Tips for avoiding post-comp blues!

After months of hard work, you have done it! You stood on stage wearing a sparkly bikini, tan, false eyelashes, clear shoes and gave it everything. You competed, you were in the best shape of your life and it felt great but now what! You’re back home, your skin is all patchy from the tan and you can feel the weight creeping back on.

Suddenly after all of those weeks counting down to the show , it is all over. You can be left with post contest blues where you can feel quite lost and unfocused. This is very common. The cookies, chips and icecream overload doesn’t help and it can be quite scary thinking what is next?

After coming back from Pittsburgh, not performing at my best, I was left thinking what should I do next? As soon as I got back to New Zealand I begin to write down some new goals to keep me focused and to keep me motivated. I decided to learn as much as I could from the experience, leave it in the past and focus on my next goal. 

Below are some tips to keep you focused:

Get Back Into the Gym: Do some light training and slowly get back into your routine. This will help keep you positive and will stop you from feeling that you are gaining too much weight. It also means you can start work on your weaknesses straight away to make sure that you improve for next time.

Focus on your next goals: It is important to establish some more goals and to keep working towards them. This doesn’t have to be competition goals; it can be life, work or other goals.

Keep your Diet Clean: While you can have some treats, try to keep your main meals clean. Since coming back from Pittsburgh, I will admit that I have had desert most nights but I have kept most of my other meals clean.

Spend time with your loved ones: During comp prep it is very hard to find time to spend with your loved ones. It is important to make sure that they know how much their support meant to you during your prep. Have fun and go out for a nice dinner with them and enjoy it!

Make sure that you have some goals in place after your competition to keep you focused and remember at the end of the day it’s not all about competing, it’s about living a healthy and happy lifestyle.

The fun adventures of my first pro show!

I just arrived back from the Pittsburgh Pro at 5am yesterday morning and then went straight back into work and into my normal routine. I am very exhausted! I loved the Pittsburgh Pro and although there were many disasters, I am still happy to have stepped on the stage as a pro and I now know what I need to improve on for my next show. Every thing you do in life, no matter if it turns out good or bad, is a learning experience, take everything you can from it to better yourself and return stronger than ever- this to me is what it takes to be a champion.

My pro debut started with many hours flying in a plane and as many of you know, when you are days out from a show flying on the plane is not the best. After stopping in LA, we picked up some chicken and steak to take on the way... next thing we know it is leaking all through the airport... meat juices leaking everywhere! Moe went to throw one of the bags away and people kept asking me if I knew it was leaking and I just replied “Yes he has gone to find someone to clean it up”, we then quickly ran through customs and then cleaned in all up with plastic bags on the carpet next to bins haha! Next time I think we will take some containers. We then proceeded to the gates only to find that apparently our seats had been taken but the flight attendants figured it all out and finally we boarded the plane.

Moe and I arrived in Pittsburgh many hours later, it is a beautiful city! We stayed in the host hotel and the atmosphere was buzzing with all of the athletes everywhere. I went to the competitors meeting that night and every woman looked amazing. It was awesome to see some of my inspirations in real life. That night I got my spray tan by Jan Tana and then got locked out of my room wearing only a big old t-shirt and guess who happened to walk past... Phil Heath. He was staying in the room next to me and it was slightly embarrassing standing there locked outside my room!

One of the highlights of my trip was sitting in the room with Adela Garcia (5x Miss Olympia Fitness) and Sonia Gonzales (Miss Bikini International 2012 and Miss Bikini Olympia 2010). They both are such beautiful people and helped me with my posing. I thank them both for their help and advice.

The day came around and I was ready to hit the stage but wait... my tan had gone green! It was only an hour before I was set to go on stage and I didn’t have enough time to fix it, I just had to go hulk styles and do it. To top it off, the makeup made me look like I had red dirt on my face and my hair style all fell out. Now if that’s not bad luck I don’t know what is. Every possible thing went wrong but I still went out there and competed. It was a great learning experience for me and one that I will never forget.

After pre-judging I went back to the hotel and Moe fixed up my tan so that I at least didn’t look green for the night show. After the night show we went out for a delicious dinner... now this was no ordinary ride to the restaurant. I was squished in the middle between Kai Greene and Moe ElMoussawi with Dexter Jackson in the front of the car. Now if you have never seen Kai Greene in real life, this guy is huge! He is also one of the most down to earth guys and kept apologising for squishing me. I had four plates of delicious dessert that night – post comp treats. We started to walk back to the hotel to catch our flight at 4am and we got lost. When we finally found our way back to the hotel, our taxi driver forgot to come so we nearly missed our flight. Running through the airport, Moe had to nearly save a woman from being crushed by a door, then we grabbed some post comp treats and we got on the flight just in time.

It was such a fun adventure and I am so grateful to have competed on a pro stage. While the result may not have been want I had wanted, there is a reason for everything happening to make me learn, to make me stronger and to make sure that when I come back to the stage again I will be better than ever!

Thank you NZIFBB for this amazing opportunity and thank you Moe for everything that you have done and for all of the laughs.

And thanks to all of you for your support! x