I have muscles.  I’ve always had very full muscles and I’ve always been very self-conscious about it.  I can remember turning 12 and watching the scale jump from 86lbs to 114lbs to 130lbs within a year.  I wasn’t fat, I wasn’t chubby, I was just muscular.  I hated shopping because nothing fit and I hated wearing shorts because I developed stretch marks on my legs from growing so fast.  “Why can’t I just be like my friends?  Why can’t I look skinny like the girls on TV? Why do I look like a boy?”  (Seriously, I had a doctor tell me I was built like man…thanks doc…you know just how to make a 14 year old feel good about herself!)  I have been super conscious about how much I eat since I was a teenager.  Needless to say, I never accepted my body type.

 

Despite my aggravation, my strength and compact size came in handy in some areas. I competed in basketball, volleyball and division 1 softball, while also showing horses and cattle.  In college, I gained the “freshman 15” (plus some extra), lost it all, got super skinny then packed on more muscle from our heavy weight training and eventually when I got done with ball, I settle back into my normal self….which I still didn’t like. I vowed to never hit the weight room again, so I took up running…distance running at that.  (If you knew me you’d laugh at this because I HATE RUNNING.)  This lasted for maybe a summer, and then I moved back to Jefferson City and quit working out for a good year, if not longer.  I started Crossfit almost a year ago and it rekindled my love of lifting and working out.  I also got really into the Paleo diet, but the lack of carbs just wasn’t working for me.  In the meantime, I kept seeing all these posts on Facebook about bikini competitions and the TaylerMade Team.  This sparked my interested and I emailed Tayler for nutrition advice and wound up buying a bikini and 12 weeks of training! (Yah the girl who hates her body, is now going to show it off?  Confused all my friends and family too…)

 

Honestly, I thought I’d have a rock-hard sexy bikini body in no time.  WRONG!  Prep was challenging and changes didn’t happen overnight.  I had to work my butt off to get where I ended up.  Tayler was there the entire way too.  She answered all of my questions (I mean I had like 20 a day!).  The support system from my team members was unbelievable.  I literally had to force myself into the gym some days and there were times I had my mom’s homemade cinnamon rolls almost in my mouth before putting it down.  It was a mental battle day in and day out, but it was so worth it.  Once I got into a routine, I really enjoyed prep.  I’m not competing right now, but I still prep all my foods and count my macros because I grew to LOVE IT.  Best of all, I grew to LOVE MYSELF and accept my body.  That was my goal from the beginning of this journey…to learn to accept my figure.   Sure I’m not 100% comfortable in my own skin yet, but I’m getting closer to being there!

I can’t thank Tayler enough for helping me through this process.  I had a blast, made some new friends, got in killer shape, received some cool trophies and became more confident. Not bad for 12 weeks, right? J  Looking back, I can honestly say my journey to the stage was one of the best things I could have done for myself.