Photo Shoot!!!

Oh my gosh I am so excited/nervous to write this blog!! I see these pictures and I get excited all over again, it really is so fun to feel like a famous model--and it's easy to feel that way when your photographer is one of the top dudes for bodybuilding.com. I should be pinching myself because I even know him!!

 

My purpose for this photo shoot was actually sorta on a whim. About two months ago I was really feeling good about myself. I was focusing on eating clean and training hard-- just like always, but someone made a comment about us girls who compete not looking like out competition photos. I speak for myself only in this blog. Not for a single soul else, I have only prepped for two shows and competed in one. I am in no way shape or form and expert in this area I am only recording my personal thoughts. But they are right, I do not look like my competition photos everyday, because I am not depleted. I eat sea salt, and i drink water--two things I didn't do leading up to my show. I was as bare bones lean and dry as I could get myself and not many people can maintain that look year round. It isn't healthy for most people to maintain that look for long periods of time, myself as prime example.

 

When I competed in the NGA Boise figure show in April of 2012, I looked so amazing. I placed last of all 5 of us girls on stage. That sucked, I wrote a blog about it--but regardless of my placing, I brought my best physique to that stage. I had never been more lean, shredded and ghetto momma fabulous than I was as I prepped for that show. I had a photo shoot then, (See the side pictures--I was 125 lbs in those picrtures at about 12% body fat I'd guesstimate).

 After the show, I did what a lot of people did. I ate too much crap, I felt a little uneasy in my own skin, and I felt lost for a couple of months. And then I got buuuusy with work. Busy at the gym training clients and teaching people how to make fitness and health work for their lifestyle. And somewhere during that time I realized, what a bad A$$ us fit chicks are. It's hard out there for fit chicks (I read a blog someone else wrote, can't remember who and that was the tittle, I loved it--always wanted to say that in my one of my own blogs ever since). We are looked at, admired, looked down upon and held to a higher expectation. We hold ourselves to a higher set of rules too I think, or I personally do. But what I realized over this period of time is that MY body is not genetically capable of walking around at 125 lbs shredded and that lean unless I am dieted down for show. I wish it were. I love that look. I coveted that look for a long time, and I still do sometimes wonder why I can't have that when I work so hard....but then I remember what I DO have, and how much I love what I do DO, and I am able to let go of the unrealistic expectations that I set for myself.

 I was going to do a photo shoot the next week. I was ready. I told Levi, I wanted to do a "Everyday shoot," what my healthy, strong body looks like 265 days out of the year. It didn't work out to do it for a month, so I had to wait and I did watch what I ate a bit.
This is me at 15% body fat and 143 lbs, and I have maintained between 15-17% for the past two years. Where do I carry the majority of that fat? Right in my stomach so of course I didn't do many shirtless photo shots. I covered up my worst areas and tried to accentuate my best areas. What I have learned over the past year is that we all have our "hard" spots, and we all have our "easy/good spots," so instead of wishing away my saggy stomach skin, I try to love it--and I push the crap out of my triceps and legs because they are my natural strong areas. (I think athletic body fat range is 16-18% for a female and 18-22% is healthy for a female)

 I loosely carb cycledish for this photo shoot. Nothing hardcore. I ate oatmeal and eggs for breakfast everyday (my favorite meal) and still had fruit. I just did 3 lower carb days with a higher carb day. I still took a treat meal every week, and if something was there that I wanted--like those freaking amazing truffles at Anneka's wedding-- (The weekend before this shoot!!! lol) I ate them, and I liked it. I did nothing extreme to get ready for these pictures. I did only drink 1 gallon of water the day before where I usually would drink a little more, I didn't.  I did get a spray tan, which always makes me feel like I look leaner for some reason than I actually am.

 These are a few of my favorite every day shots. I specifically did exercises that show off my better areas and avoided things that show off my worse areas (Sooo,,, notice there are none sitting down? Yah, not good for saggy stomachs lol). I wanted to show people what an everyday girl in fitness looks like. I want you to see what I do! I do a lot, but I also try very hard not to make my whole life revolve around the gym and my food because I want to raise healthy well balanced children who see me live the life I want for them.

