That One Time I Entered a BodyBuilding Competition - Bikini Division
Sometimes it helps to be a little naive - in the unaffected and innocent sense. Because then you do things like signing yourself up to do a body building competition.
How did I ever even get myself to sign up for such competition? Easy, try going on a 4 day cruise for your friends’ wedding that only entailed eating, sleeping and drinking. I remember the second to last day of the trip, I was putting on my swim suit and I turned around in front of the mirror and saw what looked like cottage cheese on my peaches. I think I literally yelled out loud, “What f#@& is that!? I’ve never had that before!”
So when I got back home, I asked my good friend Troy, who was also a personal trainer, to help me out. And to solidify how serious I was about getting back in shape, I told him I’d sign up for this fitness competition called Paradise Cup. I had a lot of friends who were super fit and I even worked in a gym called Honolulu Club so that kind of stuff was all around me. None of it was a big deal because the main reason I signed up for the competition was so that I could commit myself to achieving a goal - get myself back in shape.
Troy had me on a super strict diet and working out up to 5 times a week and sometimes 2x’s a day. I saw results pretty quickly. I went from 26% body fat to 16% body fat in a matter of less than 3 months. I also learned there were more aspects to this competition that I needed to get ready for — like posing, having the right walk, right suit, right spray tan darkness and etc.
Up until a few weeks coming up to the competition, I still didn’t think of it as a big deal. Until my friend Dee, who’s done a competition before told me, “It’s brave of you for going straight for the big competition.” I asked her what she meant and she said, “You didn’t start with the smaller competitions, you went straight for the NATIONAL competition!” I think this was when it finally hit me
because I plateaued and I saw how the other girls looked. Girls who were training for a whole year to get on stage for this versus me, less than 3 months. I remember crying to Troy telling him I needed him to help me more than ever. He tried to switch things up with my training and connected me with someone from the gym who has competed before to help me with my posing.
When competition day came up, I tried to stay as relaxed and calm as I could. I’ll be honest. I did not look ANYTHING like the other girls. They had ripped abs, nice round plump booties, quads that were really formed and etc. I remember one girl, that briefly trained along with for posing, started crying because she saw how these other girls looked and felt super insecure about her body. I’d be a liar if I didn’t say that I wasn’t feeling a bit insecure too. But I tried to remember why I did this in the first place. And I tried to remember how far I’ve come, especially at such a short time and how hard I worked to get to where I was. That gave me comfort. I didn’t place anything (however, I did get first call outs, which I didn’t know was a good thing until my friend came running and screaming to me about that) but that’s ok. I achieved my goal and I was brave enough to do what some would not have been able to do. It takes a lot cojones to step on stage, and have people judge you on your physique (aesthetics).
I later realized if I focused on my performance, my aesthetic came as a by-product. I also realized how it is so much more satisfying knowing what my body is capable of doing — how my core allows me to stabilize my body during all these crazy acroyoga moves, how my strong legs allow me to kick and swim while freediving or snowboarding, how my arms and shoulders (though I’m still learning) can hold myself up during hand-to-hand (basically doing a handstand on someone else’s hands) and so much more. When I try to focus on what my body is capable of doing rather than focusing on how I look, I find myself a lot happier and a lot more confident.
My friend Troy was hosting the early morning “Fitness & Fun with Troy & Trini” segment and had asked me to come on it again, except this time to show my before and after picture. I hesitated ‘coz all of Hawaii will see my horrendous picture of unfit me. But then I was like, why not? I don’t look like that anymore. I crack myself up though because of how awkward I feel like I look and how much of a baby I look like here.
P.S. sorry for the terrible quality. This was a copy of the clip I was given a long time ago.