

My prep hasn’t exactly been linear - I kicked it off back in June by gaining weight, dropped consistently and quickly for a while, and then bounced back up by an amount that made me wince a little, if I’m being perfectly honest. But just a little bit, and it didn’t wreak my day or prompt me to cut my calories the next day; instead, I just got back on plan, trusting that if I make slightly better decisions over the next few days, the extra weight will drop back off. Knowledge is confidence - I know that I haven’t suddenly begun defying the laws of thermodynamics and creating more mass than I consume, I’m just retaining water, and eventually my body will sort itself out. In the meantime, I’m going to checking off all the boxes, because that’s what’s going to get me to my goal.

Otherwise, though, things are going pretty smoothly! My lifts have stayed heavy, and despite eating in a deficit and my weight being down overall, I’m still increasing my strength. I got my stage bikini last week (although I still need to stone it, something I haven’t done before), and I’m feeling a lot more confident when it comes to my posing and routine.

Right now, my biggest focus is on DragonCon and the MuscleNerdz showdown, which I’m returning to judge this year! My last DragonCon was emotionally difficult, but I’m excited to be back with a better frame of mind.

Bodybuilding - an eating Disorder with Extra Steps?

At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, I don’t think that most people should get involved in competitive bodybuilding. I haven’t even had my first competition yet, but as I’ve become more deeply involved in the culture over the last few months - joining some bodybuilding sub-Reddits, following a bunch of bodybuilders, both pro and amateur, on TikTok and Instagram, and trying to gain as much knowledge as possible about the process of prepping for a show - one of the most obvious things that I’ve noticed is how many people experience binge eating disorder both during and after their prep.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve dealt with an eating disorder before. I understand what I’ve seeing because I’ve been there - you want to lose weight, so you restrict calories, cutting out “bad” foods, exercising more, all the things that you’re supposed to do when you’re in a weight loss phase. But for a lot of folks, our brains are wired to crave that forbidden fruit (or forbidden burger and fries), and the more that you try to avoid being “bad,” the more you obsess over it. It can feel like a tsunami crashing over you when it finally hits, and you eat and eat, well past the point of hunger, sometimes to the point of pain. Then the guilt and shame kick in - why am I sabotaging myself like this? What’s wrong with me that I have no control? Maybe you purge (for me it was laxatives, for others it’s vomiting or exercise), but even if you don’t, your relationship with food and your body becomes warped. It’s not fun!

Binging and the other behaviors that go with it are startlingly common in bodybuilding, and it’s not surprising given the culture. Even in divisions that are technically “softer,” like bikini, extreme leanness is fetishized, and judges will usually reward someone who comes in “overly conditioned" (i.e., too lean) over someone who comes in “fluffy.” I suppose you could say that’s just the way it is, and to criticize the criteria is to criticize the sport. I think that’s stupid! The criteria changes constantly, which you can see by looking back at winners over the years; it’s also not some immutable law handed down from on high, and judges could absolutely decide to crown someone with 17% body fat instead of 9% if their muscles are big enough to show through properly, but they don’t.

Ready or NOt, Here I come

Or rather, ambivalent or not, I’m in it, so I’m trying not to let my reservations about the competitive aspects of bodybuilding diminish my enjoyment of actually doing the thing. I think I’ve said before that I tend to mentally rebel against what I don’t understand or disagree with, and so breaking my diet feels like sticking it to the man, even though I’m also “the man” in this situation. I’m working through some of those mental triggers, and I’m kind of excited to see where I can get while still maintaining what I believe to be healthy eating habits.