I exercise 5 days a week. I can't tell you the last time I missed a workout, before I went on vacation 6 weeks ago. I missed 3 workouts and I physically had to force myself to not do them. I really really like to workout. Where other people maybe have a favorite tv show, or pinterest, or girls night--I have the gym. It's my thang. I work hard while I am there but it is my zone. I train for about 90 minutes three days a week and two days a week I train for an hour. I get my workout in whether it is convenient or not. I have to pay babysitters sometimes now that I got excommunicated from Idaho atheletic haha), I get up at 4:30 am someday's, I go at 800 pm someday's. My workouts don't happen because I have extra time, they happen because I make the time, every day. I eat clean 95% of the time. I rarely eat processed food, but when I do-- I enjoy it and I try very hard not to feel guilt over it. I eat mainly plain food. I am not a super good cook so a lot of my food is somewhat boring and that works for me. I will tell you now, that some people--who are genetically different than me would be extremely shredded year round following my regimen, it is NOT in the cards for me. I often wonder what I would look like if I went back to just eating whatever fancied me at the moment and didn't train hard like I do--I really think I would be about 165 lbs very easily, where I maintain between 140-145 and have for the past several years. I eat 5-6 meals a day, drink a diet soda everyday and I also drink over a gallon of water each day.

I of course picked these pictures, because I feel like I look good in all of them. I like them, and I feel confident in them. However there were about 90 others that I felt less confident when I saw. They are an unflattering angle on my face, (double chin...yo?!!). Some have an odd expression. Some are of my bare stomach that is MINE. It is soft and it has stretch marks on it. Some of them just aren't a really good fitness shot and so I didn't love them. But it's important for people to realize that every picture you see on tv, in the ads, or in magazine articles are that models PERFECT shot. And after the publishers find the models PERFECT shot, they air brush it. They take off stretch marks, they add some shadows here tighten the hamstrings, they are capable of making it look HOWEVER they want. I purposely on my shoot last year at 125 lbs didn't have Levi correct my stretch marks even though I am self conscious of them because they are THERE. There is nothing I hate more than when people say they love their body and you should too--and then have their stretch marks photoshopped out of their stupid pics. (NO LIE! I read that in an Oxygen magazine cover story about the model saying how normal she was cuz she even has stretch marks from her kids all over her stomach...weird??? You couldn't see them in the pictures!! FALSE advertising dangit!!! wow, rant over there)! I purposely am not having him photoshop anything out of these pictures either. He will fix lighting, I guess (Even though I don't really think they need it, I liked all his work--I just wanted his model to have a 6 pack in some of the pictures hahaha).

We all have things we want to change about ourselves. We all have days where we feel like a million bucks and other days where we want to hide under a rock because we don't feel good about how we look or who we are. That's part of being human. I am trying so hard everyday, to accept my flaws and celebrate my perfections. And at the end of the day- that is my mission as the fit chick mom--to help you realize that you can be your best self, and that is PERFECT in every way. I want us to compare to ourselves only, to stop living in regret. To learn to love to be healthy and fit, and to enjoy life while being a part of real life, not locked away in diet land.

Here is me being super brave. I am just going to upload pictures from the shoot. None have been airbrushed, but I am going to pick several at random and show you how different they are from the ones I love, above, to the ones below--that aren't my favorite. No screening will be done, just random clicks and then I will talk a little about each, or I wont. Depends on how I feel when I see what uploads I guess. (And don't forget to scroll down to the next two posts, where there are pictures before and after make up and hair too...)

Remember. WE GOT THIS. Gotta keep going. Keep doing. Keep being our best self and helping those around us be their best self too.

 Ok I don't know how those two popped up cuz they don't really bug me at all but the next one. Oh wow. I can't stop looking at my stomach. It is not the way one would picture a super fit girls stomach to look.

 CELLULITE. Everyone has got to stop freaking out over cellulite. There are a lot of us in the fitness world who have embraced it. It is normal for men and women to have some of it. Some of it will never go away. I have it right there on the hamstrings--and my legs are one of my best features--yet they have some cellulite. Other people, a lot of people with amazing stomachs that I sometimes try not to covet, have even more cellulite on their legs. You don't see it in the magazines do you? Yah, that's cuz its photoshopped.

 Forgot to hold my stomach in tight here on my lunge.

 LOL trying to breathe. I was getting tired from two lunges at a time!! Levi probably wondered if I even workout but in my defense it was like 90 degrees in there and I was sweating profusely before we even started taking pictures.

 

 Not the best expression for a push up picture? I don't know. I am obviously not an experienced model. Levi really was amazing though and helped cue me so much. I can't believe all the behind the scenes work that goes into these photoshoots. He really is amazing!

 My least favorite here for sure. My four upper abs are almost visible here and that lower stomach just really bugs me. Ah well. Those babies were worth it! And I feel like my face is really round. Which is why I try to tilt my head to the side in picutures.