Dara the Figure Competitor Part 3

Although I am quick to say, I just wasn’t met to be a professional figure competitor, there is a part of me that still wonders what could have been.  Genetically, I do have the makeup to be successful in that arena.  But I do NOT have the mentality.  I missed food.  I am a foodie.  I love food!  There were some women (who I deeply respect and wish I was more like) that truly didn’t crave any of the “bad” foods.  It wasn’t that hard for some of these women to eat the way we were eating.  I was not one of them. 

In the first few days after the competition, I was retaining water like a boat going under.  Matt affectionately called me “bowling ball face”.  What a sweetie.  But it was true!  My legs and calves and ankles looked swollen.  It was bizarre!  It didn’t take me too long to come down to size (no pun intended).  I will say that my metabolism was a little weird in the year after the competition.  My pre-competition weight was 122.  My competition weight was 115.  And in the months following, I had a tough time getting below 128!  The workouts and diets I followed before the competition were not effective in the months after.  My body was definitely confused.  BUT, in June of 2010, I was back down to a normal weight I felt good about and my metabolism was back to working great, as well! 

All in all, I am happy that I did the competition.  I am proud of myself for the discipline I showed and I learned a lot.  Since the competition, I have had more balance in my fitness and nutrition than I have ever had.  Because the nutrition plan was so extreme, it made me appreciate delicious food more and freed me up to let myself enjoy those foods every once in a while.  Even before training for this, I ate extremely healthy and rarely indulged.  So I feel like I have a healthier relationship with food and working out.  I used to be very all or nothing in my workouts.  If I didn’t have time to go to the gym for over an hour, I wouldn’t go at all!  I now realize that  10, 20, or 30 minutes is better than 0 minutes! 

I very much appreciate the experience I had in the two competitions that I attended.  The people I met were so kind and supportive of one another and I deeply respect the dedication and commitment they are willing to make to do what they love. 

Here are some photos I took right before the competition.  Call me vain, but I had worked too hard to not get some photographic evidence of my figure competition physique.